a smaller gathering for those pilgrims hardy enough to make the climb up that steep mountain to the cliffs I once shared with the rock doves. They’re saying mass, murmuring prayers, lighting candles, making vows to put up plaques if I will grant them favors, safe journeys, healthy births. They’ve made the place into a church with pews and altars and stained glass windows. For all that, it’s still a cave, my cave, warm in the winter, cool in the summer. And you can still hear the sound of water dripping on stone, as eternal as anything in time.
So how do I feel about being a saint? Does it go to my head? Am I flattered? Wearied? Amused? Well, yes, and appalled, too. Terrible things have been done in my name, though nothing compared to what has been done in his. Still, there is something to be said for being a saint. Saints are what people have since the church took away their goddesses and gods. But in some ways, I have to admit, saints are more appealing than deities. Saints are homely, quirky, incarnate. They have fingernails, bones, and hair. You can touch them. You can talk to them. They might even talk back.
And if a saint also happens to be a Celt, like me, just try to stop them talking.
My name is Maeve. (It rhymes with cave.) You are welcome to call me what you like. Believe me, in my time (and timelessness) I’ve been called a lot of names. If you want to hear a saint talk, sit back, get comfortable. While my skull is being taken from its crypt for its yearly airing under the sun in Leo, while the rock doves still nest in the cliffs by my cave, I will tell you the story of how I became a saint—as much as I know.
PART ONE
THE PENTECOSTAL ALLEY BLUES
CHAPTER ONE
FAILURE
The Pentecostal Alley Blues
Well, some say I’m a sorry whore,
Lord, and some call me his bride.
I said some folks call me a whore
and some say I’m his holy bride.
All I know is I’m in this alley
and I’m heavin’ up my insides.
Well, now some will say I’m the number one
disciple of the bunch.
Yes, some folks call me the number one
disciple of the bunch.
But me I’m in the alley
just tossin’ up my lunch.
Well, you know I loved that man,
loved him all my life.
You know I loved that man,
all his life and death and life.
But don’t call me no disciple
cuz I’m a priestess, whore, and wife.
Well, I raised him in the tomb
and I rocked him all night long.
Yes, I raised him in that cold, dark tomb
and I rocked him all night long.
till I found him standing
by the tree of life at dawn.
You don’t have to be a virgin
to get knocked up by a god.
Don’t have to be no virgin
to get knocked up by a god.
That’s why I’m in the alley
where no angel feet have trod.
Well, the preacher men are preaching
they’re starting up a church.
Yes, the preacher men are preaching
they’re starting up a church.
But I’m here in this alley
with my lunch still in the lurch.
IF BLUES HAD BEEN INVENTED in the first century, you know I would have been singing them, maybe not at that precise moment, because I really was being sick in the alley. But I thought the song might be a succinct way to catch you up with my story, alert you to my present predicament, and to warn you that this story begins with a failure on my part, if you want to see it that way. And some people do see my failure to wrest the mantle of Jesus’s authority from Peter’s shoulders as the beginning of problems that still haven’t ended. But they tend to blame my defeat (for they assume I fought) on Peter, then Paul, then the Church Fathers, and then all the Popes. Don’t forget the Protestants, still splintering into uncountable (and unaccountable) sects, just as bad in some ways, even if most do allow the ordination of women these days. (Do you notice the succession of Ps? You could just file them all under P is for Patriarchy.)
But not everyone is—or was—so willing to exonerate me, starting with my dear friend and enemy Mary B, short for Mary of Bethany—the sister of Lazarus and Martha. Many people still think we are the same person, but you know we can’t be. I was born on an island in the Celtic Otherworld, the only child of eight warrior witches. As for how I came to be connected with the good-time town called Magdala, ask my mother-in-law, Miriam aka Ma aka The Blessed Virgin Mary aka The Mother of God. She’s the one who holds a running conversation with the angels. Mary of Bethany, daughter of an old priestly family, brilliant and learned as any rabbi, is the woman my beloved was supposed to marry but didn’t. By mutual consent, the pair ran away to an Essene monastery on the eve of their wedding day. But I am not going to tell you all the stories I’ve already told. My beloved once said, “There is enough trouble for each day.” This day was to be no exception.
So back to this present moment in the alley, a particular alley in a rather seamy section of Jerusalem. Some of you may recognize it as the alley I fled to after I threw figs at Jesus in the Temple porticoes. (I had my reasons.) Up a flight of stairs is the room where I hid out for a time, which we later transformed into a makeshift temple, the site of what I call The Last Party. Since Pentecost the upper room has been HQ for the companions of Jesus, as I prefer to think of us. For those of you who remember the dove I painted over the door and the murals inside of Isis and Osiris (and/or Maeve and Jesus) well, Peter and the others whitewashed all the walls (as white as any whited sepulcher) immediately. You can’t blame them; painted images of pagan gods are not exactly acceptable décor for Jews. Pretty high up on the list of The Ten Things the Lord says Not To Do. Peter didn’t mean to be unkind or repressive; he was even apologetic about it.
“We just can’t afford to draw attention to our whereabouts,” he said in that gruff embarrassed manner he’s had with me ever since we met in a moment of misunderstanding at the gate of Temple Magdalen (yes, a whorehouse, albeit a holy one dedicated to Isis). “Things are still pretty tense in Jerusalem.”
“It’s all right, Peter,” I patted him absently, not bothering to take offense as he yanked away his arm as if from a flame or a snake.
Maybe that is the beginning of my offenses, that I couldn’t summon the energy to be offended,
