Flowers for the Immaculate Conception (Mimosa mime, edition)

The Mimosa trees have been blossoming for quite a while now. The name Mimosa refers in Greek to “mime”. IMNSHO mimes are really annoying, you know, the ones who do the “monkey see monkey do” thing. You’ll remember the Calvin and Hobbes send up:

In Piazza Navona over in Rome there are always an abundance of mimes, including the “monkey see monkey do” type. Limping as I do after any distance walking about, a mime imitated my limp for the laughing crowd. I guess it’s good for humility. I was surprised one day going into Vatican City at the Porta Sant’Anna gate to be see such limping of mine being imitated again, this time by Vatican Police. I was on the sidewalk to the left in the picture, walking past the Swiss Guard Barracks, and the officer was on the sidewalk just outside the check point on the right, looking at me while walking like a limping ape. I mean, you would think they would get it right, and walk like a limping donkey!

What we fallen human beings really find annoying, however, is that God Himself mimics us, even to the point of taking on the punishment of our sin, standing in our place, the innocent for the guilty, looking like a criminal, a sinner, just like us, so as to have the right in His own justice to have mercy on us. To forgive everything the mimicry has to be perfect.

We don’t want to see it, of course. It’s too humiliating for us, of course. So we don’t look at the Son of the Living God. But it’s difficult to avoid the eyes of His Immaculate Mother, who wants us to understand what her Son told us about the mimicry He desired of us: “As the Master, so the Disciple.” We take on the rejection He experienced when we live His love and truth and goodness and truth and kindness and truth. A Mimosa flower for you, Mary.