This post is one day late, because I was caught in the frenzy of the last working day of the week yesterday. Chapter five is about Mother Mary. Kazantsakis depicts her in this chapter as a human mother who desires that her son Jesus would live a normal life. Confessing her predicament to the Rabbi, Mary says, "...I want my son like everyone else, Nothing more, nothing less. Like everyone else....Let him build troughs, cradles, plows, household utensils as his father used to do, and not, as just now, crosses to crucify human beings. Let him marry a nice young girl from a respectable home--with a dowry; let him be a liberal provider, have children, and then we'll go out together every Saturday tp the promenade--grandma, children so that everyone can admire us."
Again Kazantsakis breaks up the standard catechism about Mary. But here I think he might be right. Mary was a human being and a loving mother. Mary is honored formost for the feast of Immaculate Conception, when she uttered that "be it done to me according to Your word." But as Kazantsakis proposes perhaps after Jesus was born and have shown the possibility of living a normal life, wouldn't have Mary despaired, and prayed that Jesus be relieved from the mission? But as the Rabbi says, "Mary." he says, "if God listened to mothers we would all rot away on a bog of security and easy living."
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