Junketsu no Maria Episode 9 Discussion

Takuan_Soho said:
Bernard's cleaning and then kissing of Maria's feet was a role reversal of Mary of Bethlehem anointing Jesus' feet, a sign that he was the true savior. So in Bernard's mind he is doing the same thing in recognizing that Maria has, he believes, shown him the way towards true salvation (she is literally his "Virgin Mary").

As for Bernard's "breakdown". That was 700 years of serious thought broken down into one 3 minute animated run on sentence.

The important piece of it was the reference to Pelagius, a 4th century British monk who wrote that humans were capable of achieving salvation without needing the grace of God. This viewpoint was declared heretical by the Catholic Church (and also the various Protestant sects), but has always kicked around in Christian philosophical debate.

I won't go into the argument because it is complex and because 1600 years make some of the arguments seem bizarre, but basically what it shows is that Bernard has always had doubts about religion, his sympathies has always been with humans, he has been doubting the way the world was, so it really wasn't that she "convinced" him, but rather her example of sacrifice for humanity was greater than his, and he had to recognize it. He is now convinced that he can build a heaven on earth. Humorously not only has he been converted to Mariaism, he is actually a zealot willing to go much further than she. It will be funny to watch her reaction to seeing her ideals being put into practice.

I am not sure how the writer is going to do this, I am hoping that he will go deeper than the superficial argument that trying to do good is always good, but we shall see.