Hope in the Resurrection - Mama Mary's fearless love & hope exposed in Michaelangelo's La Pieta

We're approaching the 5th week of Lent, where the Liturgy invites us to reflect on the Resurrection. I was so so blessed, during my short live-in at Carmel, to spend a day meditating on Michaelangelo's La Pieta. Our bodies teach and express a lot about us, and our relationship with God. An in fact, there is a wonderful theology in our bodies. In a very visual way through La Pieta sculpture, Mary taught me, by the theology of her body, something about loving fearlessly, and hoping in the Resurrection. Let's begin by remembering that this work of art depicts the body of Jesus on the lap of his mother Mary after the Crucifixion. So she has already been through all the things a mother should never have to go through.

Mary offers Jesus to us

Despite Jesus' Passion and Death, the look on Mary's face is not the look of someone experiencing desolation, heartbreak or fear. It is a look of trust and fearlessness. Just how much she loves God and trusts Him inspires me to approach God's Will for me with her essence of acceptance. She is not angry with God or possessive of His Greatest Gift to us - His and her Son, Jesus. She doesn't clutch Jesus to her breast, as I would imagine a Mother who has just lost her child (no matter what age) would. Instead, she offers Him to us in confidence and strength. A strength founded on her relationship with not only Our Father, but Jesus Himself, in the Holy Spirit. The Blessed Trinity is her Rock, Stronghold, Foundation... and this brings her to offer Jesus to us fearlessly. In her love, rooted in the Trinity, Jesus could quite easily slide off her lap. How gracious her offering to us little ones! And yet, she leans back, as if to say "My God above, here is Your Beloved Son - He is totally Yours." How much this inspires me to give Jesus to the world in such a co-directional way Mary does. What a great joy it would be for us to do as Mary does, with her strength, and her love. I believe every soul in the world ought to be given the chance to receive Jesus from her loving, motherly arms, because she offers Him to us perfectly! She points me to the right hand of Jesus, that even in death, looks to be clinging to the fabric of her clothing, as if to say that death has not separated them entirely  - such was their union. 

Mary cares for Jesus' lifeless body for a reason

Mama Mary's faith in the Resurrection shines radiantly to us. Her raised right knee exposes Jesus' body to us as something so precious still... worthy of treasuring still. She cares for His body in how she holds him; and how she holds Him is with such great belief that His body must be carefully dealt with because it is needed - essential - to the Resurrection. Only she had this fearless trust in God's plan for us all: His plan of the Resurrection of His Son.

Mary is always protected

She was given the freedom to be mother to Jesus because she had the best protector: St. Joseph. But during this scene, St. Joseph was no longer on earth to protect her or Jesus. At my disheartened feelings that Mary was completely singled, a widowed outcast, I realised with great hope that Our Father had provided and entrusted her to an earthly protector... for she was entrusted to the care of St. John. True believers in the Resurrection are chosen especially to trust in God ever more openly and generously, because they have the assurance of divine protection. God, in His magnificent Providence, never fails to provide holy protection for us. 

Mary is counter-cultural

After all that had happened throughout Jesus’ Passion, and death, Mary didn't fear the jeering, mocking or the ridicule from onlookers to come. It seems she had not a care for the world's opinion of this event that all of Heaven and Sheol would be all in a kerfuffle about. And yet, she looks as though she cares so much for the world, that she is willing to remain faithful in this disclosed secret of the Resurrection.

Mary ponders love that costs

Mary's pondering heart bleeds invisibly from the sword that has pierced it, but she, who is fearless, shows no outward sign of the honour that she has for this sword. Nothing in the Pieta is about her, despite all the activity or movement coming from her body. What does her heart ponder now, but pure love? The sword pierces her heart so that God's love can pour out through her, the Love that is on her lap... the love also within her that gives us hope, and encourages us to increase our belief in the Resurrection. Her hope is not a hope of desperation...

Mary teaches me to Hope in His promises

Her downcast face points me to the Hope that comes down, rather than my human hope that seeks to look up. She looks down with fearless hope in the Father's Will for the Spirit of Jesus to rise Him up once more - and so it is not a look of sorrow or desolation. It is a look that signals to me that Hope comes down to meet me, to bring me out of any depths of desolation I experience. In her charity, she has exposed the Hope in a situation that seems completely hopeless, and inspires me not be afraid now because Hope is coming down to meet me. The fulfilment of this hope all depends on my response to it in all the situations of my life. Mary is one who loves so fearlessly because she was confident in God's promises, full of faith and trust that all will go according to His plan.

Our responses

As long as we believe, trust and give everything of ourselves in love towards the Resurrection, we don't need to be afraid of the tough times, the moments of desolation, the feelings of abandonment from God, periods of grief, experiences of darkness, desperation and hopelessness, and most of all, any fear that we allow to take over our capacity to give, live and love. God conquers our fears with the Love of the Resurrection. But believing in the Resurrection is something that we do every single day, and embrace it into our way of life. It's not easy, but it is possible. Jesus has given us Mary, whose example we follow. 



Mother of Christ, pray for us.

LISS Day 19

A new covenant

Today's scripture reflects on: Jer 31:31-4 & Romans 5:6-8

I'm captivated by the whole of Romans chapter 5. I keep reading it over and over again! How did I not discover this treasure before?

Verses 1-11 are about peace and joy
"So then, now that we have been justified by faith, we are at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; it is through him, by faith, that we have been admitted into God's favour in which we are living, and look forward exultantly to God's glory. Not only that; let us exult, too, in our hardships, understanding that hardship develops perseverance, and perseverance develops a tested character, something that gives us hope, and a hope which will not let us down, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us." This is Romans 5:1-5. Wow. And I mean... WOW. At least 10 things flow through my mind and soul reading just that first sentence. We are justified, we are at peace. Amen. Through our belief in our Lord Jesus Christ, we're 'admitted into God's favour'. I sin everyday. How can I be worthy of admission?! How can I even dare to look forward exultantly to God's glory? And yet, my external and internal being cries out to do just that - even though I do such wrong too. My friend Janine said to me this evening, that we all carry our cross so that we can be saved by the cross of Jesus. In the hardships He bestows on me, He also bestows blessings. Would my spirit be working overtime right now if my heart had not been broken? Would I be yearning for God's mercy as much as I do, if I had not accepted my own faults. Would I know such thing as hope and salvation if I had not already experienced a pouring of the Holy Spirit in the summer, believing in His Truth and Love? The words of this passage are like gentle cushions that my heart seems to be nestling in.

"When we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the godless. You could hardly find anyone ready to die even for someone upright; though it is just possible that, for a really good person, someone might undertake to die. So it is proof of God's own love for us, that Christ died for us while we were still sinners." Romans 5:6-8.  This means He died for me too. I don't usually like for others to make special provisions for me - after all, I am nobody special. Yet, I can't help but feel that I owe God my whole being because He Loves me so much. I feel like I can never do enough for Him. I want to pray more, I want to adore more, I want to 'minister' more, I want to share more, I want to love more, I want to... but this is it. This is all about me. Christ died for me. When can my selfishness flip itself into God's Will?

Yesterday, I experienced a big questioning of myself, because Father Emmanuel had asked me 'how do you know if it was what the Holy Spirit wanted, or what you wanted?', and then for midday prayer, I felt stabbed when we prayed Psalm 120:

Longing for peace
Be patient in suffering; persevere in prayer (Romans 12:12)

To the Lord in the hour of my distress *
I call and he answers me.
O Lord, save my soul from lying lips, *
from the tongue of the deceitful."

What shall he repay you in return, *
O treacherous tongue?
The warriors arrows sharpened*
and coals, red-hot, blazing.

Alas, that I abide a stranger in Meshech, *
dwell among the tents of Kedar!

Long enough have I been dwelling*
with those who hate peace.
I am for peace, but when I speak, *
they are for fighting.

Glory to the Father and to the Son  *
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, *
and will be forever. Amen.

Psalm Prayer

You declared peacemakers happy, Lord Jesus,
since they will be called sons of God.
Give us that peace which the world cannot give
so that your Church may be freed from the schemes of arrogant men,
and, devoted to works of peace,
go forward joyfully to meet you, the King of Peace.

Ant. I cried out to the Lord, and he heard me.

My Lord Jesus, I am so confused. Have I managed to harbour such a deceitful tongue? I place all my trust in You, and want so much to abide in your new commandment - how could I tarnish Your name and call myself Your servant when I am so ungodly? I am ashamed. I pray to You that I never again cause anybody to feel such ruin and destruction at the hands of my lying lips and treacherous tongue. You cleansed me from my sin when I received Your reconciliation. Now walk with me as I carry my cross and try to become the instrument that You have always intended me to be, in Your peace, and without arrogance.

"How much more can we be sure, therefore, that, now that we have been justified by his death, we shall be saved through him from the retribution of God. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more can we be sure that, being now reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. What is more, we are filled with exultant trust in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have already gained our reconciliation." [Romans 5:9-11]

(I have not really reflected on the Jeremiah passage this evening... St. Paul's words are just too strong at this present moment in time, so I will come back to Jeremiah at some point in the future)