Drying her hands, Maggie came into the living room where her sister was sitting.

“What’re you reading, Helen?” she asked.

Christmas day had so far been uneventful for the two women. The sisters had agreed not to exchange gifts that year and there was still some time yet before Maggie’s guests would arrive for dinner.

“Listen to this,” Helen answered. Raising the book from her lap, she read: “‘What does it matter that Mary is full of grace if I am not. We must all be mothers of God.’”

Maggie did not respond at once. She had learned long ago to be cautious in her replies. Maggie was 73, Helen 76, but Maggie had never outgrown the awe she had of her older sister. She had to admit that she was still even a little afraid of her. So much more elegant and cultured than she, Helen had always seemed so confident, so sure of herself. Even now, six months after the death of her husband, Charlie, Helen seemed just as determined, just as assertive as ever. Maggie herself had never felt that assured —this despite over four decades of fending for herself. She had been widowed for nearly forty-three years now and no children had come from the few, brief years she and her husband had had together. Helen’s son, on the other hand, had made a brilliant career as a foreign correspondent. Knowing that he was abroad that year and thinking that Helen would need the support, Maggie had invited her elder sister to stay with her over the holidays. It now appeared that it had hardly been necessary. ‘Still,’ Maggie told herself, ‘I don’t see Helen enough these days and it’s always good to have her. ’ Even as she thought this, though, she was aware of a small voice of dissent. She pushed it guiltily aside.

Maggie settled into a chair across from Helen, determined not to be hasty in her judgment.

“Read it again,” she said.

Helen read once more: “‘What does it matter that Mary is full of grace if I am not. We must all be mothers of God.’”

Silence stretched between them as Maggie tried to think how to respond.

“Well, that’s certainly very interesting,” she began carefully, “but I’m not quite sure I understand.”

“It reminded me of last Sunday’s Gospel reading,” Helen said.

“Did it?

Maggie was surprised to hear that Helen had even been listening last Sunday. The two sisters had both been raised Episcopalian, but as adults only Maggie had remained active in the church. Helen had spent her life exploring a whole host of strange religions. Even so, when Maggie invited Helen to accompany her to church last Sunday she had seemed willing enough.

“Yes,” Helen continued. “You know, the reading where Mary goes to Elizabeth, her cousin, and tells her that she is going to have a child, then praises God that she is going to give birth to… well, to God, I suppose.”

“You know, I think you may be right,” Maggie said, astonished that Helen had remembered all this. She herself could not possibly have said what the reading had been three days before. “It certainly isn’t what you expect to hear, though, is it?” she said “Who wrote it?”

“Meister Eckert,” her sister answered.

“I see,” Maggie said. She wondered if this was someone she was supposed to have heard of.

“He’s a theologian,” Helen said. “A German theologian.”

“Ah, a German,” Maggie said, nodding significantly. “Not an Episcopalian then.”

“Well, let’s see,” Helen said. She turned the book over to examine the back cover. “He lived from 1260 to 1327 so he must have been Catholic. They were all Catholic then.” And, catching a look on Maggie’s face, she added: “A disturbing thought, I know.”

“I’m sure there are many wonderful Catholics,” Maggie said, determined to be generous, “but — “she remained troubled — “what does it mean? ‘We must all be mother’s of God.’ What does that mean? It seems a little — I don’t know — sacrilegious?”

As she said this Maggie glanced rapidly at Helen, hoping she hadn’t offended her. Finding her sister still peering down at the book, Maggie then peeked quickly at her watch. She still had a little time to spare. The table was set. The turkey was in the oven. Most of the other dishes were as prepared as they could be at this point. Her guests would not be arriving for at least a couple of hours yet.

Maggie had told her sister that she preferred to prepare the dinner herself. To her relief, Helen had acquiesced to this at once, settling herself into the living room without any show of protest at all. Helen was not an easy person to share a kitchen with under any circumstance but Maggie was particularly concerned that Helen would take the opportunity to make some condescending allusions to the other people Maggie had invited to share their holiday meal. Of course they were an odd collection. There was a young Chinese couple, graduate students who Maggie had invited to dinner two years ago and had been seeing ever since. Both were very polite, but spoke English with difficulty. Maggie now often babysat for the little girl that had been born to them eight months ago. There was also old Sam from across the street, a man who spent his days alone with his television after nearly thirty years on disability. Maggie had got to know him one afternoon fifteen years ago when his dog was hit by a car and she had driven the two of them to the vet, then sat with Sam for hours afterwards as he grieved the loss of his only companion. Sam did speak English, although you’d never know it, so seldom did he open his mouth. Then there was Leila and her little boy Mark. Leila had lived with Maggie briefly many years ago as an informal foster child but had never really found her way in life. Maggie was helping her cope with Mark, a child she seemed completely unable to control. Those were the ones Maggie was sure were coming — a strange little collection. She had also set a place for Jewel, though. Just in case.

Maggie hadn’t actually invited Jewel, not in so many words. She would have liked to, but wasn’t sure that would be appropriate, given the circumstances. Instead, Maggie had simply let Jewel know that she was making Christmas dinner and that Jewel was welcome to join them if the need arose. Jewel was 16 and having a very hard time. With good reason, too. The girl was miserable. Jewel lived down the street and Maggie had known her since she was a toddler. She knew her family, too. There were a lot of problems there. A lot of problems. As a girl of six Jewel would ring the doorbell, then follow Maggie around for hours, chattering nonstop. She still rang the doorbell, but now she would hardly talk at all. Instead she would drift moodily from room to room, her gaze as vacant as a ghost’s, then suddenly throw herself onto the couch and sob like her heart was breaking while Maggie sat beside her and held her. After maybe an hour of this Jewel would stand up suddenly and go to the door. There she would give Maggie a long hug and, beginning to cry again would say, “You’re the only one who understands me, Maggie. You’re the only one I can talk to.”

Closing the door behind her, Maggie would think: ‘The only one she can talk to and yet we hardly say a word and what little had been said had been said by Jewel herself. I barely spoke at all.’ It made Maggie feel so inadequate. She was sure the girl needed so much more. If only she could actually help her. As it was, all she could do was listen.

At one point Maggie had thought of asking Helen’s advice on this. Helen always had such firm ideas, firm ideas on everything. Never once had Maggie ever seen Helen helpless — never once in her entire life. It made Maggie feel rather incompetent sometimes — quite stupid, in fact — and yet she had no doubt that Helen would have something to offer. Then a couple of days ago Jewel had stopped in again. The holidays were making the usual problems at home much worse. The girl had simply sat and cried, then left. Later, when Helen came from her room, Maggie realized that she must have heard snatches of this. Helen said nothing, but Maggie was sure that her sister was judging her. Maggie felt that Helen would have little patience with someone as lost as Jewel and even less patience with Maggie’s response to this — or rather, her lack of response — the fact that she simply listened. She was certain Helen was preparing a detailed list of all the things that Maggie should be telling Jewel, things that Maggie suddenly knew she would not want to say at all. And yet, the worst thing was, Helen would obviously be right. What was Maggie offering her, after all?… Nothing.… Nothing.… It was all so disturbing and Maggie had to struggle to separate herself from these thoughts in order to return again to Helen and her German theologian.

“I think the passage is trying to tell us that we shouldn’t see religion as just a story that happened once and for all, even if it was a beautiful story,” Helen was saying. “It’s something that we must make alive. We must bring it to life in the present, otherwise it means nothing.”

Maggie nodded noncommittally. “I’m still not sure I understand that part about becoming ‘mothers of God,’ though,” she said then.

“I think that what Meister Eckhart is saying with that,” her sister responded, “is that it’s sometimes possible to treat the word ‘God’ so reverently that we put it on a pedestal completely removed from us and from life. Then, no matter how reverent we think we are, God actually becomes irrelevant.”

“God irrelevant?” Maggie echoed faintly.

“Yes,” Helen persisted. “Yes. In order to remedy that we have to recognize, first, that each one of us carry God within us. Then we must be willing to give life to that reality concretely by bringing it out into the world. It’s like giving birth — a long, slow, painful process, but ultimately a beautiful one. We ourselves give birth to God. We ourselves make God living and real in the world.”

“But God is living and real. That’s why we believe in him,” Maggie said, suddenly defensive: “Or, at least why I believe him.”

As always, Maggie felt out of her depth with Helen. She knew her older sister could argue circles around her and had learned long ago to avoid anything remotely resembling a debate. Helen gazed at her in silence. Maggie felt her heart beginning to pound from the strain of what she had just said.

“Look,” Helen said at last. “When Mary gave birth to Jesus, God became flesh and blood. As flesh and blood God became one of us so that God was able to act among in human ways. God could touch us with human fingers, speak to us in a human voice, listen to us with human ears.”

“Helen!” Maggie said, astonished. “I had no idea you believed that. You always seemed to have so many…” she paused, not sure how to put it, “so many other ideas,” she concluded lamely.

Helen gave a little shrug. “It’s true,” she said. “I’ve been seeking for a long time. Even now I’m not sure how I feel about a lot of this. It’s just that since Charlie died I’ve begun to find some of it quite consoling.”

“Yes,” Maggie said. “it is consoling, isn’t it.” She found it quite gratifying that Helen was seeing new value in the faith that she herself had never left.

“The thing is,” Helen said, “I believe it’s up to us to keep the source of that consolation alive. It must be with our fingers that people now feel the human touch of God. It must be with our ears that God listens. Maybe not exclusively with those. But that will always be one of the most direct ways that God is present to us.”

“That’s quite nice, Helen,” Maggie said softly. She was, frankly … surprised. This was an aspect of her sister she had never seen before. Maggie reflected a moment. “I just wish I knew how to do it,” she added then. “I mean, I hear things like that and I want to do them, but when it really comes down to it I have no idea how.”

“Oh, but Maggie,” Helen said. “You’re the first person I thought of. That’s why I read it to you.”

“Me?” Maggie said, astounded. “Whatever for?”

“Well just look at you, Maggie,” her sister said. “here you are cooking Christmas dinner for people with nowhere else to go. Who would they have if they didn’t have you?”

Maggie smiled faintly. “Who would I have if I didn’t have them,” she said quietly.”

“People come to you, Maggie,” her sister insisted. “You’re a touchstone. Have you ever thought why?”

“Oh, come on, Helen,” Maggie said, smiling more broadly now, certain now Helen was teasing her. “I’m no touchstone. I’m just like everyone else. I’m trying to find a place in the world, trying to ward off loneliness.”

“Yes, but you’re just so open to everyone, Maggie,” Helen said. “I’ve watched how people turn to you. What about that girl the other day.”

“You mean Jewel?” Maggie asked.

“Was that her name? I couldn’t help but overhear part of it. I was so impressed, Maggie.”

“Impressed?” Maggie whispered, astonished. “I was sure you thought I was doing everything all wrong. When you came out of your room you seemed so irritated with me.”

“Irritated? Nooo. It made me think, Maggie.…It made me think. It made me realize that you’ve never lost sight of what’s most important — connecting with people. Here I was looking through all the world’s philosophies and all the world’s religions and you had it all along.”

Maggie gave a little laugh.

“You’re making it much more than it is, Helen,” she said. “We all need each other. At least I know I do. I need other people. I need others a lot and sometimes when I look in another’s face I see someone who needs another as much as I do, so I reach out to them.”

Helen did not reply at once.

“You know, Maggie,” her sister said. “I’m beginning to suspect that knowing that we need each other may be the greatest gift God can give us in this life. So many of us pretend we don’t. I certainly did. For most of my life, the most important thing in the world for me was to be in complete control. Now all of a sudden that seems — I don’t know — kind of laughable.” Helen paused and for a moment her gaze was far away. “Maybe that’s the point of Christmas, that God became a little child so that even God needed others to survive. Maybe that’s what Meister Eckhart meant: we need to give birth to our need — our need for God and for others…to really give into that, to really trust it — you do that Maggie. You’ve always done that. You open yourself to others so freely and you’ve touched so many as a result.” Helen stopped abruptly. She looked down at her hands. Her lips moved but no words came. “You’ve touched me, too, Maggie,” she said at last, her voice no more than a whisper. “I guess I’ve never really told you how much.”

“Oh Helen,” Maggie said. She gripped her sister’s hand and held it as all at once she felt the tears filling her eyes.

Just at that moment the doorbell rang. Maggie rose. She walked down the hallway as if in a trance, hardly seeing where she was going. She opened the door.

Before her stood Jewel. The girl’s expression was drawn and tight, her face pale. She, too seemed on the edge of tears and Maggie noticed that she was quivering slightly.

“Things aren’t so good at my house right now,” the girl said, her voice thin. “I wonder if…”

“Oh my dear.” Maggie interrupted, throwing her arms around the girl. “It’s wonderful to have you here. Dinner won’t be for a couple of hours yet, but come in and meet my sister, Helen. Helen was just saying that Christmas is really about knowing that we all need each other.”… With that, she paused. “We do all need each other, you know,” Maggie said and sighed. “Here, let me take your coat.”