"But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered over them."

The Passion of the Christ had the intended effect on me when I saw it. I was horrified, grateful, and sorry all at once. That is not to say I am unreservedly a fan of the movie. It did seem in some ways to overdwell on suffering - the crow picking out that guy's eyes was cinematically unnecessary. Another film that came out at that time, the Gospel of John, moved me much more, because it showed us who Jesus was and why he mattered before the flaying began (plus the actor was really good.)

One thing "The Passion" got right was Mary.

We Catholics portray her too often as a serene nun, the model of Catholic piety. On the other hand, other churches sometimes make her far too ordinary and extraneous to Jesus' life - just another sinner to be redeemed, far too pedestrian a fate in my opinion for she who literally gave birth to "God with us."

Gibson showed Mary as I've always pictured her: a young Jewish woman picked for a destiny she knew to be both wondrous and heartbreaking. He steps back in time and shows us a woman who is human enough to think her son's eccentric carpentry is a little too avant garde -- and then rips us back forward in time to that awful moment when Mary and Jesus see each other for the first time on the Via Dolorosa - the "Mother of sorrows" as tradition calls her.

But the mother of sorrows was also the mother of treasures. Luke 2:19 says, "But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered over them." What a journey it must have been for her - angels announcing her charge to her, her visit with Elizabeth affirming the incredible and wondrous life inside her... did it even seem real? But that starry night in Bethlehem, when God's own spirit took to this world in fleshly form as an innocent child, the way in which we all enter this world, how amazing it would have been to know her joy at that moment. How I wish I could have been one of the shepherds to see this.

Truly life is all about the highs and lows, peaks and valleys, isn't it, if even God's life is like that?