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Intro Mary Garden
In Search of a Mary Garden Statue
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Mary, Seat of Wisdom
Mary, Seat of Wisdom - A Statue for Garden Meditations.
John S. Stokes, Jr.
To know the Blessed Virgin Mary is to love her. To love her
is to want to know her better so we can love her more, and to love
her more is to want to dedicate or consecrate ourselves to her
service as a means of better knowing, loving and serving her
Divine Son and Lord, Jesus Christ.
We first learn to know Mary through the Church's spoken,
written and visual arts teaching of her life, virtues, privileges,
graces, mysteries and glories. Later we learn to know her better
through hours of prayer and meditation, using a few simple, direct
aids such as memorized prayers, holy pictures and statues.
We first learn to love Mary as the blessed and immaculate
Virgin, as the tender and loving Mother of Jesus, and as our own
queen and mother gloriously assumed into heaven whom Jesus has
given us as our merciful intercessor and mediatrix with him.
It is thus that she has appeared in our day at Lourdes and
Fatima to quicken our faith, love and reparation, and it is thus
that we most frequently see her represented in pictures and
statues. Mary is pure, sweet, tender, loving and merciful, and so
must be her likeness.
But as we continue to use such likenesses of Mary as aids for
meditation, we come to realize how far short they fall, regardless
of their artistic merits of portraying her beauty, goodness and
immaculate purity, or of representing by facial expression her
joys, sorrows or tenderness. We therefore turn to more abstract
aids for meditating on Our Lady, such as her traditional
symbolical titles from her litany, the scriptures and the writings
of the Church Fathers:
Spiritual Vessel, Mystical Rose, Tower of Ivory,
Morning Star, Garden Enclosed, Fountain Sealed Up,
Unspotted Mirror, Lily Among the Thorns,
Well of Living Waters, Burning Bush, Tree of Life,
New Paradise of Eden, Spotless Lily, Bundle of Myrrh,
Holy Gentle Breezes, Plentiful Showers, Flowering Vine,
Beautiful Dove, Cluster of Cypress, Rose Unfading,
Beauty of Angels.
Or, seeking more tangible signs and symbols, we turn
to the medieval "Flowers of Our Lady" which were used in popular
religious tradition to recall and signify Mary's life, mysteries
and virtues, and which today are once again being prayerfully
grown and used in "Mary Gardens" dedicated to Our Lady.
Truly no work of human artistry can equal the rose in
representing Mary's beauty, or the lily in representing her
spotless purity. Likewise, no portrait likeness can equal the
simplicity, directness, clarity and beauty, touching the heart of
such flower symbols as:
Our Lady's Tresses (Briza), Eyes of Mary (forget-me-
nots), Our Lady's Tears (Tradescantia), Our Lady's
Earrings (balsam), Mary's Heart (bleeding heart),
Mary's Thorn (eglantine), Mary's Hand (Cinquefoil),
Our Lady's Fingers (honeysuckle buds)
Our Lady's Nightcap (Canterbury bells), Our Lady's
Mantle (morning glory), and Our Lady's Slippers
(Cypripedium).
Mary's gracious movements and the tender changes of her
expression under the promptings of the Holy Ghost are better
reflected in the play of light and the rustling of the breeze in
the garden than in sculpture and painting. Bernard Berenson, the
late dean of authorities on Italian Renaissance painting, wrote in
his "Sketch for a Self-Portrait":
"As I walk in the garden, I look at the flowers and
shrubs and trees and discover in them an exquisiteness
of contour, a vitality of edge or a vigor of spring,
as well as an infinite variety of color that no artifact
I have ever seen . . . can rival."
Or, in the words of the Gospel:
"Consider the lilies . . . . Not even Solomon in all
his glory was clothed like one of these."
In speaking to a gathering of rose growers, Pope Pius XII
observed that when Our Lady appeared at Lourdes in all her
personal beauty and goodness:
"Each of her feet was adorned with a blooming rose.
She whom the Church had just proclaimed the Immaculate
Conception manifested in this way, to a poor and artless
child, the fullness of her perfections and the delicacy
of her goodness."
Nonetheless, a statue of Our Lady is fittingly used in a
garden of her flower symbols as the focal point of the plantings,
and also as the focal point for our praises, veneration, prayers
and meditations. But if a statue cannot equal flowers and flower
symbols in representing and recalling Mary's beauty, goodness and
purity or her joys, sorrows and tenderness, what manner of statue
is suitable for Mary Garden use?
For an answer we can turn to the same ages of faith which
produced most of the flower symbols of Mary. We can turn in
particular to the Romanesque Virgins of Majesty which were the
earliest statues of Our Lady in medieval France and which have
been described as reigning over all the West from the 10th to the
12th centuries, with their replicas eventually finding their way
into the tympanni of such renowned cathedrals as those of Chartres
and Notre Dame of Paris.
The humble and anonymous artists of the Romanesque age of
intense faith and devotion did not presume to produce portrait
likenesses of Mary's beauty and purity or of her tender, joyful or
sorrowful expressions in their statues, but instead used
symbolical form, position, bearing, gesture, clothing, adornmnent,
signs and emblems to manifest her truths with only a restrained
trace or hint of expression to suggest her tenderness, joy or
sorrow.
When Mary lived on earth, her beauty and tenderness were
manifested, but her truth was hidden. During the "hidden" life of
Jesus at Nazareth it was not perceived that he was God or that
Mary was the Mother of God. In the Romanesque Virgins of Majesty,
on the other hand, Mary's beauty and tenderness are, as it were,
hidden and her truth is manifested. The Romanesque artists
fashioned the goodness of images which beautifully manifested the
truth of Mary. Their beauty, sought after by the great museums of
the world, is not the beauty of Mary's appearance but of her
truth. It is a heavenly beauty resulting from the artists' love
of heavenly truth above earthly beauty.
These images are devoid of the vitality of line and dynamic
tensions which visually draw the beholder out of himself and lift
him up externally. Instead, their symbolical elements are clothed
and supported with balanced and hamonious rhythms, producing in
the beholder the visual quiet and repose which induce the devout
interior recollectedness of meditation and contemplation.
Dom Angelico Surchamp, O.P., in "Le Signification de l'Art
Roman" has characterized Romanesque art by saying: "Because it
minimizes its own worth and gazes upwards at loftier goals, it
surpasses and attains more than itself". In the words of the
contemporary French artist, Marcel Gromaire, "The Romanesque
Virgins of Auvergne are a perfume of the earth. They are earthly
columns crowned with heaven with no lapse of continuity. They are
in fact corridors from earth to heaven . . . vertical furrows made
by men." Their simple beauty and trace of expression attract the
eye, but their silent stillness and symbolical truth lift the eye
heavenward in meditation.
In later centuries, artists presumed to portray Our Lady's
beauty and tenderness more fully in their statues and paintings,
but in so doing produced either a tactile, sensate, earthly beauty
and expression which were incompatible with the truth of her
immaculate purity and perpetual virginity, or a weightless,
ethereal, sentimental portrayal of her appearance of purity and
holiness which was incompatible with the truth of her humanity and
therefore of her human motherhood of Jesus Christ, true God and
true man.
When Mary was alive on earth, surely her sublime natural
beauty and tenderness were transformed by the immaculate purity
and holiness shining forth from her bearing, countenance and
eyes. But the moment it was attempted to portray her in the
lifeless material of a painting or statue, her purity was lost in
the portrayal of her beauty and tenderness, or her humanity was
lost in the portrayal of her purity.
By representing Mary's body as motionless and her face as
restrained in expression, the Romanesque sculptors humbly
acknowledged the limitations of the lifeless wood and stone with
which they worked, and left the full envisioning of her beautiful
and tender appearance to the inner imagination and intuition of
the beholder. In their statues, they sought to represent the truth
of Mary, not her appearance, as though repeating Jesus' rebuke,
"Blessed are those who believe without having seen."
From the viewpoint of those in any age who strive to know
Mary better in order that they may love her more, an image which
manifests the certainty of her truth as it is known through
revelation, dogmatic definition and theological teaching is to be
preferred to one which uncertainly portrays an imagined,
particularized and therefore untrue representation of her beauty
and tenderness. Likewise, a statue which manifests the truth of
Mary serves to draw the inner eye of the beholder to meditation
and contemplation, while one which portrays her beauty and
tenderness often holds the eye in outward esthetic enjoyment of
the statue itself.
The tradition of symbolically representing the truth of Mary
in art goes back to the earliest centuries of the Church, but its
real beginning dates from the Council of Ephesus in 431. Prior
to this council, Mary had been venerated as the Blessed Virgin of
prophecy, as the mother of Christ, as the holy model of Christian
virtue and as the mother of the beginning Church. But it was not
until after four centuries of questioning, clarification and
further dogmatic definition of the doctrine of the Trinity that
Mary's full dignity and mystery, not only as the Mother of Christ
but as the Holy Mother of God, was defined and proclaimed at
Ephesus, in the words of St. Cyril of Alexandria: "If anyone does
not confess that Emmanuel is really God, and that therefore the
Blessed Virgin is truly the Mother of God, for she bore in the
flesh the Word of God Incarnate, let him be anathema."
In the visual arts of painting, mosaic and sculpture, the
newly defined dogma of the Divine Maternity of Mary was proclaimed
to the faithful and presented for their meditation and
contemplation with its fullest symbolic content in images known as
the Virgin enthroned or Madonna of Majesty, or simply as
"Majesties". This image of the Blessed Virgin was seated in a
frontally erect position on a throne with the image of the Christ
Child seated on her knees. The image of the Christ Child held the
Book, symbol of the Eternal Word of God, in his left hand, and
held his right hand raised with index and middle fingers extended
in the sign of benediction.
Both images were seated with head and body centered and
aligned in severely frontal, straightforward position, with
restrained facial expressions. Sometimes the image of the Christ
Child held in its left hand, in place of the book, a globe, symbol
of the world which Christ came to save, or a pomegranate, symbol
of resurrection and of the Church.
In Byzantine mosaics, this representation of Mary was known as
the Nikopeia or "dispensatrix of victory", the victory of the
Divine Child and His Virgin Mother, over evil, and the resulting
distribution of graces and blessings to the human race.
In sculpture the artistic tradition of the divine maternity
of Mary was more fully developed in the famous Romanesque Virgins
of Majesty of Auvergne. It is recorded that around the year 950,
prior to which for a number of centuries there were no religious
statues in France, Etienne II, Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand, ordered
his architect and goldsmith, Aleaume, "to construct a golden
throne adorned with precious stones and to place on it the image
in fine gold of the Mother of God, with the image of Our Lord, her
Son, seated on its knees".
The golden virgin of Clermont-Ferrand (actually a gilded wood
carving) became a famous pilgrimage virgin, and replicas were made
throughout the region and elsewhere up until the beginning of the
13th century. The original statue is no longer in existence, but
numerous replicas are illustrated and listed in the monograph,
"Viergeses Romanes D'Auvergne", by Emile Male and others, and as
previously mentioned, replicas can be found in the tympanni of such
renowned cathedrals as those of Chartres and Paris.
The religious significance of the Virgins of Auvergne has
been set forth in the book "L'Auvergne, Berceau de l'Art Roman",
by Andre Gybal. In these statues, the effect of the enthroned
formally erect and frontal pose of Mary's image, and its
restrained expression, was to instill in the beholder a sense of
the infinite dignity, majesty, solemnity and mystery of the Mother
of God. It was not the image of just any mother and child.
Likewise the Book, the distortion of Jesus' image, and the gesture
of benediction, leave no room for the misperception that a merely
human child was imaged.
Yet the images were clearly those of human motherhood and
childhood so that there was no loss of the sense of Mary's and
Jesus' human nature. Mary is imaged as both the throne of the
Eternal Word which she presents to the adoration of mankind, and
also as the human instrument of the Incarnation. The clothing of
this image of Our Lady is also of traditional origin, and consists
of three pieces: a veil covering her head but letting her hair
show over her forehead; a full mantle draped over her shoulders
and arms; and a long matron's robe or dress.
The mantle gives the image of the Virgin a sacerdotal
character and dignity, recalling her role as co-redemptrix of the
human race through her close union and cooperation with Christ,
the Redeemer, yet it avoids an exact duplication of priestly
garments which would suggest, erroneously, that she was priest\ess
rather than co-redemptrix.
On the other hand, the simple veil and dress bespeak Mary's
humility, modesty and poverty and give the faithful confidence to
approach her in prayer. Although she is represented enthroned as
the Holy Mother of God and most-powerful Queen of Heaven and
Earth, she is still the humble Carpenter's wife from Nazareth.
The faces of the Auvergne Virgins of Majesty are restrained and
almost impassive, yet they bear a trace or suggestion of sadness
or sometimes of a wistful smile, hinting of Our Lady's sorrows or
joys but avoiding a portrait-like expression. Finally, the
distortedly large hands of Mary's image signify that hers are
queenly and motherly hands which give Christ to mankind and also
distribute to it innumerable gifts of graces, blessings and mercy.
The images recall visually the two attributes which St.
Bernard used to characterize Mary: majesty and mercy, as invoked
in the Salve Regina: "Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy . . ."
Holy Mary is not only our beautiful, loving, merciful mother,
intercessor and mediatrix. She is also Mother of God, Queen of
Heaven, Virgin Most Powerful, Mirror of Justice, Tower of David,
House of Gold, Ark of the Covenant and City of God - showing forth
God's truth, glory, splendor and majesty. She is as fair as the
moon, but also as bright as the sun and terrible as an army set in
battle array. In her appearances at Lourdes and Fatima, she has
been beautiful and tender but also bathed in a dazzling radiance
of glory and splendor. As Holy Mother of God, Mary is merciful,
but also majestic, and our devotion and consecration to her are
imperfect if we beseech her mercy but fail to venerate her majesty
and splendor.
That Mary's immaculateness, majesty and mercy were all seen as
attributes of her images as the enthroned Mother of God is
evidenced by her titles from the writings of the Church Fathers,
such as: Immaculate Throne of God, Seat not inferior to the
Cherubim Seat, Lap of the Joy of Salvation, Mercy-Seat of God,
Throne of Grace and Judgement Seat.
Images of the Virgin Enthroned or Madonna of Majesty were also
often known by the title of the "Seat of Wisdom". According to
this title the throne is sometimes reduced to a simple chair or
stool, and the primary symbolism of the image is that Mary herself
is the throne or seat of the Divine Wisdom Incarnate.
In this symbolism everything is retained which has been
described previously of the "Majesties", but the image of the
Divine Child always holds the Book, symbol of the Divine Wisdom
incarnate.
In addition, Mary's relationship to the Divine Child is
enriched in several ways. First, the imaging of Mary more
specifically, and therefore more symbolically, as the throne or
seat of the Divine Wisdom incarnate attributes to her all the
dignity which comes from the ancient and universal symbolism of
the chair, seat or throne. In a former day, only the king or
bishop sat on a chair or throne, and no one else in the kingdom sat
on individual chairs. In Japan today people sit on the floor in
their homes because of this tradition. The symbolism of the
dignity and power of the seat or chair is also preserved in such
designations as the county seat, the chair of a university
professorship, and the corporation chairman of the board of
directors. It is also alive in such realities as the chair of the
head of the family and the boss's desk in business.
In the Church, the cathedral is the place where the bishop's
chair, or cathedra, is located, in which he sits, officially, when
he is not standing before God at the altar. The Pope speaks
infallibly when he teaches, formally ex cathedra, out of his chair
or throne. The liturgy celebrates the feast of the Chair of St.
Peter recalling this teaching authority.
In the Creed, it is an article of faith that the risen Christ
"sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty". And,
pertinently, in the Magnificat, Mary magnifies and rejoices in the
Lord because "He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and
hath exalted the humble" - words which almost could be used as a
sub-title for the image of the Seat of Wisdom.
In the light of these examples we come to a fuller
appreciation of the dignity attributed to Mary when she was imaged
symbolically as the Seat of Wisdom. In fact, in the 8th century,
this image was attacked by the iconoclasts as attributing
too much dignity to Mary, evoking of St. John Damascene in its
defense the reminder that, "[Mary's] hands hold the Eternal and
her knees are a throne more sublime than the cherubim".
The image of the Seat of Wisdom also enriches the symbolism
of the divine maternity in that the image of the Christ Child is
often seated closer, to and more deeply in, the lap of the image of
the Virgin Mother, instead of on its knees. The closeness and the
similar frontal position of the two images recalls Mary's close
resemblance to, and her spiritual unity with, the Divine Wisdom
incarnate of which she herself is the created image and faithful
mirror as wel1 as Mother, and whose glory and power she shares and
reflects:
Christ the Divine Child, Mary His Mother; Christ the heavenly
Spouse, Mary the mystical Bride; Christ the Redeemer, Mary the
Co-Redemptrix; Christ the New Adam, Mary the New Eve; Christ
ascended into heaven, Mary assumed into heaven; Christ the
Mediator with the Heavenly Father, Mary the Mediatrix with Christ;
Christ the Sacred Heart, Mary the Immaculate Heart; Christ the
King, Mary the Queen. The Virgin of Majesty of the Royal Portal
Tympanum of Chartres Cathedral images this more deep-seated
relationship of the Divine Child to His Virgin Mother.
Mary's title, Seat of Wisdom, which in the liturgy is
preserved in the Litany of Loreto, signifies in the broadest sense
her role as the abiding place or resting place of Divine Wisdom,
of which she is the chosen instrument.
Conceived without sin, full of grace and faithful handmaid of
the Lord, Mary was so filled with wisdom in preparation for her
divine motherhood that she was, as it were, present with God the
Father as daughter, companion and helper in the work of the
creation of the universe. As the Mother of Christ, Divine Wisdom
Incarnate, Mary, is his image, vessel, seat, cooperator and
mystical bride in the work of the redemption.
As the tabernacle or temple of the Holy Ghost, Mary, Mother
of Divine Grace, is the seat of the uncreated Spirit of Wisdom in
His work of sanctifying souls and renewing the face of the earth.
It is in this sense that the Church applies to Mary in the
Liturgy the passages from the Sacred Scriptures which describe
Wisdom as the first-born of creation and the beginning of all
God's ways, who dwells in the highest places on a throne in a
pillar of cloud; and who, at his bidding, has taken root and dwells
among men as the tree of life, a sweet smelling garden, and a well
of life-giving waters (Proverbs, Chap. 8; Wisdom, Chap 7:
Ecclesiasticus, chap. 24).
This, then is a glimpse at the fullness of the glorious
tradition of the divine maternity in sculpture, from which
contemporary artists can draw and which they can continue and
extend in selecting an image of Mary for the focal point for Mary
Garden planting and prayers. And perhaps the most appropriate
traditional model for our Mary Garden symbolism is the sculptured
tympannum of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris. This
tympannum images the Virgin in Majesty as its focal point, with
praising and adoring angels and saints to her left and right, and
tableaus of her life and mysteries at her feet.
Just as the dogmatic truth of Mary's divine maternity is the
essence and summation of all the truths of Mary, so here, visually,
the image of the Virgin in Majesty, symbolizing this truth, is the
essence and summation of all visual representations of her life
and mysteries shown at her feet, so that as in the Rosary al1 our
meditations on Mary may be concluded with our invocation of her in
praise and petition as, "Holy Mary, Mother of God".
But where is one to obtain a contemporary image of Mary which
embodies the fullness of this tradition? Or, in the words of
Sister M. Joanne, S.N.D in Art for You and Me, "What has
happened to the beautiful tradition in Christian art upholding the
divine maternity of Mary?"
To provide such an image for Mary Garden use, the noted
liturgical artist, Ade Bethune, has designed an outdoor statue,
"Mary, Seat Of Wisdom," illustrated in the accompanying photographs.
As can be seen, the statue retains the full symbolism of the
ancient images of the Virgin of Majesty and Seat of Wisdom. Yet
it is not a mere copying of older works. Faithful to the living,
growing character of tradition, and to the continuing dogmatic
definition, theological development and artistic representation of
the truth of Mary, the image embraces additional symbolical
elements.
Thus the base includes images of clouds and twelve stars
recalling Mary's immaculate conception and her assumption into
heaven. The curving line of the serpent recalls Mary as the Woman
clothed in the sun of Revelations, who gave birth to the man
child who thrust the dragon from heaven, and the Woman of
Genesis whose seed was to crush the serpent with his heel on
earth. Also, in a day when, in the Western world at least, people
generally wear shoes, Mary's image is represented without shoes as
a sign of her poverty and humility; while in former days, when
people generally did not wear shoes, Mary's image was represented
with shoes as a sign of her royalty.
The out-turned hands of Mary's image recall that she is Our
Lady Of Grace; our merciful mother and mediatrix who showers on us
and distributes to us Christ's blessings and graces. They recall
further that Mary is our heavenly advocate and intercessor who
beseeches and receives of us the offerings of our spiritual
intentions, acts, aspirations, ejaculations, penances and
reparations that she may purify, adorn, embellish and present them
to her divine Son and Lord.
The gesture of the out-turned hands also completes the image
of Mary as the Gate of Heaven who brings forth in Virgin Birth,
manifests, shows and gives to us Christ, our Teacher, Priest and
King, as she did to the adoring Magi of old, and as we ask that
she will again when we pray ". . . and after this our exile, show
unto us the blessed fruit of Thy womb, Jesus." Also she gives or
presents Jesus to God, His Heavenly Father.
Finally, the arms of Mary's image are, as it were, arms of
the Seat and serve to clarify the symbolism of the Seat of Wisdom.
In keeping with the practical requirements of molding
reproductions and of avoiding water-catching folds for outdoor
use, the image of Christ, the Divine Wisdom incarnate, has been
seated or merged even more deeply in the lap of the image of Mary,
also serving to strengthen the symbolism or Mary as the Seat of
Wisdom, and especially the symbolism of the physical and spiritual
unity of Mary and Jesus.
The symbolism of unity has been heightened still further by
the design of the folds of the veil, which artistically unite the
heads of the images of Mary and Jesus. These folds also suggest
the symbolism of halos about the heads of Mary and Jesus, as found
so extensively in religious paintings of the divine maternity.
The head of Mary's image is inclined slightly forward and its
eyes slightly downward, directing attention to the image of
Christ. Also, the articulation of the folds of the mantle,
falling down from the arms of Mary's image, is simple, natural and
reposeful, gently drawing the eye of the beholder to the image of
Jesus.
In praying to Mary before such an image of her unity and
mediatorship with Christ, it is difficult indeed for one to
conceive of her or to address her as isolated in any way from her
divinely ordained and established true relationship to Christ.
In keeping with the practical requirement of avoiding
extended parts which might be broken in outdoor use, the right
hand of Jesus' image points to the Book, instead of being raised
in benediction. This gesture has the effect of drawing the
beholder visually into the image rather than holding him at a
distance from it. It also serves to accentuate the Book, bearing
the inscription "Et Verbo caro factum est", and its primary
symbolism that Jesus is the Divine Word incarnate. Jesus holds
the Book, and Mary holds Jesus.
The Book also recalls the Gospels and the Old Testament
prophesies and types of Emmanuel - the Redeemer, the Suffering
Servant, the Desired of the Nations, the Prince of Peace - who was
to be born of a Virgin of the House of David and to suffer death
on the Cross. Jesus' passion and death could be said to be
anticipated by the trace of sadness in the restrained countenances
of the images of Mary and Jesus.
Finally, the image of the Christ Child with the Book
prefigures Christ with the Book of Life at the Last Judgement,
which will also be through Mary, the Gate of Heaven, whose
eliptical image here, in the front view, frames the image of
Christ in a manner recalling the almond-like aureoles enclosing
the images of Christ in Judgement in the tympanni of Romanesque
and Gothic cathedrals.
While the traditional severe, frontal position and restrained
serious expressions of the images of Mary and Jesus are retained
to bespeak the great dignity, majesty, wisdom and mystery of the
Mother of God, at the same time they are composed within a
contemporary unity and harmony of design which give them a new
simplicity, directness, clarity and beauty.
In so far as is possible, without lessening the sense of
Mary's majesty as Mother of God, a suggestion of her human,
motherly tenderness has been introduced into her image, in the
front view by the gesture of the out-turned hands, already
mentioned, and in the side view by the forward inclination of the
head, the downward inclination of the eyes, a hint of a smile on
the lips, the encompassing gesture of the arms and hands and the
closeness of the image of the Christ Child.
Also, the side view suggests Mary's womanly beauty by the
graceful overall curving and design of the lines and folds of the
head, veil, shoulders, arms, hands, legs and feet. Yet the
suggestion of tenderness is free of a particularized imaginative
expression which would be false to Mary; and the beauty is free of
particularized tactile values which would be incompatible with her
immaculate purity.
From the side view Mary's image is, as it were, clothed in her
beauty, while from the front and principal view we behold the full
symbolism of her majesty and mercy, which in turn lifts us to
meditation on the sublime truth of Mary.
Copyright, Mary's Gardens, 1958