Mary Was Not a Nun!
Mary was Not a Nun!
by Robert Fontana
Catholics are very sensitive about Mary. We are used to Protestants, especially those of the evangelical variety, ranting their usual rant: “Why do Catholics worship Mary?” By the way, the answer is, for the millionth time, “WE DON’T!”. Gee whiz; she’s the Mother of Jesus, and therefore the Mother of God, and shouldn’t you evangelicals give her a little more respect??
That aside, I do have a problem with how we Catholics have understood Mary over the years.
WE’VE MADE HER INTO A NUN!
Now think about it. When you see pictures of the angel speaking to Mary, what is the young 14-year-old Jewish woman usually doing? Kneeling and reading a prayer book! And because we hold that she was a perpetual virgin, which means that she and Joseph lived a peaceful and harmonious life as brother and sister, Mary looks like, well, a nun! BUT MARY WAS NOT A NUN!
So here is the story of Mary according to Robert as I read the Scriptures and consider the Church’s marvelous vision of human sexuality expressed in the Theology of the Body.
Mary’s country was occupied by a terrible enemy who spoke Latin, worshipped their emperor as a god, and ate endless amounts of pasta. The local ruler was a Jewish Benedict Arnold named Herod who was as mean as a pit bull and so accustomed to doing evil he would feel at home sitting in Hitler’s living room. Mary’s dad and mom were poor folks, probably farm workers, who scratched out a living in Galilee working on the estate of one of Herod’s rich friends. They worked hard, and Mary and her sisters worked hard too.
One day Mary discovered, to her surprise, she was no longer a girl, but had become a woman. (For all you men who are reading this: this means she began her monthly period). “Praise be the God of Heaven!” she screamed as she ran to tell her sisters and mother. Her sisters “high fived” her and —no, wait, they wouldn’t do that, that’s a guy thing. Her sisters hugged her, as did her mom, who said, “You are now ready to marry. I’ll talk to your father.”
Esther, Mary’s oldest sister, who was already married and lived next door, calmed Mary’s fears. “Pappa picked a good man for me, Mary, and he will do the same for you.” Mary knew this but she was still nervous. In fact, all the women in the house (there were five of them, including their mother Anna) were on “pins and needles” watching their father and husband put on his finest robe, wash his hands and face, and head out the door to fulfill his responsibility towards his daughter: to find her a husband from their kinfolk. Mary had prepared all of her life for this moment. She knew how to cook, spin wool, sew, mix medicinal herbs, garden, invest in the stock market, etc. —everything necessary to be a good Jewish wife and mother.
When her father returned he said, “Mary, I have some good news and some bad news.” (He was such a jokester.) “The good news is I found you a husband.” The women all screamed with joy.
“The bad news is that he’s an old man with seven sons. He’s past the age when he can give you children, and four of his kids are still at home for you to take care of. You will be taking care of him soon, too, because he’s not in the best of health, but don’t worry —he’s got a great retirement plan. You will be well provided for, and…”
Mary’s mother interrupted, “Joachim, will you stop this silliness and tell us who is Mary going to marry!” He laughed, “All right, it’s Joseph, the carpenter’s son.” And the women all shrilled with delight, especially Mary. They knew Joseph to be a hard worker like his father and respectful to his mother. He would be good to Mary.
Now let’s pause for a moment. Mary and Joseph are good Jews raised on the stories of the Patriarchs. They were well versed in the married love of Abraham and Sara, of Isaac and Rebecca, and especially of Jacob who was deeply in love with Rachel. And certainly they read the Song of Solomon that describes the sensual desires and longings of a woman and man in love in poetic and evocative language. A celibate marriage was the last thing they had on their minds.
We know the story. She was found pregnant by the power of God. Joseph felt betrayed but, true to his nature, he decided not to shame her —or worse, have her killed. He planned to divorce her quietly. It took divine intervention for him to come around and trust Mary’s explanation of her pregnancy. (Some men are just so hard-headed.)
The baby was born in Bethlehem, but Joseph and Mary had to quickly “get out of Dodge” because Herod the Evil was up to his old tricks. They fled to Egypt. Did their families flee with them? Who knows? But the Gospels do speak of Mary’s sister being at the cross (see John 19). Most probably, given the kinship nature of Jewish life, Joseph and Mary took off with their child and some relatives and friends for more peaceful territory in Egypt.
I wonder: did Mary and Joseph give of themselves to one another through intimate touching as Pope John Paul II describes in the Theology of the Body? Did they hold hands, hug and kiss, with deep, long, passionate smooches? Were they affectionate with one another? Did they give each other backrubs and massages? And when they went to sleep, did they… sleep in separate bedrooms or… did they sleep together with their arms wrapped around each other and their legs intertwined? My story continues…
At the end of the second day of their flight to Egypt, Mary was exhausted. Joseph was a poor craftsman who did not own a donkey or burro on which Mary could ride. She had to walk along side her husband, carrying Jesus on her back and a pouch of food and water slung around her neck. Joseph also carried food and water, some carpentry tools, their bedrolls, and an iPod with ear phones that he and Mary shared so they could listened to contemporary Jewish tunes.
Family members built a fire; Joseph spread out the bedrolls and prepared some food while Mary nursed Jesus. He removed her sandals, poured some olive oil on her feet and began to rub them. His firm hands pressed against her aching muscles, first on the top of each foot, and then moving from toe to toe, then underneath the foot, and finally up her leg and thigh. Back and forth, up and down Joseph pressed his hands against Mary’s flesh, working the oil into the skin, and soothing the pain and stress of this very difficult day.
After Mary had finished nursing Jesus she did that same for Joseph. Then they lay next to one another, her arms covering her son, and his arms covering her, and they slept a deep and secure sleep.
In addition to presenting Mary as a nun, Catholic piety has also presented the Holy Family as a family of three. Because of the nature of Jewish kinship and clan life, families lived in clusters together with individual dwellings linked by common walls and back doors opened up to common space. If Jesus was an only child, as Catholics teach, he hardly knew it. He was raised among and with the help of relatives. There were uncles and aunts, perhaps a surviving grandparent, and “cousins” (see Mark 6:3). Mary and Joseph would have helped raise the other children as much as the other adults and older nieces and nephews would have helped raise Jesus. When it was time to take a family picture at Walmart, the whole clan showed up. We get an insight into this with the story of Jesus near the time of his bar mitzvah when he goes missing from the clan.
Two days had passed since the great feast of Passover. The pilgrims were a short journey away from Nazareth when Mary realized that she had not seen her son since they had left Jerusalem. That was not like Jesus. Yes, he always wanted to hang out with his cousins, and they with him, but usually he checked in with her. “Joey,” Mary said. (She always called her husband Joey as his mother did, because he had childlike eyes that were playful and kind.) “Joey, have you seen Jesus?” Joseph thought for a moment, looked around, and said, “I can’t remember when I last saw him. I think he was with James and Joses at the back of the caravan.”
He kept walking; she stopped. He had walked a dozen paces when he heard “JOSEPH!” That could only mean one thing; Mary was ticked. He turned and said, “What? He’s all right, just enjoying his…” Joseph did not finish his sentence. If looks could kill, Mary’s eyes would have taken down Goliath. “Okay, I’m going.” Joseph ran back through the caravan looking for Jesus.
The caravan was actually stretched out for a couple of miles. It took him half an hour to run the distance and back. Jesus was not to be found. Mary, pondering the situation in her heart, said to herself, “That boy!” She took out her cell phone and texted her four sisters that Jesus was missing and that she and Joseph were heading back to Jerusalem to look for him. Each of them told their husbands. Esther texted back that she and her husband would get all of the children home so that the other sisters and their husbands could join Mary and Joseph in the search. They gathered food and water for the trip back to Jerusalem and left in haste.
NOW HEAR ME OUT. I am not directly challenging the perpetual virginity of Mary, though I will admit that I have some problems with it. But I resist the image bequeathed to us by pious Catholic artists that Mary was some sort of (married) contemplative nun, and that she and Joseph lived happily and strictly as brother and sister as they raised her son.
She was a Jewish woman who brought to her marriage the fullness of her life as a Jewish woman, which included love and intimacy with her husband, and a large family clan that included other children whom she helped raise. She cooked, cleaned, made clothes, went to the community well to gather water, gossiped with her friends, watched the latest Jewish novella on TV, rubbed her husband’s aching shoulders when he returned home after a hard day of work, and snuggled up against him when it was time to bed down for the night.
I do love Mary, regularly pray the rosary, and often repeat to myself the wisdom Mary left us at Cana: “Do whatever He tells you.”
During this Advent and Christmas season I am awed how this young woman listened to God speak to her through an angel and, without asking permission or even discernment from her father, in whose house she was still living, or from her betrothed, in whose house she was destined —both of whom she was bound by the Law of Moses to obey— she stepped out of the safe boundaries of her cultural norms, and said yes
to God. WOW!
Nuns are terrific in their own right, but I for one am glad that Mary was not one. Let me know what you think of this article. Merry Christmas.
