Mother Mary and Young Jesus

One day mother Mary was out and about doing her daily errands for food preparation when she came upon a man standing beside a food cart. She had had nothing to eat since early morning, so she decided to see what the man had in the way of food. As she looked over the delicious-looking food, she spied something that she had never seen before.

Mother Mary asked the man, "What is that over there if you please?"

The man looked to where she was pointing and spoke to mother Mary and said, "It is asparagus."

Mother Mary replied, "What in the whole wide world is asparagus?"

The cart attendant replied, "It was a vegetable grown in the Nile valley. Would you care to try some? It is very delicious."

"If you think I will like it, I guess so. Okay," mother Mary replied. After mother Mary had sampled it, she exclaimed, "That asparagus is very delicious, and it has such an unusual flavor as well! I really like it, although it is not very filling."

"You can eat all you want for one farthing," replied the food cart tender.

"I do not have that much," mother Mary replied. "What if I were to trade you this one loaf of bread for it, would you trade me then?" asked mother Mary.

"I do not think so!" replied the food cart tender rather unpleasantly.

"Alright, then I guess I will pass on it," replied mother Mary who turned to walk away.

"Wait, just one minute," replied the food cart tender after he thought it over. "I guess I will let you trade me that one loaf of bread for this delicious asparagus. It is also quite nutritional, you know. Anyway, give me the loaf of bread, and you can have all the asparagus you can carry. Is that generous enough?" asked the food cart tender.

"Oh, yes!" replied mother Mary. "More than generous. I am so excited to serve it up to my family. How do you cook it?" mother Mary wanted to know. "

All you do is put it in a pot of boiling water for 15 minutes, and it should come out nice and tender. Try not to overcook it though, since you might destroy all the nutrients in it," said the food cart tender.

Mother Mary was so excited to introduce the new food to her family that she ran off without giving the food cart tender the one loaf of bread she had offered in trade. Pretty soon the Roman soldiers were trying to track down mother Mary. It seems she had actually stolen the asparagus and the food cart tender was a bit upset by what mother Mary had done. Eventually, the Roman soldiers were able to find mother Mary, and they almost took her into custody until Joseph showed up.

"What is this all about?" asked Joseph.

One of the Roman soldiers spoke to Joseph and informed him by saying, "Your wife stole some asparagus from the food cart tender."