Mirrors (19 page)

He gave warmth to newborn Jesus in the manger, and that’s why he is in all the pictures, posing with his big ears beside the bed of straw.

On the back of an ass, Jesus escaped Herod’s sword.

On the back of an ass, he wandered all his life.

On the back of an ass, he preached.

On the back of an ass, he entered Jerusalem.

Perhaps the ass is not such an ass after all?

RESURRECTION OF JESUS

In Oaxaca, the Mazatecos say Jesus was crucified because he gave the poor a voice and made the trees speak.

And they say that after long suffering, they took him down from the cross.

And he was already buried, asleep in his death, when a cricket began to sing.

And the cricket awakened him.

And Jesus said he wished to leave death behind.

And the cricket told the mole, who then dug a long tunnel underground until he reached the casket where Jesus lay.

And the mole sought the help of the mouse, who then broke open the casket with his sharp teeth.

And Jesus got out.

And with one finger he pushed aside the immense boulder that the soldiers had put in his way.

And he thanked the cricket, the mole, and the mouse who had been so kind.

And he rose up to heaven, though he had no wings.

And above the open tomb he left the immense boulder floating in the air with an angel seated on it.

And the angel told all this to lady Mary, mother of Jesus.

And lady Mary could not keep the secret and she told her neighbors in the market.

And that is how we know.

MARYS

In the scriptures, Mary seldom appears.

The Church ignored her too until about a thousand years ago. Then the mother of Jesus was consecrated as the mother of humanity and the symbol of the purity of the faith. In the eleventh century, while the Church was inventing purgatory and obligatory confession, in France eighty churches and cathedrals sprang up in homage to Mary.

Virginity was the source of her prestige. Mary, nourished by angels, impregnated by a dove, was never touched by a man. The husband, Saint Joseph, said hello from afar. And she became even more holy after 1854, when the infallible Pope Pius IX revealed that Mary had been conceived without sin, which in translation means that the mother of the Virgin was also a virgin.

Today Mary is the most adored and miraculous divinity in the world. Eve brought ruin to all women. Mary redeems them. Thanks to her, the sinning daughters of Eve have the chance to repent.

And that is what happened to the other Mary, the one who appears in the pictures at the foot of the holy cross, beside the immaculate one.

According to tradition, that other Mary, Mary Magdalene, was a whore and became a saint.

Believers humiliate her by offering forgiveness.

RESURRECTION OF MARY

Mary was reborn in Chiapas.

It was announced by an Indian from the town of Simojovel, a cousin of hers, and by a hermit who was unrelated and lived under a tree in Chamula.

And in the town of Santa Marta Xolotepec, Dominica López was harvesting corn when she saw her. The mother of Jesus asked her to build her a chapel because she was tired of sleeping in the woods. Dominica paid heed, but in a few days the bishop turned up and arrested her along with Mary and all her followers.

Then Mary escaped from jail and went to the town of Cancuc and spoke out of the mouth of a girl who was also named Mary.

The Tzetzal Mayas never forgot what she said. She spoke in their language and in a hoarse voice she ordered:

that women should not deny their bodily desires, because these cheered her;
that women who wished to get married to other men should do so, because
marriages performed by Spanish priests were no good;
and that the prophecy that the yoke would be thrown off and lands and
freedom restored had come to pass, and there was no longer any need for
tribute or king or bishop or high mayor.

And the Council of Elders heard her and obeyed. And in the year 1712, thirty-two indigenous towns rose up in arms.

ORIGIN OF SANTA CLAUS

The first rendering of Santa Claus, published in 1863 in
Harper’s
of New York, showed a hefty little gnome entering a chimney. He issued from the hand of the artist Thomas Nast, vaguely inspired by the legend of Saint Nicholas.

Christmas of 1930 saw Santa Claus working for Coca-Cola. Before then he did not wear a suit and generally preferred to wear blue or green. The artist Haddon Sundblom dressed him in the company colors, bright red with white piping, and gave him the features familiar to us all. Every child’s friend has a white beard, laughs all the time, travels by sleigh, and is so plump that no one can figure out how he gets down the world’s chimneys loaded with presents and carrying a Coke in each hand.

Neither can anyone figure out what he has to do with Christ.

ORIGIN OF HELL

The Catholic Church invented hell and also invented the devil.

The Old Testament makes no mention of the perpetual barbecue, neither do its pages feature an appearance by the monster reeking of sulfur, who carries a trident and sports horns and a tail, claws and hooves, goat’s legs and dragon’s wings.

But the Church asked itself: what will become of reward without punishment? What will become of obedience without fear?

And it wondered: what will become of God without the devil? What will become of good without evil?

And the Church concluded that the threat of hell is more effective than the promise of heaven, and from then on ministers and holy fathers have terrorized us with sermons about torture in the fiery abyss where the evil one reigns.

In the year 2007, Pope Benedict XVI confirmed it:

“There is a hell. And it is eternal.”

PRISCILLIAN

And the time of the catacombs ended.

In the Coliseum, the Christians ate the lions.

Rome became the global capital of the faith and the Catholic religion became the official religion of the empire.

And in the year 385, when the Church condemned Bishop Priscillian and his followers, it was the Roman emperor who killed them as heretics.

Heads rolled.

The Christians led by Bishop Priscillian had been guilty:

they danced and sang and celebrated darkness and fire,
they turned the mass into a pagan festival from Galicia, the suspicious
land where Priscillian was born,
they lived in community and in poverty,
they repudiated the alliance of the Church with the powers that be,
they condemned slavery,
and they allowed women to preach, as priests.

HYPATIA