When Mary Hosts a Conference

Once upon a time, God sat at His desk in Heaven, reading the lives of His children on earth, and despondently, He let His head fall into his beautiful golden hands.

“Ah, my children. You seek the good of order and knowledge, but seek it to folly! How you categorize, and over-minutize every little thing, until it is bound in confusion and disorder, and you cry that only experts can truly understand, when in truth, it is experts who are the most confounded!”

The queen entered the chamber, and seeing her master in distress, beseeched Him to tell her of his misery, and grateful for the comfort and confidence, he unburdened his heart to her, and repeated his complaint. When he finished, He said,

“How it saddens me that my children grasp after facts and figures, as if it will save them. I desire them to thrive, to understand and live in my order, but they have only continued to make more numerous false orders for themselves.”

The queen was filled with compassion, but wishing to give mankind a fair chance, she besought her master, “Is it true that mankind has overly categorized every area of life? Shall we not test them, and give them a chance to demonstrate what their six thousand years on earth have taught them? There must be at least one wise man among them.”

The king was pleased with her request, for He truly yearned that someone, anyone on earth, could have benefited and thriven on the Wisdom and Graces He poured down continuously from Heaven.

“Yes!” he cried. “We will have every manner of learned man here, all those who have dedicated their lives to learning, and see if we can’t find one who has gained truth and wisdom in this pursuit.”

So the queen called together her angelic servants, and commissioning them with letters of invitation, sent them forth to every corner of the earth, to every university, laboratory, temple, school, and hovel, to seek the men and women who had dedicated themselves entirely to the pursuit of learning.

When the great day arrived, there stood a representative from every part of the world, in every branch of knowledge. Doctors, chemists, lab techs, engineers, theologians, biologists, rocket scientists, weapons specialists, zoologists, Jungians, Freudians, pop psychologists, astronomers, astrologers, naturalists, accountants, analysts, actuaries, appraisers, investigators, crime specialists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, archeologists, cartographers, management specialists, politicians, advisors, reporters, canon lawyers, secular lawyers, mathematicians, logicians, programmers, statisticians, AI experts, mechanics, anatomists, botanists, neurologists, cosmologists, cytologists, exobiologists, toxicologists, virologists, and I will not bore you another minute with the continuation of such a long and complicated list. Suffice it to say that only Heaven itself could have hosted such a conference!

In all things, the queen mother presided, arranging accommodations, setting times for lectures and discussion panels, and sending her angels to and fro across all proceedings. All of Heaven danced and sang, reveling in the great fun of the event.

Less merriment issued, however, from the scientists themselves. In their best clothes, and most sober expressions, each man and woman held within themselves the conviction that here, at long last, his or her great knowledge and intellectual progress would not only be noticed, but effectual. At last, something would come of it! They hadn’t spent their lives in idle pursuits, they had been dauntless, brave, and progressive, and here, finally, their chance had come. Burdened with this heavy responsibility, each person shunned the company of those outside their own fields, and sought companionship with those closest to their own knowledge, so that they might enlighten the other on the finer points of what elevated their own knowledge far and above the little details of the other’s practices.

It would be tedious to tell of every lecture and discussion that God the Father sat through on the first day, or even the twentieth day, as voice after voice droned on incessantly, filling his ears with incorrect facts and irrelevant insights. Not once did He correct anyone on their premises or conclusions, but continuously, He sat with patience through all the muddle. Then He responded with questions.

It was the questions that confounded the speakers. The presentation always went well, better than any lecture had ever gone on earth, where at least half the audience always looked asleep. Rather, here, the speaker could almost see the pleasure that God and his angels received from their words! With each brilliant sentence, the speaker rose higher in his or her estimation, gloating in their own great worth, and eager for feedback from on high. But the first question always deflated them.

“Thank you for your speech, and for coming here so eagerly, to accept my gracious mother’s invitation,” God began each time, always courteous, and eager to praise his mother, to remind them to whom they owed this conference. “In what way does this topic, of which you speak, illuminate your understanding of me?”

Collapsing like a balloon, the speaker would flip wildly through notes, desperate to appear well-informed and competent at any task. “Of course, yes, well, you see, you must see that…” and with a stutter so clever they deceived themselves, the speaker side-stepped the question, and elaborated further on a particularly clever insight, which they had already mentioned.

Then God would ask the second question. “How has this knowledge led you deeper into your own soul, and enriched your path to Heaven?”

“A cunning question, very clever of you to ask!” The speaker was more prepared for this question, and patronized God for thinking to ask it. “That is the question, isn’t it? What can any of us learn from this? How can we apply it? That is the issue, the very thing.” And with continuing lucidity, the question of progress and application continued for several more minutes.

At the end of it all, His heart sore, God always asked the final question. “In what way has this knowledge assisted you in ministering to your neighbor?”

“It has been invaluable. Before I began this study, I did not truly understand, but in this pursuit, I see clearly now. I know what is behind the issue, I see the steps that must be taken to further it. In fifty years, the world will look completely different than it does today, and this field shall be known and understood in its entirety. Mankind will never be the same again.”

At the end of the 3,000th individual, God hung his head from emotional exhaustion. His queen came up to him, and placed her hand on his shoulder.

“Not one of my children has benefitted or learned from my wisdom,” he sighed deeply. “By inventing their own systems and creations, they think they have supplanted me through their designs. They do not see me, and their studying blinds them, rather than opens their eyes.”

His queen thought for a moment, then she supplicated her king one last time. “Oh, my Lord,” she said, “You have sat through so many speeches and silliness in this conference, but vouchsafe me to make one last request. I do believe I can find for you someone, while she is not considered wise in the world, who may show you that not all are lost who walk in your creation.”

God loved his queen, and in spite of his exhaustion, agreed to let her bring in one last speaker. Outside the auditorium doors, awaiting to hear the final judgement of their speeches, each one feigning confidence and hoping greatly that his work would be chosen, so that, finally, something could happen from his insights and discoveries, the scientists and professors heard a commotion at the outer door, and everyone turned to look. Someone unimpressive walked in.

Her clothes were sadly out of fashion, her hair looked home cut, and her shoes were at least ten years old. As she progressed down the long hallway to the great wooden doors of the auditorium, they saw that she wore a fabric wrap around her chest, no doubt concealing an infant suckling out of sight. Most of the scientists shrugged and looked away. A few of the female scientists applauded her in sticking it to the male hierarchy by choosing to be a mother, and nodded while she passed by; while others considered that she had been too poorly educated, a failure of the system, to know how to escape such a life, and they cast pitying, non-committal looks her way.

She reached the great doors, and the angels pulled them open. This time, Mary invited every scientist and learned man in the outer hall to enter the theatre, and listen to this final speech. Uncomfortable and curious, they filed in.

The speech was not remarkable, for this poor woman had had no time to prepare, and besides, the infant in her arms kept interrupting the proceedings. She stumbled along, trying to answer the lecture question that had been put to her (and to all members of the conference), namely, “Please elaborate upon the individual field of study you have chosen to undertake in your life, and demonstrate the worthiness of this particular knowledge, highlighting its beauty, truth, and goodness.”

The scientists shook their heads when she resorted to telling stories about her seven children, and still more when God laughed uproariously at each one. They frowned at her lack of citations for her research, and muttered when she lightly passed over any questions of personal accomplishment within her field.

“I guess you never can tell if you’ve done it right, until they grow up and You put them to the test,” she laughed at one point, grabbing her baby as it scooted toward the edge of the stage. “But I’m proud of them anyway. They try so hard to be good. Jeremy told me just the other day that he prays a Rosary every night before he goes to sleep, and he wanted to know if it was wrong if he fell asleep before it was over.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “Can you imagine that? That’s everything I ever hoped for for him, and he’s only nine! Well, Lord, I think that’s everything I can think to say. Hold on, munchkin.” The baby was squirming and making sounds into the microphone, so she placed him once again upon the stage, to crawl about. “Except thank you for the opportunity to be here, and speak to you about my life. I’ve really had a lot of insights while talking to you here.”

God leaned forward to begin the question and answer period.

“My dear, thank you for your speech, and for coming here so eagerly, to accept my gracious mother’s invitation.”

“Thank you for inviting me, sire!” she interrupted tastelessly, with far too much enthusiasm, and the scientists frowned. But they were eager to see her suffer at the hands of the First Question.

“In what way,” began God, “would you say that teaching your children and learning from them has increased your knowledge of my solar system?”

“What?” cried out the exobiologist in the room, who immediately quieted, ashamed of himself, and yet livid. He muttered under his breath, “He didn’t ask me those kinds of questions. It’s not fair.”

God turned to him and answered as if he knew what he was thinking. “She has already answered my first question in her original lecture, so now I ask other questions. Would it be fair, do you think, to make her repeat herself? Go on, my child.”

“Well, I’m not really sure, but I suppose it’s that…” and she gave an answer so simple it set all the astronomers in the room laughing to themselves. But God nodded gravely.

“Yes,” he said applaudingly. “That is what is necessary to be known, and most can study it their whole lives, and never learn it.”

Then he proceeded to ask her about physics, chemistry, biology, theology, philosophy, literature, mathematics, and so much more, ignoring the particular branches of knowledge which stemmed from such fields, the particular branches to which each scientist in that room had dedicated him or her self, and focusing instead on the inter-relations and insights contained in them. Although her answers were often outdated, controversial, or just plain simplistic, yet she seemed ever to please Him, and His joy radiated like a thick cloud.

That cloud gained volume and depth, until it began to stifle the scientists. First, the exobiologist, who had complained aloud, found himself so overcome with it, that he fled from the room, and never returned. Thereafter, one by one, all the scientists filtered away, complaining that really, people shouldn’t be allowed to smoke in Heaven, or indoors… until only the angels, the queen of Heaven, God, the woman, and her infant remained.

The cloud cleared. “Where have they all gone?” the woman asked.

“They have returned to their studies, to prove themselves to someone else.”

“Who else is there, besides you?”

He nodded. “Ah, my little one, how you delight me! Yes, this is truth. There is no one else to please or to prove oneself to, besides me. You have gained true Wisdom. You have passed the test. I will return you now to your children, but you shall return here one day, with all of your children and your husband, and your family shall praise me forever.”

The woman and her child returned to earth in the company of the angels, and God the Father turned to His Mother.

“Of all the children on my earth, the last gem is a mother?”

“Oh yes,” she sat beside him, and bowed her head in joy, “the precious gems are my mothers.”