Today we celebrate the birthday of the Blessed Mother, an event the church celebrates exactly 9 months after her Immaculate Conception, to emphasize the duration of the human pregnancy. But today I’d like to focus on her infancy – what was Mary like as a toddler, a young girl, a teenager?
I imagine Mary as a two-year-old, jumping and running
here, there and everywhere, as do all two-year-olds. As every mother and father
can testify, that’s the age when you can’t keep children sit still for even a
few seconds because they have extraordinary energy. And I am pretty sure
that that Mary used to keep Joachim and Anne on their toes for every shenanigan
she got herself into. I imagine her also as a 7 or 8-year-old playing with her
dolls along with her friends and trying to help her mother with household
chores, possibly at times messing things up instead of helping out. Now many of
you may be thinking that I’m criticizing Mary – that is not the case for sure.
Because like every young girl, we cannot imagine her always as we see her in
holy pictures, with a serene face and angelic disposition. I am pretty sure she
had her moments too, as did little Jesus when he was growing up at Nazareth. I
am not saying they were naughty or misbehaving kids, but let’s say they were
impish, mischievous, and playful, as are all children that age, after all.
The last phase is when I see Mary as a 13 or 14-year-old,
who like every other teenager felt the physical changes in her body, and maybe
even had a crush on some neighborhood boy. These are normal feelings that everyone
experiences, and Mary certainly was no exception. We know that at the age of 14
or 15 her life changed completely when the Angel Gabriel chose her as the
mother of the Messiah and encouraged her to take Joseph as her husband. And we
know the rest of the story. So when we think of young Mary, let’s not imagine
her as we see her in the statues, but as a normal young healthy, pretty girl,
maybe without a cell-phone glued to their ears, and texting her friends.
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