My favorite icon that is currently on our mantel is a small painting of Mary breastfeeding Jesus. The picture, which was a baptism gift to Zosia from my Aunt Basia, is very small, so it requires a very close look to even notice that Mary is breastfeeding-- but I love love love it. When we received it, it shifted the way I thought about Jesus. I somehow had never really thought about Jesus as a breastfeeding baby. It brought my understanding of his full humanity to an entirely new level. As Ben always says, some Christians never move beyond the notion of Jesus as God in a man suit. But in reality, he was fully God and fully human, which is just so difficult to understand that we often drop the human part.
Check out this article about the Vatican encouraging Catholics to be more accepting of icons of a breastfeeding Jesus (thanks, Michelle, for passing this along!): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/2185823/Vatican-approves-breast-feeding-pictures-of-Virgin-Mary.html
By the way, we're traveling to Connecticut and Boston this week, so my posts might not be quite as consistent, but I'll be back at the end of the week with at least one new Thanksgiving recipe to share!
1 comment:
I love the realism of your image. This one is more stylized, but it is good to know that images that show the humaness of Jesus, although not prevalent in the canon of art, have always been a part of artists' portrayal of the Madonna
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_7XzHD7ED9rs/RgquHsENobI/AAAAAAAAADU/b1G5k249hsI/amadona25.jpg
Post a Comment