The Madonna

"And if there is a Christ who must come, for whatever reason, to judge the quick and the dead, then let us hope and pray that he can be reminded that he is – as he has always been – his mother’s son."

Michelangelo’s Pietà Mary. Photo by Richard Wang on Unsplash

I cannot visit Italy without wandering into churches.

There is a transition at the doorway as the quiet strikes. Always, a subtle confusion on protocol, but definitely hat off, voice lowered, a flash decision on how deep into the church to wander. A look to the ceiling, an inventory of the off-hour faithful worshipping in pews, statues left and right, hymnals tucked into benches, the long-suffering candles, choir stalls of velvet or Lutheran hardwood.

Large or small, a church pumps the brakes on attention.

I’ve felt this elsewhere. To a lesser degree, I have this same pause walking into any setting prepared with deep care: a decorated stage of a theater, a grand university library, a manicured professional baseball field. Some settings demand respect whether you love the theater or books or sports or God, possibly because someone else believes in the domain so fervently. Faith like all deep passions should be treated with dignity.

When I first saw the Pietà Mary in St. Peter’s Basilica, I knew that she, and I mean she—and not They—was the most beautiful sculpture of a human—not a God—that I’d ever witnessed.

I am not a Christian. I was. But with whatever residual faith I might subconsciously have retained, I can tell you that her statue explains why I am not a Christian of creeds and rules and admonitions. Her statue argues for The Truth. I challenge any Christian to hold their creed up to it. Or any believer of any dogmatic faith.

I tread on dangerous ground—I am in a church of sorts writing these words, and I am neither taking my hat off respectfully nor lowering my voice—but I believe Michelangelo challenges the faithful to reconcile Love and Damnation.

The Pietà Mary struck me when I saw her displayed from a slide projector in a college survey class on Western Art, but when I stepped into a church and saw her directly, I got it. Or, as it is in all matters of faith or disbelief, it is more accurate to say, “I think I got it.”

The excerpt below is from Finisterre my account of walking the Camino de Santiago. I spent a great deal of time on that journey wandering into churches. I reread the gospels with an open mind. I pumped the brakes on attention, and there were some takeaways.

Here is the big one.

“I was thinking specifically of the Pieta Mary. The compassion in her features, the exquisite femininity, the resigned gaze into infinity. What radiates out of hard stone is something bigger than the rules and creeds of men, their heavens and hells, who is going where and how and why, and which particular ideas and exact words must be used to navigate and sustain it all. The bitter, self-evident foolishness of all that.

The Pieta Mary doesn’t busy herself with any of it. She doesn’t comfort herself with her fading memory of her son’s Sermon on the Mount. Her expression sweeps all of that away without even raising her eyes. It radiates that none of that is important now.

My oldest is dead.

This idea of Mary is before and beyond all of the masculine doing and measuring and adding up. She simply loves you, the broken, crucified, un-resurrected tragedy of you. I imagine for Catholics there must be a liberation in trusting in her, in counting on her, in inviting the thing that she represents to be one’s deepest ally, in making the case for you with her eyes.

And if there is a Christ who must come, for whatever reason, to judge the quick and the dead, then let us hope and pray that he can be reminded that he is – as he has always been – his mother’s son.”

Finisterre

“But I believe in love
And I know that you do too
And I believe in some kind of path
That we can walk down, me and you
So keep your candles burning
Make her journey bright and pure
That she'll keep returning
Always and evermore”

— Nick Cave