The Beauty of the Mother of God

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Tota Pulchra

From Helen of Troy in pagan literature to Delilah or Judith in the Scriptures, the beauty of women has changed the fates of men and of nations. But Mary is the supremely, the all-beautiful woman, the Tota pulchra. And her beauty changed the fate of all humanity.

Why is Mary so beautiful, and why is her beauty such a central component of our faith?

To understand that, we have to understand what beauty is, how Mary exemplifies it, and what difference it makes to the course of human history.

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Immaterial truth and goodness in physical form

The fundamental way we human beings experience beauty is as some manifestation of spiritual truth and goodness in physical form.

We see the spiritual truth that existence is a gift, when we look at Michelangelo’s painting of God touching Adam’s finger, and imagine life passing like an electric current from the Heavenly Father to the first human being. We hear the spiritual goodness of unity, and harmony, and energy  of all reality in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

Well, the Holy Spirit is the ultimate Spiritual reality and He is made manifest to us most vividly in the lives of his saints.

That’s where we have the ultimate beauty, the beauty of holiness, expressed in the lives and words and actions of those who allow the Holy Spirit to work through them.

Well, Mary is the most perfect saint. She is the only saint who doesn’t offer any resistance to the Holy Spirit. She is a pristine window, and the beauty of the Holy Spirit’s holiness blasts through her in unadulterated, blinding purity.

That’s why when we look at Mary, we see beauty. Because she is an undimmed, visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s limitless truth and goodness.

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Order and Surprise

Another way to think about beauty is to see it as a combination of order and surprise.

Order is when something goes the way it’s supposed to and Surprise is when you look at something and realize how non-obvious it is.

Think of when your child took its first step. It’s one of the most beautiful moments in a parent’s life. And it’s because the kid is doing what he’s supposed to do yet, somehow, you can’t believe it.

Every time you’re caught off guard, or blown away by how good something is, that’s beauty.

Well by the time Mary comes along, we’ve gotten used to people disobeying God, or resisting God, or maybe obeying God reluctantly and inconsistently. We’ve come to take human brokenness and sin for granted.

In fact, before Mary, no one had ever responded to an angel’s announcement with an explicit statement of belief and obedience. And then Gabriel comes to Mary, and Mary says, “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to your word.”

This is new! This is unexpected! Finally, someone responds appropriately to God’s initiative! Finally, the human project is working exactly the way it is supposed to!

Mary is beautiful because she is perfect. She is astoundingly right, in everything she is and in everything she does. And that’s what beauty means.

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Harmonization of Extremes

One of the ways we experience beauty is when two extremes are unexpectedly and harmoniously brought together. We like stories where a prince marries a servant girl, or where a poor farm boy wins the princess. We like hearing a strong male bass voice singing with an ethereal female soprano. We love to see movies in which embittered enemies or alienated family members are, against all odds, finally reconciled in the end.

Well, Mary is the place where the most radical unification of extremes happens.

In her, the infinite God is united to a tiny, embryonic humanity. The Church will never grow tired of finding new ways of marveling at this beautiful paradox: In Mary, omnipotence became a helpless baby. In Mary, divine immensity, the God who transcends the universe in every direction, is a centimeter or so in diameter. As the ancient hymn proclaims, Mary, to the wonderment of nature, gives birth to her Creator.

This is beauty, the unfathomable joining, the perfect reconciliation, of what is infinitely separated. And it happens in Mary.

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The Beauty of the Madonna and Child

In one of his books, the nineteenth century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard notices that the most beautiful of all human sights is the sight of a young mother looking lovingly at her child. He says this:

“a woman also has a moment, and this must not be denied her, when she is even lovelier than a young girl, and inspires even more honor. But this is a moment that seldom occurs in life; it is a picture for the imagination that does not need to be seen in life, and perhaps is never seen. I imagine her as healthy, blooming, fulfilled; in her arms she is holding a child, to whom all her attention is given, in the contemplation of whom she is absorbed. It is a picture that must be called the loveliest that human life has to display.”

Is it any wonder that when God came to save us, He chose the most beautiful of all human experiences to be the vehicle of His coming?

Mary holding the baby Jesus is the icon of our faith in the redemption.

It’s what the Shepherds saw, it’s what the Magi saw. It’s what all Christians, down through the ages, have reproduced again and again, with every possible creative variation.

A woman and her child. Mary and the infant God. No religion has ever even approached this kind of perfect encapsulation of natural and supernatural beauty. And none ever will.

This is where the beauty began, the beauty through which our salvation came. The beauty through which He comes to us still.