Mark Reminisces Mother Mary 

In preparation for this meditation read: Mark 3:31-35; 6:1-6a)

I am a very nervous, anxious and hasty writer. I know how to make the story of Jesus interesting because of the high conflicts that I learned about his short life. I know that to understand Jesus as a disciple I must follow him to Jerusalem and experience my own shortcomings, crosses and difficulties as bound up with his suffering, death, and, thanks be to God, his resurrection and appearance in the land of Galilee which I treasure and remember when I think and write about Jesus.

Sure! I wrote the first “Good News” (Gospel) about Jesus, but I did depend on some reminiscences of Peter, the apostle; there were also a few “memoirs” about Jesus that I collected here and there to fill in the gaps. I am sorry I used the conjunction “and” so often and then the word “immediately.” But Greek is a second language for me; however, it is much better than my Latin.

You ask about his mother. Well, I remember her as Mary. In fact, I was the first Jewish-Christian writer to put her name on a manuscript! I do not know all the details about how she came to be pregnant with Jesus. Perhaps other Christian or Jewish preachers and writers will find out more about the manner and time of Jesus’ birth. Don’t ask me. I was not around when Jesus preached, nor did I ever meet his mother. Why, then, do I mention his brothers and sisters? It all happened such a long time ago that I’m not sure whether they were Mary’s children or whether they are part of the clan of her relatives, or the extended family. As you know, we are wont to call them brothers and sisters, too. Did you notice in speaking about her and Jesus I did not use so many “ands” and “Immediately’s”? I am older now and have been corrected by other writers, or shall we say, they stole my material and improved on it, making a good name for themselves. As long as this helped make good disciples of Jesus and followers of the cross, I do not mind.

Back to Mary. In my two paragraphs about her, I meant to present her as the definite person linked to Jesus’ history. She had the name “Mary” and she was a strong Jewish mother who protected her family reputation and wanted to call Jesus back to his senses, probably taking up the trade of his father, whom I never named, but now known as Joseph. Because of the mysteriousness of his early years, I prefer to speak of Jesus having only one Father–and that is Abba, God. I made that point clear in all of my sixteen chapters about the Good News of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. Don’t ask me about Mary’s virginity, I am learning more about this mystery only now. I just wanted to share with you her silhouette. She is a strong, protective, solicitous and energetic woman. Perhaps she understood Jesus’ words better than I when he said, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” I’ll let it go at that.