In all of history, only one child chose the mother to whom he would be born, and he chose her knowing that she would have to watch him die.
Dorothy Parker, the caustic writer and poet of the Algonquin Round Table, once wrote a Christmas poem differing widely from her usual style.
- Prayer for a New Mother
The things she knew, let her forget again-
The voices in the sky, the fear, the cold,
The gaping shepherds, and the queer old men
Piling their clumsy gifts of foreign gold.
Let her have laughter with her little one;
Teach her the endless, tuneless songs to sing,
Grant her her right to whisper to her son
The foolish names one dare not call a king.
Keep from her dreams the rumble of a crowd,
The smell of rough-cut wood, the trail of red,
The thick and chilly whiteness of the shroud
That wraps the strange new body of the dead.
Ah, let her go, kind Lord, where mothers go
And boast his pretty words and ways, and plan
The proud and happy years that they shall know
Together, when her son is grown a man.
Parker’s poem humanizes Mary, removing her from the halo-lit pageant of our imagination and placing her solidly in the world of real motherhood. Mary was a real mother just as Jesus was a real son; they had the fears and concerns of ordinary life. Anything else would be a denial of the Incarnation. Parker’s poem reminds us that for every Christmas there is a Good Friday.
But after Good Friday comes Easter, when we celebrate the resurrection. Death is not the end. It was not the end for Jesus, and it is not the end for us. May we live this Christmas season and the coming New Year comforting our heartbreaks in the hope of the Resurrection.
Weeping may endure for a night,
But joy comes in the morning. Psalms 30:5 I have often had the thought of how difficult it must have been for Mary to know that her child would undergo the agony of death on the cross. As any other mother, I know she would rather have had Him with her for 33 years than never to have had him with her at all. I once heard a great black preacher (his name escapes my limited memory) preach a sermon called “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s a comin’”, which just abouts sums up our hope in one sentence. The reason for Christmas is Easter!
It’s a very Biblical vision of Mary – alongside the great sacrifice of her son’s death, there is also the small but poignant sacrifice she made the day Jesus stayed in the temple in Jerusalem (and probably on many other days as well): his Godhood made him in so many ways less her little boy. The Gospels don’t give us any reason to believe that that was easy for her.
I am enjoying this series so much, Veronica.
Thanks, I needed to read this today.
Gorgeous. I’m always haunted by this day, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, and had never thought to think of the knowing sacrifice Mary made – thank you for this.
Great poem. Great thoughts. Nothing really to add here. Just enjoying your words.
Amen! I hope that, too, for the New Year and all to come! The poem was great and so was the post. I’m so glad I found your site and this series. Thanks!