How do we KNOW that Mary was beautiful?

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water said:
who would be prevented from saying what she looked like?
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Anyone who decides they are not prepared to make a statement without facts or evidence. We can take a pretty good guess at what Christ looked like - the Divine Mercy and the Shroud (and other relics) are very similar; so we can take an educated guess that Christ looked like that. He doesn’t look very remarkable, to be honest.

But Mary? We have no consistency - so we don’t know. She could have had red hair and green eyes, or even green hair and red eyes. We just don’t know.

So, I can say that it is reasonable to assume that she looked Jewish with dark hair and eyes and olive skin. But was she physically attractive? No idea - and I’m not prepared to make a statement either way, simply because I have no evidence either way.
 
I can only offer my opinion…

She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen! I saw her in a dream before I became Catholic and was not at all familiar with the different apparitions throughout the world, being raised Protestant. She had dark hair, fair, creamy, flawless skin, large dark eyes that expressed love and compassion. Her mouth and nose were the perfect fit for her face. She was slender and moved gracefully.

By the way, to the previous poster, it is Juan Diego.😉
 
Denae said:
We’ll figure it out someday 🙂
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Here is a good question to ask related to that statement;

Given that:

i) We will not have physical bodies in Heaven until the Resurrection of the Body

ii) Mary DOES have a physical body in Heaven, because she was assumed

iii) Sight is processed in our brains because of electro-chemical reactions stemming from the interaction of light bouncing off physical bodies onto our physical retinas

QUESTION : Will be see in Heaven?

More to the point, will we hug in Heaven? Can we hold hands with God?
 
lizaanne said:
So then - a poor girl who is born to have bad teeth, bad skin, a big bulbous nose and large ears, and thin scraggly hair (all things in today’s society which could be considered unattractive when taken together). Is suffering from sin?

Sorry - I don’t get that. Can you explain further?

~Liza
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a girl born with those physical attributes, who is full of grace, perfectly without sin, pure, and filled with God’s love, the mirror of every virtue, carries within in her a beauty, luminosity and peace that cannot be hidden. For such a person, her physical attributes are not relevant, because the person who beholds her sees, shining through her the perfection of all graces a human being is capable of enjoying on earth. A person who sees a vision of this person will not be looking at physical attributes, but when he describes her as beautiful will be describing her inner graces.

Since I or any other woman born without this perfection is born scarred by original sin, my physical attributes will not reflect the condition of my soul
 
Peterdiago said:
Here is a good question to ask related to that statement;

Given that:

i) We will not have physical bodies in Heaven until the Resurrection of the Body

ii) Mary DOES have a physical body in Heaven, because she was assumed

iii) Sight is processed in our brains because of electro-chemical reactions stemming from the interaction of light bouncing off physical bodies onto our physical retinas

QUESTION : Will be see in Heaven?

More to the point, will we hug in Heaven? Can we hold hands with God?
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No one on Earth really knows, but I have the feeling that we will…that heaven will be tangible. For me, touch is the most powerful of my senses. I am partially deaf, so my hearing isn’t that great, and yeah I can see well, but I love the feel of wind on my face, the touch of silk on my skin, the coolness of the air at night…etc, I don’t think heaven will really be heaven unless we can incorperate all five of our senses.
 
Of course, it could also be said that Heaven won’t be Heaven if it does rely on something so mundane as that . . . at least before the resurrection of the body.

I personally think that there are too many people (most of them Protestant and Moslem, to be fair) who think that Heaven is just going to be like Earth but a lot better. The lack of bodies in Heaven causes all sorts of concerns - can we even think as we do now, as thought is a product (at least in part, if not substantially) of physical processes?
 
The Black Madonna with Christ Child. legend says this icon was painted by St. Luke, who is also said to have interviewed Our Lady in person.

http://www.thebestlinks.com/images/5/51/Blackmadonna.jpeg

apparently icons are not supposed to be portraits. would it matter to me if she was not beautiful by today’s standards? no, if i met her i would probably fall to my knees regardless of how she looked, and i would be able to see straight to her heart, which would make me think she is the most beautiful woman in the world.

i think psychologically, there is an innate reaction to beauty in humans, so we esteem her to be the most beautiful. this touches our heart and increases our faith. since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, we each have our own view of what is the most beautiful, as is apparent in her different apparitions.
 
Peterdiago said:
Of course, it could also be said that Heaven won’t be Heaven if it does rely on something so mundane as that . . . at least before the resurrection of the body.

I personally think that there are too many people (most of them Protestant and Moslem, to be fair) who think that Heaven is just going to be like Earth but a lot better. The lack of bodies in Heaven causes all sorts of concerns - can we even think as we do now, as thought is a product (at least in part, if not substantially) of physical processes?
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All I know is that we’ll be happier beyond our wildest dreams and that’s enough for me.
 
lizaanne said:
I’ve pulled a bit of a quote from the “jumpers” thread that got me thinking:

How do you know this? We have no photos of her, only artistic renderings, or images produced by those who have had visions of her. How do we know what she truly looked like and that she was beautiful? Would God have chosen only the most beautiful for his Son? Why? What would that say about the plain and perhaps not so attractive? Would they not be worthy?

If we assume that because God made Mary as the second Ark of the Covenant, and therefore made her perfect and part of perfection is beauty, then that tells me that God does indeed have a sense of what is beautiful and what is not, and would not make her to be ugly. And so then, what does that mean about how God sees those of us who are not considered beautiful looking people?

Does anyone else see where I’m trying to go with this?

~Liza
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She was Blessed with Good looks too.🙂
 
Beautiful said:
Fr. Thomas Dubay has written a simple volume ( 349 pages) on the theology of beauty.
The Evidential Power of Beauty by Thomas Dubay, S.M.
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Here is something from the mentioned book for your contemplation.
Finally, “Jesus opened His eyes and from those two divine suns radiated His first look of love.” Wondering about that look, Luis Martinez addresses the Virgin Mother. “What was it like, O Virgin Mary? It met your virginal eyes, captivating your most pure soul; it was for you. For whom else would it have been? Where would the divine light be reflected but in the immaculate mirror of your purity? And you keep it there in the depths of your soul like an inextinguishable light in the blue of your sky.”
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Such was what Mary saw in these fresh, newly opened divine eyes. And what did he see? “When His eyes, like two suns, opened to illuminate the loveliest, the most heavenly sight ever presented upon this earth (he saw) the virginal countenance of Mary.” Because the Virgin Mother is the sole human source of Jesus’ bodily being, he resembles no earthly father but, in immediate and masculine manner, only his mother. Radiant image of the eternal Father and perfect copy of his nature (Heb 1:1-3), Jesus’ human features had to shine forth divine glory, and this he did through the matchless loveliness of his Mother as well.
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Page 307-08
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What? A three page thread and nobody quotes Scripture?

“Thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee”?
“I am dark but beautiful”?
“Fair as the sun, radiant as the moon, terrible as an army drawn up for battle”?
“The king has desired thy beauty”?

Now, granted, God’s idea of beauty is more about the soul than the body, but I think there’s a fair chance that God made His mommy the most bwootiful, wuvwy, pwetty mommy in the whole wide world ever. Especially since He was probably going to tell her so at some point during His earthly life, and whatever God says becomes so. 🙂
 
I read somewhere a lovely story about Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s answer to this question…
He said, when the artist James Whistler first painted the portrait that has come to be known as simply “Whistler’s Mother”, someone said to him, “James, what a beautiful painting”, and Whistler replied: “Well, you know when you really love your Mummy, you want to make her as beautiful as you possibly can!”
And Bishop added: “Who, of all the men who ever lived–Who is the** only** One Who made His mother?”

👍 👍
 
speaking of beauty, others’ beauty are mentioned but not hers?
 
Mintaka said:
Now, granted, God’s idea of beauty is more about the soul than the body, but I think there’s a fair chance that God made His mommy the most bwootiful, wuvwy, pwetty mommy in the whole wide world ever. Especially since He was probably going to tell her so at some point during His earthly life, and whatever God says becomes so. 🙂
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I was going to take this route, too. What child doesn’t think his mother is the most beautiful woman in the world? And since Mary is our Mother, and we’re all called to enter the Kingdom as little children, well, then…we’re all going to view our Lady through that filter.

So I think maybe the poster in the OP’s “jumper thread” quote, all the poets, and every one of us who goes on (even in the silences of our hearts) about how physically beautiful the Virgin was, is simply acting out of that primal, childlike conviction that their mother is the standard of beauty.

And, like our Lord, who could change his appearence (or at least make himself unrecognizable to his disciples) after the Resurrection, I think our Glorified bodies have the same ability, which is why our Lady appears with different physical attributes to different people. Would Juan Deigo have found a blonde-haired, blue eyed woman as captivating as the dark haired, dark skinned woman he saw? Would the children at LaSalette have approached our Lady as readily had she not been wearing dress customary to their region? I think that if she ever appeared to me while I was still here on Earth, she wouldn’t look the same as if she appeared to you…

Cheers,
Cari
 
If I were an artist and if it was up to my imagination (I didn’t know the real look), I would paint things beautiful(especially someone I venerate). What is here to debate? 😛
 
lizaanne said:
If we assume that because God made Mary as the second Ark of the Covenant, and therefore made her perfect and part of perfection is beauty, then that tells me that God does indeed have a sense of what is beautiful and what is not, and would not make her to be ugly. And so then, what does that mean about how God sees those of us who are not considered beautiful looking people?
~Liza
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antimon said:
What is here to debate? 😛
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The quote from lizanne is the main discussion for this thread.
 
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