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.

Our Lady of Mariapocs, part 7

The icon of Our Lady is finished.  While not completely accurate, she nevertheless shows her majestic beauty to the world. 

I enjoy all the fleur-de-lis in this icon.  These are the red flowers which Christ holds in His hands, and which also decorate the border, both in red and white.  Although  history has had many uses for the lily (in France it was used as a symbol for royalty, but also as a brand for prostitution, such as in the writings of Alexander Dumas; on the island of Mauritius it was a brand for slaves), the religious symbolism of the white lily, in particular, is that of Our Lady: purity, chastity and simplicity. 

Why is the lily a symbol of Our Lady?  If you stand the lily upright, it forms the shape of a chalice.  Our Lady’s womb was the most precious chalice the world has known.  But at the same time, then, the lily speaks of Christ’s death and resurrection for the salvation of mankind.  I believe this is why the lilies Christ holds are red, so as to indicate His bloody suffering, the same Blood of which is given to us in Eucharist.

This icon of our Lady weeps because a sword is piercing her heart.  She weeps not only for her Divine Son in His great suffering, but also for her other children, who suffer, and join their sufferings to Christ.  How blessed are the tears of our Mother.  Our Lady of Mariapocs, pray for us.

Red and white Fleur-de-lis decorating the border

Christ holding Fleur-de-lis

Our Lady of Mariapocs, part 6

I was able to paint again, after a few days of working late.  All I added in this icon was the black border, but it is amazing how much a simple solid border can bring the colors together in an icon or a painting.
Black is an amazing color in religious art.  Although it sometimes invokes symbolism of death and ignorance (particularly in Western art), in iconography black is more often used to illustrate that God is unfathomable.  For example, the icons of the Transfiguration or the Nativity of Christ show Christ surrounded by a black sphere, diamond, or almond shape (there are other shapes used as well). 
As a border, of course, the color black "merely" indicates the power and greatness of the persons in the image.  Which is quite enough.  Who is more powerful and great than the awesome God, our Beloved Jesus Christ?  We believe that Christ's mother has a very real share in this power and glory, so much so that we pray to her to intercede for us to her Son.  And we are always answered, even if that answer is no, and that something better is yet to come. 

Our Lady of Mariapocs, part 5

 

The colors of this icon came out far brighter than I anticipated.  It looks very retablos-ish.  Which goes to show that religious art in many different cultures imitate each other.  There is a "primitiveness," a simplicity, in religious art that is able to speak to the heart of man.  Either that, or it merely shows my inability to keep my New Mexican upbringing apart from my art!!  Which is good too.  

An artist may try very hard to keep the self out of an image, but this is impossible to do.  The reflection of the artist's sufferings, joys, prayers is part of what makes art so beautiful.  It is also one way in which Christ is imaged in the icon.  Christ, in His humanity, experienced all things but sin.  He loved, He was joyful, He was sorrowful.  He fought with righteousness, He was a peacemaker.   

In John, chapter 4, the Samaritan woman flirts with Christ.  "I have no husband!" She tells Him.  This isn't a side of Christ we usually think about.  We want Christ to be aloof, to show only His Divine nature.  But it is His humanity that makes the wonderful Incarnation.  It is Christ' humanity that creates the bridge between Heaven and Earth.

Jesus reads the Samaritan woman like a book.  He is not afraid of this woman, but loves her, and wants her for the Kingdom, just as He wants you and me.

God is a true romantic.  He loves us and desires us for Himself, in the purest most perfect way.  I am amazed how often God draws me to himself daily.  Whether it be in the flowers I received today, in the laughter of my children, and yes, even in their screams of rage, which prove they are human beings with wills of their own, albeit, wills that need to be directed properly.  

God is everywhere, loving each of us wholly, completely.  Yet we are sinful creatures, and so find it hard to believe that anyone, much less our perfect, beautiful, and all-good God, could possibly really love us.  God's love IS hard to accept.  He died for us, after-all.  How easy is it to believe that God died for YOU?  Or if you believe it, how easy it to accept that Someone, no, the beloved God, had to DIE for you?  Few want another to suffer, especially because of one's own sin.  

Yet this is our goal in life, to accept God's love, to allow it to purify us, move us, perfect us.  May we see God and His love in all things, and allow all things to bring us closer to God.  And then, let us tell the whole village, like the Samaritan Woman, and bring them to Christ too!

Our Lady of Mariapocs, part 4

Last night I worked a little on the angels in the Mariapocs icon.  Since the copies of Our Lady of Mariapocs I found were a little ambiguous as to the color of the angels, I chose to make the angels seraphim.  The red, in regard to these angels, indicates the the color of flame and divine love.  The Seraphim stand before God to honor Him, and it was also a seraph who carried the purifying coal to Isaiah's lips.

In the last week I have undergone some fire.  Monday night I started having symptoms of miscarrying our third child.  When I went into the doctor's office, the first thing she said was: "So, I understand that you already have two young children?"    

"Yes," I replied, "A two and half year old and one year old."

"Wow. And you and your husband are happy about this new one?"

 And it struck me, that we live in such a society in which the first response isn't "Congratulations on your new little one," but "Oh, poor you!  How could such a mistake have happened?!"  With Gabriel it was a doctor asking me over and over if I wanted to "terminate" the pregnancy.  After all, my eldest daughter wasn't even one at that point, and who would want TWO babies?  With Anne it was a doctor explaining why I would want to abort her for sure if she had any disability.  

All last week I was in torment, torn between one side which was filled with hope and faith in God that my baby was not dead.  The other-side was the side that wept when the nurse called to tell me: "the doctor says that you are almost certainly having a miscarriage."  But, still I couldn't believe it.  And thanks be to God, after a series of tests, a different doctor called Saturday to tell me that my little one is still alive.  

In a discussion, my mother-in-law pointed out that child sacrifice and worship of sex have always gone together in history.  That was Jericho's sin.  Sodom and Gomorrah.  The people who died in the flood during Noah's time.  And each of these nations were wiped out.  God gave up on them, so to say, the people were so corrupt that He could not let them live.  The entire society was destroyed.   And yet, worship of sex and child sacrifice are indeed the sins of our society today.  We contracept and abort our children so we can live as we wish to, having sex without the responsibility of begetting and raising children.  

It is an oddity to see a mother with six kids in a grocery store.   How sad.  How much life and joy we are losing.

Is it time for America to be wiped out?  No, it is time for us to repent like Nineveh.  There are still many good people, people who are fighting for life, goodness and Truth.  America is still giving God children for the Kingdom of Heaven.  God is still blessing us with the lives of our children.  Let us stand in the presence of God with the Seraphim and say: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; heaven and earth are full of His glory." (Isaiah 6:3) 

Gabriel adores Our Lady

Our Lady of Mariapocs!  Give me the strength and peace of God today!

Anne explains why Our Lady is her favorite part of the icon.