Hail Mary, full of grapes...

Hail Mary, Full of Grapes…
By Joseph Walther


I was at a shopping mall a couple of days ago and I overheard a great conversation between a young mother and her seven-year old (my estimate) daughter. The two of them were sharing a slice of pizza. I happened to be sitting at the table next to them. Mom asked daughter what she had done in school that day. Daughter told mom that they had talked about Sodman Insane. Mom, confused, asked daughter to explain. Daughter, losing patience with mom’s ignorance in foreign affairs said, “Oh, mommy, you know… that guy in Earrack!” Mom then said, “Oh, that Sodman Insane” and let her daughter continue her point.

As I said, it was a great give and take conversation. If it was an indication of this young mother’s ability to interact with children, she’s going to be a fantastic parent. My point in bringing this up, however, is about what children hear when people speak to them as opposed to what we think they heard. Soon, the day will come when this little girl will realize that the guy’s name was Saddam Hussein and the name of the country was Iraq, not “Earrack” or “Eyerack” as many grownups call it.

I went to Catholic elementary and high schools. At the age of five and a half, the nuns taught me to say the Hail Mary. Here is what I heard. “Hail Mary, full of grapes. The Lord is with thee. Blessed is Art among swimmin, and blessed is the fruit of thy wound, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” I repeated this prayer, using these words, every day for over a year.

At the same age, in September of 1947, the nuns taught me to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Here are the words that I heard. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for witches’ stands: one Nation, indivisible, with Liberty and just ice for all. Again, I used these words every time I said the Pledge, even though my friend Roger insisted that it was, “the Republic for Richard Stands.”

In May of 1949, a month before my seventh birthday, I made my first confession and received my first Holy Communion. At the time, I was convinced that I was the only one to have ever sinned during a confession. I made up a few sins because I didn’t think I had enough of my own. The nuns, though unintentionally, had succeeded at convincing me that I was on a par with pond scum. They were really into penance and I was not going to disappoint them. Here are the words to the Act of Contrition as I heard them the first time.

“O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the boss of heaven, and the pains of hell; but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to end my life. Amen.”

I can remember going to 11 A.M. mass with my dad. I was only seven years old. At the end of the mass, the congregation sang a hymn. Some of the words to that hymn are, “Oh, Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” I know this now; but what I heard at the time was, “Oh, Mary can see without seein, pray for us who have a course to thee.”

I’m sixty-three years old now. But, you know what? We adults are just as susceptible to mishearing things as five, six, and seven-year olds. The difference is that five, six, and seven-year olds do not propagate hatred or start wars over what they mishear. Adults often do. Or at the very least, they form hurtful prejudices that manifest themselves, at some point, in some bizarre behavior.

Civility and intellectual debate as a means of constructive discourse seem to be disappearing nowadays. Mention God or any semblance of religious doctrine in the wrong place and the left wing extremists will mock you into oblivion. Legitimately question extreme religious doctrine or other conservative positions and the right wing extremists will destroy you.

I read an article titled: “Did God Create Evil?” It was thought provoking and points up the concept of perceptive logic. Let me summarize it a bit for brevity.

An avowed anti-religion university professor with a reputation for stomping people who professed a belief in God, posed this question to his students. “Did God create everything?” One of the students loudly proclaimed, “Yes, He did!” Clarifying the student’s response, the professor asked, “God created everything?” Sticking to his position, the student reiterated, “Yes, sir.”

The professor, showing great contempt for religion in general, said, “If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then God is evil.” This, he claimed, proves for the last time that Christian faith is a myth. All but one student sat there in silence.

That one student asked the professor if he could ask a question or two. The professor invited him to ask anything he desired. The student stood and asked, “Professor, does cold exist?”

“That’s not a very bright question”, said the professor. “Of course cold exists. We have all felt cold.” The student replied, “I disagree, sir, cold does not exist and our laws of physics prove it. Everybody and every object are susceptible to study when they have or transmit energy, and heat is energy. Absolute zero (-459 degrees F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at absolute zero. I repeat. Cold, sir, does not exist. It is a word humans use to describe how they feel when there is too little heat.”

“Professor”, the student continued, “Does darkness exist?” The professor said that it does. “Again, sir”, said the student, “I must disagree. Darkness does not exist. It is nothing more than the absence of light. Light is energy. We can study light, but we can’t study darkness. We can use Newton’s prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. We cannot measure darkness.”

Continuing, the student said, “One ray of light can fracture a world of darkness. The only way to tell how dark a space is, is by measuring the amount of light present. Certainly you cannot deny this, can you?”

“I suggest that evil does not exist as an entity unto itself, professor. Man’s inhumanity to man and the multitude of crime and violence in our world are only manifestations that we call evil. As darkness manifests the absence of light and cold manifests the absence of heat, perhaps evil is what results when humanity does not have God’s love in its collective heart.”

The student sat down and the professor was speechless. I don’t know the professor’s name; but the student was Albert Einstein.

I do not advocate that this is proof that there is a God. It is, however, a point of discussion that should open the matter to some civil discourse that could lead to a lot more tolerance than now exists relative to an entire range of topics.

What I remember most about my dad is the ability he had of explaining things to me without mocking my ignorance. He died when I was fifteen and I still miss him, even at my ripe old age of sixty-three. What made the young mother that I spoke of at the beginning of this piece stand out was her ability to get right down into her daughter’s reality and talk to her in a way meaningful to a seven-year old. Not everyone can do this. I hope the child will one day realize how lucky she is.

Now, let us all pray. Hail Mary, full of grapes…

Have a great week, folks.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send email to: publisher@thetruefacts.com