Happy Mother's Day, Mary.

To the left is Max Ernst’s The Virgin Spanking the Christ Child before Three Witnesses: Andréé Breton, Paul Eluard, and the Painter.* It offended some people including “his own father and the archbishop of Cologne, who had the exhibition in which it was shown closed down.” They, and some other Christians, however, like the image of Jesus being tortured and having his body mutilated by Roman soldiers. Jesus’s death for our sins is what’s important to them. Many of these same Christians believe God commands them to beat children. They claim, however, that Jesus was an excception since he was not human. Others believe that he was human and it is his life that was important. (Virgil is one of these pro-lifers.) If he were not human, his sacrifice meant nothing. After all, what does a god have to fear? Any fool can get himself killed, but life is hard. It’s especially hard to live it as Jesus did. He spoke the truth and tried to help people, no matter what the consequences. He showed us life’s path. God’s decision to give Jesus a mother lends credence to the human (life) theory. Jesus obviously needed a mother or God wouldn’t have given him one. He needed nurturing, guidance and discipline. Probably, considering the mores of the time, corporal punishment was a motherly obligation. Virgil opposes hitting children, but that Mary had a tough job whether Jesus was human or not. We know that Jesus was not the most thoughtful child, and that Mary lit into him for it when he was 12. See, Luke 2:41-52. It is also possible that Mary, rearing Jesus and his siblings, taking care of Joseph, and being human herself, was stressed and just lost it on this day even if she normally would not resort to corporal punishment. Whatever her methods, she was a good mother and her child became a strong brave man who cared about folks and was true to himself. She loved him and he her. Happy Mother’s Day to Mary and to all the other Mothers out there.

*Some scholars believe that Breton, Eluard, and the Painter were born years after this event and could not have witnessed it.