SOMETHING ABOUT THE STATUE (To See With New Eyes)
May and Pentecost
Mary and the Holy Spirit
Conceiving Jesus, giving birth to the Church.
“Wild air, world-mothering”
Wind that blows where it will.
The Holy Spirit teaching.
Promise of Jesus
Ever unfolding the More of God.
And suddenly the familiar surprises.
It often happens with Scripture. A passage I have been reading all my life unexpectedly says something new.
You can be doing the same thing day after day, seeing the same reality year after year when, out of the blue it causes you to pause, to look and look again. To see with new eyes.
The statue of Our Lady of Lourdes. It has been part of my life since birth. At home. In Castlegar Grotto. Lourdes. Here in Hastings.
I’m very fond of it. But it is always just a statue, a reminder, never taking the place of the reality. Even as I pray beside it here, I turn my gaze to the Tabernacle. To Jesus.
On Friday evening I closed the church as usual and went up into the Sanctuary for a brief prayer and, upon turning to leave, something about the statue drew my attention.
The face. Like I was seeing it for the first time. Utterly beautiful, serene. The eyes soft. It stirred something different in me, something new. And I have to say now that she seemed to smile without smiling, to speak without saying a word. Reminding me of something already known, yet to be discovered. “Beauty ever ancient, ever new.”
I don’t know what was being communicated. She spoke very little in the Gospel, but it is in her words there that I search for what is being said now.
How can this be?
Let it be done to me according to your Word.
My soul glorifies the Lord.
Do whatever He tells you. I think these might be her last recorded words.
And then, of course, there is her silence. Treasuring the mystery, pondering it in her heart. Silence, the language of God. And the gift she brings is Jesus. Always Jesus.
Mary and the Holy Spirit
Conceiving Jesus, giving birth to the Church.
“Wild air, world-mothering”
Wind that blows where it will.
The Holy Spirit teaching.
Promise of Jesus
Ever unfolding the More of God.
And suddenly the familiar surprises.
It often happens with Scripture. A passage I have been reading all my life unexpectedly says something new.
You can be doing the same thing day after day, seeing the same reality year after year when, out of the blue it causes you to pause, to look and look again. To see with new eyes.
The statue of Our Lady of Lourdes. It has been part of my life since birth. At home. In Castlegar Grotto. Lourdes. Here in Hastings.
I’m very fond of it. But it is always just a statue, a reminder, never taking the place of the reality. Even as I pray beside it here, I turn my gaze to the Tabernacle. To Jesus.
On Friday evening I closed the church as usual and went up into the Sanctuary for a brief prayer and, upon turning to leave, something about the statue drew my attention.
The face. Like I was seeing it for the first time. Utterly beautiful, serene. The eyes soft. It stirred something different in me, something new. And I have to say now that she seemed to smile without smiling, to speak without saying a word. Reminding me of something already known, yet to be discovered. “Beauty ever ancient, ever new.”
I don’t know what was being communicated. She spoke very little in the Gospel, but it is in her words there that I search for what is being said now.
How can this be?
Let it be done to me according to your Word.
My soul glorifies the Lord.
Do whatever He tells you. I think these might be her last recorded words.
And then, of course, there is her silence. Treasuring the mystery, pondering it in her heart. Silence, the language of God. And the gift she brings is Jesus. Always Jesus.
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Quotations from Gerald Manley Hopkins ("Wild air...") and St. Augustine ("Beauty ever ancient...")
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