In John Collier’s painting “Pietà,” Mary cradles her dead son, embracing him with both arms and legs in a posture reminiscent of childbirth. There is fear in her eyes as she regards the intruding angel, shown as an explosion of light. In Henry Tanner’s arresting painting “The Annunciation,” for instance, we see Mary’s youth and vulnerability. Most of those incarnations, especially the more contemporary ones, have emphasized Mary’s humanity over her sanctity, dramatizing the ways in which she is like us ordinary mortals. As a devotee of art and literature, I’ve enjoyed the many versions of Mary I have met on the walls of churches and museums and in the pages of books. I greeted the publication of the novella with enthusiasm and attended the play as soon as I could get a ticket. The play received several Tony nominations this week, including one for Best Play, but the producers announced it would nonethless close on Sunday May 5. No woman has been represented more often in painting and sculpture, inspired more music or had more poems penned in an effort to express her unspoken heart.Ī new, and highly unorthodox, depiction of Mary has been in the public eye of late, the Irish writer Colm Toíbín’s play “The Testament of Mary.” The one-woman play, first produced in Dublin, was recast as a novella, and has returned to the stage, newly revised for Broadway. Given this paucity of knowledge, painters and poets are free to depict Mary as they choose, so long as their images conform to the few established biblical “facts.” As a result, artists have had a field day with Mary. It is the nature of human beings to try to imagine what they cannot know. Perhaps it is this relative lack of information about Mary in Christian tradition that has inspired so many artists over the centuries to fill in the gaps. The Koran contains more mentions of Mary than the Bible-34 references, listing her genealogy and even depicting her childhood.

It seems that the woman given the title Mother of God might have warranted more space in the Scriptures. These brief glimpses into the hidden life of Mary suggest that she was an attentive mother, a bit pushy when she needed to be and faithful to her son in his darkest hour.Īdmittedly, this isn’t much to go on.

She appears at a few key moments in Christ’s ministry-searching frantically for him and finding him teaching in the temple urging him to assist the hapless hosts at Cana and, finally, standing vigil beneath the cross. Through the agency of the Holy Spirit, she conceives the Messiah, gives birth to Jesus and raises him to adulthood. According to the Bible, Mary’s role in salvation history is small but mighty. May is the month in which the church honors Mary by happy coincidence, it is also the month when secular culture honors mothers.

The testament of mary toibin