A Gaze of Eternity

One of my favorite places to pray in Rome is in the small Chapel of the Virgin in the Basilica of St Bartholomew on the Island. Behind the altar is a 13th century fresco of Mary and the child Jesus. The fresco is striking because we that the child Jesus is looking at Mary, something that was uncommon for frescoes of the time period (and maybe why it was covered for hundreds of years). But Jesus doesn’t simply just look at Mary but gazes at her eternity, as St Clare might say, almost as if he is thinking, “all of God’s beauty came to earth through you, you began all of what is to come”. I think of this image today as we enter into a new papal time, remembering that our faith and church became what it is because of the yes of a woman, a role that could’ve only been filled by a woman.

I’m also thinking of the gaze of eternity that the image gives us. I look at the person I love, who I haven’t seen in months, with this same gaze, into eyes that I believe give me a sense of eternity and peacefulness. With the new travel bans being enforced by our country, I think of all the eternity that we will miss out on seeing because of it, all of the beauty that is hidden because of it. Not only do we miss out on these different experiences of eternity by not being able to see others, but those who love may not see the love that they have anymore. There is a human side to all of this that we miss when we are taken from each other, when we are stopped from seeing the eternity that each of us uniquely has. It is at the center core of our lives, whether Christian or not, to love and be connected to each other.

This fresco of Mary and Jesus can be a powerful image of the role that women play in our society, in our church, in our faith lives, and a symbol of the beautiful eternity that we see in each other if we choose to do so.