Our Lady, Mother of Sweet Sorrow 4

She is finished.  Our Lady required a particularly colorful border, and this is the one that my imagination felt was fitting for it.  There is just one thing that bothers the typologist in me.  That is, only twenty-eight stars fit around the border, and our Lady, of course, has an additional three stars (symbolizing her virginity before, during, and after the birth of Christ) which makes a total of thirty-one.  Thirty-one!  What does that mean?
Studies have shown that Christ entered into His public ministry at the age of thirty.  He died at the young age of thirty-three.  Thirty-one doesn't fit neatly in there.
But here's the crazy part about numerology.  Thirty is three times ten.  Three is for the Trinity, ten is for ordinal perfection (perfection among numbers).  The number thirty, therefore, indicates magnificent and abundant divine perfection.  When you add the number one to thirty, it indicates that this divine perfection is overflowing out of Perfect Unity which is God.  Which is interesting, since the number thirty-one is the numeric value of the Hebrew word "El," which is one of the names of God (as seen in such names as Nathanael-Gift of God, Michael-Who is Like God, Eleonora-God is my light).  God is indeed overflowing with His abundant perfection, which is why we are all here.
Why is it so important that something as simple as stars in picture should have symbolic meaning?  Because this is what an icon is - every little aspect points to God and His goodness, whether it be the colors used or the numbers of stars in the border.  Religious art and iconography enable us a tangible way of understanding things about the unknowable God.  Icons are beautiful and interesting lessons, and symbolism is the way we learn and remember very real things about God.
But here is another point - Jews, at least traditional Jews, do not have icons.  Their reasoning has partly to do with what God said in Genesis 1:27: "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."  That is, the true icon of God is man himself.  We do not need art to point to God when we can see God most completely in our fellow man.  As Christians we certainly see the value of learning things about God through religious art.  However, when we look at another human being we must see Christ Himself.

Our Lady, Mother of Sweet Sorrow 3

 Our Lady's veil is green, which is somewhat unusual in religious art.  In most cultures green indicates new life and growth.  This is why green is used for the color of the vestments in the Byzantine Church during the Pentecost season.  Some of the Eastern rites also use green during the feasts which venerate the Holy Cross.
Since I was meditating on the sweet sorrow of death during the making of this icon, I wanted the colors to indicate hope and new life in death, the loving embrace of our Mother in the next world.  Yes, we lose our loved one, but there is new life in Christ through death, a life which blesses and elevates the first.
It is fitting that it be our Lady who wears the green since it is through her that this new Life comes to us, Jesus Christ.  It is Mary's veil which is green, because if hair is the glory of a woman and should be covered, hair represents the glory of heaven (but those of us without hair should not despair!  It is symbolism!).  This may seemed far fetched, but we always veil what is most precious to us.  The Holy of Holies was always veiled.  Heaven is veiled to us until after we die. 
We fear death, but should not.  In Christ death means nothing more than the passage to life.  "By death He conquered death, and to those in the graves He granted life." - Byzantine prayer at Easter.

Our Lady, Mother of Sweet Sorrow 2

Our lady's hands are holding Jesus up, but at the same time, they indicate humility and deference to Him.  In the Byzantine Church we cross our arms over our chests when approaching Holy Eucharist.  In the Latin Rite we cross over our hands when we are  unable to receive Jesus' Body and Blood.  In both cases the crossing of hands is an act of reverence to God.  Religious art, in the west particularly, show saints' arms in this posture, when God is before them.  For instance, in Fra Angelico's Annunciation, our Lady has her arms crossed, because the Holy Spirit is coming upon her.  
As humble as our Lady's posture is, however, as humble as our own postures must be before God, Jesus is not lofty about His greatness.  The way Jesus is holding His mother's face is exactly how my Gabriel touches mine, right before he pulls my face into his for a kiss.  Jesus is the same way with us.  He came as a baby, utterly helpless and in need of love.  He comes to us now in the humble form of Bread and Wine so that we are not afraid to come to Him and tell Him our dreams and troubles.  He is the Almighty God, but most of all, He longs to take our faces into His hands and bestow upon us a kiss of eternal love.  On earth this can only be the Eucharist!  Amazingly, in Heaven, this kiss is also the Eucharist, that is, eternal union with the Almighty God through Jesus Christ.

Our Lady, Mother of Sweet Sorrow

 As I was working last week, enjoying the task of coloring with two and three year olds, I came up with this sketch of Our Lady.  I liked Mama Mary’s face from the get go, but had some trouble with the baby Jesus.  Mary’s face looks so very loving, I knew she had to be holding Christ very close.  I finally decided to go with the final sketch on wood depicted on the bottom.
I was, however, meditating on death the entire time I was working on this sketch.  My miscarriage scare made a huge impact on me.  Although I didn't really believe I'd had a miscarriage yet, the words of the nurse, "you are almost certainly having a miscarriage," had a profound emotional impact on me.  I have never cried so hard, or felt that I have lost something so precious as that little one, whom I barely know.

After I made the first sketch, I met up with a mother who had lost her seven year old earlier this year.  The seven year old was one of the kids I watched, and as I was talking to this mother, all the pain I felt about my own loss of child was transferred to this seven year old.  I wept again.
No mother should ever have to lose a child.  But when I was told I was miscarrying, I took some consolation in knowing that my baby still had his Mother.  As I cried in the Church two weeks ago, I knew Mama Mary was holding my baby just as she holds her own Son here.  She holds our babies close and with the utmost love, whether they are alive or have passed on to the kingdom, whether they are still in the womb, or 94 years old.  We have only to give our children to her.  I would have missed holding my little one very dearly, but to know that my baby would have been loved and cared for in the best way possible, in full heavenly happiness and glory - this is good to know.  I look forward to seeing my baby in September, thanks be to God, but had my child died, I know that when I would meet him again it would be in the loving arms of our Mother.