Brigid of Kildare (27 page)

“Not so, Brigid. You will be recollected,” I hastened to reassure her, though I knew not how.

She laughed. “Decius, if the church deems Jesus Christ’s own mother worthy of only a few lines of canonical text, we can be certain I will garner less recognition and even less commemoration.”

Brigid rose from her chair and began walking around her hut with restless agitation. She had been born—and groomed—to act, and act she could not. I said nothing. Brother, what could I offer other than empty consolation?

“What of Mary …” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes grew distracted. She continued her amble around the hut, though with diminished agitation and with increasing intensity of gaze.

“What do you mean?”

“I know better than to strive for dissemination of her Gospel; Irenaeus made certain of its suppression. But what of preserving Mary’s essence? What of securing some reverence of women through her?”

“By what manner?”

“To start, we must abandon all hope that we will propagate Mary’s real self or her actual Gospel. We must suppress all desire to share her natural intelligence, her supreme conviction in her own anointedness, her education among the holy of holies in the Jerusalem Temple, where no woman had been schooled before, and her intimate relationship with Jesus Christ as His Mother, the one human being permitted to correct and instruct Him—the one human being whose counsel He sought.”

“How will we share this modified Mary with other believers?”

She turned to me with a smile. “We must create an image, Decius.”

I watched as Brigid paced around the room once again, muttering to herself and gesticulating in the air. “What form will this image take?” I asked.

Her eyes met mine, and I saw within them such fervent light. Brother, it took my breath away. “We shall emblazon upon all Roman Christians a Mary they will comprehend and embrace. Since purity is so prized by the Roman Church, we will emphasize her virginity and cleanse our new Mary well, washing her of all boldness and forming her into a beloved passive vessel. Decius, we must create an image that all people, illiterate and erudite alike, will worship.”

“What will we create?”

“Let us call her the Virgin Mary.”

Yet Brother, this epiphany was only the beginning. Pray for me, brother.

Brother
,

The precise form of our Virgin Mary eluded us for ten days. Ten days in which we settled on one image only to supplant it with another. Ten days in which Brigid grew increasingly disheartened about our ever capturing some quintessence of her Mary, however infinitesimal compared to her total glory, in a likeness that would appeal to Rome and its people.

On the morn of that fateful tenth day, Brigid paced across her hut in the fitful tread that had become routine since we’d embarked on this work. She clasped in her hand the delicate yet worn copy of the Gospel of Mary the Mother passed down to her from her own mother, and she read aloud passages from it in the hopes of inspiring in us His vision of Mary.

Yet we were sheep caught between two rams, to use a phrase of Brigid’s; we wanted desperately to share the Mary who had drawn Brigid to Christ, but we knew that the church’s condemnation of the very Gospel depicting the empowered Mary and her Son with loving intimacy constrained that effort.

Brigid’s face drooped from exhaustion. I knew she toiled through the night to accomplish the abbey work she could not tend to while daylight reigned and our work could proceed. Stopping her constant pacing, she lowered herself to her knees in front of her small altar. I heard her begin to chant in prayer. I could not abide watching her offer supplications alone, so I put aside my scribe’s instruments and knelt next to her. She reached out for my hand, and our voices joined and rose to our Lord.

As our prayers lifted into the air, I felt the unusual compulsion to open my eyes, an act I typically shun during worship. My eyes fluttered open, and my gaze settled on the wall shelf near Brigid’s altar. My vision fixed on the statue of Horus and Isis resting toward the back, the one I had noted on my first visit to Brigid’s hut but had paid little attention to since.

Brother, as I stared at that pagan figurine, the Spirit inexplicably passed through me, and I knew precisely how to proceed. I immediately rose from the altar and sat at my scribe’s chair. I threw aside the rejected scraps of parchment littered about the desk and grabbed my brush. It moved furiously across the rough page without any strain or thought on my part.

Before my eyes, a serene and confident Mary, seated on a richly decorated, high-backed throne, appeared on the blank parchment. Draped across her lap, a youthful yet knowing infant Christ materialized, facing left. He reached out toward His mother with his left hand and, with his right, clasped her own.

My hand continued on as if of its own accord, framing the mother and child’s throne with the wings of four ethereal angels. My brush enclosed the figures with a very Gaelic border of swirling forms and shapes. I believe that my brush might have persisted in its creations, but its inspired handiwork halted when Brigid appeared at my side.

I dared not look at her. Though I sensed that this image was different, special perhaps, I feared further disappointing her. Instead, I stepped back and stared at the painting, a rendering which I intended to fill with brilliant color. Brother, I saw it anew, as though I had not been its creator. I felt almost as though I had tapped into the divine “image” described by the banned Gospel of Thomas, as the way to discover the divine within us and the kingdom of God here on earth.

“It is perfect, Decius,” Brigid whispered.

“Truly?” I turned toward her, surprised that I had so contented her. Her green eyes brimmed with tears.

“Truly. You can feel her human spirit and her divinity at once, as though they were one and the same. I see all the tenderness and trust and respect between the Mother and Child described in the Gospel of Mary the Mother, yet none could call it profane. It does not diminish His divinity to show her maternal feelings and His childlike love for and dependence on her. It is beautiful, and none could object to it.”

I said, “I hope my work does justice to your vision and goal.”

“Oh, my Decius, your Virgin Mary and Christ child achieves much more than my paltry aspirations. You have even hinted at her power by enthroning her. More than that, even. She is literally the throne upon
which He sits, the source of His power just as He is the source of hers.” She smiled at me. “Though none might intuit that message but us. And those who are seeking it.”

I looked down at my creation, and appreciated that God’s own hand must have guided that aspect of the depiction. For I had not knowingly aimed to that end.

“Does it not bother you that it harkens to the Horus and Isis image?” I asked, nodding toward the small statue on her shelf.

“No. The divine endeavors to course through all peoples and religions, Decius. It is only in Christianity that it has best found its home.”

“As long as the Roman Church does not spy the likeness and reject it on that basis alone.”

“I am not troubled. The Roman Church leaders will undoubtedly see your Mary’s throne not as the empowerment it truly represents—for the Egyptian gods’ and pharaohs’ claim to royalty flowed through their mothers’ veins—but as her virginal claim to the throne through her Son. In any event, we will endeavor to make our Mary and Child different enough to avoid seeing the similarity, will we not?”

I smiled. Here was the Brigid I knew, charming and demanding at once. “We will indeed, Brigid.”

“Decius, you have brought me such a gift. You have delivered unto me sweet relief that Mary might be remembered, perhaps even revered. Maybe one day, when the world is ready, she will be fully recalled and resurrected, if you will. And womankind along with her.”

Brother, what you must think of me? I break with my beloved Rome, though secretly. I stray from the dictates of my church, in private. I even endeavor to deceive Rome and her church to meet the objectives of a
woman
living on the outer edge of the known world, in the utmost concealment. What have I become? you must ask.

Of this alone, I am certain: Through my brush, I have become His instrument. Pray, pray for me brother.

Decius

BRIGID: A LIFE

With Decius at her side, Brigid settles into the most blessed chapter of her life, and the most despairing. While they are free to revel in each other’s company without a wall of secrets separating them, a new barrier looms—Decius’s departure. And while they collaborate on the Gospel book with renewed vigor, their creative energies prove barren—for they realize that Decius cannot return to Rome as a willing ambassador to Gael’s greatness with the masterwork gospel book in hand. Gallienus will never embrace Gael, and so neither will the Roman Church. Together with God, they must find an uncommon pathway to achieve their now-shared goal to preserve at least one core aspect of her Gaelic culture, a society that may fade as Romans or barbarians descend and destroy in the coming days. Yet they cannot.

In her anguish, Brigid rides to her father’s
cashel
. Strolling along the merchant stalls set up along the fortified walls, she lingers until she sees Broicsech stepping out for her daily walk around the grounds. She knows that her mother likes to bathe alone, without the attendance of her maid Muireen, so she waits until Broicsech approaches the riverbank.

Though Muireen stands guard, her position is distant, and she is distracted. Brigid slips behind the privacy tent erected near the riverbank. When she enters, Broicsech’s back is to her. Brigid tarries until her mother turns around; she does not want to unduly alarm her.

Their gazes meet, and Broicsech does not seem surprised at Brigid’s presence.

“I was wondering when you’d come.”

“Why would you expect me?”

“I assume that you near completion of the Gospel book. You must be considering the best way to present your masterwork to Pope Simplicius.”

“I wish that was the nature of my appeal. A papal councillor, Gallienus, sent an envoy to collect Decius and his damning evidence. From their discussion, it seems clear that the Roman Church will never stomach a positive message about Gael; Rome is determined to cast us as disobedient heathens.”

“Undoubtedly for their own motives—”

“Yes, it seems the Roman Church would like to use Gael to hedge its bets, and portraying us as heretics is necessary for both tactics. Should Rome prevail against the barbarians, the church will replace Gael’s ‘unorthodox’ religious leaders and present the country in tribute to the Roman emperor. If the Roman government topples, then the church will offer the cleansed Gael as a bribe to the barbarians in order to maintain its standing as the state religion.”

“I see.”

“Decius has appeased the envoy for now, but another will be dispatched in due course. Decius is willing to return to Rome and help us in whatever way we conceive, but I cannot foresee a successful path.”

Broicsech begins pacing the length of the tent, and Brigid cannot suppress a smile. She sees the source of her own nervous habit. Broicsech says, “We may have to leave Gael’s independence to your father and his efforts at unification.”

“I feared as much.” Brigid sinks to the ground, bone-weary from her constant efforts and her relentless worry.

Broicsech sits down beside her, dirtying her exquisite plum gown in
the mud of the riverbank. “You may still protect something of your people, Brigid.”

“Enlighten me, Mother.”

“What of our formidable women?”

“How might I protect our women when I have failed at using the might of our Lord to protect our borders from Romans or barbarians?”

“Remember Mary, the Mother of Jesus Christ. Perhaps you can fashion an image that will make all Christians revere her as did her Son. Much as you refashioned yourself to make the Gaelic people revere you.”

They would have to deal with Rome.

“You’re certain about this?” Alex asked Sister Mary as they crossed Saint Peter’s Square on their way to the Vatican.

“You’ve seen how hard I fight to keep the real Brigid from receding into the mists of history. Why would I allow the real Mary to disappear when I have the means to do otherwise?” Sister Mary looked at Alex with a quizzical expression. “Anyway, what’s wrong with a strong Virgin Mary or a bold Brigid?”

The translation had confirmed every aspect of the keepers’ tradition, and although Sister Mary’s order had concurred that their title to the relics—and thus the manuscript—was beyond reproach, the order insisted that Sister Mary consult Rome before the sale. The order believed that the manuscript raised monumental theological implications, of which church hierarchy had to be informed. Put another way, the members weren’t sure how to feel about this Brigid or this Virgin Mary, and they wanted Rome to tell them.

Sister Mary was not of like mind. “Some days I lament my vow of obedience to my order. Must we all look to Rome like lemmings? Can’t we trust ourselves to deal with the manuscript in a manner befitting a
saint and the Mother of God? After all, we treated the relics properly for over a thousand years, sometimes in
spite
of Rome and its betrayals—like selling Ireland off to the English in the late twelfth century,” she said to Alex as they walked through the main gate into the Vatican, in a rare moment of personal disclosure. “Ah, ignore my babbling. I took the vow, and now I must abide by it.”