Ireland,  15th August 1985

From where I stand

 

A trick of the light are the words the world uses, and perhaps they are not far off the mark.

But I have watched over the world, and I have learned that people do not always wish to see what they do not understand. Perhaps they fear the ridicule of others more than they fear the unknown itself.

Now, perhaps, it is time for me to reveal the unknown by telling my story from where I stand.

But do not make the assumption that I stand on top of a pedestal.

For it was you who put me there.

Not me.

This wasn't my first visit to Ireland.

I made an appearance in Knock, County Mayo, almost a hundred years earlier, with Joseph, my husband, St John the beloved disciple, angels and the Lamb.

Our visit was witnessed by fifteen people standing in the pouring rain at the gable end of Knock Church.

Statues were later erected in our honour. Two popes would visit the site of our apparition. A third would come in the future to recognise Knock as an international shrine of special Eucharistic and Marian devotion.

The Church would investigate and honour Knock, though no pope would formally declare the apparition itself to be an article of faith.

But then, the Church has never been quite as certain about me as people might imagine.

 

But hey, who can blame them? Old habits die hard.

Adam was first. Eve was made as his helper.

She ate the forbidden fruit. She is to blame for original sin.

The downfall.

Stupid woman.

But woman is good enough to give life to our male Saviour.

Yet she must be born of the Immaculate Conception.

And her son must be born of a virgin.

Great stories, aren't they?

Penned by men, to serve men, leaving woman forever the second coming to the first.

But I'm not bitter.

I'm virtuous.

 

And perhaps I'm a little annoyed by the role I've been given in their charade.

But then, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Or am I actually getting behind myself, for a change?

Perhaps it's time to break out of the mould men have created for me, a mould that has left women caught between two extremes: the prostitute or the virgin.

 

And I hold no judgement on either.

We were all virgins once.

And as for the sex worker, whether the profession is chosen freely or forced upon her through human trafficking, the sin belongs to the John who turns her body into a business.

 

“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

Have I cast a stone at the John?

At the traffickers?

 

You're damn right I have.

Because my son's message, perhaps, was a little too vague for today's world.

But I don't intend to mince my words.

If you think this God is all-forgiving,

you're in for a rude awakening.

Slow to anger … must remember I am not a man.

I'm a woman who has come to this timeline to explain the unfolding of a miracle.

A miracle made by a woman.

And because it comes from a woman, history has taught us that it will not be taken seriously.

Which is, of course, the pièce de résistance.

 

Lean into your roles, ladies.

But never lose sight of the exit.

And keep strategising.

And for the love of God, be kind to each other.

 

Now, where was I?

Ah, yes. The statues of me.

Funny how it's mainly women who kneel before them, reciting the Hail Mary ten times over.

Because even in prayer, it seems, a woman must work ten times harder than the Father or the Son to complete a decade.

 

Remember, Mary, these are man-made rules.

For they know not what they do.

 

And I’m sure my words will be recorded in history as a woman and her hormones.

Even though I no longer have any.

Hormones, that is.

Unless, of course, a woman records my words.

To give them merit.

The merit they deserve.

But then she becomes the woman.

Whose words are dismissed as nothing more than her time of the month.

Or menopausal madness.

 

Man may have taken it too far when their God made childbirth painful as a punishment.

A curse put upon Eve for eating the apple.

Eve. The giver of life.

Who gave us twenty sets of twins, each a girl and a boy.

Somehow, we chose to lose sight of that.

Who would have known that the gift of giving life would keep on giving?

Such an emotional stain on womanhood.

When we all know it was a fig.

Because of my son’s reaction to the fig tree.

Yet another lost in translation.

 

I'm babbling when I should be leaning into my new role.

You see, ladies, I never lost sight of the exit.

I kept strategising.

For the love of me.

For the love of you.

For the love of us.

Because you were kind in your prayers, spoken in my name.