ALL FOR SILVER

SAINT | MOTHER OF GOD

Mary, Mother Mary, St. Mary, Virgin Mary, Madonna, Cause of Our Joy, Virgin Mother, Second Eve, Immaculate, Queen of Peace, Assumed Into Heaven, Mother of Jesus, Queen of Heaven and Mother of God are some of the well-known names that have been ascribed to her. In devotion and dogma, her role as mother takes top billing.

Mary was a poor girl from a humble family in an irrelevant city, with little probability that her life was going to be unlike any others. Historical accounts do not come to an integrated depiction of her. Mary’s big roles are played out in only two narratives, Nativity (birth) and the Passion of Christ (death). Written before the Gospels, the earliest suggestion to Mary in Christian literature is the locution “born of woman.” In Hebraic, the phrase translates to a way of speaking about the essential humanity of a person.  

The social roles of motherhood vary across time, culture and social class but the one constant is unconditional love. A mother’s love, regardless of birth circumstances or who’s doing the mothering, makes possible our union with and to everybody and everything, from beginning to end. Mother Mary represents unconditional love in her role as patron saint of all humanity.  Her love is selfless, protective, patient, kind, courageous, humble, forgiving and unwavering.  She suffered the greatest loss a mother can experience, the murder of her son for 30 pieces of silver. Her lesson of humanity is to love and hope for a world where happiness prevails over sadness and joy over sorrow; a literal overhauling of humanity.

A favorite subject in art, music and literature, Mary was the most frequently depicted woman in Western art until the eighteenth century and still today is the most recognized. She is represented as regal, faithful, devoted, courageous and pure of spirit. She has been called the supreme masterpiece.