Ave Maria Lactans

Maria Lactans by Andrea Solari (Click on image for larger version)

(Just a note: I'm out of town for a wedding so activity here will be light - unless you find yourselves in a commenting mood!)

The Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, has published an article affirming that "loving, tender images of Mary breast-feeding the baby Jesus need an artistic and spiritual rehabilitation."

A vast iconography of traditional Christian art has been "censored by the modern age" because images depicting Our Lady's naked breast for her child were deemed too "unseemly," the paper said June 19.

Artists began depicting a fully clothed nursing Mary in sacred art in an attempt to make her seem less "carnal," but the depictions unfortunately also diminished her human, loving and tender side "that touches the hearts and faith of the devout," the newspaper said.

The article, titled "Those Marys, Too Human, Censored by the Modern Age," was written by Christian historian Lucetta Scaraffia. It was one of two articles commenting on the release of a two-volume work documenting the variety in iconography and history of Mary. The work, "The Sword and Milk," by Tommaso Claudio Mineo, was published recently only in Italian by Rome's Pontifical Lateran University and presented to the public at a Vatican-sponsored event June 17.

The Vatican paper published the two commentaries in its June 19 edition along with a Renaissance portrait of Mary baring her breast, nursing a swaddled baby Jesus...

(Full report from CNS)

St. Ephrem was born around the year 300 A.D. Here are Benedict XVI's reflections on St. Ephrem. The following is from one of St. Ephrem's Nativity hymns, with unabashed reference to the milk of a mother's breast and Jesus as an image of the breast from which we all draw nourishment and life:

Mary bore a mute Babe
though in Him were hidden all our tongues.
Joseph carried Him,
yet hidden in Him was a silent nature older than everything.
The Lofty One became like a little child,
yet hidden in Him was a treasure of Wisdom that suffices for all.
He was lofty
but He sucked Mary's milk,
and from His blessings all creation sucks.
He is the Living Breast of living breath;
by His life the dead were suckled, and they revived.
Without the breath of air no one can live;
without the power of the Son no one can rise.
Upon the living breath of the One Who vivifies all
depend the living beings above and below.
As indeed He sucked Mary's milk,
He has given suck -- life to the universe.
As again He dwelt in His mother's womb,
in His womb dwells all creation.
Mute He was as a babe,
yet He gave to all creation all His commands.
For without the First-Born no one is able to approach Being,
for He alone is capable of it.

H/T to Fisheaters for the poem and for this list of links to other examples of Maria Lactans.

If you'd like some musical accompaniment for this post, listen to my favorite a cappella group, Chanticleer, sing the Biebl setting of Ave Maria. For some background on this piece, refer back to my series of posts on the Ave Maria, especially this one.


-ConcordPastor