Posted on 12/08/2011 3:29:19 PM PST by NYer
It is a notable fact that our Lord and his Mother lived in a time long before photographs, even at a time, and among a people, where drawings and portraits of people were almost unknown. Also notably absent in the Sacred Scriptures are any details regarding the physical appearances of most Biblical figures, unless a detail is necessary for the story (e.g. Zacchaeus being short, Goliath tall, Leah being less attractive due to her misshapen eyes). But generally there seems to be an almost complete lack of preoccupation with such things in the Biblical narrative. And even when we are told that David was handsome or Bathsheba was beautiful, we are not really told how.
We live in a polar opposite world when it comes to images. Everything is visual, and we are quite obsessed with appearance and looking acceptable and good, and how other people look.
We attach great meaning (for better, but usually for worse) on our physical appearance. We divide out over race, skin tone, hair etc. We also prize thinness and ridicule fatness, we worry if we are tall enough, pretty enough, if our hair is too straight or not straight enough, if we are tan enough or too dark skinned, and when age sets in many head for the cosmetic surgeon.
Instructive! Thus when we wonder as to what Jesus or Mary “looked like,” it may be instructive for us to reflect on why the Lord would have them live in a time and place, where this data would NOT be supplied us. For, in the end, they look like us. And some historical sketch or painting, had one ever been made, would only tend to limit our vision, rather than allow us to identify with them.
To the question what did Mary look like we may garner five possible answers:
But answer four is probably the most helpful when it comes to accepting the diverse ways she is depicted.
Most of us American Catholics see her in very European terms. Historically this may be dubious, by why shouldn’t we see here as looking like us. She is after all our mother.
As I walk though the dozens of chapels in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception here in Washington, I see her as Chinese, American, Lithuanian, Mexican, Filipino, Korean, African, Lebanese, Irish, Ethiopian, and so on. And why shouldn’t these various Ethnicities see her as looking like them, she is, after all their mother.
In her various apparitions her look varies too. La Virgen de Guadalupe “La Morena” (= dark skinned) is surely different than the descriptions we have from other sights such as Fatima or Lourdes. But here too, why can’t the heavenly beauty of Immaculate Mary, so brightly reflective of God’s glory, not refract through the prism of human experience in different colors and ways?
What does Mary look like? She is our Mother, she looks like us. Jesus is our brother (and Lord), he looks like us.
I dunno, I’d bet my next house payment that she didn’t look Korean.
She was a Middle-Eastern Jewish girl. They can be very beautiful. And she looked exactly like a feminine version of her Son, since He got all His human DNA from her.
Thank you. And thanks to Msgr Pope.
She looks like you AND she is far more beautiful than you could ever imagine, because God means YOU to be far more beautiful than you could ever imagine.
Not necessarily. Although Jesus got all his human DNA from Mary, every human being carries genetic material that is not physically expressed in that person. Jesus could have had features more like his grandfather's than his mother's, or more like his great-grandmother's.
Given the endogamous nature of their society, there might not have been a great deal of possible variation - blue eyes and blond hair not likely! - but there would be some, even without the additional genetic material of a human father.
The origins of devotion to Our Lady, under the invocation Help of Christians dates back to 1571.
In that crucial year, Christians and Turks met in the largest naval battle ever. The great Pope Saint Pius V had labored for years to get the Catholic League together and in fighting shape.
On October 7, 1571, 210 Catholic ships, mostly Spanish and Venetians, opposed 290 Turkish ships. The Catholics won a spectacular victory under the leadership of the Spanish Prince Juan of Austria.
Ah, yes ... the pale version of La Virgen Morenita ;-).
I have choir practice tomorrow morning for our Sunday Guadalupe celebration. One of my favorite things about the Spanish congregation is that we can bring out our Marian songs any time, and everyone is happy, but we have a special selection of Mexican favorites for Guadalupe.
Good point.
I can’t help being tiresomely pedantic ...
Our Lady of America
From this time onward, the historic records of the painting are documented and authenticated by the miracles associated with the painting. In 1430, a devastating attack on the Polish Shrine resulted in tragic losses and the damaging of the holy picture. To this very day, despite the attempts to repair the damage, the slashes on the face of the Virgin Mary are still visible. |
No, you’re right, and I’m glad you brought it up.
Is it how Mary REALLY looked 2000 years ago? Apparently it either IS or it DOESN'T matter since we all get to see her differently.
Mary's features are in there somewhere.
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