I am sure it has happened to you too. You see a new word, or an interesting idea startles you, and then you promptly see that "newbie" two more times in the next week. You are left asking: "Where have I been all this time?"

My new thought came from one of my noontime group attendees who brought me a delicious copy of a page from a medieval Book of Hours which shows Mary in the stable of Bethlehem busily reading a book. Joseph is outside gathering wood and a midwife is washing some little garments. Mary with her book is a delightful anachronism which the accompanying commentary attributes to the noble woman who owned the Book of Hours desiring an expression of her own deepest desires.

And then came Christmas, and I received a card with a similar concept from two different friends.

It was a copy of Rembrandt's Holy Family, the original currently in the Hermitage Museum in Russia. Joseph is barely visible, woodworking in a shadowy background. The Baby is sleeping in a wicker cradle, covered with a very Dutch red blanket. A buxom Mary is interrupting her reading to check on the Child. In her hands she is holding a huge book, obviously a double-column Bible from the 17th century press.

Isn't the though exquisite? She, who has just birthed the Word made flesh, is reading the Word of God, perhaps better to understand her task in raising Him.

Then, on the Op-Ed page of the NY Times on January 10, Nicholas Kristoff had a thoughtful column on "Religion and Women," underlining the fact that so much oppression of women comes from the religious sector of the world's societies. By excluding them from leadership roles in churches, synagogues and mosques, by subordinating them in the laws of societies that are religiously based across the Muslim world, by denying such basic rights as inheritances and access to schooling, questions arise about the ethical bases of our religious denominations.

Nelson Mandela has brought together a small council of retired world leaders, aptly names The Elders, to focus on the role of religion in oppressing women. Their first order of business is a call to religious leaders to "change all discriminatory practices within their own religious traditions."

It gives me pause for thought. If God had been one of our contemporary religious leaders would an obviously literate Mary have been asked to birth the Son of God? How incredibly daring were those artists who gave us Mary with her book.