Statue of Our Lady and baby Jesus in Cardinal Stritch Retreat House, at
Mundelein Seminary, Chicago
Do you know the style of Catholic statuary popular in the 1970s? It portrays rather abstract saints in long thin bodies with expressionless faces. They certainly don’t seem human, and I could never identify with them. I prefer more realistic statues, but the chapel in which I am praying has these elongated passionless statues and so I must pray with them.
I’ve posted the statue of Our Lady in this chapel, and I must say I’ve warmed up to it quite nicely. It depicts the loving trust the baby Jesus had placed in his mother; it calls to mind the trust God has placed in man: “this is my body; do this in remembrance of me.” Because the statue is so elongated, the distance between Mary’s arms, in which she tenderly cradles her baby, and her tiny feet is exaggerated. It’s a long way down for the baby if she drops him. She seems to suspend him over the abyss, and he rests in her loving arms without a care.
Just so, God wants us to rest in his arms without a care. A saint is someone who actually trusts God with his life, who allows God’s will to direct him completely, dispensing with the usual safety nets we string about our lives. Think of Mother Teresa leaving her convent for the streets of Calcutta just because Jesus told her to do it, or Abraham leaving Ur of the Chaldees for an unknown land “which I will show you when you get there.” God begs us to trust Him as he carries us over the abyss, and to show that we will not get hurt if we do so, He first trusted us. He makes himself helpless, and crawls into the arms of a human being, and lets her suspend Him over the abyss. What if Mary would have dropped him?
“You want to be happy?” God asks us. Let me show you how to do it: watch me surrender to my Father and my Mother. She holds me over the chasm, and I am not afraid. Do not be afraid to trust your Mother, and your Father. So we too can put ourselves into the arms of our Father in heaven and we can put ourselves into the tender arms our Mother Mary, that is, Mother Church. It’s a long way down if she drops us, but if God Himself could trust her, so can we. She will not drop us; God will not drop us, unless we panic and struggle in His arms, and throw ourselves down.
I’ve posted the statue of Our Lady in this chapel, and I must say I’ve warmed up to it quite nicely. It depicts the loving trust the baby Jesus had placed in his mother; it calls to mind the trust God has placed in man: “this is my body; do this in remembrance of me.” Because the statue is so elongated, the distance between Mary’s arms, in which she tenderly cradles her baby, and her tiny feet is exaggerated. It’s a long way down for the baby if she drops him. She seems to suspend him over the abyss, and he rests in her loving arms without a care.
Just so, God wants us to rest in his arms without a care. A saint is someone who actually trusts God with his life, who allows God’s will to direct him completely, dispensing with the usual safety nets we string about our lives. Think of Mother Teresa leaving her convent for the streets of Calcutta just because Jesus told her to do it, or Abraham leaving Ur of the Chaldees for an unknown land “which I will show you when you get there.” God begs us to trust Him as he carries us over the abyss, and to show that we will not get hurt if we do so, He first trusted us. He makes himself helpless, and crawls into the arms of a human being, and lets her suspend Him over the abyss. What if Mary would have dropped him?
“You want to be happy?” God asks us. Let me show you how to do it: watch me surrender to my Father and my Mother. She holds me over the chasm, and I am not afraid. Do not be afraid to trust your Mother, and your Father. So we too can put ourselves into the arms of our Father in heaven and we can put ourselves into the tender arms our Mother Mary, that is, Mother Church. It’s a long way down if she drops us, but if God Himself could trust her, so can we. She will not drop us; God will not drop us, unless we panic and struggle in His arms, and throw ourselves down.
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