Mama Mary (Not A Catholic Abecedarius)

By Kylie Sommer

A statue of Mother Mary was planted in my Catholic grandmother’s 

backyard when I was a tot of a child. When I asked my grandmother why the woman’s arms were outstretched she said, 

‘Cause they took away her baby. She just wants Him to come home. 

During those pre-school-aged years spent at my grandparents’ house, I would toddle to the swingset in the rotten-leaf-filled backyard, 

edge my way closer to the Virgin Mother– draped in a chiseled blue head scarf– and fondle the curves and divots in her stoneage. My chubby, dirt-under-the-nails fingers would play with the folds in her 

garment. My pinky would trace her stone eyelids and everlasting pout. 

Her divinely tiny fingers made me believe in Baby Jesus. Mothers with stretch marks and fingers suckled by infants, please, force us to believe in your children. 

… 

I grew up the opposite of Catholic, raised in the slow burn of Evangelicalism. In that house, we worshiped 

Jesus but interrogated his mother. They taught me to curse her blessed name, a kind of cuss word in that house. The name of a false god, synonymous with Baal or Jezebel. The mother of the 

Lord, or false prophet who led many astray? 

May protestants one day find a healthy balance with biblical women. No more lionizing or demonizing. 

… 

Now, I walk to the Catholic Church in my town, far away from my grandmother and the blue garden gnome of an icon. Here I meet with Mama Mary; here I converse with her over Earl Grey and flowers planted in remembrance of the church’s departed.

Perhaps I should quit my day job of waiting and hoping. I tell her, steeped in mashed up leaves of frustration. I am a tea bag soaked for many years by a God who teaches perseverance. Quit waiting for the Messiah? She asks. You foolish girl. 

Right here, in front of the mother of sorrows, I am chastised by the Virgin. Reprimanded for not batting an eye over the decay of my religious routines. 

She is my white marbled friend, my sister of get over yourself. If she could move those carved features, if she could reach out, grab me by the throat, body slam me into the garden bed… but 

Those hands are not outstretched. They are folded into herself, crossed against her chest like a corpse, head bowed like the 

unliving, the waiting for resurrection. She stares at her feet to not stare at my doubt. I profess, Virgin Mary, while I wait for the return of toddler faith, I feel myself pregnant with loneliness and Holy Spirit at the same time. Her stone face does not soften with pity, When you cannot bear the teeth grinding agony of one more day, remember the patience of nine months pregnant with your Messiah. 

Xany with womanhood, I straighten my gilted posture. I remember that I am in the presence and mournful company of the Mother of God. Before I walk back to my house I whisper, You labored with God. Blessed among women, you are the one who saw Jesus chorded to the placenta. You are the one who bled lochia for days or weeks after the mucus plug and the broken water. Even in your statued form I see 

Zeal.

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