part five: a resurrection appearance, and an afterword

They walked together in the cool of the spring evening. It was the first opportunity they had found to be together, just the two of them. For a long time, neither of them said anything. They walked slowly, sometimes looking at one another and smiling. Mary thought, "I could do this forever. Just being with him... this is all I have ever wanted. All that I will ever want." Finally, Jesus said, "It was hard to see you suffer." Mary bowed her head. He continued, "But this is how it had to be. This was the only way that I could break the power of the enemy, of death and hell."

Mary stopped him. "Ever since you were little, I couldn't keep up with you. I have no place in such big things; I am just your plain old mother."

"No. You have every place in this. Without you, none of this could have happened."

"Do you know how I first started to understand who I am?" he said. "It was you. The way you believed in me, even when I was little, telling me the stories, the ones from the Prophets and the ones about how I was born, too. And your song. 'My soul doth magnify the Lord.' More than anyone, you do it. You 'magnify the Lord.'" He smiled. "I can remember you holding me as a little child in your arms and singing that."

"But I failed you. I thought that somehow I had gotten it wrong. You were -- are -- not the Messiah I thought you would be."
"You still believed. Always."
"No. I... I don't understand."

"Believing is not always like the sea on a calm day," he said. "Often as not, it is like a storm, when you think the boat is going to be swamped. But you go on, the best you can. That is what you did."

They walked on in silence. After a bit, Mary asked "Will I see you again?"

"Soon, I will return to my Father and you will not see me, not in this life. But I will be with you always, to the end of the world." With a smile, he added: "And you will be with me at my marriage."

Mary had no idea what he meant. She decided not to ask.

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AFTERWORD

This story has been working in my head for three or four years; I posted a fragment of it on another site a few years ago. The impetus was twofold, reflected in the quotation of Matt. 12:47-50 and John 7:5 at the beginning. How did James, the "brother of the Lord," go from not believing to leadership in the Church and martyrdom? And Mary -- she was with the disciples at Cana of Galilee, and John's Gospel does not rule out her staying with them right on through, though she is not mentioned that I can find between Cana and John 19. Unlike St. John, the Synoptic evangelists do not indicate her presence at the Crucifixion. But who is "Mary the mother of James and Joses" in Matt. 27:56 (see also Luke 24:10), after James and Joses have been named elsewhere as brethren of Jesus (Mark 6:3)? If this is the Mother of our Lord, why doesn't Matthew say so? And St. Luke lists the Mother of our Lord among those present after the Ascension, along with "his brethren" (Acts 1:14). In short, where does she belong in this part of the story?

The four Gospels differ in detail concerning these events. Mostly, my fictional account is based on St. Luke and St. John. The coordination of even these two accounts is fraught with difficulties, many of which I have simply ignored and others which I have probably not handled adequately. One issue that preoccupied me for a while was an attempt at naming the women present at the Cross. St. John lists them at "his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene" (19:25). Is he saying that his mother's sister is Mary the wife of Cleophas, or are they two different people? I looked at the commentaries on this, and I am not the only one who cannot figure this out; it appears that the Greek is as unclear as the English. Some commentators surmise that they are two people because it would be strange to name two sisters "Mary."

And that raises a narrative difficulty: there are too many "Marys" in this story. How does one differentiate them without being awkward? I took the liberty of referring to the wife of Cleophas as "Mary Cleophas," and made her a fairly major character. My identifying of Cleophas and his wife as the couple who were married at Cana of Galilee is pure fiction. But I am not alone in guessing that the unnamed companion of "Cleopas" on the road to Emmaus (St. Luke 24:13-35) was his wife. Needing a sister for Mary, I chose Salome, who is listed among the women at the tomb in St. Luke 24:10.

The dream sequences for Mary seemed to make sense for a woman who treasured things in her heart and had strong affinity to spiritual things. One of them is based on Revelation 12:1-5; the others are from obvious sources in St. Luke.

In meditating on the Scriptural accounts of these matters, I found unexpected peace with one issue: the familial relationship of Jesus and his "brethren and sisters." Are they the biological children of Joseph and Mary? Are they, as Roman Catholic doctrine teaches, "cousins" or other near kin, perhaps orphans taken in by their aunt and uncle? Are they children of Joseph by a previous wife? Elsewhere I have written about this, expressing my thought that it would be fitting for Mary and Joseph to have many children after Jesus was born, as a sign of God's blessing upon them akin to the children given Hannah after she "lent" her son to the Lord (I Sam. 1:27-28 and 2:21). I have come to realize that it genuinely does not matter. Whatever their biological relation, James and Joses, Judah and Simon, and their sisters lived in the household with Jesus, with Mary and Joseph the effectual parents of this large family. None of this is incompatible with the perpetual virginity of Our Lady, nor does it require it. However they came to be there, their practical relation as children of the Holy Family completely fulfills the blessing of children for Joseph and Mary.

In a sense, this story is "fan fiction," or "historical fiction." In another sense, it has been "lectio divina" for me, a way of living with these passages. There is, however, a danger: I must not do these persons offense by misrepresenting them, or projecting my thoughts and fantasies onto them. I must, rather, continue to live in communion with them.