Published 23 Dec 2013
Eva / Ave
Katherine Jeffrey sees a theological symmetry between the first and second Eve, but also the human side of both women's suffering.
By Katherine JeffreyA blog post Women Scholars and Professionals
Mary and Eve by Sr. Grace Remington, O.C.S.O.
Eva / Aveby Katherine Jeffrey
Eva First mother has learned in the shadow of knowledge, grief: she cannot meet her soulmate’s new-created need. His flesh recoils from healing-meaning touch; the furtive pain in eyes and stealthy hush unsettle her, bring shame to nakedness. Her Adam, mirror of their kindred bliss, cannot now countenance her. And she without the eye of his beholding sees only his and not her own disfigured image. She was mistaken, is now become the emblem of his loss, and every effort to console, redeem the beauty of shared garden grace, breeds guilt alone, dread offspring of their broken trothe.
Sin only cannot the love of woman bear: she has wooed him into pain for which there is no remedy in her.
Ave Maria, heavy with child and deep in thrall of winter, waits: the night so bleak and cold, unwelcoming. Within her, Creator clamoring to be born as indifferent creatures forage in hay. “How can this be, since I am still a maid?” she asked the flaming stranger, mystified. Now, a strong hand moves to cradle her head, another smoothes damp tangles from her brow. Dear, patient Joseph, closer than air, more distant than starlight tonight, he who has known only the miracle. She cries out now as shuddering pain descends upon her, wave on wave, the ancient curse unleashed, undone, in blood-soaked birth while overhead, the barn’s cross-membered beams betoken dread she cannot comprehend.
In her travail deliverance is sealed at last: the grace she bears will carry Adam’s sin and Eva’s shame.
Katherine Jeffrey graduated with a Masters in Christian Studies from Regent College when the world was young. Since then she has been a professional book editor and freelance writer, academic wife, homeschooling mom, and occasional dabbler in the literary arts. Her slim sheaf of poems owes to the encouragement of Vincent van Gogh: “if you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” A transplanted Canadian, she lives with her husband David on Lake Whitney in central Texas.