On Mary (or, Six Words, Seven Words)

I'm very fond of the old carol "Away In A Manger." It's simple and sweet, with a sort of childlike wisdom and piety about it, and the melody is nicely hummable. But I have questions about one of the lines: "The little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes." That can't be right. He was like us in all things but sin; obviously He cried and pooped and spat up like the rest of us. In fact, as my old pastor Fr. LaValley once observed, Our Lord's dual nature is perfectly summed up in six words: "And Jesus wept" (John 11:35), showing his humanity; and "Lazarus, come out!" (John 11:43), showing His Divinity. (It does puzzle me that we never see Him laugh, but that's a whole separate blog post.) Anyway, the little Lord Jesus definitely made crying.

There's a bit in The Everlasting Man where G.K. talks about how you never see statues of Christ in His wrath, and how it's probably just as well because that would be terrifying, but it's extremely important to keep it in mind all the same. Even as we sit here at our computers, you and I, the Day of Judgment is getting closer, and we'll both of us be hearing either "Well done, thou good and faithful servant," or else "I never knew you, ye accursed." In a similar way, you never see images of the Blessed Virgin holding a sobbing Christ-child, and it's just as well, because we turn to our Mother for comfort and peace. But it's also good to remember that her task and burden was not to lug around a golden facsimile of the human form, impervious to pain and passion, but to feed and bathe and swaddle an infant born to poverty. Because she never sinned, she can't have given in to anxiety or annoyance, but there's no doubt that they beleaguered her as much as they do every loving parent.

I mentioned once that having a cat had given me daily occasion to ponder how asinine we must seem to the Host of Heaven, always thinking we're on the wrong side of the door. Likewise, having a child has given me (if it's not too audacious to say it) a fresh emotional insight into how Our Father must feel about us. She hasn't done anything whatsoever, apart from simply being my daughter, to make me love her; but as God gives me strength, I would eye-gouge a grizzly bear for her, let follow what might. Her crying rends my heart, and the tiniest flicker of her smile warms the pit of my stomach. Small wonder that Love Himself was willing to suffer and die for her.

Sonya doesn't talk yet. (She's been outside the womb seven weeks.) But when she's hungry or frightened or lonely, Ellie or I will lift her up and hold her close and rock her back and forth, and then she hears the seven words that matter most: "I'm here. You're safe. I love you." When little Lord Jesus was crying in the manger, Mary said those words—not in Aramaic or in Latin, but with her arms and with her warmth; and his human nature heard and was comforted, even as His Divine Nature held her back, and murmured those same seven words to her.