A Servant at Mary's Tomb
This quickly captured image of a woman sweeping the entrance to Mary's Grotto in Jerusalem, near the Garden of Gethsemane and Mount of Olives, is provocative in the sense that, in Christian theology, Mary was a servant to give birth to God's Son, this woman is serving the historic Saint's memory by keeping her resting place clean and tidy.I imagine this scene not indifferent from what it must have looked like 2000 years ago to watch a woman tidy up in the evening after a dusty hot day.
Mary's tomb, as most holy places in Israel, has been turned into a menagerie of icons, paintings, candles, and gaudy decor. Yet, I left feeling remarkably refreshed by the mundanity of a common servant.
