#The testament of mary colm toibcn free

As a devotee of art and literature, IвЂ™ve enjoyed the many versions of Mary I have met on the walls of churches and museums and in the pages of books. I greeted the publication of the novella with enthusiasm and attended the play as soon as I could get a ticket.

The play received several Tony nominations this week, including one for Best Play, but the producers announced it would nonethless close on Sunday May 5. No woman has been represented more often in painting and sculpture, inspired more music or had more poems penned in an effort to express her unspoken heart.ДЄ new, and highly unorthodox, depiction of Mary has been in the public eye of late, the Irish writer Colm ToГbГnвЂ™s play вЂњThe Testament of Mary.вЂќ The one-woman play, first produced in Dublin, was recast as a novella, and has returned to the stage, newly revised for Broadway.

#The testament of mary colm toibcn free

Given this paucity of knowledge, painters and poets are free to depict Mary as they choose, so long as their images conform to the few established biblical вЂњfacts.вЂќ As a result, artists have had a field day with Mary. It is the nature of human beings to try to imagine what they cannot know. Perhaps it is this relative lack of information about Mary in Christian tradition that has inspired so many artists over the centuries to fill in the gaps. The Koran contains more mentions of Mary than the Bible-34 references, listing her genealogy and even depicting her childhood. It seems that the woman given the title Mother of God might have warranted more space in the Scriptures. These brief glimpses into the hidden life of Mary suggest that she was an attentive mother, a bit pushy when she needed to be and faithful to her son in his darkest hour.ДЄdmittedly, this isnвЂ™t much to go on. She appears at a few key moments in ChristвЂ™s ministry-searching frantically for him and finding him teaching in the temple urging him to assist the hapless hosts at Cana and, finally, standing vigil beneath the cross. Through the agency of the Holy Spirit, she conceives the Messiah, gives birth to Jesus and raises him to adulthood. According to the Bible, MaryвЂ™s role in salvation history is small but mighty. This woman whom we know from centuries of paintings and scripture as the docile, loving, silent, long-suffering, obedient, worshipful mother of Christ becomes a tragic heroine with the relentless eloquence of Electra or Medea or Antigone.May is the month in which the church honors Mary by happy coincidence, it is also the month when secular culture honors mothers. Mary judges herself ruthlessly (she did not stay at the foot of the Cross until her son died'she fled, to save herself), and her judgment of others is equally harsh. She does not agree that her son is the Son of God nor that his death was 'worth it' nor that the 'group of misfits he gathered around him, men who could not look a woman in the eye,' were holy disciples. They are her keepers, providing her with food and shelter and visiting her regularly. She has no interest in collaborating with the authors of the Gospel.

In the ancient town of Ephesus, Mary lives alone, years after her son's crucifixion. Colm ToibIn's portrait of Mary presents her as a solitary older woman still seeking to understand the events that become the narrative of the New Testament and the foundation of Christianity.