If you grew up in church, you probably met Mary as a porcelain figure in a nativity scene - head bowed, hands folded, bathed in blue light and docile silence. But that sanitized version leaves out the real scandal of her story.
Mary wasn’t a quiet saint. She was a teenage girl, unmarried, poor, and living under Roman occupation. She didn’t float through Bethlehem on a cloud of obedience. She carried danger in her womb and defiance in her voice.