“Never? Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it?”
Alex shook her head. In truth, she hadn’t. She’d been more worried about preserving her relationship with Sister Mary upon the book’s return, so the nun would give Alex the chance to reveal the Book of Kildare to the world as her discovery.
She slipped her old stoicism over her wound. “Thank you very much for your services, Declan. I’ll make sure you get credit for your translation and your research assistance. And, of course, you’ll be paid. Just send me a bill for your time.” She slammed the door behind her.
xxxviii
KILDARE, IRELAND
PRESENT DAY
Alex watched as the undertaker shoveled dirt into the open grave. The other nuns wept quietly for Sister Augustine, but she wondered if they had really known her. Maybe they cried for the woman Sister Augustine wanted them to think she was, a quiet religious, bookish, and an obedient passive vessel, like the Virgin or the Brigid they imagined.
Alex’s hair stuck to her cheeks as she peered out from under her umbrella and looked deep into the grave site. The undertaker’s shovel had left a deep scar in the wet earth. Inexplicably, tears joined the rain on her face. Alex wondered for whom she was crying. Sister Augustine? Herself? Brigid? All the other women who had to refashion themselves to fit society’s mold? Or the women whom society refashioned, like the Virgin Mary?
She jumped when a finger tapped her shoulder. It was Sister Mary, her face bereft of tears. “The loss of Sister Augustine seems to have upset you, Miss Patterson.”
“Death is a sad business, isn’t it?”
“Not for believers, Miss Patterson. I rejoice that Sister Augustine has entered the presence of the Lord.”
“I suppose the thought must console.”
“You don’t believe, Miss Patterson?”
“I’m not sure what I believe anymore, Sister Mary.”
Sister Mary looked Alex up and down, but did not offer any gesture of comfort. “Why don’t we go to my office, Miss Patterson. I can get you a cup of tea, and you can tell me what you’ve discovered about my relics.”
They walked in silence from the graveyard to the community center. The rain continued its merciless lashing, but Sister Mary seemed impervious. Alex supposed that years of Irish rain, as well as decades of painful convent realities, had made her resistant to many hardships. Neither spoke until Alex had a steaming teacup in her hand and they faced each other across Sister Mary’s desk.
“I have a confession to make, Sister Mary.”
“I’m not a priest, Miss Patterson.”
“It’s you to whom I must confess, not a priest.”
For once, Sister Mary didn’t know what to say. She started and then halted, finally saying, “Well then, I won’t stop you.”
“I did a thorough examination of your chalice, paten, and reliquary and some intensive research in Dublin, and I was able to confirm that all three hail from the late fifth century.”
Sister Mary’s eyes gleamed. “That is welcome news, indeed. Even better than my sixth-century attribution, I’m guessing. Though I’m confused about why you’re calling it a confession, Miss Patterson.”
“Because of the way I was able to make my conclusive determination.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your reliquary contains a false bottom. Within that space, I found an ancient illuminated manuscript. I took it to Dublin for analysis without telling you.”
Rather than explain further, Alex handed Sister Mary everything: the Book of Kildare, the life and the letters, Declan’s partial translation of the life, and her appraisal. Then she waited.
She averted her eyes as Sister Mary slowly turned the vellum folio pages of the Book of Kildare, the life, and the letters. When the nun put them aside and took up the appraisal and the translation, Alex stood up and stared out the window. Anything not to witness the religious woman beholding the evidence of her duplicity.
“Miss Patterson?”
Alex spun around to see Sister Mary’s smiling face. Confused and astonished at the nun’s contented reaction, she said nothing.
“Thank you for finding our Book of Kildare, our Brigid, and our Virgin Mary.”
Not trusting herself to remain standing, Alex sat back down in her chair. “You’re not furious?”
“Well, you might’ve asked permission before you took our fifth-century manuscript off the grounds. But you brought it back, didn’t you? And I bet you always planned to—am I right?” Sister Mary gave Alex a knowing look, with one eyebrow cocked.
“You’re right.”
“All’s well that ends well, Miss Patterson. And we’ve ended very well indeed.”
“How would you like to proceed? Would you like me to get a colleague to finish the appraisal? I can find an expert to complete the translation, if you like.”
“Why on earth would I want anyone but you? Don’t be ridiculous. I want you to finalize your appraisal, oversee the translation, and I want you to find a proper buyer.”
“So you still want to sell?”
“Can you imagine the good our order can do with the proceeds of this sale?”
The nun was exultant. Alex didn’t want to deflate her hopes, but she needed to make certain that Sister Mary really understood the ramifications of the Book of Kildare.
“You want to sell even though the life depicts a very different Brigid from the one you know? A Brigid who didn’t always follow the Roman Church’s rule?”
“The life’s Brigid may not be my Brigid, but maybe she’s the real Brigid. Perhaps she’s a better Brigid.” Sister Mary smirked. “And you know I don’t always agree with Rome.”
Alex was so relieved she started sobbing uncontrollably.
Sister Mary walked over to Alex’s chair and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “It seems you needed to make a confession after all, Miss Patterson. Even though it’s unnecessary, if you feel that you are in need of absolution, I’ll grant it to you. Particularly since I have a confession of my own.”
Alex peered out at the kneeling nun through her interlaced fingers. “You do?”
“I knew about the reliquary’s false bottom. I knew that the Book of Kildare lay inside.”
Alex stared at the nun. Instead of remorse, she began to feel the rumblings of anger. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I am the keeper of the Book of Kildare. I took a vow of silence about its existence.”
“You must have known that my research would uncover it. Why did you let me discover it?”
“It is time for the Book of Kildare to be revealed to the world. It is time for the world to see what our Brigid was capable of—what the early Irish Christians were capable of. But my vow prohibited me from telling you about it directly. So I prayed and prayed that you would find it on your own.” She crossed herself. “And He answered my prayers.”
“So you obeyed the letter—if not the spirit—of your vow?” Alex was now furious at having been used by the nun.
Sister Mary flashed Alex a hostile look. “That breach is between me and God.” Her look softened. “We each have practiced our own deceptions, Miss Patterson. Maybe we can agree to forgive each other as we work together on the Book of Kildare.”
Alex gave Sister Mary a hard once-over. How could she stay angry at the nun for her lies of omission when she herself had practiced dishonesty? And didn’t she want desperately to finish what she’d started with the Book of Kildare? “Maybe we can.”
“Good. I hope you will be well pleased with your decision, especially when you finish the translation of the life and the letters.”
“What do you mean?” Alex wasn’t thrilled with the specter of another surprise.
“I have never read the life or the letters myself, though I’d heard about them from Sister Augustine. They have been hidden away by an earlier keeper, as you saw. Maybe she wanted to conceal the heretical texts but couldn’t bear to destroy something so very close to our Bri
gid. I don’t know. In any event, they were lost in plain sight, in a manner of speaking. But I am so thankful that you discovered them, as they seem to confirm what the keepers’ oral tradition has long told us. And I know the world would never believe mere words passed down from one nun to another for over a thousand years. As we saw when we tried to pass down some of the history to Giraldus Cambrensis more than nine hundred years ago.”
Alex was astonished by Sister Mary’s mention of Giraldus, the very same twelfth-century historian whose description of what must have been the Book of Kildare Declan had read to her only days ago. The pieces began to fit together. But she hoped that Sister Mary wasn’t going to wait until the completion of the translation to tell her the story. “What does the keepers’ tradition say?”
“Our history tells us that the Book of Kildare reflects the making of a saint and an icon—the Virgin Mary. It demonstrates the dedication of two early Christian figures—Brigid and a Roman scribe—to fashion a female image worthy of worship, against the opposition of the Roman Church.”
Alex whispered, “The life and letters indeed support your oral tradition.”
Sister Mary smiled a smile Alex would’ve described as mischievous if she didn’t know better. “But our tradition never told us that Brigid’s image of the Virgin Mary was based on the text that converted her to Christianity—the Gospel of Mary the Mother.”
xxxix
GAEL
A.D. 471
Brother,
So it began, my dear brother. So began the moment that changed all subsequent moments. So began the months that altered me for all eternity, as God alone knows. So began my genuine time with Brigid.
On that first evening, we did not begin our real work, our true calling, as we have both come to think of it. No, on that first evening, Brigid finished the abbey history, a vital prelude to our work.
What is this “real work”? I can hear you ask impatiently. To what labor could He possibly call you that would compel you to abandon your fidelity to the Roman Church, even if the church would trade Gael to the hated barbarians? Knowing your proclivities, I imagine that you could almost condone my disloyalty if it had involved revelation and consummation of my feelings for Brigid. I am sorry to disappoint you on both fronts.
Brother, I am loath to describe our work with my words rather than His, for I fear I cannot do it justice. Or for fear that committing our mission to parchment will somehow endanger it. Yet, for you, I shall try.
How the final chapters of her history moved me. I will tell you of a young Gaelic woman, noble and warrior-born, educated by tutors and exposed to Druidism and Christianity. I will tell you of a young woman entranced by this Jesus but mystified by the absence of women in His world, when women were so prevalent and powerful in hers. I will tell you of a young woman given a rare, perhaps singular manuscript by her mother, the Gospel of Mary the Mother. I will tell you how the Mary of this Gospel—bold, brave, learned, and convinced of her special role—led this young woman to Him and secured her place alongside Him. I will tell you of a young woman asked to become a savior of her people—to preserve the Gaels if she could, or protect womankind if she could not. And I will tell you of a young woman who said yes.
That young woman became my Brigid, and her charge became my own.
Brigid came to understand, brother, that she could not shield her people and their ways from Rome and the barbarians. I fought her conviction at first, but in my heart, I knew she was right. It pained me, as it pained her, that she could not deliver the gift of shelter to the Gaels. Yet her people had entrusted her with another care: womankind. I became determined to assist her—in preserving some glimmer of her fading Gaelic culture, rough, proud, and imperfect as it is, and in thwarting Gallienus’s total victory over this land, whether he seeks it through Roman rule or barbarian domination. And if I could help her achieve this by helping her preserve and exalt women, so be it.
Yet we danced round and round the means to meet this exigent charge. Until our Lord showed us the way.
“I know I will not be remembered as I am, Decius. Strong, generous, bold, some would even say capable of rule and compassion in equal measures,” Brigid told me with a falsely modest smile and a wink. Then a dark shadow crossed her face, as if the hut’s light had changed. “This does not sadden me. What saddens me is that, as with all women, I will not be remembered at all in the rising tide of the Roman Church—much as Irenaeus’s Gospels pass over my Mary in silence, relegating her to a scant few phrases and ignoring her intellect and power as witnessed by the full Gospels.”
“Not so, Brigid. You will be recollected,” I hastened to reassure her, though I knew not how.
She laughed. “Decius, if the church deems Jesus Christ’s own mother worthy of only a few lines of canonical text, we can be certain I will garner less recognition and even less commemoration.”
Brigid rose from her chair and began walking around her hut with restless agitation. She had been born—and groomed—to act, and act she could not. I said nothing. Brother, what could I offer other than empty consolation?
“What of Mary …” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes grew distracted. She continued her amble around the hut, though with diminished agitation and with increasing intensity of gaze.
“What do you mean?”
“I know better than to strive for dissemination of her Gospel; Irenaeus made certain of its suppression. But what of preserving Mary’s essence? What of securing some reverence of women through her?”
“By what manner?”
“To start, we must abandon all hope that we will propagate Mary’s real self or her actual Gospel. We must suppress all desire to share her natural intelligence, her supreme conviction in her own anointedness, her education among the holy of holies in the Jerusalem Temple, where no woman had been schooled before, and her intimate relationship with Jesus Christ as His Mother, the one human being permitted to correct and instruct Him—the one human being whose counsel He sought.”
“How will we share this modified Mary with other believers?”
She turned to me with a smile. “We must create an image, Decius.”
I watched as Brigid paced around the room once again, muttering to herself and gesticulating in the air. “What form will this image take?” I asked.
Her eyes met mine, and I saw within them such fervent light. Brother, it took my breath away. “We shall emblazon upon all Roman Christians a Mary they will comprehend and embrace. Since purity is so prized by the Roman Church, we will emphasize her virginity and cleanse our new Mary well, washing her of all boldness and forming her into a beloved passive vessel. Decius, we must create an image that all people, illiterate and erudite alike, will worship.”
“What will we create?”
“Let us call her the Virgin Mary.”
Yet Brother, this epiphany was only the beginning. Pray for me, brother.
Brother,
The precise form of our Virgin Mary eluded us for ten days. Ten days in which we settled on one image only to supplant it with another. Ten days in which Brigid grew increasingly disheartened about our ever capturing some quintessence of her Mary, however infinitesimal compared to her total glory, in a likeness that would appeal to Rome and its people.
On the morn of that fateful tenth day, Brigid paced across her hut in the fitful tread that had become routine since we’d embarked on this work. She clasped in her hand the delicate yet worn copy of the Gospel of Mary the Mother passed down to her from her own mother, and she read aloud passages from it in the hopes of inspiring in us His vision of Mary.
Yet we were sheep caught between two rams, to use a phrase of Brigid’s; we wanted desperately to share the Mary who had drawn Brigid to Christ, but we knew that the church’s condemnation of the very Gospel depicting the empowered Mary and her Son with loving intimacy constrained that effort.
Brigid’s face drooped from exhaustion. I knew she toiled through the night to accomplish the abbey work
she could not tend to while daylight reigned and our work could proceed. Stopping her constant pacing, she lowered herself to her knees in front of her small altar. I heard her begin to chant in prayer. I could not abide watching her offer supplications alone, so I put aside my scribe’s instruments and knelt next to her. She reached out for my hand, and our voices joined and rose to our Lord.
As our prayers lifted into the air, I felt the unusual compulsion to open my eyes, an act I typically shun during worship. My eyes fluttered open, and my gaze settled on the wall shelf near Brigid’s altar. My vision fixed on the statue of Horus and Isis resting toward the back, the one I had noted on my first visit to Brigid’s hut but had paid little attention to since.
Brother, as I stared at that pagan figurine, the Spirit inexplicably passed through me, and I knew precisely how to proceed. I immediately rose from the altar and sat at my scribe’s chair. I threw aside the rejected scraps of parchment littered about the desk and grabbed my brush. It moved furiously across the rough page without any strain or thought on my part.
Before my eyes, a serene and confident Mary, seated on a richly decorated, high-backed throne, appeared on the blank parchment. Draped across her lap, a youthful yet knowing infant Christ materialized, facing left. He reached out toward His mother with his left hand and, with his right, clasped her own.
My hand continued on as if of its own accord, framing the mother and child’s throne with the wings of four ethereal angels. My brush enclosed the figures with a very Gaelic border of swirling forms and shapes. I believe that my brush might have persisted in its creations, but its inspired handiwork halted when Brigid appeared at my side.
I dared not look at her. Though I sensed that this image was different, special perhaps, I feared further disappointing her. Instead, I stepped back and stared at the painting, a rendering which I intended to fill with brilliant color. Brother, I saw it anew, as though I had not been its creator. I felt almost as though I had tapped into the divine “image” described by the banned Gospel of Thomas, as the way to discover the divine within us and the kingdom of God here on earth.
Brigid of Kildare Page 20
