Open Writing

Many years ago our lives evolved and reflected the cycles of the church calendar. We were the candles at the altar of Our Lady.

The smaller statues of St Theresa, Saint Anthony and Our Lady of Guadalupe filled niches along the walls of our church, but it was the statute in front of the main altar to whom the mothers of our community kneeled in supplication.

Of course they knew that these were only statues, just as the photo of a loved one is only an image of the person, but the Virgin Mary held a special significance for all women.

They identified with her.

When the priest spoke of Joseph’s doubts about marrying his betrothed, the women nodded knowingly among themselves. 'See? Even Our Lady, the mother our Lord, was slandered!' as if that explained all the quirks they observed in human behaviour.

Their experiences were the same as hers, even leading up to the celebration of the birth of her son.

'And isn’t it just like men to give a new born baby useless presents like frankincense and myrrh? Astrologers!'

'Maybe that's it. Their thoughts were up in the clouds somewhere.' 'On the other hand, maybe the gold came in handy to pay their taxes to the Romans.'

'Some things haven’t changed.'

These milky fertile women related deeply to Mary's labour and they celebrated the safe birth of her child.

Life was precious.

The gospels illustrated examples straight out of their daily lives---Jesus strayed from his parents and lectured in the temple while his worried parents searched for him everywhere.

When his parents remonstrated later, he got sassy and told them off!

'Yes, that's just like my boy,' more than one mother agreed. 'As soon as their hormones begin to kick-in they think they know everything!'

Approaching Easter, all statues including the stations of the cross, were draped in purple cloth, accentuating the darkness felt even by the children as they studied the faces of their own sorrowful mothers at prayer.

A painted silk portrait of the Great Mother was placed in front of the main altar.

The almost indecent agony realistically depicted how she might have looked when she realised her powerlessness to prevent her son's arrest, suffering and death at the hands of his enemies.

In the evenings after their families were fed and settled, the silent mothers moved stealthily like shadows towards the local church to say the rosary.

Like women everywhere, they commiserated with every mother over the death of every child

At Easter, we children celebrated re-birth by returning to our older cultural rituals.

We made cascarones, the hollowed out coloured eggs filled with confetti. Our full baskets lay at our feet during mass waiting to be cracked over our friend's heads, provided we could catch them by surprise.

And mothers made tamales in honour of our Corn Goddess, Maiz, who gave us her body to eat. Tamales are made of spiced corn meal and meat spread in thinly in layers wrapped in corn husks, folded and steamed. We ate these upon returning from midnight mass after Christ had risen.

May was the month of Mary.

All little girls dressed in white dresses and veils crowned in orange blossom wreaths.

We offered fresh flowers every evening and sang songs in praise of Our Lady. And everyone wore a flower in honour of their mother on Mother's Day. A red flower let others know that your mother still lived; a white one indicated she was dead. Tributes to all mothers dominated the air waves as children read their own poems over local radio.

The male church hierarchy secluded itself from the lives of ordinary women, but in our community we celebrated motherhood. .

© Alma Iris Ramirez