What did Mary Look Like?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Franciscan
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Cashue said:
No of course not:confused:

The bible clearly says that mary is an angel of light; satan appears as a dark evil monster very violent and very ugly, that is how we know he is the devil. No, only someone from God like Mary can appear as a real angel of light!

Obviously Mary appears beautiful and bathed in light since she is the queen of heaven.
Click to expand...
Our Blessed Mother is also the Queen of Angels but what really sets Her singularly apart from all other creatures is that She is the Mother of God. God created angels, Mary gave birth to the very One who created the angels; as the Alma Redemptoris Mater says -

Loving mother of the Redeemer,
gate of heaven, star of the sea,
assist your people who have fallen yet strive to rise again.
To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator,
Yet remained a virgin after as before.
You who received Gabriel’s joyful greeting,
have pity on us poor sinners.

Furthermore there was already a separate distinct angel of Fatima depicted by the visionaries … he was very strong on promoting devotion to our Blessed Lord in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.

In response to this part
Franciscan said:
With the ongoing debate over Jesus’ appearance: I think since he received his DNA from his mother the essential question is what did Mary look like?

On another thread someone proposed that Mary was unnattractive. I disagree. …
Click to expand...
The word unattractive is prone to misinterpretation in this unique case.

I would think that because of Her humility – a humility so profound we can’t even visualize it and because of Her exemplary modesty and purity , the term attractive in the sense of what our modern world deems “appealing to men” probably cannot apply to our Blessed Mother. In other words she could not have been an object of desire for men; all these words alluding to a merely human "attraction”.

On the other hand, her virtue and her holy example have always appealed to what was once fallen and has now been restored in our nature through Christ’s Sacrifice on Calvary - she becomes our Mother; or as Bishop Fulton Sheen put it, we become children of Mary “…born in the womb of her suffering on Calvary.” Finally,Her exalted beauty on being Assumed into Heaven and crowned, is so surpassing that it is indescribable in human words.

St Alphonsus Liguori, in his book The Glories of Mary, said, “God wanted Mary to be like Jesus in every way.”

One fairly plausible answer could be proffered by looking at it in reverse -through the other end of the pipe . If one wants a little inspired DNA proof, then how about the words of the prophet Isaiah when he describes Jesus , the Messiah – the Suffering Servant ? :

**Isaiah 53: 1-3 ** [highlights mine]

53:1 Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
53:2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
53:3 He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
 
[/ATTACH]

This image of the blessed Mother showed up by a Priest while viewing mass on TV-I was able to photograph it-and the painting is the result of what I see in the image…
 
NeedImprovement said:
**Isaiah 53: 1-3 ** [highlights mine]

53:1 Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
53:2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
53:3 He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Click to expand...
I was told that this is how Jesus was during his passion. He wasn’t going to look good at all. In the end, I believe that Jesus was extremely beautiful! And I am talking about his inner person here!
 
Not to blaspheme, but I do find it encouraging that current portrayals of Mary show her as a small-bosomed lady. This is not just for the priests - small breasts are also natural and there’s lots of artificial means of enhancing breast size such as steroids (estrogen pill), implants and padded bras. Currently women are under pressure to look like topless porn models which is a more evil image of female beauty. If a woman is larger chested she should cover up.
 
I find it odd that you even “go there”…when thinking of the Blessed Mother…
 
I am sure the Blessed Mother had tremendous inner beauty. But I am also convinced–as her Son became a lowly human and dwelt among us, Mary too was conceived as an average looking Jew of her time.

If she is so beautiful then–as she is today after the Assumption, wealthy and powerful men might have done everything to take her away from her destiny as we know it today. Saint Joseph the lowly carpenter would have been in trouble with officials and kings. Things would have been very different, specially then when democracy isn’t as we know it today.

This is not to diminish her real beauty–which transcends our own human perception of beauty. She is, after all, conceived in perfection–without sin.
 
Whilst I appreciate that whether or not Mary was considered physically attractive by today’s or indeed her day’s standards is not a matter of ecumenical importance, I am a painter specializing in silk portraits. Normally I do celebrities, for example musicians that I admire for their obvious talent despite personal shortcomings. These are what I find interesting in a subject but there are two people who are very important to me that I have never seriously attempted to paint a picture of. Yep, you guessed it: the Madonna and Child.
I worry that my experience is limited to doing fairly lifelike impressions of faces that I am familiar with i.e. by using photographs. Also, I like to try and capture the essence of someone I paint. How on earth can I do that when I have no idea what their mannerisms were, what music they listened to, especially when we are talking about subjects with a complete absence of original sin, and when there are so many possible interpretations of their appearance? Not only that but the medium of silk can only be used to produce work in a very limited number of styles. It will be a challenge to find a face I can use as my “Mary”. Or should I perhaps try to combine the features of two different facial features so that my work can be completely original? If so, then that is something I have never achieved before. I wonder does anyone know of any archaeological evidence I can piece together to get a good likeness? Worried about this challenge but perhaps God gave me this inspiration to test me and see what I can come up with.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top