Why the Blessed Virgin chooses to make herself manifest on grilled cheese sandwiches, the sides of rusty water towers, and the walls of highway underpasses is a mystery, like transubstantiation and three persons in one shamrock and why Notre Dame can't win the national title.
Once upon a time she used to make more of an effort. She appeared in person. She even spoke. She came right down from heaven and chatted with Bernadette at Lourdes and those other nice children at Fatima and Guadalupe.
Now she can't be bothered.
Jesus says, "The Faithful are lonely and afraid, Mother, they need to see you."
And Mary replies, "Oy vey, again? They don't have their own mothers they can worry? Listen. I'm busy, I've got my reading group Tuesday, the gym three days a week, all those intercessions on behalf of the sick and dying. Can't we just send them all a nice photograph?"
"A photograph? You want to send the Faithful your headshot?"
"With an autograph. Smile. Mary loves you. Love, Our Lady. How's that?"
"Nice, but it's my line, Mom."
"What's your line?"
"Smile. Jesus loves you."
"That's yours?"
"I've got a whole line of bumper stickers."
"Big Shot. You got that copyrighted?"
"I was just saying---"
"Bumper stickers. Pah. Listen, Mr I Walk on Water, you think you made these things up all by yourself? You learned nothing from your mother? Who changed your swadling clothes?"
"Mom, please. There are saints everywhere. They can hear you."
"What, you're embarrassed? You don't want them to know you have a mother? I think they know. It's in all four gospels."
"C'mon, Mom. Don't be this way."
"What way is that?"
"You're being a martyr."
"Who are you calling a martyr? I had enough trouble giving birth to you, I'm going to let myself be slaughtered for you too? I didn't even die, remember? I was assumed. Martyr shmarter. "
"Right, and you were a virgin when I was born too."
"Watch your mouth! I didn't have to accept when that angel barged in on me, you remember that. I had free will. I could have told him to go find some other virgin. I was about to marry a nice guy, owned his own business, good with his hands, and I'm supposed to risk all that to become the incubator for some divinity's incarnated self?"
"All I'm trying to say, Mom, is that there are people down on earth would like some attention from you. I don't think an autographed picture is what they have in mind."
"You're probably right. Sigh. Maybe we could just work up a quick miracle or two, to tide them over. A little sign, a little portent, everybody goes home happy."
"You want me to perform a miracle?"
"Might be nice."
"But the age of miracles has passed."
"I'm not asking for anything big."
"Still."
"What now? You're too busy to work a little miracle for your own mother?"
"As a matter of fact, I do have a pretty full schedule. There's Darfur, for one thing. AIDS. And that tsunami really caught me off guard. I'm still playing catch up on that one."
"Well, maybe if you cut down on all those campaign appearances for the little cowboy in Washington or weren't spending all your time trying to end the filibuster."
"MOM!"
"What?"
"You know I want nothing to do with any of that!"
"Don't yell at me."
"What kind of a God do they think I am? Like I've got nothing better to do than meddle in petty partisan politics! One of their ministers kicked all the Democrats out of his church! Did you read that? Where ever two or more are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them! Whatever you do to the least of my brethern you do to me! He never heard any of that? The Democrats were gathered in my name too. They are at least among the least of my brethern. Asshole fucking kicked me out of his church!"
"Don't you use that language around me, young man. I'll wash your mouth out with myrrh."
"I came to save all mankind! Weren't they paying attention in Sunday school?"
"You could put an end to that, if it really bothered you."
"How?"
"Couple of well-aimed lightning bolts..."
"Mom, I'm the Christ, not Zeus."
"A black death? A little plague?"
"Do you know how hard I had to work to talk Dad out of that vengeance is mine crap?"
"Suit yourself. Just don't come crying to me when they take your name in vain. So? You going to give me my miracle, save your mother an unnecessary trip down to earth?"
"Mom, I---"
"Seven swords pierced my heart, remember?"
"Mom!"
"Every one of them on account of you!"
"Mother."
"But who's counting."
"All right. All right. I'll put somebody on it."
"Somebody?"
"An angel. I'll get an angel down there to perform a few minor miracles in your name."
"An angel? One? You can't spare a whole choir for your mother?"
"Three. Ok? The angels are busy too. Most of them spend all day pulling pedestrians out of the way of onrushing taxis in New York and Boston and Paris. But I'm sure there must be at least three who've got some free time."
"Good. Thank you, son. Just make sure that whatever they do, it's something tasteful."
"Tasty?"
"Tasteful! Remember, I've got an image to keep up."
So the call goes out on the heavenly PA.
"Calling Angel Howard, Angel Fine, Angel Howard."
And three knuckleheaded members of the heavenly host come down and when they're not bumping into each other and poking each other in the eye and running saws over each other's skulls, they manage to paste Mary's image on the wall of a highway underpass, where it's a distraction to drivers and a menace to traffic and, recently, a target for graffiti artists.
Ok, this is what I want to ask the Faithful. God or Mary or some angel puts up one of these images, but they can't make them graffiti proof? How much harder would it have been? Some punk approaches with the intention of defacing the image with the name of his favorite band or his girlfriend's best body part, whips out his can of spray paint, and, whoosh, the paint backfires in his face!
Make a believer out of him in a hurry.
Nope. The image is just left there for regular human beings to worry about and keep clean.
I can understand people's need for a God who is active in their lives, who makes his presence felt. I know why they need the reassurance. Faith is hard and life is sorrow. But why do they feel a need to believe in such a careless, unfocused, lazy God? Why do they love it that he performs his miracles in such a half-assed manner?
Jesus stopped George W. Bush from drinking. He sobered him up, put him on the road to the White House, made him president so he could save us all from the terrorists and the secularists and the Liberals. Ok. So why couldn't Jesus have arranged for George Bush to have actually won the election in 2000? Would it have been so hard for him to have changed the minds of five or six million more people so the outcome could not be questioned and the Supreme Court didn't have to decide it?
Better yet. Instead of going through all that trouble to get Bush into the White House, couldn't he have arranged for the security guards at Logan Airport to have done their jobs on the morning of September 11?
The Chicago police had the image of Mary painted over.
Two knuckleheads went out on their lunch hour and removed the paint.
The miracle here is that two people this dumb didn't get themselves run over while they were out there.
Amen, Brother Lance.
Can I get a witness?
Posted by: Tilli (Mojave Desert) | Monday, May 09, 2005 at 03:10 PM
While working at a restaurant in Albuquerque around 1980, I saw the face of Martin Buber in a tortilla I had been about to slap on the grill. Thank goodness I saw it in time to pin it to the bulletin board. I was able to tell a number of people who Martin Buber was; they were pleasant about it, but more interested in our fabulous green chile (New Mexico style chile is potatoes, chile, beans, and meat). I don't know if Martin of the Tortilla is related to, or knows of, Mary, of if there is any connection at all to your post - perhaps "visages seen in the preparation of sandwiches (loosely defined)." I thank you for your indulgence.
Posted by: Douglass Truth | Monday, May 09, 2005 at 05:50 PM