“And so we find Mary, about fifteen years of
age and inexperienced in meeting the trials of life, under contract to marry
one she loved, but with child by the power of the Holy Ghost. We find her in a
city of Galilee – rough, rugged, untampered Galilee – where a self-righteous
people were quick to condemn, ever ready to punish; where the tongue of gossip
would cut her tender feelings to the bone; where she would become a hiss and a
byword among her friends and relatives, for she had (as they would view it)
committed the sin next only in wickedness to murder.
“Those among whom she dwelt would no more
believe her strange tale that an angel had come to her – angels no longer came
to mortals, everyone knew that! – or that the Almighty himself was the Father
of that which was in her womb; they would no more believe these claims than
they would believe the testimony of the fruit of her womb when He testified in
their own city that he was the Messiah of whom Isaiah had spoken.
“Thus we find Mary facing the trials of life –
there would be others, as her Son ministered among men; as He hung on the
cross; as He lay in a borrowed tomb; yes, there would be others, and her
present troubles were but the beginning of sorrows…..”
-
Bruce
R. McConkie, The Mortal Messiah Book 1, p 322
ODE TO MARY
You
consented at all cost
To
fulfil your duty
Or
else, all would be lost.
You
carried your precious boy
So
close to your beating heart,
Hoping
it would protect Him
From
the fate that would tear you apart.
You
stood weeping at the foot of the cross
In
the valley of humiliation and death,
Your
pain and sorrow unable to suppress.
You
are a mother, like no other……
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Mary Kept All These Things by Howard Lyon)
