Mary was born in Nazareth, in the heart of Galilee. Mary’s father name was Jacob and her mother’s name was Anne. Mary’s father died being Mary very young. A good day to die it was, and the soul of Mary’s father went up to Heaven to not come down. This event took place during the years of the reign of king Herod.

Mary’s father left widow and six orphans. It was a good day to die but a bad day to leave. Hard times had been already going around since Herod took charge of Power. It is truth that Mary´s house did not bear as hard as most people in the neighborhood those bad times; and were so many the people who could not stand those long years! It was not solely the drought. Also those earthquakes which knocked down the Middle East, spreading hunger from the mountains of Lebanon to the coasts of the Red Sea. And more. The criminal tax policy of Herod the tyrant was there to cut off every single head achieving to stay afloat.

Yes, under the reign of Herod the Great to continue breathing became a crime. The right to the word was banned. The sacred quality marking the difference between man and beast was sanctioned and condemned its exercise, in the better cases, to exile, capital punishment was on order. What a joke, Final Judgment Day arriving and the family of the Tyrant building marble palaces all over the place! And fortresses worthy of an emperor, and barracks and military garrisons ready to fight back the armies of Hell! The Pharaoh of Moses was bad, Herod was worst. And meanwhile, in the heat of the moment the tyrant devouring a son or a brother, the common people suffered physical and spiritual calamities of those that once gone nobody wants to remember. Who would remember those years of despair twenty centuries after? Nevertheless the schizoid passion of the Tyrant, the schizophrenia of the tyrant, yes, it would be remembered by History: Herod the Great! Yeah, the murderer just needed that, blessings from the Caesar himself to kill at will. Herod’s children, Herod's brothers, Herod's women, Herod' s friends, and whoever, everybody was under the tyrant’s eyes. In the reign of Herod it came to happen that moving a single lip was enough to fall beneath the wheels of the Tyrant’s killing paranoia. The Romans made many mistakes; among all the mistakes Octavian Caesar Augustus allowed himself, to pass the Crown of the Jews to a Palestinian even the Judge of the Universe would find hard to forgive. But let’s get back to the Life of Mary and her Family.

Precisely because Jacob’s Widow and her elder daughters, Mary and Johanna, had already achieved almost to forget the hard and long battle that for the love of his children the most wonderful man in the world had to wage against the elements of that endlessness summer gone, it is understandable that his loss, precisely now, just when the light of hope had brought back to the stables the golden white milk of the abundance, a pain infinitely more unbearable fell on the widow of Jacob.

Anne and Jacob of Nazareth fought back the storm sticking in their faces that great smile of those who live in the hands of the Lord. Like everybody else Jacob and Anne dreamed with the coming back of the good times; and to pass the time they brought to the world six children. Mary was called their first-born; then came Johanna, and the river of life reached its natural coast the day Cleophas was born. Cleophas was a baby when his father came to die.

“Now that the sun shines again, Mary, the Lord leaves me alone with six children. Who is going to teach me to live without your father, Mary?” - this way Mary’s mother spilled on her daughter her  bleeding soul. Mary gathered in her heart her mother’s tears. Like a little girl lost in the wild the Widow cried broken-hearted. In the heart of Mary, however, the presence of his father was simply asleep.

Mary could still see, feel, smell, hear her father all smiling while answering her daughters their questions about the Lord. Mary still could see her father dealing with the harvesters, the ranchers and the cattle dealers. Jacob had the smile in his eyes of a man very much respected, and he was believed an honest man from one corner to the other of the Galilee. Jacob had been a man of looking straight in the eyes, not hidden thoughts between man and man. You could read in Jacob’s eyes his soul. Then, when the skinny cow’s days came around Mary’s father held firmly his ground. As the fields did not produce enough to pay both, salaries and the tyrant’s extra taxes, and having not help from boys of his own, Jacob of Nazareth fought no rest, and dealt all by himself with the almonds, the oil, the wheat, and the famous wines of his house. Anything to maintain his daughters healthy and strong. His two elder daughters, Mary and Johanna, knew as well as his Widow against what kind of sun that wonderful man had to fight all alone! Thanks God, though young, Mary and Johanna worked together with their father, shoulder to shoulder, olives in winter, almonds in spring, figs and wheat in summer, the beasts in autumn, summer, winter and spring. Oh Lord, what wouldn’t give Jacob’s Widow to see her man up, next morning, at the break of dawn, riding his donkey toward the fields! Bread, water, kisses, love you!

Mary knew it very well, to see her man back on his feet again, at dawn, taking leave with that smile of his in the eyes, that woman, her mother, would give up her own life.

But nothing can be done to make the wheel of time take a tour back. Time isn’t got a reverse gear. Jacob’s widow had to live. She had no choice but to live.

But as the story goes on let me tell you. Of the two girls, Mary and Johanna, Johanna was the younger, a year younger than Mary. Mary was the elder. But when staring at both sisters everybody, according to their look, used to think of Mary as the incarnation of her father’s soul, because she look so much as her father. They were wrong! And what a mystery life it is! It was Johanna, not much taller that her mother, who inherited her father’s love for the smell of the trees in bloom, and the colors of the horizon at dawn. And again, it was truth that seeing both sisters, how could anybody stop thinking of Mary as the one born to love the sun’s goodbye kisses when evening falls? Not so, it was Jeanne, her sister, of a body as small as her mother’s, in whose soul Jacob poured all his love for the wind and the earth and trees.

Mary’s gift came from her mother. Jacobs’ widow bequeathed her soul, all his art for housekeeping, upon her big girl.

So, when the bad times came and the cows got all skinny and the money were the righteous to cover up necessities and the problems began to multiply six times in few years, Mary revealed herself a wonderful seamstress. At the age when it is said that a girl is in the spring of her life, the eldest daughter of Jacob of Nazareth same mended a dress and left it as a new between lunch and dinner, that wove coats of wool in matter of days, while never stopping being the right hand of her mother, and a real sister for Johanna.

Johanna - I said - had revealed innate capacity to learn from his father the meaning of the impacts of the lunar cycles in agriculture, why rabbits eat lettuces, how to grow a tomato like a real tomato, where is the reason to cut the olives tree branches after the picking so that the trees do not shade each other and weaken the flavor of the oil. And so on, thousands of things. The fact is that besides being Johanna her father’s right eye and Mary her mother’s right arm, and one for each other, the two girls, when the droughty summers came around and winter rain and storms tested the love of men for God, the two girls joined more than ever around their parents’ love. Those long years forced the two sisters to work hard. It was a duty they adopted in silence, like a pact written in blood, both working at the same beat of their hearts. Each one of them open her soul to their particular gifts and acted following the course of the mystery of life in each human being.

The eyes of Mary were made to discover the needle in the haystack, never failing inserting the thread in the needle’s eye, even without looking. The eyes of Johanna needed horizons, open skies. The two sisters, instead of envy each other gifts, thank God for His eternal wisdom. Yes, in her girl’s hearts, Jacob of Nazareth was the most wonderful man in the world.

“Why we say the wisdom of God is eternal and infinite His goodness? – this way Jacob of Nazareth used to talk with his daughters-. Because with His answers He make us wonder and with His goodness He makes us shine” - with the smile in his eyes Jacob loved to talk to those two girls who were the two eyes of his face. His daughters looked each other smiling. Lord, how very much they loved the man God gave them as father! “When we say that the Wisdom of God is eternal -Jacob of Nazareth kept saying- we declared with all our heart and our entire mind that there is not lie in His Word. When adoring Him by His infinite goodness our joy it is the joy of he who raises his face and sees the Lord from the deep of the well the bad throw the good men. Yes, being a good man and a good woman takes a lot of work!”– Jacob of Nazareth confessed to his daughters while picking the olives-. “Have you ever felt envy, my sweet Jeanne, of your sister Mary because she is better at sowing than you? At what point my sweet Jeanne has ever caused her sister to feel guilty because she isn’t got her ability for growing things? When did mother Anne caused sadness to my sweet Jeanne because she doesn’t know to sow a dress as well as her Mary? What would I do without my sweet Jeanne if she did not bring me food at noon, if she does not oblige me would I eat it?”.

Lord, how much they remembered him! Was it truth that he was gone, and forever? They still could not believe it. It was so hard to believe. With the lifeless body of his father in front of the eyes, even so, before his dead body, Mary and Johanna could not believed it. Was it true that he was dead and not just sleeping in silence? Both sisters embraced their mother now. Broken-hearted the Widow of Jacob of Nazareth continued crying her misfortune: “Now Mary, now that the fat cows are back, now that your father could seat in his vineyard to eat grapes clusters as large of Polyphemus and sweets as of Bacchus, God forgive me, just now. Why, Lord, why? Tell me what kind of offense did deserve your servant this reward for”.

Oh God, can be explained the connection between the crows and the unfortunate workers on which they drop their dark omens? Can you keep faith in God while reigning the Devil around? Who’s got the power to write the script of his own life and shine like a star at least in the eyes of his paper partners? Man dreams that he got the power, the boy dreams with the man in his mind as a star, to discover just around the corner that a simple change of guard reduce dreams to bits for the trash. At the end human’s is the life of the cane, if the wind gets harder his soul breaks and the pieces fall into the pit of oblivion. Where is the one who never fell into the temptation of letting himself dying and once and for all at least write his own end? Or will we be the strongest until proven otherwise?

For everybody comes the hour of truth. And there is a time for every man. And at that time is when the spirit survives or crack. This was the hour of truth for the mother of Mary of Nazareth. 

“What are we, Mary? - cried the mother of the Virgin -. Fighting against the elements with the forces of a creature of clay, we raise our hands in honor of the One who give us the victory. To the Most High we dedicate our glory. But the Almighty never feel tired of seeing us reduced to the status of the beasts. Child, watch now, here he comes, the champion comes to collect his crown. Death he meet on the road. Does the Almighty gets up to save that solitary soul left alone on the dark? Why is He sitting on his Throne while man’s ashes are erased from the track by the wind of nothingness? That’s all we are, Mary, dust dreaming to be a rock, rock dreaming to be a mountain, a mountain dreaming to be an eagle nest. What will be of your eaglets now, my Lord? Who will arise and protect them when the snake climb the cliff?”.

What could you respond to that woman? What madman would have dared to say to that woman what those visitors to the Job of the Bible?: “Shut up, you old fool. You are worse than all devils together. We were deceives by your alms. The Lord has discovered us your falsehood and your hypocrisy. Shut up and suffers, you rotten, old fool”.

Oops friends! They wanted to force the poor Job to recognize that poverty arises from misery, that no one is strong by hazard but that happiness or misery of the person gives accounts of this value. According to those wise men poor are all sinners, perverts, corrupted and vicious people, they deserve what they suffer; good ones are all happy, eat caviar, dress in gold, got the power, they are the best, chosen of the providence, born to be happy, and they are happy because they are good, if better they will be like the gods.

-Eve - Satan told to Adam’s woman- eats of this fruit and learn. There are good and there are bad, there are idiots and smarts, there are rich and poor, there are slaves and free, there are strong and weak, there are angels and demons. There is life and death, truth and lies, war and peace, what is all this but the salt of the earth?

Good Lord, did the fate of the prophets not depend on a cloud more or less swinging madly across the sun? Job’s tragedy was not about the fall of the walls of his faith to the sound of the trumpets of Hell. This was not the problem of Job. His strength was built on rock. Bomb proof Job’s faith remained intact. The dilemma killing Job was knowing not what was going on, why this sudden change of spirit? Why God had left him naked before an enemy armed to the teeth? And this dilemma, my friends, was the mystery burning the soul of Mary’s Mother. Fighting darkness back with the only weapon within the reach of the human being, Mary’s Mother sought the answer to the why Her God had left Death taken her man away. And she could not find it.

“Why our God does nothing, Mary? Why does He let the snake reach the top? Did He not see the snake approaching? Why the God of your father did not reach the bow and the arrow and thundered His rage against the Beast? Does the dices lead the arrow? The wind shifted, changed the target and, by mistake, killed the hero and saved the dragon! Child, tell me that my soul is blinded by sorrow and my eyes can’t see the hidden plans of the Almighty. But what are we, Mary? Why is it required the understanding of a God to a creature of clay convicted to hell for having eaten… just an apple? Do not stare at me with those eyes, my child; do not blame my heart for bleeding words of unlimited sadness. What will it spring out of the wound of the sweet deer of the Dawn when be shot by the hunter at the time of its first joys? Would not be damn the arrow breaking the bones of the white dove riding the wind on its way back to the hand of her master? Look at, kid, here she is, the white dove of salvation, there she is reaching the hand of her master, and there, look at there, there crosses the air the killer dart; see, her master got the power and may catch the arrow in flight just with a twinkle of his eyes, but observes, Mary, he does nothing, he remains quiet, as if death was her reward, and there she falls, Mercury’s daughter, down and deep in the dust, while her master give her his back. Do not tell me to shut up, Mary, don’t you see if I don’t speak I die?”.

Yes, I only know that they say that God created man and woman to love each other and to not separate never ever; also they say that the Devil vowed to make this kind of love impossible. But in this world there are people who are deaf and do not understand, and dare to laugh at the Devil’s horns and to challenge Death to break what God merged with a kiss stronger than Hell.

Jacob of Nazareth and Anne of Jerusalem, mother and father of Mary, future mother of Jesus Christ, they lived this challenge. Once they knew each other if they did not marry they would die, and when they married the idea of living one without the other did not enter in their heads. Every year they spent together they adored the God that transformed a rib, a simple rib into something as beautiful as true love.