The Beautiful Face of Mary

The traditions that depict the ancient saints according to various events of their life and attributes of their person are beautiful - and it is just as beautiful that there is variety in the different cultures and traditions within the depiction of the same saint.  Even Christ has a very broad variety of depictions in sacred images.

The Virgin Mary is no exception to this.  I have seen icons of our mother's beautiful face in so many styles and traditions - Byzantine, Japanese, Ethiopian, Renaissance and even Inuit, to name just a few.

Yet, in the case of the Virgin Mary, the most saintly of all saints, we have a special gift that we do not have for any other ancient saint; we have an exact image of her face.

From almost 500 years ago, we have this event:

'the peasant Juan Diego saw at the Hill of Tepeyac, near Mexico City, a vision of a girl of fifteen or sixteen years of age, surrounded by light. It was the early morning of December 9, 1531 (celebrated as the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in the Spanish Empire). Speaking to him in Nahuatl, his language, the girl asked that a church be built at that site in her honor; from her words, Juan Diego recognized the girl as the Virgin Mary. Diego told his story to the Spanish Archbishop of Mexico City, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, who instructed him to return to Tepeyac Hill, and ask the "lady" for a miraculous sign to prove her identity. The first sign was the Virgin's healing Juan's uncle. The Virgin told Juan Diego to gather flowers from the top of Tepeyac Hill.

Although December was very late in the growing season for flowers to bloom, Juan Diego found Castilian roses, not native to Mexico, on the normally barren hilltop. The Virgin arranged these in his peasant tilma cloak. When Juan Diego opened his cloak before Bishop Zumárraga on December 12, the flowers fell to the floor, and in their place on the fabric was the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, miraculously imprinted there.' (from Wikipedia.)

One of the most miraculous parts of this image is that it remains in its original form, on the original cloth.  This is not an artist's rendition, an age-old tradition of depiction, nor someone's attempt to replicate what they saw in a vision; it is an image of the Virgin Mary directly imprinted on a cloth.

Basically, this means we know what her face looked like, at least in her early/mid teens when she bore Christ.  And as we know from Revelations chapter 12, in this apparition she is pregnant with Christ. (The image on the cloth is that described in that chapter.)

Recently I have been looking at this image and reproductions of it closely.  I am amazed by how beautiful her face is.  Yes, the image is aged, but it is not so hard to look past that.

Now, this does not diminish or remove the beauty or importance of the rich traditions of images of the Virgin Mary.  Yet, it is simply amazing that we can say that we have this direct image of her.

Who is the Virgin Mary?

"This is how it is with Mary: If you want to know who she is, you ask theologians; if you want to know how to love her, you have to ask the people." 

- Pope Francis

Why is the Virgin Mary so Important?

"a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet"

Many people look at  Mexican culture or more generally Catholic and other Christian traditions and wonder why the Virgin Mary is so important.  While I know there are a number of angles to take on this issue (tradition, her recognition as "Mother of God" in the third Ecumenical Council, etc.), during the fall of 2011, I heard one of the priests at my parish in Playa del Carmen (Father Patrick) address this issue from the point of view of the Bible.

Before pointing out Father Patrick's presentation of Mary's broader presence in the Bible, I'll briefly outline what I had heard before.  Many people will consider the presence of Mary in the Bible to be limited to the Gospels, specifically the annunciation and birth of Christ  (Luke 1:26-2:20, paralleled only partly in Mat. 1:18-25,) the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11), and the death of Christ (John 19:25-27).  These events are rich with meaning and importance in themselves.

In the Christmas story in Luke we see Mary as a humble servant of God, receiving one of the most important tasks/roles given to a mere human, and give the Church some of its best known prayers.  In the wedding at Cana, generally considered to be Christ's first miracle, we see this miracle take place following the simple command of Mary to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you," - the same command that (through obedience) has given the Church so many miracles since then.  Just before his death, Christ tells Mary that the disciple "whom he loved" (assumed to be St. John, the writer of the gospel) is now his son, and tells this same disciple that Mary is now his mother.  The disciple, according to tradition, represents the apostles as a group; since the bishops of the Church inherit the role of the apostles, Mary, for the first time (400 years before its formal declaration at the Council at Ephesus), is declared by Christ's own words to be the Mother of the Church.  A brief reference to her after the death of Christ (Acts 1:14) shows her to be among the most devout.

One blogger pointed out that Mary quite probably played an important role in the writing of the Gospels; according to this blogger, she would have been the only living source for the stories of the annunciation and birth of Christ, as well as details of the temple visit (Luke 2:41-52).

Just from what is obviously about Mary in the Gospels, she holds a place of importance in the Scriptures.  Yet, from what the priest pointed out, this role is emphasized even more in the Scriptures as a whole, from the beginning to the end.  He drew attention to the following (this is my rendering, as close as possible; there may be deviations from what he actually said):

• Mary is the third human mentioned in the Bible: 

"I will put enmity between you and the woman,     and between your offspring and hers;     he will strike your head,     and you will strike his heel." (Gen. 3:15)

While the woman and her offspring refer to Eve and mankind, it's more specifically a prophesy of Mary (the woman) and Christ (her offspring) who strikes the head of the the serpent (i.e. Satan,) making Mary not only the third person mentioned, but directly linking her to the most important event in the history of mankind from the very beginning of the Scriptures.

• Mary is one of the last humans mentioned in the Bible, in the Apocalypse of John:

  "1 A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. 2 She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. 3 Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. 4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born. 5 And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne; 6 and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days." (Rev. 12:1-6)

  
  The image of the woman "clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" is the way in which Mary appeared to the native Mexican, Juan Diego, shortly after the Spanish Conquest, giving Mexico the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, permanently imprinted on his cloak, which is still kept in her Basilica to this day (in Mexico City.)  If I remember correctly, since Mary as the Mother of the Church, her plight at the end (v. 6) represents the Church awaiting Christ. (I'm not sure if I remember this specific point correctly.)
  
   
• Finally, there are several instances where the prophets mention Mary, including:  

  Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14)

  
  
  
  These are the instances which the priest mentioned, but I've realized there are more. Of course, all of this depends on interpretation. I pointed out to a friend of mine recently, while some Christians read the Bible and see Jesus, speaking in tongues and the rapture, others read the Bible and see Jesus and then Mary (of course in both cases among many other things.)  I suspect that the second is the older.  In any case, to understand a culture and faith of people who honour Mary, it's important to understand her presence throughout the scriptures, and the