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The Imitation of God’s Grandmother
Pierre-Marie Dumont
Jesus Christ Our Paschal Lamb
Diego de la Cruz (fl. 1482–1500)
Saint Gregory the Great’s dramatic Eucharistic vision, said to have occurred while he celebrated Mass, was initially recounted in an 8th-century papal biography by Paul the Deacon, a Benedictine monk. By the 14th century, various other accounts of the beloved pope’s vision spread among the faithful. Pope Gregory’s devotion to the Eucharistic presence of Jesus also inspired artistic works such as this image, attributed to the gifted Spanish Renaissance painter Diego de la Cruz. In his dramatic depiction of the saintly pope’s vision, the sacrifice of Jesus’ Passion and death on the cross is connected to the Mass. And a unique aerial closeup perspective allows the viewer to linger over the profound vision unfolding at the altar.
Pope Gregory at prayer
Pope Gregory kneels before an altar on which rests a chalice, paten with a cross design, and sacramentary, the book of Mass prayers spoken or sung by the priest. He is vested in a papal chasuble richly embroidered with flowers, pearls, and ecclesial figures. To his left, a red-robed cardinal holds a papal tiara, a jewelled three-tiered ceremonial crown used chiefly in papal coronations and certain solemn processions. The kneeling cardinal looks heavenward, imitating the pope’s visionary gaze. An aspersorium holding holy water sits on the floor between them.
The tonsured monk on the right is an altar server who lifts the pope’s chasuble with his left hand while holding, in his right hand, a slender rod topped with a lit candle, also known as the elevation candle. These two liturgical gestures indicate the sacred moment of the Mass when the priest elevates the Host for the faithful to venerate. An elevation candle allowed the faithful to see the Host and the Chalice elevated in dimly lit churches before the advent of electricity. And the lifting of the chasuble relieved some of the weight of the priest’s vestments, allowing him to give the highest elevation to the Host. In this scene, Pope Gregory elevates a Host embossed with the cross of Jesus, leading our eye to the vision he sees over the altar.
Behold the Man
As Pope Gregory elevates the Host, a vision of Jesus as the Man of Sorrows unfolds before him. Jesus stands on the altar with one foot placed on the corporal, the cloth that holds the chalice and paten. Jesus’ feet show bloody nail marks, and his raised arms reveal more nail marks on his blood-stained hands. Pierced with a crown of thorns, Jesus’ bruised body breaks open in the wound from the lance thrust into his side. From his wounded side blood flows into the ornate chalice on the altar.
Behind the suffering figure of Jesus are several reminders of his Passion, painted against a patterned gold background. The column where Jesus was scourged is topped by a rooster, symbol of Peter’s denial. A sword and abstracted human ear recall Peter’s hasty act of cutting off the ear of the high priest’s servant. On either side of Jesus’ frame are the lance and the rod with the sponge dipped in vinegar given as drink. And Jesus’ empty tomb lies beneath the cross. Large metal nails evoke those used to crucify Jesus on the cross, on which is inscribed the letters INRI, the Latin acronym of the title given him by Pilate: “Jesus, the Nazarene, King of the Jews”.
An abstracted image of a slapping hand, a metal instrument of torture, and the face of a man spitting at Jesus are painful reminders of the mockery and ridicule he endured during his Passion. A ladder leans against the cross as we see Judas betraying Jesus with a kiss. Around Judas’ neck hangs a large red money bag, symbol of the vile greed and cowardice of his betrayal. And on the right of the painting, a tonsured monk kneels with hands folded in prayer. Above his head, a silver basin, jug of water, and towel remind us of Jesus’ humble act of service as he washed the feet of his disciples before his Passion.
Eucharist—sacrament of divine love
Pope Gregory’s vivid Eucharistic vision links the divine love revealed in the Passion of Jesus and its renewal in the Mass. As the Catechism teaches, “since Christ was about to take his departure from his own in his visible form, he wanted to give us his sacramental presence; since he was about to offer himself on the cross to save us, he wanted us to have the memorial of the love with which he loved us ‘to the end’, even to the giving of his life. In his Eucharistic presence, he remains mysteriously in our midst as the one who loved us and gave himself up for us, and he remains under signs that express and communicate this love” (1380).
In reflecting on the gift of the Eucharist, Pope John Paul II observed that “the Church and the world have a great need of eucharistic worship. Jesus waits for us in this sacrament of love. Let us be generous with our time in going to meet him in adoration and in contemplation that is full of faith and ready to make reparation for the great faults and crimes of the world. Let our adoration never cease” (Dominicæ cenæ, 3).
The unique aerial perspective of this ethereal image reveals the fullness of divine incarnate crucified love revealed in the suffering that Jesus endured willingly to reconcile humanity to friendship with God. And this visual catechesis extends Jesus’ invitation to grow in union with him and love of neighbour through our participation in the gift and mystery of the Eucharist.
Jem Sullivan, Ph.D.
Teaches catechetics in the School of Theology and Religious Studies at
The Catholic University of America and is the author of Believe, Celebrate, Live, Pray:
A Weekly Retreat with the Catechism (Our Sunday Visitor).
The Mass of Saint Gregory (c. 1490), Attributed to Diego de la Cruz (fl. 1482–1500). Philadelphia Museum of Art. © Bridgeman Images.
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September is back-to-school month, which means parish religious education programmes are about to resume. Christian mothers in particular will be requested to assume with their own feminine genius—in a way that is not exclusive but irreplaceable—the responsibility for handing on knowledge and faith that is central to their vocation. To experience this start of the school year with joy and serenity, they can find help and inspiration by reconnecting with the traditional devotions to Saint Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary—and the patron saint of women teachers and catechists.
Wasn’t Saint Anne a good mother?
Neither the New Testament nor the apocryphal gospels tell us how Saint Anne educated her daughter, the blessed among all women. This particular devotion—which has inspired so many artists—was neither revealed nor even suggested by an ancient tradition: It sprang from a deduction which, all things considered, is quite logical. Indeed, history teaches us that among the Jewish people at the time Mary was born, mothers were the ones who educated their daughters. And in particular they taught them to read by having them learn by heart verses from the Torah and the Psalms and then decipher them. Next, by having them transcribe the verses, they taught them to write. It is legitimate to think that, from this perspective, Saint Anne was a good mother, especially inspired by the Holy Spirit to raise little Mary in a suitable way, until her ineffable vocation was completely fulfilled. And in fact, Mary, as she is revealed to us by the Gospels—a young married woman, about fifteen or sixteen years old—appears to us not only full of grace, but also thoroughly instructed, to the point where she finds in Scripture the words of spontaneous praise that she lifted up to heaven in response to the greeting of her cousin Elizabeth (see Lk 1:39-55)1. With good reason, then, the very logical devotion to Saint Anne as a model for teaching mothers and catechists has been approved and strongly encouraged by the Church for more than a thousand years.
The polychrome wooden sculpture that decorates the cover of this issue of Magnificat is an admirable testimony to this tradition. It was produced by the Master of Saint Benedict, who was active in the early 16th century in Hildesheim (near Hanover in Germany). It is impressive in both quality and dimensions: the seated figures are depicted at full scale.
Whereas in Rome at that same time the Renaissance was triumphant with the sculptures of Michelangelo (1475–1564), this work still belongs to what is conventionally called the late Rheinland Gothic, particularly in the significant archetype of its figures and the convention of the draperies with deep shadows among the folds. But we discern developments that foretell a new style which, curiously enough, will skip over the Renaissance style, strictly speaking, by passing directly to the Baroque. Evidence of this is, for example, the tendency toward exuberance in the volume of the clothing, which at the same time starts to let us see the contours of a living body beneath the folds. Or the expression of Saint Anne, which manages to be eloquent in its very restraint.
The Old Testament ends and the New commences
Although it belongs to the same tradition, this work proves to be highly original compared to most examples of the Education of the Virgin. First, Mary is crowned here and is no longer a child. She is a young lady, as tall as her mother and seated beside her, on the same level, not seen from the perspective of the teacher who towers over the student. Next, we see that with her left hand Saint Anne invites her daughter to keep learning from the book of the Old Testament which she holds on her knees, turning the pages with her right hand. Now Mary’s face shows that she is elsewhere—not that she is no longer paying attention to the lesson, but rather that the hour has come for her to be no longer a student of Scripture but to accomplish with her inmost being what she has learned from it. And now Anne understands that this is an important moment: Suddenly her facial expression belies the gesture of her hand; she stares at the closed book that Mary holds on her knees. Her face is lit up with a gentle smile. She has understood. She will be able to close the book of the Old Testament, while by her Fiat, Mary, blessed among all women, will open the book of the New Testament: “Let it be done to me according to your word, may the Spirit and Life of Scripture be fulfilled within me; may the Word of God be brought to earth through me.”2
Thus, thanks to the genius of the Master of Saint Benedict, we have the chance to rediscover the heights to which an inspired artist dared to invite Christian mothers—and of course now, in our post-Christian civilisation, he invites grandmothers as well as mothers.
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1 Mary’s canticle, the Magnificat, is composed mainly of reminiscences from the Psalms and from the First Book of Samuel.
2 In this sense, in many comparable works from the 14th century to the 16th, the book of the Old Testament that Saint Anne carries ends with the New Testament phrase that indicates its perfect fulfilment: Et Verbum caro factum est (“And the Word became flesh”, Jn 1:14). From the 18th century on, artists dazzled by the lights of rationalism would lose the ultimate meaning of the traditional iconography of The Education of the Virgin and would depict the volume merely as an ABC book.
The Education of the Virgin, Master of Saint Benedict (c.1510–1530, attr. to), Philadelphia Museum of Art. Copyright Bridgeman Images.
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