The Secret Marian Diary of Damian Arnold, aged 41 3/4

Mary by Alice Robertson

The Annunciation

‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you’’

I thought of you as a 14-year-old girl before the Angel Gabriel came with the news that would redeem the world. Fourteen! Mary, you’ve just been told by an angel that you are the mother of God. And though you are greatly troubled, you respond to the Angel Gabriel’s words, ‘do not be afraid’ with faith.

What must you have been thinking about in the moments leading up to the Annunciation? I’m imagining that you were doing domestic task, quietly and with your face fixed in contemplative concentration on the task in hand, maybe you were humming a tune. I think of you as the kind of girl who liked spending time on her own. Perhaps you were thinking about your approaching wedding to Joseph. You were so young to be getting married, but I hope that even then you were comforted by the knowledge that you were betrothed to a good and faithful man.

I feel sure that you must have been wearing blue even then. Blue is my favourite colour. What does blue mean? To me, it means depth, thought, pondering, losing yourself in a deep sea of thought and meditation and popping up again later. It’s a gentle colour. There’s a touch of sadness to it, but it has dignity. You were thoughtful, kind, gentle and modest. At the same time, I think you were intelligent and perceptive and you had a powerful imagination.

I’m trying to remember what I was thinking about when I was that age. What was I doing? My clearest memories are of playing lots of football, reading Doctor Who novels, making my parents angry and of how much I regretted this afterwards. Yet I had dreams and hopes and I pondered a lot about the future and what it might bring.

I love the fact that you had just been told that you were the Mother of God and simply replied: ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto to me according to thy word.’ I wish had had such serenity in the midst of my teenage angst. And then you pondered as baby Jesus grew inside your womb. When you told Elizabeth: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour’, was it an excited outburst, or a quiet firm affirmation. Either way, it must have been joyous.

Have I ever had a moment when I felt so deeply touched by God that everything around me seemed to vanish in the oneness of knowing that I’m a son of God and that nothing else ultimately really matters if I follow You. Yes. It was fleeting. But I’m longing for it to happen again.

Finding Jesus in the temple

When I was about four I got very lost. I took a crust of bread and walked out of the house, past various occupied siblings, and kept walking, chewing my crust of bread. The only other memory is walking down a country lane on a sunny day and seeing one of those now very retro Fiat Panda police cars with the blue lights flashing and two enormous blue men emerge from the car and take my hand. I remember the excitement of the journey back to the house and, particularly, the smell of the leather seats. But more than anything, I remember my mother’s face when she saw me walking up the drive hand-in-hand with a kindly copper. I’m imagining your face when you saw Jesus in the Temple in Jerusalem: relief mixed with the
realisation that the whole world is his brother, sister, neighbour, friend in need, stranger who needs a hand in tight spot. That Jesus will one day be beyond your protection, going about his father’s business, and will have to take the consequences of that. You must have known then that you would have to let go.

Wedding at Cana

I love weddings. Sometimes, I don’t look forward to them, and think to myself, ‘oh no, not another one’. Then I see the two soon-to-be spouses look at each other in that sacramental way and pledge themselves in front of you. They promise to be true to each other in good times and bad, in sickness and in health and to love and honour each other all the days of their life. It’s such an intimate moment. Thereafter, there is a feeling of wanting the day to be perfect for them. Please God, make nothing spoil this wedding, let us all sustain our joy and generosity.

The wedding at Cana must have been such an occasion. The rhythm of an instrument playing out an insistent beat, a melange of colourful tunics and clapping hands, grinning faces and gleaming teeth and liberal amounts of fine wine being ladled out of an huge stone jug. I think of the proud parents of the beautiful bride, who had been saving their shekels for this day.

How observant you were Mary to notice the steward register that the wine was almost gone. And then you were bold. Your generous heart led you to gentle but decisive action. You sidle up to Our Lord, who is enjoying himself, and perhaps dancing too. “They have no wine,” you say. He looks at you. I wonder what his expression was? He gently rebukes you, “Women, what has this to do with me, my hour has not yet come.” But he knows that you know that he can do anything. Jesus had never performed a miracle before. “Do whatever he tells you”. The wine floweth.

Crucifixion

It’s all over. God’s will be done. But you will return.

One of the things I love about parents is the courage and the strength that the sacrament gives them when the welfare of their loved one is at stake. How much humility must you have had to call on to watch the Passion of your son unfold before your eyes – the scourging at the pillar, the precious blood, the crowning with thorns, the derision. You were never more than a few paces away. You met Jesus’s look as he carried his cross – a look of love. You stood at the foot of the Cross as he gave himself up. You nodded as Jesus commended John to care for you as a son would.

I am not a parent, but I know parents who are close to me that have experienced the loss of their child. I’ve felt their pain and listened as they spoke about how their life had been plunged into darkness and how the future appears only bleak. I’m sure that you will be with them and nurture them through this tragedy. God bless them.

You must have felt something of that yourself. You accepted it all. You had pondered it in your heart all these years. You didn’t need the temple to split in two. You knew this was going to happen. But it must have taken courage to let your heart break.

The Assumption

You are floating up to heaven, body and soul, to be crowned in glory. It must have been a glorious sunny day with an enormous blue sky and the occasional cotton wool cloud. I close my eyes and imagine that I’m holding your hand and flying with you, soaring through the clouds? I promise to let go and float back to earth, but it would great to see you home.

Journalist Damian Arnold wrote this reflection as a contribution to Through the Eyes of Mary - a prayerful reflection in art, words and music held at St Patrick's in Wapping on Sunday 11 May 2014. The exhibition runs until the end of the month.

See also:
ICN 20 May 2014 - Prayerful reflections on Our Lady in words and music www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=24776