Lucifer's True History of Everything
Jun 6, 07 02:03 PM
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The Women of the Early Church
I have already told you all about Mary Magdalene – well, not all about her, but I'm a gentleman, I have my limits (and as Mary herself used to say, to the Twelve, when resisting the temptation, Boys, don't get me going...).
As for "the Blessed Virgin," you already know everything you ever wanted to know about her as well (and if not, shame on you!).
Pardon the quotation marks, I'm just doing my best to be accurate. Here's the problem. After Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph were quite prolific; and even (as a liberal Protestant might venture to say) irresponsible, with respect to family planning. By 16 CE, the baby Jesus had four younger brothers (Joses, Little James, Juda, and Simon), and seven sisters, all of whom were begot by Joseph of Nazareth using the same basic piece of feminine equipment that the holy Ghost had used, although in a more traditional fashion.
("Little James" was a dwarf, but my guess is that Joseph's DNA, not Mary's, was to blame for that [Matt. 13:55-56; Mark 6:3, 15:40]).
Mary always used to say that Jesus could have been conceived at high noon for all she knew, in broad daylight – her best recollection was that she was down in Judaea at the time, hanging out with her cousin Elisabeth, just sweeping the front walk or something. She truly never even knew the exact moment when it happened. But that was before she got married.
With her husband, it was different—well, of course it was different—any married woman could tell you that! Joseph was entirely out of God's league—and, frankly, Mary took no pleasure in the sex part of it. She did like having babies and being a good mom, and cooking, and house-cleaning, and grocery-shopping. But she was never totally keen on her conjugal duties to her Judaeo-Christian hubby. So, while Joseph was doing the thing-you-wot of, Mary simply did as St. Thomas Aquinas later commanded all Christian wives to do: she lay quite still until it was over (Matt. 13:55, Mark 6:3, Gal. 1:19).
But here's the puzzler. Even after having all of those kids, Jesus' mother still said that people should call her "the Blessed Virgin of Nazareth" – which caused some amazement among her neighbours. And even later, after Jesus had left the nest and gone back to heaven, Mary said, "Call me the Blessed Virgin mother of Joses and James" (Mark 15:40, 47; Matt. 27:56).
To be the virgin mother of one local boy looked, to Mary's Nazareth neighours, like a possible miracle.
Okay, a miracle, definitely a miracle. But to be the mother of twelve kids, and still be known as "the Blessed Virgin"! Wow!
Some Nazareth girls in the 13-17 age bracket, who adored the Blessed Virgin – teens who were still virgins themselves but whose boyfriends were pushing their luck – looked on the Virgin Mary and they asked themselves: "Someone please tell me: how does that woman do it?"
But most of the grown-ups said: "Joe's wife, at her age, still calling herself a virgin! I think someone must be stretching it, just a bit, don't you think! And I think it must be Joe!"
All of which seemed, to me, like much ado about nothing. I'll grant you that Mary of Nazareth was no Mary Magdalene, and that's good. Jesus' mother was a fine woman, a devout woman, a faithful woman. She had very little interest in worldly things. She had tremendous self-restraint. (I'll bet Joseph was lucky to get it once a month!) But Mary had so many other lovely, wonderful qualities! I don't understand why she let herself become so closely identified with just the one virtue of chastity (which in the catalogue of virtues is the one most over-rated, by those who have it, which is almost everyone under the age of 15 or over 50).
Compromise titles were suggested for Mary, some of them, quite poetical – "Our Lady of the Precious Blood," "Coeli Regina," "Ave Maria," and "Notre Dame" (not to be confused with the famous football team of that name) – but Mary would not hear of it: "I'm the Blessed Virgin," she said, putting down her foot (and in a manner that might actually be called "stomping").
Mary would not even let people call her "the Blessed Former Virgin," because, as she so rightly observed, "you could say that about almost any reasonably attractive girl over the age of thirteen in this entire town!" (Matt. 13:55, 27:56, Mark 15:40-47, KJV).
Mary in her later years became so edgy about the whole "Blessed Virgin" moniker that it sometimes made me wonder if there was a dark incident in her past – let's say, vis-a-vis that incident in March, 1 BCE, with my former colleague, Gabriel the archangel. Which is not to say that it would have been her fault, she was just a kid. But truly, if I were the Lord God in 1 BCE, I would have trusted the archangel Gabriel alone with a cute fourteen-year-old Jewish virgin about as well as I would have trusted Michael Jackson, or a Roman Catholic Bishop, alone in bed with a twelve-year-old choirboy; or Richard M. Nixon with Marilyn Monroe, on a desert island. Or Jack Kennedy, for that matter.
The concept still puzzles me: "Mary of Nazareth, the mother of twelve and a Blessed Virgin" Can that be totally accurate?
Well, I am probably the more to blame. I think I must have spent too much time thinking about it.
But still… I mean, c'mon! after giving birth to a dozen kids, there was just something about "the Blessed Virgin" that smelled fishy! Even if I could not put my finger on it!
– L.
(Tomorrow: four more really terrific Virgins!)
Posted by Lucifer at 02:03 PM
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