I May Be Many Things, But I Am Not A Fifteenth Century Peasant Girl
Long, long ago, a Maryknoll Sister
with a distinguished history of serving
the poorest of the poor on the missions was
beginning graduate studies and set out to purchase a computer.
Having made her selection, she presented a Sisters’ credit card
and the special ID that would allow a religious institute tax break on the sale.
The self-satisfied and arrogant salesclerk made a critical mistake:
He lectured Sister about why she should be wearing a habit.
“Young man, do you know what the habit was?”
Sister queried, stand straight up and confident.
“The habit was nothing more than the day-to-day dress
of a fifteenth century peasant girl.
I may be many things, but I have never been
a Fifteenth Century peasant girl.”
He got it right but missed something important.
According to rabbinic scholars, it was King Solomon (970-931 BCE), son of David.
Academically, however, we have no clear-and-certain understanding of who wrote Ecclesiastes or when.
Right:
"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted….”
Missed:
“The dark of night, when cowards prowl and destroy.”
Under the cover on night, a vandal or vandals entered Austria’s largest cathedral, St. Mary’s in Linz, and beheaded a statue of Mary, Mother of Jesus.
It’s possible the coward or cowards didn’t deserve the word “vandal.” While it’s true the Vandals sacked Rome in 455 A.D., historian and former curator of the Danish Royal Arsenal Museum Torsten Cumberland Jacobsen argues, “Despite the negative connotation their name now carries, the Vandals conducted themselves much better during the sack of Rome than did many other invading barbarians.”
We thought to call them “hooligans,” “snakes” or “skunks” but that would be hooligan-, snake- and skunk-abuse.
“Lowlifes” seems to fit well.
The “crowning” sculpture was designed by Austrian artist Esther Strauss and sculpted by Theresa Limberger, who spent more than 200 producing image of the mother of Jesus in the moments before birth with her abdomen and lower body exposed. The Strauss/Limberger creation was in marked contrast to the soft and idealized image of the same mother receiving and grieving her crucified son in Michelangelo’s Pieta.
Sculptor Limberger admitted that she deliberately created the statue in a way that would challenge many who witnessed the display that was sanctioned by diocesan bishop Manfred Scheuer. Martina Resch, co-initiator of the cathedral project and a theologian at the Catholic Private University of Linz, told the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) the sculpture was “a strong affirmation of God’s incarnation” and “a very poetic work that shows the natural birth of Jesus. Mary is shown in her vulnerability but also her strength.”
She’s correct but missed the point.
When and where Christians depict Mary as the mother of Jesus she is almost universally “cleaned-up.” Perfectly flowing and absolutely stainless garments and alabaster-like skin – think Raphael’s The Madonna with the Blue Diadem or the Madonna della Sedia or the Madonna of Loreto; Botticelli’s the Madonna of the Magnificat and the Madonna and Child with an Angel; Fatima and Lourdes. At best, these Marys - white, often blonde and immaculately clean [That was not a pun.] – are fiction or – more accurately – artistic and cultural projections – “Mary the way we want her to be.”
First century Jewish historian Josephus, who knew the area well, described Lower Galilee:
“Its nature is wonderful as well as its beauty; its soil is so fruitful that all sorts of trees can grow upon it, and the inhabitants accordingly plant all sorts of trees there; for the temper of the air is so well mixed, that it agrees very well with those several sorts, particularly walnuts, which require the coldest air, flourish there in vast plenty; there are palm trees also, which grow best in hot air; fig trees also and olives grow near them, which yet require an air that is more temperate. One may call this place the ambition of nature… it not only nourishes different sorts of autumnal fruit beyond men’s expectation, but preserves them a great while; it supplies men with the principal fruits, with grapes and figs continually, during ten months of the year and the rest of the fruits as they become ripe together through the whole year…”
Josephus. The Jewish War, Book 3, Chapter 10:8
Rogier van der Weydan (c. 1443-1445)
The First Jewish-Roman War (66-73 CE) erupted three decades after the Crucifixion of Jesus and, as collateral damage, ushered in almost two-thousand years of desertification. As a result, the Judaea of today, with barren land and higher temperatures is not the Judaea of the time of Jesus.
Jesuit author Jams Martin reminds us
“First century Nazareth [was] then a tiny town in southern Galilee… a largely agrarian society, populated by the lower classes and the poor, in the midst of an abundantly fertile region…Despite the fertile land, though, the region of Galilee on the whole remained, as archaeologist and New Testament scholar Jonathan L. Reed describes, ‘on the fringe of the Roman empire, both geographically and politically.’ Roman roads avoided it until the second century. So it was something of a backwater. As for Nazareth, most scholars estimate that anywhere from two to four hundred people lived there in Jesus’s day. Thus, Nazarenes lived in a backwater of a backwater…
“Today the ruins of the houses in Nazareth are scant, but the archaeological evidence has revealed small dwellings built with local stones (basalt or limestone) that were stacked roughly atop one another. The floors were of packed earth and the roofs thatched, constructed over beams of wood and held together with mud. Two or three homes were clustered together around an open courtyard, where much of the cooking would have been done. Also in the courtyard might be a common cistern and a millstone for grinding grain. Animals might have been penned here as well…
Dieric Bouts (ca. 1455) Deposition
“In Nazareth, the small rooms that were closed off were used for shelter, sleep, sex, and, as the theologian Elizabeth A. Johnson, CSJ, notes in her book on Mary, ‘giving birth and dying.’ Evidence from the rooms points to little privacy for the inhabitants, but a great sense of community. Needless to say, in such a tight-knit community Jesus would have been very well known—his friends, his habits, his ways of speech, his likes and dislikes. This insight will become important later on and explains the expressions of shock from the people who knew him: ‘Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?’ say the crowds in Matthew’s Gospel…
“A decent but not always reliable water source was situated at the edge of the village, at a place now called the Well of Mary. Garbage and sewage would often have been tossed outside the house into alleyways between the small couplings of homes, much as it is today in parts of the developing world…
“Clothing in the Nazareth of Jesus’s time would have been simple. Most men would have worn a loincloth, a tunic, and a cloak made of either linen or, most likely, wool, probably colored in some way. Women would have worn similarly simple clothing. All of the material for clothing would have been spun, woven, and sewn by the women of the town, with the wool taken from the flocks of sheep that grazed on the nearby hills….”
Robert Campin (ca. 1435) Portrait of a Woman
Following the destruction of the statue, an ally of the lowlife published the culprit’s self-consecrating justification on X:
“Hate or love, what were my reasons for today’s action?
“Well, as a simple Catholic and sinner, it is of course not up to me to prevent the actions of our bishops. But it is very much my and our task to prevent any defamation of GOD and his most holy Mother.
“Just as the Virgin Mary protects us every day and is there for us, we must also be there for her, the Mother of God, in the most severe afflictions, because that is what defines us as a Church.
“But why so martial, why no dialogue? Unfortunately, emails from the Diocese of Linz are ignored, telephone calls are abruptly ended when criticized and there is no outlet for criticism or even intervention. Therefore, in view of this abominable and blasphemous caricature, urgent and decisive action was required!
“But why the head of this caricature, of all things, had to be destroyed is quickly explained, because I had to be quick and effective. Although I started by sawing the torso, the noise level and limited time meant that I was unable to carry out this initial plan, so only the head was sawn off. But without the head and halo, there could no longer be any question of a caricature of our Virgin Mary.
“In the end, the sculpture was just an immoral, tasteless statue without a head, which effectively ended the blasphemy and defamation of our Blessed Mother.
“Just as the Blessed mother does everything for us in love, we must do everything for her without hesitation. This begins with prayers and ends, if necessary, with our lives.”
Rogier van der Weyden (1430-35) The Magdalen Reading
A (very) young woman from the backwater of the backwater gave birth to her first-born son and it is only acceptable to present her in a flowing white gown (with a veil) and smiling beatifically a la Rafael and Botticelli.
American Christianity (certainly American Roman Catholicism) may be rushing headlong into a schism – between those who wish for/want a white, cherubic, feel-good-for-the-wealthy religion of the Fifteenth Century with its idealization of a young woman giving birth without pain and a vibrant and Twenty-Second Century faith that feeds hungry bodies and souls; takes medical science, vaccines and prevention seriously; struggles for Justice for the poorest of the poor; challenges the self-interest of the rich and powerful; and protects the wonders of God’s Creation for generations to come.
The real Mary, the Mary of the “crowning” sculpture, reared her son in a home where the floors were of packed earth and the roof thatched, constructed over beams of wood and held together with mud. She wore sandals or (more likely) walked barefoot when cooking in the communal courtyard or at the millstone where she would grind grain and walking to the common cistern from which she drew water.
We owe a debt of gratitude to artist Esther Strauss and sculptor Therese Limberge for giving us a glimpse of the pain she endured in gracing us with her Son.
As for the lowlife(s),….