I feel like talking, and since the internet is always available, here I am. Today I want to talk about some of my friends although I’m never sure where my writing/talking will end up because it tends to have a life of its own.
I remember talking about how I met this woman who would become my closest friend. She was hosting a cenacle or prayer group for people following Fr. Gobbi at her house, and I went with the other women I knew from Marian rosary groups. Just now I realize I want to follow a rabbit trail here. I’ll get back to my friend, but first I want to talk about Mary.
I’ve always known Catholics who seemed to have such deep, personal devotions. These devotions seemed to be so much a part of them giving them guidance and providing a foundation for deep spirituality. I was trying hard to find something that did that for me, something that I connected with, that would bring my spirituality to life. Some people found Mary, some found particular saint or the Sacred Heart or the Blessed Sacrament. I wanted something special, too.
It’s embarrassing to admit that I never felt any type of a close, personal connection to God. He didn’t seem real to me. I’ve never doubted the existence of a ‘something’, but I could never find any particular feeling for that ‘something’. The only God I ever heard about was the Old Testament God and the God Jesus prayed to and eventually the God that Christians created. Well, there were many problems there for me.
Another embarrassment is that I never knew what to feel for Jesus. I had no personal relationship with Jesus. True God and true man. Not comprehensible. Who was he? Was he really man? The church always seemed to focus more on him being God than being human. There were times when I would hear or read something that talked about Jesus’ humanity, but there seemed to be this fear that we would humanize Jesus to where he was no longer God. We couldn’t forget he was God. I never and still don’t know what he means to me. The personal savior bit, dying on the cross for me just so I could go to heaven if I did everything right, just didnt' ring true. So nothing there.
There are certain saints that I’ve taken a liking to such as St. Francis. I liked ones that seemed to be joyful. Some seemed miserable. Some of the most popular ones such as St. Bernadette just didn’t click with me, and I assumed this was because I didn’t have a devotion to Mary. So I wanted to try to develop one. You just can’t force devotions.
It seemed all of the women I met, of course the ones I met through the Marian prayer group, but the other women I became friends with in the Catholic homeschooling group, had these hyper, indescribable devotions to Mary. They prayed to her constantly, the rosary was their weapon, every day. They read Marian devotionals, did Marian consecrations such as that 30 day one according Louis de Montfort, tried conscientiously to imitate her in everything – or to imitate her in the way they believed she lived???
Well, here you have this human woman who was perfect. No original sin so she had none of these failings I had. She was PERFECT. She was never impatient, she never got angry or frustrated or tired of dealing with life. She also must have had perfect faith. She never got totally disgusted with St. Joseph’s maleness and wanted to bop him on the head with a kettle. She never got impatient with Jesus because he never picked up his toys. Of course, there you go. Jesus was God so he never disobeyed his mother, but then was he human so did he ever give into the temptation of pretending you didn’t hear your mother telling you to come to dinner. Back to Mary. She never felt underappreciated. She never felt angry because women were chattel instead human beings with worth. She never wanted to tell of her petty minded neighbor who gossiped constantly. She never looked into the mirror and felt disgusted with herself. She never had moments of vanity. She never got tired of all the mundane work that was expected of her: cooking, sewing, cleaning, serving everyone else and herself last. Work that she had no choice to refuse because she was a woman. Well, she’s already lost to me. Because I have and still do feel all those things.
(An aside. When the movie came out – Mary of Nazareth or whatever it was called – there were some huge arguments over among Catholics. One of the things that some Catholics were offended by was when Mary was a little girl she rolled her eyes at St. Ann. Mary would never have rolled her eyes at her mother. How in the world am I suppose to tell my daughters that they are to imitate Mary if this is the picture Catholics have of her.)
Anyway, I tried and tried. But Mary just wasn’t real. She was too good, and I could not relate to her. In fact, I resented her because she set me up for failure. Or the church made her into a woman who set me up for failure. Beside her I would always fall way, way short.
On the other hand, you can’t worship Mary. Catholics do not worship Mary, or so they will tell you. But some of those women I knew, although they would vehemently deny it, appeared on the outside to worship Mary. But why can’t I worship Mary. Because she’s human. BUT SHE WASN’T HUMAN. I can’t call her a Goddess – is there a worse mortal sin than that? But she was supposed to be my role model.
A woman who never had sex with her husband. What happened to her sexuality. She never felt physical passion, arousal. Or she did but because of her Immaculate Conception she was able to overcome those base human emotions (said with some sarcasm). Next to her I was a harlot! And yes, my marriage has suffered because of this. Trying to come to terms with my real, natural feelings and at the same time trying to be a Little Mary.
(Another aside. My husband had never heard of Mary’s perpetual virginity. 12 years of Catholic school and he’d never heard that. Maybe he blocked it out? I remember him looking at me as if I were nuts. He said that probably had a lot to do with the church’s problems with dealing with human sexuality in a healthy way if that was our role model.)
But then I became pregnant. I was 28 years old, not a young mother. I wasn’t even sure I wanted children when I married and was quite concerned that children were mentioned so many times during the marriage liturgy. I even had people tell me that if I entered my marriage without being open to children it wasn’t a valid marriage. Finally I did feel ready for a child. I was pregnant and literally scared to do death at the thought of labor. I simply put it out of my mind and would deal with it when the time came since I couldn’t avoid it.
It was at this time that I had this most amazing thought. This would be the thing that would connect me to Mary. There she was, a young girl, frightened (or was she with that perfect faith), alone, pregnant under somewhat unusual circumstances. Finally I had found the connection. I could relate to her totally. She and Joseph, along in a cave, labor to give birth to Jesus. Then came the biggest letdown of my entire Marian journey.
Mary never labored. She never felt any pain. That intense pain that reaches a point where you know beyond a doubt you cannot continue yet somewhere deep in your recesses you do. Not for Mary. Well, of course. No original sin. No labor pains. Women only birth in pain because it was a woman who led a man into the first sin. Woman’s punishment. To bring forth life in great pain. There’s that punishing God again. I just realized, my own parents were so much nicer, kinder, loving towards me than God was towards his own creation.
Just wanted to add there seems to be arguments on both sides of the fence as to whether Catholics believe Mary actually labored or had some type of miraculous C section. Did she deliver Jesus naturally or did he just miraculously appear. I remember reading some of the writing Mary Agreda, a nun who had Marian apparitions, and her saying that Jesus just appeared. Of course she also said Jesus only had one tunic that grew with him and the earth was something like 6,000 years old so go figure. Quite a few of my friends took it literally, though. I don’t know whether this falls under tradition, Tradition (with a capital T), or doctrine, and frankly I didn’t care, because Mary had totally been ruined for me. And I’ve had much guilt over that.
Okay, end of my rabbit trail. I never had a Marian devotion and still don’t. I would like to be able to understand her, to feel something other total confusion on the one hand to resentment on the other. But it was because I was looking for ‘something’ and also looking for friendship, that I met this woman who became my closest friend although by the time I’d met her I’d long given up on Mary. She didn’t know that because I knew how to speak the language. By the time I met her I never prayed a rosary on my own because I would always fall asleep. I haven’t picked up a rosary since my dad was hospitalized in 2002, and even then it was an unbelievable struggle for me.
That’s my Mary story. Not very pretty. Guess I’ll talk about my friend later.
The buds are swelling with life. If Mother Nature doesn't send a late frost, we might have a very productive fruit year. One of my spring rituals is to bless our fruit trees. I go to each tree, call it by name (Santa Rosa Plum, Douglas Pear, etc.), thank her for all the food she provides. I ask for good weather, no late frosts, no hail storms, plenty of sun and rain. Then I picture the growth of the fruit, from bud to being covered in blossoms, from small fruit to large fruit ready to be harvested. I see my family eating and enjoying, and I see myself preserving all the bounty for the winter.
