Reflection for December 21
In 2016, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts held a special exhibition of 15th Century sculptures from the famed Della Robbia family workshop. One of these was Luca Della Robbia’s The Visitation, a near-lifesize work that had never left Italy before. To see that sculpture in person was to experience tangibly the power and urgency of the encounter between Mary and Elizabeth, and so it immediately came to mind when reading Luke's Gospel for today.
As art lecturer William R. Cross describes the sculpture, “We see just two figures, Mary and her elderly cousin Elizabeth. The scene also includes two other figures — unborn and therefore unseen — the Messiah Jesus and his herald John the Baptist….Della Robbia conveys the power of this encounter between the two women as an expression of recognition and adoration, presaging proclamation."
"On its most basic level the recognition is one of two relatives embracing happily. But the connection between the women is far more than that….Both Mary and Elizabeth comprehend in faith something of the new reality into which they have entered…a narrative just beginning to unfold...a story of a long-ago promise now being fulfilled...through utterly improbable circumstances.”
"As God turns the world upside down, this moment is early, tangible evidence that God is making all things new. But so far, only these two women believe it….Both cousins’ eyes are wide open, full of rapt attention to one another and to the active work of God in human history. Astounded yet in quiet, they declare that these paired conceptions are both improbable and true, that God is fulfilling a long-standing promise now, in them.”
Advent invites us, as Cross puts it, "to recall the love-filled awe which drove Elizabeth to her knees, when in an unexpected moment God brought material hope into this fallen world. At our darkest hour He will save us too, if by grace we put our faith in Him. May we know the unseen Lord and tremble in adoration before Him as he is born anew in each of our broken hearts, coming with power to redeem us all."
Julie Magri
Cross, William R. Advent — The Visitation by Luca della Robbia.
Accessed at: artway.eu/content.php?id=2200&lang-en&action=show