Introduction
In
his article “The Beauty of the Virgin Mary and the History of Art,” Theo Howard
claims that, other than Our Lord, “there has been no more frequent subject in
Western figurative art than the Blessed Virgin Mary.”[1]
Why
is Mary’s image sculpted, painted, and drawn more than just about any subject in
world history?
Is
it because she is the Mother of God? Possibly. Is it because she is the
greatest of all God’s creatures and the most important among all the saints? That’s
also possible.
I
may be wrong, but I think it is for another reason. I think the reason Our Lady
is so often an object of art is because no one has been able to capture her
beauty! They keep trying and trying but never get it just right. So, they try
again and again and again.
When
St. Bernadette was shown a beautiful statue of the Blessed Mother and asked
what she, a someone who had a vision of Mary, thought of the work of art, Bernadette
responded, “Oh, it doesn’t look like her at all!”
What
is the source of Mary’s beauty and why does it matter to us?
What is
beauty?
Let’s
begin by asking the question, “What is beauty?”
There
is a famous Mount professor with a double first name and Italian last name who wrote
a book on beauty. He explains that beauty “expresses God’s intelligence and
freedom.”
Allow
me to re-phrase that definition using the Gospel for today: “Behold, I am the
handmaid of the Lord.” Here we see God’s freedom active in His creature. God freely
offers divine motherhood and leaves it to the freedom of His creature to say
yes.
The
Virgin of Nazareth concludes her response: “May it be done to me according to
your word.” Here we see Divine Intelligence, God’s Word, becoming flesh.
On
this feast of the Immaculate Conception, we see human beauty at its zenith – we
contemplate, celebrate, rejoice in the person of Our Blessed Mother who is most
beautiful.
Tota Pulchra
As
you may know, there is an ancient title of Our Lady “tota pulchra” or “all
beautiful.” Since the 10th Century there has been a special Mass of the Blessed
Mother called “Mother of Fairest Love,” which honors Mary as “tota pulchra.”
The
instruction for this Mass says that the Church, both East and West,
“contemplates with joy her spiritual beauty. Beauty is the radiance of the
holiness and truth of God, ‘the origin of all beauty’, and it is the image of
the goodness and fidelity of Christ, ‘fairest of all God’s children on earth’.”
Our
Blessed Mother is “fair” or “beautiful” because in her there is no flaw of sin
or corruption. “From the first moment of her conception,” the Catechism says, “by
a singular grace” she was “preserved immune from all stain of original sin.”
She fulfills to a perfect degree the words of St. Paul in our Second Reading, “blessed…
with every spiritual blessing to be holy and without blemish before him.”
The
grace of the Immaculate Conception means that Mary is “tota pulchra” or “Mother
of Fairest Love.”
The Beauty of
Full of Grace
Mary
is called beautiful for several reasons. She is beautiful because she is full
of grace, as we heard her called in the Gospel. This means that she is
resplendent with the glory of her Son and the beauty of Christified holiness. The
Preface to the Mass of “Mary, Mother of Fairest Love” says, “Beauty was hers at
her conception: free from all stain of sin, she is resplendent in the glory of
grace.”
Beauty
and ugliness, you see, are fundamentally spiritual realities. As one author
puts it, “If beauty manifests the perfection and splendor of something,
ugliness distorts it, corrupting what it is meant to be and blinding us to its
true reality.”
We
hear in our First Reading from the Book of Genesis just how God’s beauty of man
and woman and creation is distorted by the ugliness of sin. Disobedience distorts
the loving gaze that Adam and Eve had toward each other in their nakedness. The
serpent now has to crawl and eat dirt.
A
flower crumpled and crushed. A stained-glass window dirty and broken. The
Philadelphia Eagles losing to the Dallas Cowboys. They are all ugly because
they are not what God meant them to be.
Holiness,
on the other hand, is beautiful. Mary is beautiful because she is “full of
grace.” She is the new Eve, who reverses the disobedience and fear of Genesis
and offers herself as His “handmaid” to the Word of God. She is what God meant
all of us to be.
Our
world needs to know Mary so that it can seek holiness above all, so that “live
significantly” is understood as “live holiness.”
The Beauty of
Love
Mary
is also beautiful because she loves God, her Son, and loves the entire human
race as her children with a love that is full of beauty; that is, a love that
is virginal, bridal, and maternal.
Love,
as you know, is the fundamental vocation for all men and women.
St.
Paul tells the Ephesians in our Second Reading that “in love he destined us for
adoption to himself through Jesus Christ.” God has created us out of love and
for love. It is our common and most important vocation. In loving, human being
are perfected. We become beautiful.
Our
Lady is stunningly beautiful. She knows how to love as Christ taught and shows
us this more than anyone else.
Love
has so many counterfeit images in the world today and we struggle to deal with
them. We have the plague of pornography and the scourge lust. We see the
failure of commitment to marriage and to the celibate priesthood.
God
wants us to be truly ourselves, truly creatures capable of loving and being
loved. Unchastity is ugly. Chaste love is beautiful.
Our
world needs to know Mary so that it can know how to truly love.
Fairest Love
and Evangelization
Is
there a concrete application for the beauty of Mary, Our Mother? Yes – for
evangelization.
Many
people today claim to be spiritual but not religious. They have faith, but in a
secular “gospel,” if you will, that answers their need to be authentic and to
define themself and their lives as they see fit. They are satisfied with the
comfort they experience and the good feelings they achieve by a certain
altruism to those in need. As one author puts it, people aren’t just “walking away
from faith,” they are “opting for a way of life that they found more
attractive.”
Evangelization
cannot bear much fruit in this secularized world by condemnations and purely
intellectual arguments. We need to introduce the beauty of the Catholic faith and
make it more attractive – the beauty of our beliefs, the beauty of our liturgy,
the beauty of our lives.
Pope
Emeritus Benedict puts in succinctly, “I have often affirmed my conviction that
the true apologia of Christian faith, the most convincing demonstration of its truth
against every denial, are the saints, and the beauty that the faith has
generated. Today, for faith to grow, we must lead ourselves and the persons we
meet to encounter the saints and to enter into contact with the Beautiful.”[2]
We
call Mary the “Star of Evangelization” because of the way she brings people to
Christ. I would propose that the more we introduce others to her beauty, her
holiness, the way she loves, the more people will see just how she is “Mother
of Fairest Love.” People will be surprised by her beauty and respond to her
attractiveness by coming to faith in Christ.
Conclusion
At
a Gala raising money for a good cause, an elegant woman served as the MC. She
was stunning in her manners and dress. All eyes were on her throughout the
evening. At the end of the evening, a little girl went up to a table and asked
those seated whether they thought the woman was beautiful. They all answer,
“Why, yes, of course.” The little girl replied with satisfied pride in her
eyes, grinning from ear to ear, “She is my mom!”
And
we can feel today just like that child. As we contemplate the Immaculate
Conception, we contemplate the one who is full of grace in the beauty of
holiness, the one who loves God and her children most beautifully. She is God’s
supreme masterpiece. She is most beautiful, and she is our mom.
Mother
of Fairest Love and the Immaculate Conception, pray for us!
[1]
Howard, Theo, “The Beauty of the Virgin Mary and the History of Art,” November
25, 2021, One Peter 5, https://onepeterfive.com/the-beauty-of-the-virgin-mary-and-the-history-of-art/
[2]
Joseph Ratzinger, “The Feeling of Things, the Contemplation of Beauty” (August
24, 2002).
