A public high school teacher from the Valley will not be returning to the classroom this school year after she told her ninth graders that she is “married to God.” Her long monologue, furtively recorded by a student and posted on YouTube, caught the notice of school administrators, who placed her on leave.

The San Benito Veterans Memorial High School teacher switched between English and Spanish throughout in her long speech that seemed influenced by Dan Brown’s the DaVinci Code. (Raul Martinez provided a translation of the Spanish parts in a comment on the story at Action 4 News’ website.)

The crux of her story? The teacher said that when Jesus was twelve, he fell in love with Mary Magdalene, who was pregnant with Jesus’ child when he was crucified. The teacher then claimed that she is the reincarnated Mary Magdalene.

How did Jesus and Mary Magdalene fall in love? Well, “Jesus was in a boat on the sea, and Mary Magdalene was at the seashore crying about having a break up with a boyfriend. Jesus approached her and asked what was wrong, and then decided to give her a boat ride. While on the boat ride, Mary Magdalene fell in love with Jesus’ eyes, and Jesus kissed her. After this, they were seen together at parks and parties,” Martinez wrote. “Jesus never expected to fall so deeply in love, so he also promised that Mary Magdalene would be the carrier of the Holy Spirit on Earth, and Jesus would also give her one of the pupils of his eyes for her to use, so that he could see what she sees. Because of this, wherever Mary Magdalene has walked over the last 2,000 years, Jesus has been with her, in her heart and her eye, and there for has been alive on Earth.”

Why should her students believe that she’s the reincarnated Mary Magdalene? Mary Magdalene is reincarnated several times, and this teacher is the latest version. While she has never met Jesus “in this life,” they talk daily and he “keeps her up at night talking to her.” Her students can verify the teacher’s story, she said, by looking into her eyes.
 
What else should we be worried about? Well, God’s army (and maybe some volcanoes) will destroy the earth on December 21, 2012. But, no need to lose any sleep over this, as Jesus, ever prescient, created a mirror planet “where money does not exist because everything is free, everyone is 25 years old forever, Christmas will be celebrated, Santa Claus will be there, there are many rivers, and 6 oceans,” Martinez wrote. Oh, and God is an extraterrestrial and the Virgin Mary lives on a flying saucer.

CISD Superintendent Antonio Limon blamed the outburst on “an adverse reaction to medication,” according to the Brownsville Herald. A press release from the school said another teacher will be filling in for the reminder of the semester, but did not add any other details about the incident, calling it a “personnel matter.”

When the San Benito News tracked down the teacher over the phone and asked her to explain why she told that story, she replied, “Because it’s true.”

The Houston Chronicle‘s Kate Shellnutt noted that public school teachers generally “may not espouse their own religious beliefs in the classroom” in order “to avoid favoring a particular religious tradition or pushing personal preferences on students.” She added that teachers can show a religious preference in “voluntary student organizations” that meet outside of school hours.

Watch the video, which had received more than 77,000 views as of Wednesday afternoon: