CHIAROSCURO ^_[1]

FEELINGS OF BEWILDERMENT

1.  Below the rotunda of the Church of the Dormition in Jerusalem is a crypt chapel containing a remarkable piece of art--a life-size ivory and cherry wood sculpture of the Blessed Virgin in repose. Her head is raised on a small cushion and her hands are folded. The figures face and hands are ordinary except for one aspect which clearly reveals the intention of the artist.

2.  Wrinkled and drawn, they belong to a woman advanced in years. Pilgrims often express feelings of bewilderment followed by dislike. Many are startled to view a sculpture of Mary as an elderly woman; after all, the vast corpus (Lat. body) of Marian art portrays the Mother of God in her youth or prime of life.

3.  Obviously the impact of this unusual sculpture extends beyond theology:  the recumbent figure upbraids our light-filled and color-illustrated notions of the Blessed Mother. The artist summons us to chiaroscuro (Ital. light and dark), which is to say, to accept the spiritual contrasts of dissimilar qualities: lightness and darkness, strength and weakness, youth and old age, life and death, death and resurrection. 

TENDENCY OF ARTISTS

4.  The historical tendency of artists to portray the Blessed Mother as youthful and fashionable perhaps can be traced to the Biblical infancy texts. The authors of Matthew and Luke take exceptional care to safeguard the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ. The infancy narratives of both gospels accomplish this: Mary, though betrothed to Joseph, conceives by the Holy Spirit. We learn from Matthew the following: Jesus is the descendent of King David through the family of Joseph, who, despite grave reservations about Mary's pregnancy, accepts her as his wife.

5. To faithful fathers such as Joseph, God gives angels to guide them. All the wisdom of the world, as evidenced by the magi, leads to Christ. The rage of King Herod warns us that goodness, even in the beauty of an infant, is always opposed by the Kingdom of Darkness. The Holy Family's flight to Egypt counsels us that goodness must be protected at all times. Finally, Matthew's gospel tells that Joseph settled his family in the small village of Nazareth, a sign that God works in ordinary ways, and among ordinary people and places.

OLD AND YOUNG ALIKE

6.  In some contrast to Matthew, Luke's gospel safeguards the human and divine origins of Jesus Christ by revealing how human events are governed by God's invincible plan of salvation. The evangelist begins his inspired writing by attesting to all friends of God that his gospel is true; the Church preserves the truth that each new generation may receive it whole and entire. God's saving plan, teaches Luke, is for old and young alike. Heavenly angels, like true disciples on earth, do the work of God; everyone, including the clergy, is to submit to God's will. Mistrust and vacillation are incompatible to faith and religion--they exact a high price.

7.  Humility is always the proper disposition before God-Most-High; this virtue is born in the human heart and proven by submissiveness to legitimate authority. Before God, that is to say, in every moment of our lives, we are never more than humble servants. Who is the mortal who dares to say that God serves him? As it is, we serve the Lord.   Luke's gospel is a rich treasury of the truth. God appoints a role and destiny to all unborn children. Pregnant women are, accordingly, to be treated with impeccable respect and honor whether or not they are married.

CELEBRATED FOR A REASON

8.  We have only to glance about to see how God overturns human expectations for our own good. Mary and Joseph are given to husbands and wives as models of sanctity and devotion in married life. When naming a child, great care is to be taken, for all names--like the most holy name of God-Most-High--convey the reality of things not seen. All parents, without exception, are to vigorously fulfill the requirements of religion throughout a child's formative years. Nothing in a child's life is outside the scope and responsibility of active parenting.

9.  Offer constant praise to God from a grateful heart, in all ways and in all places. Never disparage the poor and day laborers. God is ever-attentive to them; they have his blessing and, very often they are the first to honor the truth. External appearances count for nothing in the Kingdom of God; Jesus, born in the feed trough of a stable, would spend his life among men and women renown for hard work and dedication. He will give his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity as food for the world until the end of time. Holy days of obligation must be fulfilled: they are celebrated for a reason.

SET A COURSE FOR BETHLEHEM

10.  God pours great graces and miracles from these divine vessels of his love. Children who respect and obey their parents at all times will grow "in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man".  [Lk 2:52]  How should you characterize Matthew's and Mark's gospels? As good counsel? A how-to manual? Dry religious-speak? Or do you find yourself filled with wonder and awe in the presence of the Most-High-God who has gifted you with wisdom and understanding? If it is the latter, it is just possible you possess the heart of a shepherd and the wisdom of the magi.

11.  Arise, O Shepherd! Arise, O Wise Man! Follow the star of righteous words and deeds! With all swiftness, set your course for spiritual Bethlehem, the lowly and impoverished rendezvous to which the Lord Jesus personally calls you to adore him. Open your heart to Christ! Gift him with your life of proven love! Mary and Joseph proved their love of God by obedience to his will, and revealed in their countenances the "breadth and length and height and depth"  [cf. Eph 3:18]  of the veritable beauty of humanity.

GRACED INTERVAL

12.  Certainly the bulk of  statuary, paintings and holy cards depicting Mary has reflected the different periods and preferences of artists.^[2]  The artist who created the Church of the Dormition sculpture, unlike many others, understood that beauty is more than youth.  According to Tradition, Mary is believed to have lived a long life in the care of John, first residing with the apostle in the ancient city of Ephesus (present-day Turkey) and in Jerusalem during the latter years of her life. The Church speaks of the elderly Mary in dormition (Lat. dormitio "act of sleeping"), that is to say, a death resembling falling asleep. Mary's dormition prefaced her bodily assumption to heaven. Her sinlessness, nevertheless, spared her from the finality of death.

13.  Her dormition and assumption are first fruits and proof of human resurrection from the dead according to the example of Our Lord. Hence, it is not surprising that in the long history of the Church, no serious claim was ever advanced that Mary was buried here or there. No relics of her body have circulated among the faithful. The Church of the Dormition honors the graced interval between a life well-lived, and a beatitude well-deserved. The Eastern Orthodox Church places great importance on the dormition of Mary. Our Western Latin Church celebrates the glory of her bodily assumption into heaven.^[3]  The Dormition sculpture of Mary reveals a splendid example of art in the service of divine truth.

SURPASSING PORTION OF MERCY

14.  Each wrinkle on her face and hands reveals a year gone by, a season lived, and wisdom gained through tragedy and joy. Thus the work of art testifies to the reality of death and the certainty of the resurrection of the dead for those who, like Mary, remain faithful. The Dormition shrine cautions the pilgrim to remember that Mary was not exempted from death. Her family and the young Christian community grieved for her. She was the mother of the Lord Jesus and their mother too.  It was not Mary's youth and face which secured for her the immortal love of the Christian Church--it was her extraordinary interior beauty: her faith in God's providence, her inexhaustible hope in the fulfillment of the divine promises, and her unpretentious outpouring of sacrificial love for God, the Church and humankind.

15.  Mary exalted the Lord and experienced never-ending joy in God her Saviour.  [cf. Lk 1:46-47]  So completely transparent was her righteous submission that her soul absorbed the surpassing portion of God's radiant mercy reserved for those who obey him in every generation.  [cf. Lk 1:50]  For love of Mary, the mother of God's only Son begotten in eternity before time, our heavenly Father causes great things to happen for his faithful disciples. May their souls, like Mary's own, more perfectly diffuse the splendor of his undivided, luminous glory in our conflicted  world of lightness and darkness, power and vulnerability, youth and old age, life and death, death and the promise of our resurrection.  May the name of Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church be praised in every generation in remembrance of the Father's glorious mercy! 

^[1]  Cycle C   /Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God   /Octave of Christmas   /Num 6:22-27    /Gal 4:4-7   /Lk 2:16-21.                                                  

^[2]  More superbly than any other, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe captures the plenitude of the Blessed Mother's beauty.  

^[3]  Very few of the Church's doctrinal documents deal exclusively with Mary. Because the role of Mary is related so closely to that of Christ, the great majority of official Marian texts are found in Christological documents. This should be a caution to zealous and imaginative authors of our time. Contrary to certain criticisms, the Vatican Council II Fathers did not diminish the importance of Mary in the Church. Rather they fittingly reintegrated Marian theology and devotion into the larger context of the Church's theology.