![]() She’s a lot closer to Medea than to June Cleaver. ![]() “I had developed a hunger for catastrophe.” Contempt. Consider, for example, the elderly Mary’s wish in relation to the Evangelists who persecute her with their insistent visits: “When I look back at them I hope they see contempt.” Traveling by ship after the death of her son, she realizes that she longs for a wreck, a drowning. In my youth, stores sold items called “Mary-like gowns,” which meant you could go to your senior prom looking as undesirable as possible in the name of the Virgin.Ĭolm Toibin’s novella “The Testament of Mary” never even approaches the swampy terrain of sentimentality. The problem with all this is that it has led to centuries of sentimentality - blue and white Madonnas with folded hands and upturned eyes, a stick with which to beat independent women. She has been free for centuries of the “blame Mom” syndrome, representing endless patience, loving kindness, mercy, succor, recourse. None of the negatives that have made Christianity a byword for tyranny, cruelty and licensed hatred have attached to her. Mary, the mother of Jesus, has given Christianity a good name.
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