Province of Mary, Mother of the Americas

Painting of a bronze of Our Lady of La Salette in Attleboro, MA, by Fr. Alfredo Velarde, M.S., Parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Las Termas de Rio Hondo, Argentina.

This marvelous picture is a painting by a La Salette Missionary, Fr. Alfredo Velarde, M.S., stationed in the Parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Nuestra Señora de Perpetuo Socorro), Las Termas de Rio Hondo, Argentina. His painting was exhibited at one of the venues of the Lay Ministry Summit which took place in Georgia from July 20-23, 2011. The inspiration for this picture and its original version in bronze is displayed in the Reconciliation Chapel of the La Salette National Shrine in Attleboro, MA.

 

This imaginative image, even beyond its depiction of the initial phase of the La Salette Apparition, is a daring expression of the circumstances in which our Mother Mary was commissioned by her Son to be our Mother, as heard in the gospel of the La Salette Mass: 

 

“Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home” (John 19:25-27).

 

This depiction has been residing in my soul ever since I first saw it. I don't know if my understanding of the message is the same as that of the original sculptor but nevertheless I wish to share it with you. 

 

As I see it, our Mother Mary came to us at La Salette wracked by emotional pain. She came accompanied by the vivid memory of the pain that her Son endured on the Cross for love of us. She also came to us after being “baptized and commissioned” at the foot of the cross. She and Jesus were enveloped in the fiery pain of human suffering. 

 

I see our Holy Mother is here depicted by the artist in the dialectic between the heat of suffering and that of love. The bloody cross embedded in the core of Mary’s heart is also the generator of the fire of her love for all her children. 

 

La Salette Crucifix (window: Chapel of La Salette Missionaries, Hartford, CT)

At La Salette, the simplicity of the children does not diminish the intensity of her mission. The small part of Maximin's hands which seems to be engulfed by the light can express the basic understanding that these two cowherds were able to capture from the event of meeting the Mother of Jesus. The tearful love that the Beautiful Lady expresses to the two simple children is at the heart of the mission that they are now asked to bring to the world.

 

As a consequence of the sin of Adam and Eve, each of us are born into this world in pain (“in pain shall you bring forth children” Genesis 3:16). To enter into the Kingdom of God on earth, we must be baptized – die and rise with Jesus. In a sense, we are born through love and borne – supported or lifted up – by love.  

 

In effect, Jesus “delivered” us all through his suffering, death and rising into the new reality borne from his infinitely efficacious sacrifice, with his mother (and ours) suffering with him.

  

For me, this artist’s rendering touches upon the mystery of the Apparition of our Mother Mary at La Salette at a level deeper than so many others I have admired. It is almost as though the other depictions owe their explanation to this one – not in time but in Spirit.