Tuesdays with Mary: Ever-Virgin

You've heard of Tuesdays with Morrie, that self-help, feel-good nonfiction account of a sports reporter's last days with his dying professor (may he, through the mercy of God, rest in peace).  I read it and admit I wasn't too impressed.  It seemed to me that Morrie's trite, New Age views of life and death left a lot to be lacking.

Maybe for the religiously disinclined, Tuesdays offered some spiritual insights and an introduction to contemplative thought.  But for those of us raised on the Living Bread of the Eucharist and the milk of Mother Church, it tastes a tad stale.

I propose instead Tuesdays with Mary.

Our Blessed Mother and Holy Lady, ever eager to point us to Christ, to take us by the hand if necessary, tells us, "Do whatever He tells you."

I don't get some Christians' fervent insistence that she was known by her husband Saint Joseph and went on to bear other children after the birth of Christ.  In one book I have been reading, a character confides that she cannot imagine what a virgin woman would know of life and suffering.

The obvious answer is: she knew a great deal of suffering, for the sword in her heart at baby Jesus's presentation did not let her rest easy in the hope of a long and fulfilling life for her child.  But that is not my point today.

What fascinates me about Mary is that God made her, through His grace, accessible to all women, by allowing her to become and remain both mother and virgin.  These are (generally speaking) the two states of womanhood, and while both are precious and honored, they cannot logically exist together.

Except in Mary.

Mary is, like always, the Great Exception (excepted from sin, excepted from death).  She is the Woman of Revelations in scripture and in that role an archetype and representative of all women, but also our ideal.

So naturally, when people wonder why it is so important that Mary remains a virgin, the first reply my thoughts fly to is 

How could she be otherwise?