Chapter 59 Susanna of Nazareth, Mary's neighbor

I knew Mary, the mother of Jesus, before she married Joseph the carpenter, when we were both unmarried girls. In those days, Mary often saw visions, heard strange voices, and often spoke of angels who appeared in her dreams. The people of Nazareth cared about her very much, paying attention to her comings and goings.They looked at her with pleasant eyes, because her forehead was so high and her steps were so sassy. But some people say that she is possessed by a demon, because she only loves to walk alone. Although she is young, she is very mature in my eyes, because she has harvested in the flowering season and ripened in her spring.

She was born and raised among us, but she was like a stranger in our northern land.In her eyes, there is always the confusion of not being familiar with our faces. She is proud, just like Miriam who marched with her brothers from the Nile into the wilderness in ancient times. Later, Mary was betrothed to Joseph, a carpenter. When Mary was pregnant with Jesus, she often took walks in the mountains.There was a look of joy and pain in Mu Guishi's eyes. When Jesus was born, I heard that Mary said to her mother: I am just a tree that needs to be pruned, and I will take good care of this fruit. "That's what Martha, the midwife, heard.

I went to see her three days later.Her eyes were a little strange, her breasts rose and fell, and she held her only son in her arms, like a shell containing a pearl. We all love Mary's baby, we look at him, he radiates warmth, his pulse beats to the rhythm of life. As the years have grown, he has become a child with a smile on his face and a somewhat confused expression.None of us can predict what he will do, because he always looks like a foreigner.For all his audacity, no one ever reprimanded him. It was he who played with the other children, not the other children with him. When he was twelve years old, one day he led a blind man across a stream and onto a level road.

The blind man asked him gratefully, "Son, who are you?" He replied, "I am not a child, I am Jesus." The blind man asked, "Who is your father?" He replied, "God is my Father." The blind man laughed and said again, "Well said, my boy. Who is your mother?" Jesus replied, "I am not your child. My mother is the earth." "Then I was led across the river by the Son of God and the Earth," said the blind man. Jesus said: "No matter where you go, I will stand for you, and my eyes will follow your steps." He develops and grows like a precious palm tree in our garden.

At nineteen he was handsome as a stag, and his eyes seemed honeyed and full of the wonder of the day. In his mouth, there is the thirst of sheep in the desert looking for lake water. We gazed at him as he paced alone in the fields, and so did all the maidens of Nazareth.But in front of him, we are very shy. Love is always shy because of beauty; and beauty will always be pursued by love. Afterwards, the years enjoined him to speak in the temple and in the gardens of Galilee. Mary also often followed him, listening to his words, listening to the voice in her own heart.But when he went to Jerusalem with the people who loved him, she no longer accompanied him.

Here's why: We Northerners are often taunted in the streets of Jerusalem, even when we go to the Temple to offer sacrifices.The proud Mary did not want to go to the south to be humiliated. Jesus also went to other countries in the East and the West. Although we don't know where he went, our hearts go with him. Mary was waiting for him at the door.Every evening, she stared at the road, looking forward to his return. And when Jesus came home, she would say to us, "How can I call myself His mother, who is too great for my children, and so eloquent for my silent heart to comprehend?"

It seems to us that Mary could not believe that the mountain had been born out of the plain, and in her simplicity she did not see that the ridge was the way to the summit. She understood Jesus, but because he was her own son, she dared not recognize him. One day, when Jesus went to visit the fisherman by the lake, she said to me: "Aren't people just busy beings who wish to rise from the earth? Isn't it just a yearning for the stars?" "My son is a kind of longing, our longing for the stars." "Did I say my son? May God have mercy on me, and my heart desires to be his mother."

At this point, it is difficult for me to tell more about Mary and her son.But although I seem to have the scriptures in my throat, and my words are as difficult as those walking with a stick, I will still tell some of my experiences. In the season of youth that year, when the red flowers of Pulsatilla were blooming all over the mountains and fields, Jesus called his disciples and said, "Come with me to Jerusalem to see the slaughter of sheep for the Passover." On the same day Mary came into my house and said, "He is going to the Holy City, will you go with me and the other women?"

We followed Mary and her son on a long journey to Jerusalem.A group of men and women greeted us at the city gate, because the coming of Jesus had been heralded to those who loved him. But that night, Jesus left the city with his disciples. We heard that he had gone to Bethany, and Mary waited with us at the inn for his return. On the eve of Thursday, Jesus was caught outside the city and thrown into prison. When news of his imprisonment came, Maria said nothing.There was in her eyes the fulfilled look of pain and pleasure long foretold, which we had seen when she was the bride of Nazareth.

She did not cry, but moved among us, like the ghost of a mother who would not weep over the death of her son. We sat on the floor with our heads bowed, while she stood upright, walking up and down the room.For a while, I stood by the window, looking towards the east, with my fingers inserted into my hair and held back. Until dawn, she still stood among us, like a lonely flag in the wilderness after the army has dispersed. We weep knowing what will happen to her son tomorrow.She didn't cry, because she also knew what would happen to him. Her bones are made of copper, her muscles are made of ancient elm, and her eyes are like the sky, vast and fearless.

Have you ever heard the thrush sing while her nest burns in the air?Have you ever seen a woman who has no tears to drink when she is extremely sad?Have you ever seen a wounded heart beat in pain? You have never seen such a woman, because you have never stood before Mary, nor embraced by the Invisible Mother. In such silent hours, the bandaged silent hooves trample the sleepless chest.At this time, John, the youngest son of Zebedee, came and said, "Mother Mary, Jesus is leaving, let us go with him." Mary put her hand on John's shoulder and walked out, we followed behind. We approached the "Tower of David" and saw Jesus carrying the cross, surrounded by many people.Two others were also bearing the cross. With her head held high, Mary walks with us behind her son. Behind her, follow Zion and Rome, and the whole world!To avenge a free man! When we reached the mountain, he was crucified high on the cross. I look at Maria.Her face was not like that of a woman who had lost her flesh and blood, but a look like that of fertile soil. The fertile soil is always alive, and will always bury her children in the air. Then, she recalled his childhood in her eyes.She yelled: "Not my son's son! You came; I am proud of your strength when you come to my buttocks. I know that every drop of blood that falls from your hands will become the fountainhead of a nation. " "You die in this storm, as my heart died in the setting sun, and I will not grieve." At this time, I really wanted to cover my face with my coat and run back to the Northland.But suddenly I heard Mary's call: Not my son's son!What did you say to the man on the right that made him happy in his agony?The shadow of death on his face talks so much, he can't take his eyes off you. " "Now you smile at me, and by the smile I know you've won." Jesus looked at his mother and cried, "Mary! From now on you will be John's mother." He said to John again, "Be a filial son of this mother, go to her house, and let your shadow cross the threshold I have passed on. You will do all this to remember me." Mary stretched out her right hand towards him, like a tree with only one branch.Again she cried, "Not my son's son! If this is God's work, may God give us patience and knowledge; if this is man's work, may God forgive this man forever." "If this is God's work, the white snow of Lebanon is your spiritual garment; if this is only the deed of those priests and soldiers, I have this garment to cover your body." "Not my son's son! What God has established here shall not perish; and what mortals would destroy remains standing beyond his sight." At this time, God handed him over to the earth, as if leaving behind a cry, a whisper. Mary also delivered him to the people, as if leaving a wound, a balm. She said, "Look, he's gone! The battle is over, the stars are up, the boats are in port, and the pulse of the person I cuddled in my heart is beating in the universe." We approached her and she said, "He was smiling when he died, he won. I would love to be the mother of the winner." Mary returns to Jerusalem, leaning on the young apostle John.She is already a woman whose wish has come true. When I arrived at the city gate, I observed her face, and I was amazed: Jesus' head was the highest of all the people on this day, but Mary's head was also held high. All this happens in spring. It is now autumn, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, has returned to her residence, alone in the vacant room. Two Sabbaths ago my heart was stoned, because my son had left me and sailed in a ship in Tyre, saying he would not come back. One evening, I visited Mary. When I approached her house, she was sitting at the loom, but instead of weaving, she was looking at the sky beyond Nazareth. I greeted her: "Hello, Mary." She opened her arms to me and said, "Come here, sit next to me, and let's watch the sunset pour blood on the mountains." I sat down on the stool beside her, and we looked out the window to the west. After a while, Mary said, "I wonder who nailed the sun to the cross this evening?" I said, "I have come to ask for your comfort. My son has left to find the sea, and now I am alone in the empty room at the intersection." Mary said, "I would love to comfort you, but how?" I replied, "I am comforted as long as you talk about your son." Maria smiled at me, put her hands on my shoulders and said, "Let me just talk about him. What comforts you, comforts me." Then she talked about Jesus, and many things from the beginning. As I listened to her talk, it seemed to me that she treated our two sons as one. For example, she said, "My son is also a sailor. I entrust my son to the waves. Why don't you entrust your son to the waves?" "Women are always buttocks, cradles, but never graves. We die to give life to others, just as our fingers weave the silk weaving the clothes we don't wear." "We cast our nets, but we never taste the fish we catch." "For this we grieve, but in it all there is our joy." Mary told me so. I left her and went back to my own home.Although the day is over, I still sit at the loom and weave.