The Testament of Mary by Colm Toíbín – review - Books

The Testament of Mary by Colm Toíbín – review

Colm Tóibín’s prose is lyrical but the message is diamond hard and uncompromising in The Testament of Mary.

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13th December, 2012

In the few exchanges between Jesus and his mother in the Gospels, he shows little feeling towards her other than the irritation of a man who has important work to do. She figures as the Virgin only in the first of the Gospels, and is present at the crucifixion only in the fourth. But in works of art, she has been represented frequently and movingly, both as the innocent recipient of the angel’s inseminating light-shaft and as the grieving mother with her executed son. Throughout its history, the Catholic Church has enlarged on these narrative fragments. By papal bull, it was decreed in ...

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