When it came time to play them, we couldn't help wonder what the Catholics were thinking when they named the school "Immaculate Conception." Weird. If you're a sixth grade boy just about everything has something to do with sex. That Catholic school's weird name, whatever it meant, was about something good Christian boys had no business thinking about out loud, and the kids from that school plastered it on their uniforms? Seriously?
But we played 'em, weird name or not. As far as I remember, no teacher or coach from our school ever said much about the name. "Okay, guys, tomorrow we'll line up against 'Immaculate Conception.'" I don't think we giggled. It's just that when you thought about it a little--well, you know: it was something like foreskins and circumcision and all of that embarrassing stuff. When you're twelve, it's just weird that you'd say those words out loud.When you leave the Raphael Rooms of the Vatican Museums, massive frescos that fill every square centimeter of your consciousness, you follow the flow into another space so laden with life-sized art you don't know where to look first because you're sure you'll miss something. And you will.
Anyway, there she was, Mary mother of Jesus, Virgin Mary, in a bigger-than-life statue and surrounded by massive frescoes featuring dozens, even hundreds of human figures, some with addresses in this world, some, clearly, very much at home in the next.
It's the Room of the Immaculate Conception, and while I'd long ago come to understand the phrase in a 7th grade-boy way, I never took the time to think much, really, about the adoration of Mary, except in a very Protestant way--as silly. In this immense room, everything was the Immaculate Conception, not the divine act itself (although a score of artists have taken a shot at that), but the act's honored and historic place in Roman Catholic dogma and culture.
In the huge wall behind the statue features two worlds. The world below is Rome--the Vatican, Pope and Cardinals all aligned for the celebration of the formal acceptance of the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. The world above features heaven (far left) and that other brimstone place (far right, where the sinners are, at this moment, falling from grace). Fig-leafed Adam and guilt-ridden Eve are on the cloud, upper right, Adam seemingly protecting his sinful mistress.
But at the heart of the Heaven is the Trinity. There's a dove (the Holy Spirit) above Mary's head (she's in blue, traditionally), and she stands (while Christ and the Father sit) just a bit lower in foreground. Telling placements.
For centuries, the Roman Catholic church had accepted the belief that Mary was not only a virgin, but also, alone of all mankind, sinless. Not until 1854 did her divinity become defined as Catholic dogma, an act signed into canon law by Pope Pius IX. That moment is prominently featured in the center of the fresco, the Pope standing before his throne, surrounded by Cardinals, all of which makes this particular room, the Room of the Immaculate Conception, of far more recent vintage (1860s) than the Rafael Rooms next door (300 years older). The paint is still wet.
Rome didn't make me any more Roman Catholic than I ever was, but for two weeks
It really, really was a big deal. That big, in fact.
I never had a problem with that wonderful last line of the Luke 2 story--"and Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart" (NIV), nor did i ever fume about her remarkable--"divine"--compliance to the angel's bizarre directives a chapter earlier: "May it happen to me according to your word,” she says at the angel's annunciation. She's what?--13 maybe, and she's about to be pregnant while unmarried, and, as yet, untouched in any ordinary ways.
The Lord God almighty knew what he was doing when he picked Mary out of the gallery. He wanted--and he got--someone who'd do whatever had to be done. "Of course," she could have said. "When should I write it in my calendar?"
But just last night, we listened to Rev. Andrew Kuyvenhoven point us at the strangely, and equally compliant husband-to-be, who likely understood he was going to have to fib to get this one through the ringer.
They're hardly human, those two. They get visited supernaturally--who's to say it wasn't just a bizarre dream?--and just like that, they fold, both of them. "Sure, Lord God," they say. "When does this whole thing begin?"
"How about this?" the Creator might have told them--"at the beginning of time,'"
I doubt that would have stopped them either. They just trust too much. They're like saints.
Anyway, there she was, Mary mother of Jesus, Virgin Mary, in a bigger-than-life statue and surrounded by massive frescoes featuring dozens, even hundreds of human figures, some with addresses in this world, some, clearly, very much at home in the next.
It's the Room of the Immaculate Conception, and while I'd long ago come to understand the phrase in a 7th grade-boy way, I never took the time to think much, really, about the adoration of Mary, except in a very Protestant way--as silly. In this immense room, everything was the Immaculate Conception, not the divine act itself (although a score of artists have taken a shot at that), but the act's honored and historic place in Roman Catholic dogma and culture.
In the huge wall behind the statue features two worlds. The world below is Rome--the Vatican, Pope and Cardinals all aligned for the celebration of the formal acceptance of the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. The world above features heaven (far left) and that other brimstone place (far right, where the sinners are, at this moment, falling from grace). Fig-leafed Adam and guilt-ridden Eve are on the cloud, upper right, Adam seemingly protecting his sinful mistress.
But at the heart of the Heaven is the Trinity. There's a dove (the Holy Spirit) above Mary's head (she's in blue, traditionally), and she stands (while Christ and the Father sit) just a bit lower in foreground. Telling placements.
For centuries, the Roman Catholic church had accepted the belief that Mary was not only a virgin, but also, alone of all mankind, sinless. Not until 1854 did her divinity become defined as Catholic dogma, an act signed into canon law by Pope Pius IX. That moment is prominently featured in the center of the fresco, the Pope standing before his throne, surrounded by Cardinals, all of which makes this particular room, the Room of the Immaculate Conception, of far more recent vintage (1860s) than the Rafael Rooms next door (300 years older). The paint is still wet.
Rome didn't make me any more Roman Catholic than I ever was, but for two weeks
I was most definitely more of a disciple of that whole world than I'd ever been. Somehow the visual grace, art that attracts millions annually, helped me understand far more than I ever had about the historic church, even has me smiling in a whole new way at those grade school kids with that weird name printed on their basketball uniforms.
It really, really was a big deal. That big, in fact.
The Lord God almighty knew what he was doing when he picked Mary out of the gallery. He wanted--and he got--someone who'd do whatever had to be done. "Of course," she could have said. "When should I write it in my calendar?"
But just last night, we listened to Rev. Andrew Kuyvenhoven point us at the strangely, and equally compliant husband-to-be, who likely understood he was going to have to fib to get this one through the ringer.
They're hardly human, those two. They get visited supernaturally--who's to say it wasn't just a bizarre dream?--and just like that, they fold, both of them. "Sure, Lord God," they say. "When does this whole thing begin?"
"How about this?" the Creator might have told them--"at the beginning of time,'"
I doubt that would have stopped them either. They just trust too much. They're like saints.
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