If you look at your sheets
and the translation of one of the lines there was, “The word of God is coming,
let the earth tremble.” You could kind
of feel you know with the way the drums were playing that the earth was shaking. What a powerful way to introduce the word of
God, because God breaks into our lives.
It is hopefully something that just goes through every fiber of our
body. I mean that’s part of the beauty
of what I hear in the music this morning.
It kind of reminds me you know that our Catholic faith and tradition
covers the whole world, whether we sing in
So all this really leads
into what our feast is about today too.
What I’d like to do is just take a couple of moments and talk about this
icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help because again it touches all of our senses, it touches all that we are as human beings and as
people of faith. Now an
icon, one of the things you notice right away are the beautiful colors
in it. The image of Our Mother of
Perpetual Help is on a gold background.
And in the Byzantine liturgy or art that symbolizes heaven. So it is to remind us that Mary, the mother
of Jesus and Jesus in her arms have come to bring you
and me all the graces of heaven. That we
always are surrounded by all the graces and the blessings God wants to give
us. It’s right there in the painting. Perhaps you can look at it and say, “Ah, I
missed it.”
The color of Mary’s robe is
blue. That was the color of the mantle
of the women in
But you notice too there are
two angels, Gabriel and St. Michael. And
what they are holding are the instruments of Jesus’ passion. When He was pierced on the cross by a lance
and water and blood flowed from his side, there’s the lance. And on the other side the angel Gabriel has
the cross and the nails that nailed Him.
And that’s part of the story’s image.
Jesus saw these angels showing Him the instruments of His passion and
death, then He ran and He jumped into his mother’s arms. And again the symbolism behind there, as our
gospel said this morning, Jesus on the cross said to John, “There is your
mother.” And to Mary, “There is your son.”
Means He gave His mother Mary to us.
So, Jesus
again jumping into the arms of His mother Mary. And when you
notice, you have to look closely. One of
His little sandals is hanging loose from His foot. Again part of that imagery that if you’re
scared and frightened you run and you jump into your mother’s arms, you know
one little sandal fell off. To remind us
again that Jesus was very human. The other
sandal is firmly planted on His foot, that Jesus is divine. Jesus is both God and human. Again touches our humanity. All that’s in just that
simple little symbol.
When you look more closely
too you’ll notice that the mouth of Mary is very small in proportion to the
whole picture. What the artist is trying
to say again is that Mary is very silent.
Words do not need to be spoken all the time do they? When we are fearful, frightened, and
sometimes when we are very joyful we just kind of go quiet don’t we? And our heart and our whole body speaks to what’s going on inside us.
Then, if
you notice Mary’s eyes. Mary is not looking at her Son Jesus. Her eyes, again out of
proportion to the whole painting.
They are large eyes and they’re looking out at you and me. Again part of the beautiful symbol that Mary,
as the mother of Jesus. Jesus gave us
His mother Mary and Mary sees you and me in our pain, our difficulties, our
hardships, all that life brings us and we know that we can come to Mary and she
will hold us as gently in her arms as does she hold her Son, Jesus.
There are other images in
here as well. There are Greek letters
for Jesus, for Mary Mother of God, Mater, Theotokus-Mother
of God, the Greek symbols for Gabriel and Michael and also the Greek words for
Jesus Christ, His name there.
So it’s a beautiful
icon. This was entrusted to the
Redemptorists in 1866 by Pope Pius IX.
And he gave it to the Redemptorists and told them, “Make Our Mother of
Perpetual Help known throughout the world.”
They is why in every Redemptorist parish and
church you go you will always see a shrine to Our Mother of Perpetual
Help. In many parts of the world they
have devotions that go all day long so many people want to come and pray to
Mary under this title. We have devotions
to Our Mother of Perpetual Help every Tuesday morning at the end of the 8:30
Mass but you can come any time to pray before the shrine of Mary. But again hopefully when you look at the
picture again you just won’t say, “Gee that’s nice” but look deeper into all
the images and all the symbols and sometimes just stand there and let those
eyes of Mary penetrate your heart, to know again the beautiful words of the
gospel, Jesus says, “There is your mother.”
You know I was thinking the
other day, talking to somebody about my own mom. I remember when she died in 1991 and I was back home in
So get in touch with your
humanity, get in touch with Mary the Mother of Jesus.
Our Mother of Perpetual Help
pray for us, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.