Thursday, February 28, 2008 So: The look of a Virgin Mary By Michelle P. So Caught in the Net
MY trips around the country have brought me to different Catholic churches but not consequently to my spiritual enlightenment.
I look at the statues of the saints, the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ and find them all carrying a dolorous expression. Do they have to look so sad? I feel the weight of my problems and President Arroyo's as well when I see them looking down at me from their pedestals and soothing me, "Poor you, you have become so fat."
There is a church in Molo, Iloilo where all its 16 four-foot saints are female. I wonder how God can have some peace in the Molo Church as he lives among 16 patronesses, each seeking His attention. I do not recognize any of them but find them to all look the same. They seem to have originated from one doleful ancestor no matter what land or country they came from. They all look dainty, sweet-faced, famished and Caucasian.
There is a church in Obrero, Davao City where the Virgin Mary is different. She's not in the usual sky-blue or maroon robe that saints and other Virgin Mary icons are made to wear by their makers. She is in a bright red tunic and a white veil.
Carrying her child, she stands near the gate of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish. She has a "mini me" about three feet away. She catches everyone's attention because of, first, her red figure-hugging tunic, and second, her face. She is the third Virgin Mary, not counting her mini me, built outside the church.
This particular Virgin Mary does not look dainty, sweet-faced, famished or Caucasian like the two others before her. She looks to me how an Asian mother with a heavy baby to take care of really looks-tired but still watchful, contented (or at least not dolorous) and filled out. And for the first time, I see a Virgin Mary with Chinese features and her feet on the ground. Because she's not on a pedestal, she is not looking down at supplicants. Nor is she looking up, like some religious icons do to see if they can make out an image of God from the cloud formation.
I knew of this Chinese Virgin Mary from its sculptor, Kublai Millan, whose family owns Ponce Suites where I stay when I am in Davao. He said the sponsors of the project found his Virgin Mary too atypical for comfort and would have preferred something close to the ordinary. He was piqued. He said he was not disrespecting anyone and definitely not the Catholics. The image is his interpretation of the Virgin Mary, "of a Mother and Child in a Philippine setting."
Has anyone ever seen what the Virgin Mary actually looks like? The ones who did probably have their own statues made in the likeness of Mary, which explains the sameness of their look no matter in what churches they are found.
Kublai, a fine arts graduate of the University of the Philippines in Diliman is not one with ordinary concepts. If one goes around Davao City, one finds his huge concrete sculptures of people and objects that depict what is Mindanao. His work feeds the mind of its viewer and brings out the pride of the Mindanao-born. But then, art is relative appreciation.
A visit to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church yesterday morning brought me face to face with the Virgin Mary in contention. In her red tunic and with her Asian features, she's a head-turner and not the typical religious icon.
I sought a priest, not to confess but to get the other side. The parish office was still closed but a nun came by. I asked her about the new statue by the gate. "She's Our Lady of China," she said.
