The following Penguin Parable is copyright 2007 by Marti Wilson.
It was originally posted on Catholic Pillar and Foundation, and is reposted with permission.
I recently had the opportunity to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. (If you ever get such an opportunity, make sure you go.) It was a somber experience. I spent several years of my childhood in Germany so most of it was already known to me. So there I was translating things written in German and fleshing out the politics and faith issues for my kids.
We came to an exhibit that dealt with the destructive violence of Kristalnacht. There was a large case with scrolls of scripture which had been ripped out . On the wall was a large picture of the temple before the destruction and a large picture after the destruction. Between the pictures was the wooden front of an ark. The Hebrew letters painted over the opening had been defaced with a sharp instrument. We pondered for a moment or two and then moved on to the next exhibit.
The exhibits wound around and then led off to the right. It took us behind the ark. The ark is where the Word of God is held. We were looking out of the back of the opening and there in the center we could see the case with the remnants of ruined Torah scrolls. In my mind's eye I could see the front where the Hebrew writing had been hacked away. In hatred, those people had hacked away at what they did not understand and they had attempted to destroy and deny what was inside.
Later, as I was in my bed trying to go off to sleep the images went through my head. Only with a new meaning. The Ark which contained the Word of God in full revelation was Mary. Then I thought of the hacking away of the Hebrew letters and I realized that those people who are disrespectful to Mary and try to relegate her to the role of just another woman do so through hatred based on a lack of comprehension. Just as that Jewish Ark was hacked at, so is Mary hacked at by those who do not understand and would try to seperate her from Christ by calling her the "Catholic Mary" as if she was not the same woman who carried the Word of God, Jesus Christ, in her womb.
Looking through the hacked arch, one clearly sees the destruction attempted upon Christ. In trying to destroy what they do not understand, they do injury to the same Jesus they claim to love and follow.
I wonder how many of the people who participated in the destruction of that Temple would have claimed to be Christians. I wonder at how many of those looked without understanding at those Torah scrolls which were the record of faith in the one true God. I wondered if they realized the truth they were trying to destroy was the same truth that they claimed as the basis for their faith.
I thought about all of the disrespect and hate which so many who call themselves Christians have aimed at Mary, the Mother of our Lord, because they don't understand.
My prayer that night was for those souls who aim such venom at the woman God chose. "Father, forgive them. They know not what they do."
