1997). Good Catholics would argue that finding a devout life mate with whom can live a good and Catholic life is crucially important, and it is, but it's also just a normal part of life. We won't find that person until we find him or her, and it's up to us to deal with it and to live a life that can reasonably lead to that outcome. Mary can help us by helping us abide in our faith, not by sending us a mate on a velvet cushion. As Appleby (1999) says, Michelangelo's Pieta "embodies the astonishing resilience, beyond death, of the relationship between a parent and a beloved child... love and trust do not wither, but deepen. In Mary's passion the common human experience of parenthood is forever associated with the experience of divinity -- of the heavenly father who sacrificed his only son" (Appleby, 1999).

Mary's experience is almost incomprehensible. She becomes pregnant in a way completely unintelligible to anyone, but an angel tells her she carries the Son of God -- while she is alone, with no witnesses -- and she believes it. Presumably she has to go to her husband-to-be, Joseph, to tell him she is pregnant -- but still a virgin, never having laid with any man. Apparently, Joseph, demonstrating great faith, also believes her. Then she has to raise this wonderful child who dazzles the rabbis in the temple, knowing that God will take Him back. When he does, Jesus dies a terrible, drawn-out and agonizing death. After his death, we see in the Pieta that Mary cradles him in her arms, across her lap. She can see his terrible wounds. She knows...

There is no tear on her cheek, no look of anguish on her face. This is something she and her son had to do together, a burden and journey they both accepted. Of course Mary had no choice. She wasn't asked by God, "Will you do this for me?" She was informed that this was how her life was going to be. Of course God chose the mother for His son carefully, but neither she nor Jesus had any choice. And yet, they willingly did what they had to do. Mary, the mother, did the thing that must be harder than anything any mother has to do: bury her child.
Only faith could have gotten her through it, and of course when it all played out, when Jesus did rise from the dead on the third day, then she knew the great miracle: she had not lost her son. He would live forever. Why should she believe her son would rise from the dead to live in glory forever? That could easily be described as irrational.

She did not know this at the time the Pieta depicts, however, except in her heart and in her faith, what was going to happen next, and yet she believed. This may be one of the biggest lessons Mary has to offer us: that real faith means believing when all reason tells you that all hope is gone.

Bibliography

Appleby, R. Scott. 1999. "In the end, a mother's love.(importance of Virgin Mary)." U.S. Catholic, October.

Batz, Jeannette. 1997. "Mary's gift is receptivity rather than redemption." National Catholic Reporter, Sept. 27.