There are relationships to which same-sex attracted people, along with everyone else, should aspire and none more important than that between Mary and God, says John Heard.
By John Heard
A few weeks ago, I wrote about a painting. It was more than that, of course; I wrote about the Blessed Virgin Mary and how Catholics relate, or try to relate, to her; how we try to reach up after her. I wrote about how same-sex attracted Catholics, in particular, need her to model purity; about how Catholic men and women everywhere want her to stay a while, and be our Queen, our Mother – if not a constant companion in daily toil.
I attached an image of the painting to the article, and it was published alongside. Titian’s Assumption of the Virgin, however, has not left me alone.
There was the time I sent off another column, one I had copied and pasted to re-write from the earlier template, only to notice afterwards that the painting was still electronically attached.
There was also the time I was checking email (as I am wont to do, on my phone, at all hours), during which the image popped up unexpectedly. Large and luminous in the darkness, the experience revealed another detail to grasp about Titian’s Virgin: she is bright.
In the glow, her features shone. The Virgin reflected the light emanating from about where the throne of God might be (although Titian left that sort of concrete detail out). In this, I decided, Titian is a mystic.
Certainly, since then, I have had cause to think of Mary under another title, one additional to the many I cited in the original article. She is sometimes thought of as the “Woman clothed with the sun”, who appears in the captivating twelfth chapter of Revelation. Commonly, statues of Mary, then, show her “with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars”.
Scriptural experts in the marginal notes of the Bible I’m reading claim that the woman figured here stands in for the whole people of God. She is Israel, ranged against the darkness.
That does not detract from the depictions of Mary as the “woman clothed with the sun”, however. Such interpretations simply complicate the reading. Mary is the Mother of the Church (another title) and Catholics understand themselves to be the people of the New Covenant – Israel.
I am not clever enough to follow this to the logical end. I cannot offer theological insights, and there is no room to make too much fuss about Mary as the Moon that mirrors the blessed light (the grace) that proceeds from the Most Blessed Trinity (the Sun).
It might be enough to say, though, that the experience of thinking on Mary, about the woman of Revelation 12, an experience prompted by spending some time with a superlative piece of art (even in reproduction, even on an iPhone screen), strikes me as a distinctly Catholic activity.
It is also, of course, and some may already be thinking this, a peculiarly queer activity.
One of the common stereotypes has same-sex attracted men, of course, as more sensitive to art and artistic interests. Mooning over a Titian then, particularly his Assumption of the Virgin, is a moment that is both Catholic and queer.
I do not mean to comment much about this fact, except to point it out. There might not be anything, after all, that is terribly exciting about this unexpected unity, other than the fact that I did not look for it, and I doubt others would. Most people, of course, simply do not think about same-sex attraction.
For those who are same-sex attracted, however, especially for those who model much that is queer, and little that is currently Catholic, properly speaking – such moments are looked for, let me tell you.
Many young men, in particular, but young same-sex attracted women too, look for such moments. They want to see how they can fit in the Church.
Not, indeed, just because of what people say about being queer, or “gay” (a notion that has always made very little sense to me).
Not even, of course, because they might have a fully formed intention to choose Catholicism, to live and grow in the faith of Titian and of so many other creative spirits. Many of the men who write to me do not.
They are not really looking for a reflection of themselves, then, and they do not want an insight into some other individual or his faith.
Rather, they look for a window onto a moment of grace. They seek truth, and goodness, and beauty. They seek, then, the Blessed Virgin, and they seek God.
Happy are we who already know and love Our Lady. Happy, is she, who dwells so close to the Light.
– emaildreadnought@gmail.com