It was a BBC Culture
Show interview with Colm which brought me to read this 100 page
monologue of Mary. It was in large part the talk of the work's
controversial nature that lead me to it – if it was a work that
could offend Christians then it seemed it would be a work worth
reading.
It is a tightly
written work – I read it on the train up to London, and arriving at
Waterloo before the end I stopped at the station for a coffee so that
I could get to the end (and therefore arrived a little late for a
meeting). That you can encounter the whole work in a 2 ½ hour
sitting is part of the power and intensity of the work.
You come face to
face with Mary, as a very real person. It is a Mary of old age, and
brings to mind a banner of Our Lady of Lincoln where she is depicted
as an old women, rugged like a fish wife, a women who has lived.
There are I think 3
points where the narrative departs from the familiar Gospel account
that made me stop and think, the first two were “interesting”,
bring new insights, the third was much more profound.
So, the first, the
raising of Lazarus, we are told that Lazarus was sickly throughout
life (an explanation of why he lives with his 2 sisters), but also
that after his resurrection it seems he is not even restored to the
previous state of poor health, and is very frail and in much pain.
Jesus acted out of compassion for the sisters in raising their
brother, but it would seem the act was misjudged, for it is not
“life, and its fullness” that Jesus gives on this occasion but
something of a miserable existence. You get the very real sense
Lazarus would have been better off left in the tomb.
Second, at Jesus'
trail, the role of the Chief Priests in manipulating the crowd to
shout for Jesus' crucifixion is made explicit. But this acts to
largely absolve the crowd of the deed, and I find this troubling.
The song “How deep the Father's Love” has the line “I hear my
voice cry out among the scoffers” which I always find deeply moving
– that the rejection of Jesus is a personal and, in the moment,
convinced call for his death is an important part of the dynamic of
the salvation which is to follow. To turn this into little more that
the joining of a chant on the football terrace begins to question and
undermine the power of the sacrifice which follows.
And finally, and I
feel perhaps I should give a spoiler alert here – which feels very
odd, but this was a powerful and shocking moment, and so if you are
planning to read the book I think it might be best to save this for a
fresh encounter in the context of the narrative.
OK – you had the
warning...
Given the
authenticity of the voice that had been created up to this moment, it
felt totally real, and the reality makes it painful. In some ways it
is such a little thing, but Colm's Mary leaves the cross before Jesus
dies. And I realised how central Mary's place at the foot of the
cross is to my understanding, and not simply of Mary.
Here you will have
to indulge me as I quote from Steel Magnolias, where after the
funeral M'Lynn has a rant of grief for her daughter Shelby, she says:
“No.. I couldn't
leave my Shelby. I just sat there and kept pushin' the way I always
have where Shelby was concerned.... I was hopin' she'd sit up and
argue with me. Finally we realized there was no hope. They turned off
the machines. [Pause] Drum left.. couldn't take it. Jackson
left. [Slight laugh] I find it amusin'.. men are supposed to
be made outta steel or somethin. I just sat there. I just held
Shelby's hand. There was no noise. No tremble. Just peace. Oh God.. I
realize as a woman how lucky I am! I was there when that wonderful
creature drifted into my life.. and I was there when she drifted out
of it. It was the most precious moment of my life...”
This watch of a
Mother over her dying child is the watch of Mary at the Cross. The
denial of that watch had a visceral impact on me. I found it very
hard to continue to read after that point. I think I found it an
attack on Mary. It is largely a book which champions Mary, but here
it denies her her rights to be there when her child died. At church
we have been thinking about offence – and there is a response to
mockery of God that if He is worth believing in He can take a few
knocks, He can look after himself. But for Mary can we say the same,
especially after being soaked in this very human, vulnerable,
believable image of the women behind the Icon.
And there is no
wriggle room on this one – she either remained at the foot of the
cross, or she left.
But, in fact, this
is one point where Colm is not actually differing from the account of
the Gospels. It is only John who places Mary, mother of Jesus, at
the foot of the Cross. The others have Mary Magdalene, Mary the
mother of James, and many women, but they do not identify Mary,
mother of Jesus. And even John does not actually, necessarily, leave
Mary there till the point of death. After the dialogue between Jesus
and Mary, and the Beloved, we are told “From that time on, the
disciple took her into his home.” Maybe their departure to his home
was more immediate than we imagine. The Pietà
is in fact as much an invention as the talking donkeys of our
Nativity plays.
This is the danger
of being a “Bible Believing Christian” - there are important
truths which are unscriptural. For the lack of a proof text you cut
off your nose. I can not believe that she was not there.
I should emphasis
that the trouble this caused me is to Colm's credit – there is
nothing wrong with a narrative that questions your fundamental
beliefs – and in questioning I have found new understanding. I
feel that I might believe Mary remained at the Cross even more firmly
now than I did before, and believe it with a much more rounded sense
of what that means, what it says about Mary, and also about Jesus.
What it says about the relationship between the divine and the human.
As a footnote my
guess is that most overlooked this stuff about Mary – and more
likely the greater source of controversy will have been the disciples.
They come wanting a story, wanting a witness, there is a sense that
they are fabricating a story that didn't really happen. But to be
honest I was indifferent to this. One of the disciples who visits
would appear to be John, the Beloved, another figure from the foot of
the Cross, but because he is just a shadow in the story the fact that
he wasn't the person we see in the Gospel was of little impact to me.
And lets be honest, there was a process of “crafting” the texts
which became the New Testament. You can see that process as one of
discernment or one of manipulation, but it is simply foolish to deny
it didn't happen.
