Among Us Women

Recently, my mother-in-law, Irene, a devout Roman Catholic, passed away. At her viewing, I participated in my first Rosary service. The word rosary comes from the Latin “rosarium,” rose garden, and truly one is led from one fragrant moment to the next during this devotion.

The Rosary is made up of several sections, including the Lord’s Prayer, the Gloria Patri, and meditations on Scripture from Christ’s life (the Mysteries). Honor and appeal to the Holy Virgin Mary winds throughout:

“Hail Mary, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

As I sat before Irene’s casket in its rose garden of bouquets, two phrases of the devotion wafted fresh meaning to me.

St. Luke records that Elizabeth was the first person to say, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” After Mary accepted the call to bear the Son of God, she hurried to the best source of support and celebration she knew, her also-pregnant cousin. Elizabeth’s first glimpse of this young lady enveloped her with joy. So much did the Holy Spirit of God fill her that her own baby leaped inside her. She knew instantly that Mary was carrying the Messiah and burst out with praise for her and the new little life growing within.

Elizabeth’s praise declared for all generations the position Mary holds among humanity.

Above every one, God chose this woman in which to dwell in the fullness of his incarnation. She was ordinary in many ways. But unlike most of us, Mary was willing to receive devastatingly Holy Mystery unto herself although only God knew what would become of her in the process.

Elizabeth’s praise declared for all generations the position Mary holds among women.

I saw in my mind’s eye the Blessed Virgin standing vanguard at the front of ranks of women stretching for eons into God’s presence. Women two thousand years old walked with my grandmothers, mother, and now my mother-in-law. Behind these emerged millions more from all places and conditions, my living female relatives, friends, and yes, even myself.

Mary then moved among us, hugging this one, smiling at another, talking some sense into that one. She did not demand attention; she always pointed us to Jesus. Yet in doing so, she assumed a major role to bear us up, to strengthen our resolve to live, and die, in as full of the Holy Spirit’s grace as we could hold.

And we will die. There’s nothing like the funeral of a loved one to illuminate the fading blooms that we are. Death cannot hide itself behind flowers, satin, and lace.

"Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death.”

Now is to celebrate Irene’s blessed life, however imperfect. Now is to grieve her earthly loss. Now is to glimpse our own imperfect but blessed lives. Now is to face our mortality.

At the hour of our death, there is no doing it over. We sinners being made into saints need all the appeals such a vanguard can bring to the Throne to help us be faithful to the end.

Mary is a woman like me, but a far stronger, wiser one, and sometimes I find myself shy to request her prayers. I am right there with Elizabeth when she followed up her ecstatic greeting with, “But why am I so favored, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?”

Yet apparently this great Lady, the God-bearer, wants to come among us women. As our principal spiritual mother, she enfolds us in the wide reach of her supplications. Above all, she wishes us to be receptive to her example and make it our business to say to her Son, 

“O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray. Cast out our sin, and enter in. Be born in us today.”

Like the Thief

Of thy mystical supper, O Son of God, accept me today as a communicant…Not like Judas will I give thee a kiss, but like the thief, will I confess thee, “Remember me, O Lord, in thy Kingdom.”

From the Orthodox communion hymn, “Mystical Supper”

Barabbas the Bandit received a lucky break that day. Two of Barabbas’ henchman, Lestes* and his partner in crime, plus an itinerant teacher were not so fortunate. All four men were popular with the peasantry, so it took the chief priests and Pharisees some forceful rhetoric and crowd manipulation to help the governor decide which pairs of wrists to nail up. In the end, Pilate released the rebel leader in return for two minor insurrectionists and a non-violent rabbi.

Lestes suspected they traded the rabbi purely on trumped up charges, and while waiting sentencing in the Praetorium, he had heard Pilate say he found Jesus innocent of crimes against both Jewish and Roman governments. But the Jewish leadership eventually broke Pilate down with politically loaded words—“tax evasion,” “subversion,” “opposing Caesar.”

Sounded a lot like his own charges, thought Lestes, as he dragged his cross behind Jesus through the city. Everyone knew he and his partner deserved what any “robin hood” had coming. It was clear to Jewish aristocracy and the Roman tyrants anyway. Palestinian peasants themselves tended to appreciate seeing bandit groups lighten the pockets of the rich to pass some wealth along to them.

Jewish bandits were religious, too; they believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. As a child, Lestes had embraced his parents’ hope that a messiah-king would rise to fix their broken civil and economic world. Somewhere in his youth, the unending oppression and poverty set his cynicism ablaze. It had become time to take things into his own hands. He grimaced: Now others would take his hands and close them forever.

Death by crucifixion took hours because the soldiers attached a foot piece to the cross so that he would keep pressing up with his toes to ease the tearing of his lungs, heart, and gut. The idea was to keep the criminal from dangling and thus cut off his air supply before he has had enough time to suffer.

Torturous as it was, slow dying gave Lestes time to think. Although he wasted most of his effort on the instinct to stay alive, he still knew he could choose how to take his death. He could either rail against the injustice of Rome or acknowledge some kind of punishment was justified.

He had justified most of his actions as a robin hood, even in the Name of God. For the greater good, he could deceive, terrify, kidnap, muzzle, bind, beat, and cut. Long ago he had lost the inner nudge to ask permission for anything. The lines between yours and mine had blurred under nights spent in alleys and hidden spots along the roads. In that robber’s dark he could avoid the stare between him and his victims that exposed their common and futile grasp for gold.

Now under The Skull’s** noonday sun there was no hiding that futility. The notice fastened over his head was concise and true: Bandit. When his soul would finally land in Hades, this truth would forever seal his condemnation before God.

The only falseness to the day was that an innocent man groaned next to him. Bandits, highwaymen, rebels, and thieves Lestes knew plenty. From what he had heard about Jesus over the last several years it was clear that he was no insurrectionist; at least, nothing resembling one.

Yet here were Jewish leaders and soldiers laughing and scoffing, as if triumphant they had succeeded in killing the greatest criminal of all. “He saved others; let him save himself if he is really God’s Chosen One, the Messiah. If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”

Then Jesus said something more shocking than the insults. “Father, forgive these people, because they don’t know what they are doing.”

Sweat and blood mingled in rivulets down Lestes’ body. If Jesus wanted and was able to garner God’s forgiveness for this crime against himself, even while dying, he might really have the power of a messiah. The notice above the man’s head, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” could be true. Lestes seemed to hear two hearts throb in his ears.

The criminal on the other side of Jesus broke into Lestes’ thoughts. Rage at their fate spat out of him. “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—and us, too, while you’re at it!” Lestes’ chest heaved for air. “Don’t you fear God even when you are dying?” he asked. He choked on the bile rising from his belly. “We deserve to die for our evil deeds, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.”

Lestes’ throat was parched, for the effort to keep from suffocating had wrung the moisture from his body. Yet tears baptized his eyes as he twisted his head toward Jesus. For the first time in his life, he asked pardon and permission. “Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”

In answer, the King said, “I assure you, today you will be with me.” Before nightfall, Jesus threw open his palace doors, while angels craned their necks to see the first of many of us weeping thieves invited in to plunder paradise.

*Lēstēs is Greek for a robber, bandit, insurrectionist.

**The Skull is English for Golgotha.