"As grateful as I am that museums
preserve Catholic art, I cannot spend time in religious exhibitions
without feeling a certain melancholy. Stripped of their original context
(church or chapel) and of their original viewers (praying Catholics),
these works often fail to evoke in me admiration, let alone devotion.
"And yet, as I wandered through the
medieval section of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, glancing at
old, ornate reliquaries and sadly displaced stained glass windows, I
came across a statue of Mary that stopped me where I stood. She was not
quite two feet tall, carved in ivory, standing there on a pedestal. . . .
"The whole statue serves as a commentary
on Luke 2:19: 'Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.'
It offers a speculative peek into the interior life of the Mother of
the Savior after that first Easter. She now pondered not only the
infancy, not only those long, hidden years in Nazareth, but the
suffering, the death, and the resurrection of her Son. And the
crucifixion, that raw memory of agony, takes center place."
In a recent commentary, Brother Philip Nolan, O.P., reflected on how sometimes a small piece of artwork can "bear the weight
of divine mysteries."
To access Br. Philip's complete post, please visit:
Dominicana: Revelation in Ivory (12 SEP 19)
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