Domus Mariae

I am probably going to build a little Mary House. It is Domus Mariae, and I re-read what Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich revealed about Mary's last 14 or so years on earth, living in a small, stone house outside Ephesus. She lived there with her maidservant, and others came to visit from time to time, including St. John. When she was nearing death, all the apostles who were yet available, came to be with her, as well as some of her cousins and nieces.

When at her little house, she wore some colorful garb of what she had worn even early in her marriage. She wore white when near death and was covered with a brown blanket, of sorts. Her face was transluscent. In her years at the little house, she adored Jesus and made the Way of the Cross by putting simple stones at distances paced out in the few years she lived in Jerusalem following Jesus' passion and death. She knew the paces instinctively from having walked the Way of the Cross each day in Jerusalem. So she set up the stones accordingly and eventually wrote numbers and a simple title on each. She would take a cross with her and plant it by the stone as she prayed at each station, taking it up with her to the next station. Mary had 12 stations then. What ones were not in the original? Could it be that she did not include Jesus' falling three times but only commemorated one fall?

In thinking about building a small house for the last years of my own life, I have considered the loneliness of such a life. It would be quite the interior life, would it not? A life of adoration, yes, and a life of simplicity; but Mary's house was of stone and included an oratory. The other houses in the small settlement outside Ephesus were made of mud and twigs, not of stone. They were not close together but yet clumped near each other but with a sense of distance. This would not be in the subdivision I have found suitable; yet the distance can be achieved through the back, looking out onto a small retention pond and beyond to common area and a bank of trees. That a train runs through the trees will remind me of a poem written several years ago, "Ticket for the Train to Heaven."

So, what name would be best for the Mary House? I am to be the maidservant there, so I can think of a name which would have meaning for my final years, whatever they be. A dear old Irish priest suggested Janua Coeli, "gate of Heaven." I think this suits the purpose, as I am a liminal person and awaiting, at the gate in a sense, or at the threshold, between earth and heaven. Yes, recently I was reminded that I exist between two worlds. So be it.

For me, then, Janua Coeli is a fitting name for the Mary House. But what would the Blessed Mother name her own house? Another priest, an Italian in background, suggested she would name it after Jesus as a baby, hearkening back to Bethlehem and the stable, tender little Jesus and modest beginnings. He said, "Name it Bambino Gesu--which is also the name of the hospital near the Vatican." Another priest said the Virgin would not use Italian. So it goes.

I have found the name for Jesus Christ in Aramaic as well as the Aramaic for Baby Jesus. Eashoa' M'sheekha and Eashoa' Tallia.

What do you think Mary would name her house?

It would be as well to use this as an exercise, to ponder what Mary would consider and think in her latter years. It is for me to imitate Mary in my latter years, to learn her silence.