All About Mary - The Advocates/Saints Speak - Berta's Table
The old linoleum floor is covered in popcorn snowdrifts. The single bulb overhead flickers like it’s on its last prayer. Cranberries roll under the table like tiny red sins.
The table is packed:
St. Rita (still wielding the needle like a stiletto)
St. Thérèse (humming, tying perfect little knots)
St. Philomena (perched on a stack of phone books, legs swinging)
St. Maria Goretti (folding paper angels with surgical precision)
St. Expeditus (standing on his chair, vibrating with urgency)
Brother Jerome (Trappist monk, under perpetual vow of silence, acting out charades with theatrical gusto)
A circle of fae in the corner, glittering like spilled Christmas lights, giggling every time someone swears
Bramble the Gnome (now on his third acorn cup of something that definitely isn’t juice)
Sitting on the table a phone flashes the latest news from the Church.
Brother Jerome mimes putting on an enormous miter, then flips the bird at an imaginary Vatican press office. The fae lose it. One falls off a floating teacup.
St. Philomena (grinning, holding up a glowing cookie the size of a dinner plate): “I’m officially a Fellay fan. Any bishop who can make the Vatican press office choke on their own footnotes deserves the full celestial bakery treatment.
St. Maria Goretti (quiet but fierce, threading a cranberry so hard it explodes): “He said what needed saying. Mary stood under the Cross when almost everyone else ran. She’s not a footnote. She’s the whole margin where God wrote in red.”
St. Expeditus (halfway out of his chair, red cape already flapping): “I’m delivering the memo personally. Give me five minutes and a lightning bolt. I’ll be in and out of the Domus Sanctae Marthae before they finish their decaf.”
Brother Jerome now acts out “Co-Redemptrix” in three dramatic gestures:
cradles an invisible infant,
stabs himself in the heart with an equally invisible sword,
crowns the air above him with furious majesty.
The fae applaud like it’s Broadway. One of them turns the spilled cranberry juice into actual wine mid-air.
Bramble the Gnome (squinting at his freshly refilled acorn cup):
“Hang on. This was grape juice two seconds ago. Who swapped it?”
The nearest fae just winks and keeps giggling.
St. Rita (grinning like a wolf):
“Welcome to Berta’s kitchen, shorty. House rules: the wine finds you if you’re telling the truth about Our Lady.”
St. Thérèse (softly, tying one last perfect bow):
“Or if you’re small enough to fit through the cracks the bureaucrats keep leaving in doctrine.”
Brother Jerome gives a solemn thumbs-up, grabs another handful of popcorn, and starts mime-directing the entire table into a living tableau of Calvary (Maria Goretti as Mary, Rita as the sword-pierced heart, Philomena holding the nails like she’s daring someone to take them).
The fae dim the lights with a collective finger-snap.
Somewhere outside, snow starts falling upward.
And on the radio that nobody remembers turning on, a late-night station crackles with a Swiss bishop’s voice still echoing:
“…an insult to God Himself…”
The cranberry strings are suddenly twice as long as they should be, and every knot looks like a tiny crown.
The Womb-Shaped Charcuterie Board
(aka the “Mater et Magistra” Board that just showed up unannounced on Berta’s kitchen counter while the saints were finishing the garlands)
The board itself is a hand-carved oval of olive wood, about the size of a large pizza, sanded silky-smooth and shaped unmistakably like a womb, complete with gently curved fallopian “wings” and a tiny recessed channel at the bottom for the birth canal. Lilith swears she didn’t make it; it just appeared when Brother Jerome finished his silent charade of the Annunciation. The fae are taking full credit.
Layout from top to bottom (cervix)
Top curve – The Fundus (where the fiat happened)
Clouds of creamy burrata (one torn open so the stracciatella spills like milk)
Drizzles of wildflower honey
Fresh figs split open
Upper left fallopian wing – The Sorrowful Mysteries
Dark, glossy cherries (pierced hearts)
Thin slices of smoked duck breast arranged like seven small swords
Little piles of cracked black pepper for the tears
Upper right fallopian wing – The Glorious Mysteries
Bright golden raspberries and champagne grapes (resurrection sweetness)
Crumbles of aged Parmesan shaped like tiny crowns
Edible gold leaf scattered like heavenly light
Center body – The Womb proper
A perfect circle of triple-cream Brie, soft and swollen, rind blooming with white mold like a veil
In the middle of the Brie: a hollowed-out space filled with pomegranate arils swimming in rose-water syrup (the fruit Mary “broke open” with her yes, and the blood-and-water from the Cross)
Lower curve – The Birth Canal
A narrow river of balsamic reduction and truffle honey leading outward
Lined on both sides with prosciutto roses (paper-thin, rolled into blooming flowers)
At the very bottom tip: one single white chocolate truffle dusted with gold luster, because something (Someone) is coming out into the world
Scattered everywhere like holy confetti
Candied rose petals
Tiny marzipan roses (Thérèse insisted)
Pomegranate seeds that somehow keep re-appearing no matter how many people eat them
Little rye toasts cut into fleur-de-lis shapes for spreading
The fae keep sneaking extra gold leaf onto everything. Brother Jerome has already blessed the board three times with silent signs of the cross. St. Rita is using a prosciutto rose as a bookmark in her breviary.
When anyone reaches for the pomegranate center, the board mysteriously refills itself.
Eat, drink, and defend the Queen.
The kitchen smells like incense, winter roses, and a very quiet revolution.
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