Conceived Without Sin (15 page)

Buzz refused to complain after Mass about the blatant abuses. And not because he didn't mind them.

"I don't want to get distracted," he told
her. "I go to worship the Father and receive the Son. Period. Besides, the friars are almost–but not totally–hopeless, here. Keep telling yourself they mean well. I'm not sure if they do, but it helps keep me calm."

His advice didn't sound all that profound when he gave it to her, but his response ate at her all the way back to his uncle's duplex, and during the curiously silent breakfast. It
was as if Buzz knew she was chewing on his words, not his omelette.

He's right,
she finally concluded.

+  +  +

Ellie called while Sam was walking on the beach. There was no answering machine at the duplex, so they missed each other completely.

4

There is nothing–nothing–like a day at the beach down the New Jersey shore on Long Beach Island followed by a long, hot shower. Sand and salt fall away,
and there's a dryer quality to the dryness once one has towelled off. The clothes one dons are cleaner. The music playing on the boom box is clearer. The Pepsi more refreshing.

As Buzz poured himself a Pepsi on the front deck, he thought about the special dryness. It reminded him of sobriety.
I love the shore!

He smelled the ocean. He looked at the ocean. He listened to the ocean. Even his cigarette
tasted better, crisper–almost, but not quite, healthy.

I'm a rich man.

He stifled an urge to shout. He gave in to another urge to sing, and burst out in a deep tenor:

"Tantum ergo sacramentum, veneremur cernui…"

"Watcha singing?" Donna asked, finished with her own shower, coming down the outdoor steps from the apartment above.

Buzz stopped singing; the moment was broken. He was chagrined but not
embarrassed. It was nearly impossible for Buzz to become embarrassed.

"A love song to the Eucharist by Saint Thomas Aquinas," he told her.

She sat down on the deck chair. She held a Gin and Tonic that she had mixed upstairs. She noticed how simple the deck was; it was a large rectangle with two deck chairs, a picnic table and benches. The faded lengthwise planks were worn smooth by years of weather
and children.

He continued without singing, translating some of the lyrics into English: "Humbly let us bow before thee, for so great a sacrament. What the senses fail to fathom, let us grasp with faith's assent."

"Sounds like what we were talking about on the beach," Sam commented through the screen window of the kitchen, a few feet away from his friends.

"Exactly," Buzz said, nonplussed.

"Precisely,"
Donna concurred. "What our senses fail to fathom…"

Sam came out and joined them, Bud Light in hand.

"I needed a vacation. Thanks, Buzz," he said.

"You're welcome."

"Yeah, thanks, Buzz," Donna added. "I'm glad I came."

After a bit, Sam asked, "So what are we renting tonight?"

"How about Risky Business?" Buzz suggested.

"Too much graphic sex," Donna said.

"Yeah, sorry; I forgot. Then what? Any classics?"

"They had Sergeant York at the rental place. I saw it on the classics rack," Donna told them.

"I haven't seen it. How about you, Buzz?" Sam asked.

Buzz had evolved into the final movie-rental arbiter. This was partly because he possessed a domineering personality; partly because with three of them, it was practical; partly because he was always fair, and willing to rewatch movies he had already
seen for the sake of the other two.

Donna loved seeing movies over and over again. She got a special satisfaction in rewatching a movie while turning the others onto it for the first time.

"Sure. I've never seen it. Not even on television. Isn't it a true story?" Buzz finally said.

"Yup," Donna said, stifling a smug smile. She allowed herself a glance at Sam, then turned to look at the ocean.

Sergeant York is a very Christian movie.

The mid-movie climax involved York's conversion after being struck by lightning, while literally getting knocked off a horse.
Maybe Sam will get knocked off his horse, too.

Unexpected goose bumps rose on her arms. She took a big gulp.
What's going on here?

The goose bumps went away as quickly as they came.

Buzz left them to begin making cheese dreams.

Joe
Jackson Band wafted gently in from the living room. A not-so-oldie: "Don't You Know It's Different for Girls."

"Hey, I thought of another funky Catholic thing," Buzz called in from the kitchen. "I'll tell you at dinner. It has to do with genetics and the Immaculate Conception."

"Sounds pretty weird," Donna called toward the window, sharing a wink with Sam.

"Exactly," Buzz called back.

Later, the
cheese dreams were served on the deck.

"You could make a fortune opening a chain of stores to sell these," Sam said, working on his seventh one. "I can't stop eating them. The bacon. The tomato. The cheese in all the nooks and crannies."

"The world wouldn't appreciate cheese dreams," Buzz said, patting his stomach. "They rejected van Gogh. They rejected Sony Betamax. They rejected Edgar Allan
Poe. They rejected Boston's second album."

"Boston's second album sucked," Donna reminded the big man across the table.

"Ya got a point there," Buzz said, rubbing his chin. "Oh well."

"Nonsense, these would sell. I could start a company–" Sam said.

"In all your spare time?" Donna asked.

"You're right," Sam said finally. "I've got my hands full."

He was thinking not only of Edwards & Associates,
but of getting engaged to Ellie.
I've got to call her.

"So, do you want to hear my funky genetic thing?" Buzz asked.

"Absolutely not," Donna said, raising her head high.

"No. Let's talk about farming," Sam said with a straight face.

"Very funny," Buzz commented, false hurt in his voice.

Donna laughed first.

"Okay, okay," Buzz began after a while. "I think I've thought of something nobody else
has ever thought about regarding genetics and the Immaculate Conception."

"Isn't the Immaculate Conception when the angel appeared to Mary and Jesus was conceived, or so the story goes?" Sam asked.

"No, but that's a common mistake–an immaculate misconception," Buzz punned.

"Don't joke about Our Lady," Donna said.

"Sorry, Donna. Anyway, Sam, the Immaculate Conception refers to the Catholic dogma
that Mary was conceived free from original sin in the womb of her mother, Saint Anne."

"This is all new to me," Sam said apologetically.

"Believe me, Sam, you now know more about the faith than most Catholics I know. Even ones who go to Mass every Sunday," Donna consoled.

"Anyway," Buzz continued, "think about this: nowadays we know stuff about genetics that wasn't even scientific speculation
just a few decades ago. DNA theory. Gene mapping. Double helixes. Genetic engineering."

"I've invested in a few genetic engineering firms," Sam said. "Gentech, others. High flyers. They're talking about curing cancer and birth defects while babies are still in the womb within two decades.

"There are literally billions of lines of 'code' on one gene. It boggles the mind. It makes our computers
look like caveman stuff."

"Right. It's a whole new scientific frontier. That's why I don't think anybody's ever thought about what I'm going to talk about. At least nobody's ever written about it.

"Just for a minute, Sam, just for the sake of conversation–" Buzz repeated a familiar mantra.

"–I know, I know," Sam interrupted. "For the sake of conversation, accept some Catholic position."

"Right,"
Buzz said, warming up, oblivious to Sam's discomfort. He was, after all, Buzz. "Let's assume that the Catholic story of Jesus' conception–not Mary's Immaculate Conception, but Jesus' conception–is true. Picture a young girl, probably no older than fourteen or fifteen. Her fiancé's from a poor family with a royal bloodline that is pretty much forgotten–the House of David. She's a nobody. Mary of
Nazareth. She had consecrated herself to God as a little girl–her own presentation, as it is called.

"She's sleeping one night, peaceful, when she sees a light and an angel appears to her. This is where I love the Bible and think it's so true to life. And you have to forget that you've heard this story so many times–even you, Sam. Everybody's heard it so many times they don't see it for the unique
event it was. Just having an angel show up in your room is wild."

"I'm getting off track," Buzz interrupted himself, taking a deep breath, and a hit off his cigarette.

"The first thing the angel says, in effect, is 'Mary, you're going to have a baby, and he's going to be the Messiah.' Fair enough. She's a good Jewish girl. She knows the Messiah's coming. She even knows he's coming from her line,
from the House of David. But you have to remember that nobody knew, not even the Jews, that the Messiah would also be God. They thought he was going to be a big king, a super version of David. Super enough to kick the Romans back to hell. But a king who was a man. Not a God.

"So Mary says a very reasonable thing. And, if you think about it, a very levelheaded thing, considering she had just been
told that she would have
the Messiah,
for heaven's sake. I mean, there's a shining angel, Gabriel, floating in the air next to the oil lamp by the bed or the window or whatever. So Mary says, 'How can this be? For I have not been with a man.'

"She doesn't shout for joy, or faint, or fall to her knees and worship or do any girl stuff. 'How can this be? I haven't been with a man.' That seems very
real to me. Like it wasn't made up, so much as recounted, by Saint Luke, who asked Saint John what happened, or asked Mary himself. I'm not a Bible scholar.

"Now it really gets wild. The angel tells Mary, basically, that this son she is going to have, this Messiah, is going to be God himself. Yahweh, the God whose name is so sacred you're not allowed to say it. The God whose name means I Am Who
Am."

Buzz jumped up and ran inside to a bookshelf in the living room. He came out a moment later with a Bible in his hands. They were shaking.

Boy, he's really getting worked up. And I have heard this story, somewhere. In art appreciation class? On television? Sure,
Sam thought.
But Buzz makes it real.

Buzz found the page in Luke. Chapter One.

"Everything I'm about to read is Jewish scripture
code for saying, 'This child you are about to conceive will be God Himself.'

"Here it is; Gabriel says, 'you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called
the Son of the Most High.'"

Buzz emphasized the last phrase. His voice was rising.

"'The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob
forever;
his kingdom will never
end.'

"Again, remember that Mary asked, uh, here it is exactly: 'How will this be; since I am a virgin?'

"The angel answers, 'The Holy Spirit
will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called
the Son of God.'
And then the angel says that Elizabeth, who is barren, will have John the Baptist."

Buzz closed the Bible. He saw the excitement
in Donna's eyes. Sam was listening carefully.

"So it's pretty clear that the Bible and Catholics believe that the Father of Jesus is God Himself. Mary then gives what is called her fiat, 'I am the handmaiden of the Lord. Let it be done unto me according to thy word.'

"Then, and it's not recounted by Luke,
it
happens."

Buzz paused for effect. Sam took the bait.

"What happens?"

"Mary," Buzz replied
with utter sobriety and conviction,
"conceives
by the Holy Spirit. To put it directly, and without being graphic, for the first and last time in all of recorded history, God enters the womb of a woman. Her womb. God mixes
His
life with
her
life. Do I have to spell it out graphically? When I talk about the Blessed Mother, it's too serious to use even the biological terms."

Her egg was fertilized,
Sam thought, fascinated.
And Buzz's love for Mary is so, so…extraordinary.
It was the reverence in Buzz's voice.

Both Donna and Sam shook their heads. They didn't have to hear the biology. They understood.

There was a lump in Buzz's throat. He cleared it.

"This means that God mixed with the billions of lines of Mary's genetic code. That the Jesus who walked on the earth, and was a man of flesh
like you and me, got at least half his genetic code from
a mere woman. A woman He and His Father created.
He was conceived in a sinless woman by a sinless Spirit. Conceived without sin. Jesus' flesh was
her
flesh. There was no earthly father, either. It's clear that Saint Joseph was a foster father. Unlike every single person who has ever lived or died on this rock we call earth, Jesus had only
one human earth-parent. We all have two.

"His eyes–their color came part from Mary, and part from well, that's what is not so clear to me. God the Father doesn't have genetic code, per se. He's immutable, spirit. Maybe all the genetic code came from Mary? How can we know for sure? I like to think that the male part of the code came from nothing, like Adam did. Either way, God
designed
the male
part. So Jesus' hair was like Mary's hair just as Donna's hair comes at least halfway from her mother. Jesus was a perfect genetic mix between Mary and God. His fingers, his legs, his forearms. A mix so close it can't be torn apart. They ripped the life out of Jesus on the cross, but they couldn't rip Mary out of Him.

"In a billion ways, in a way that the greatest scientists of that time couldn't
even comprehend or imagine, and inside a space–the double helix of a DNA strand–so incredibly tiny that the scientists of our time can't even watch or photograph, God joined Himself to mankind through Mary. It's awesome; truly awe-inspiring.