What the most accurate image of Mary?

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I have seen many images of Mary, but which one of them is the most accurate one?
 
Our Lady of Guadalupe, since the artist was God Himself 🙂
I’ll also second that.

You know, it’s a common misconception that Our Lady appeared as an Indian. Not the case actually. The clothes Our Lady wears in the image are actually what Jewish women wear during winter 2000 years ago. 🙂
 
I’ll also second that.

You know, it’s a common misconception that Our Lady appeared as an Indian. Not the case actually. The clothes Our Lady wears in the image are actually what Jewish women wear during winter 2000 years ago. 🙂
There is also a resembles of Our Lady of Guadalupe to the One mention in Book of Revelation 12:1 had a moon under her feet.
 
I have seen many images of Mary, but which one of them is the most accurate one?
An image need not be a picture, but perhaps a description:
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Wisdom 7:22-29**
For in her is the spirit of understanding: holy, one, manifold, subtile, eloquent, active, undefiled, sure, sweet, loving that which is good, quick, which nothing hindereth, beneficent,
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Gentle, kind, steadfast, assured, secure, having all power, overseeing all things, and containing all spirits, intelligible, pure, subtile.
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For wisdom is more active than all active things: and reacheth everywhere by reason of her purity.
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For she is a vapour of the power of God, and a certain pure emanation of the glory of the almighty God: and therefore no defiled thing cometh into her.
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For she is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of his goodness.
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And being but one, she can do all things: and remaining in herself the same, she reneweth all things, and through nations conveyeth herself into holy souls, she maketh the friends of God and prophets.
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For God loveth none but him that dwelleth with wisdom.
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For she is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of the stars: being compared with the light, she is found before it.
Using the Four Senses of Scripture, allegorically this is the Blessed Virgin Mary.
 
Our Lady of Guadalupe, since the artist was God Himself 🙂
I almost forgot about that one. I was going to say, there is an icon that tradition says was painted by St. Luke himself. I’m not sure if it is Our Lady of Perpetual Succor or another one. Well anyway I guess Our Lady of Guadalupe would be the most accurate and the icon painted by St. Luke would be the second most accurate!
 
I almost forgot about that one. I was going to say, there is an icon that tradition says was painted by St. Luke himself. I’m not sure if it is Our Lady of Perpetual Succor or another one. Well anyway I guess Our Lady of Guadalupe would be the most accurate and the icon painted by St. Luke would be the second most accurate!
It’s actually Our Lady of Czestochowa that is said to have been painted by St Luke.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/84/Our_Lady_of_Czestochowa.jpg
 
I almost forgot about that one. I was going to say, there is an icon that tradition says was painted by St. Luke himself. I’m not sure if it is Our Lady of Perpetual Succor or another one. Well anyway I guess Our Lady of Guadalupe would be the most accurate and the icon painted by St. Luke would be the second most accurate!
St. Luke the Evangelist didn’t paint that or any other image. But there was, in an apocryphal Acts of St. John the Apostle, a disciple of John named Lykomedes, who had a portrait of John, who took Mary into his home, painted. Here follows a quotation from that passage:
26 There came together therefore a gathering of a great multitude on John’s account; and as he discoursed to them that were there, Lycomedes, who had a friend who was a skilful painter, went hastily to him and said to him: You see me in a great hurry to come to you: come quickly to my house and paint the man whom I show you without his knowing it. And the painter, giving some one the necessary implements and colours, said to Lycomedes: Show him to me, and for the rest have no anxiety. And Lycomedes pointed out John to the painter, and brought him near him, and shut him up in a room from which the apostle of Christ could be seen. And Lycomedes was with the blessed man, feasting on the faith and the knowledge of our God, and rejoiced yet more in the thought that he should possess him in a portrait.
27 The painter, then, on the first day made an outline of him and went away. And on the next he painted him in with his colours, and so delivered the portrait to Lycomedes to his great joy. And lie took it and set it up in his own bedehamber and hung it with garlands: so that later John, when he perceived it, said to him: My beloved child, what is it that thou always doest when thou comest in from the bath into thy bedchamber alone? do not I pray with thee and the rest of the brethren? or is there something thou art hiding from us? And as he said this and talked jestingly with him, he went into the bedchamber, and saw the portrait of an old man crowned with garlands, and lamps and altars set before it. And he called him and said: Lycomedes, what meanest thou by this matter of the portrait? can it be one of thy gods that is painted here? for I see that thou art still living in heathen fashion. And Lycomedes answered him: My only God is he who raised me up from death with my wife: but if, next to that God, it be right that the men who have benefited us should be called gods -it is thou, father, whom I have had painted in that portrait, whom I crown and love and reverence as having become my good guide.
28 And John who had never at any time seen his own face said to him: Thou mockest me, child: am I like that in form, thy Lord? how canst thou persuade me that the portrait is like me? And Lycomedes brought him a mirror. And when he had seen himself in the mirror and looked earnestly at the portrait, he said: As the Lord Jesus Christ liveth, the portrait is like me: yet not like me, child, but like my fleshly image; for if this painter, who hath imitated this my face, desireth to draw me in a portrait, he will be at a loss, the colours that are now given to thee, and boards and plaster (?) and glue (?), and the position of my shape, and old age and youth and all things that are seen with the eye.
29 But do thou become for me a good painter, Lycomedes. Thou hast colours which he giveth thee through me, who painteth all of us for himself, even Jesus, who knoweth the shapes and appearances and postures and dispositions and types of our souls. And the colours wherewith I bid thee paint are these: faith in God, knowledge, godly fear, friendship, communion, meekness, kindness, brotherly love, purity, simplicity, tranquillity, fearlessness, griefiessness, sobriety, and the whole band of colours that painteth the likeness of thy soul, and even now raiseth up thy members that were cast down, and levelleth them that were lifted up, and tendeth thy bruises, and healeth thy wounds, and ordereth thine hair that was disarranged, and washeth thy face, and chasteneth thine eyes, and purgeth thy bowels, and emptieth thy belly, and cutteth off that which is beneath it; and in a word, when the whole company and mingling of such colours is come together, into thy soul, it shall present it to our Lord Jesus Christ undaunted, whole (unsmoothed), and firm of shape. But this that thou hast now done is childish and imperfect: thou hast drawn a dead likeness of the dead.
 
Because of the way his name begins, (“Lyk-”, as compared with “Loukas”, that is, “Luke”), perhaps a confusion of art tradition occurred early on. But then again, whether it is a case of yet a third man or not, there is the matter of an writer alleged writer of various apocryphal Acts of individual Apostles - one Leukios. He was charged with having written spurious acts, which the Manichaeans later adopted. In connection with manuscripts of Manichaean literature there come into play what connection Leukios could have had with illumination found in works perhaps adapted from such apocryphal literature, in which there are presumed to be pictures of Mani himself (although that might be only a speculation on the part of some). Anyways, there could be any number of reasons and ways for Luke’s name to have been mistakenly attributed to an Icon of Mary or of someone else.

As for a description I saw above, from Wisdom chapter 7, of WISDOM, those passages describe JESUS, not Mary.
 
As for a description I saw above, from Wisdom chapter 7, of WISDOM, those passages describe JESUS, not Mary.
Thats the beauty of being Catholic, I’m not isolated by one interpretation, provided I do not go against the Church

Literal sense: What the author intended
Allegorical sense: Pertaining to Chirst & Mary
Anagogical sense: End Times
Moral sense: What is God telling me today

Do you think these versus have anything to do with Mary?

Wisdom 7:
1 I myself also am a mortal man, like all others, and of the race of him, that was first made of the earth, and in the womb of my mother I was fashioned to be flesh.(John 1:14)
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2 In the time of ten months I was compacted in blood, of the seed of man, and the pleasure of sleep concurring.
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3 And being born I drew in the common air, and fell upon the earth, that is made alike, and the first voice which I uttered was crying, as all others do.
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4 **I was nursed in swaddling clothes**(Luke 2:7), and with great cares.
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5 For none of the kings had any other beginning of birth.
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6 For all men have one entrance into life, and the like going out.
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7 Wherefore I wished, and understanding was given me: and I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me:
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8 And I preferred her before kingdoms and thrones, and esteemed riches nothing in comparison of her.
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9 Neither did I compare unto her any precious stone: for all gold in comparison of her, is as a little sand, and silver in respect to her shall be counted as clay.
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10I  loved her above health and beauty, and chose to have her instead of light: for her light cannot be put out.
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11 Now all good things came to me together with her, and innumerable riches through her hands,
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12 And I rejoiced in all these: for this wisdom went before me, and I knew not that **she was the mother of them all.** (John 19:26)
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13 Which I have learned without guile, and communicate without envy, and her riches I hide not.
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14 **For she is an infinite treasure to men!** (Sir 24:3) which they that use, become the friends of God, being commended for the gift of discipline.
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15 And God hath given to me to speak as I would, and to conceive thoughts worthy of those things that are given me: because he is the guide of wisdom, and the director of the wise:
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16 For in his hand are both we, and our words, and all wisdom, and the knowledge and skill of works.
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17 For he hath given me the true knowledge of the things that are: to know the disposition of the whole world, and the virtues of the elements,
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18 The beginning, and ending, and midst of the times, the alterations of their courses, and the changes of seasons,
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19 The revolutions of the year, and the dispositions of the stars,
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20 The natures of living creatures, and rage of wild beasts, the force of winds, and reasonings of men, the diversities of plants, and the virtues of roots,
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21 And all such things as are hid and not foreseen, I have learned: for wisdom, which is the worker of all things, taught me.
Widsom 8
2 Her have I loved, and have sought her out from my youth(Jer 1:5), and have desired to take her for my spouse(Luke 1:46), and I became a lover of her beauty.
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3 She glorifieth her nobility by being conversant with God: yea and the **Lord of all things hath loved her**(Luke 1:28).
 
I’m not sure but I’d either go with Our Lady of Guadalupe as others have suggested or go with the oldest rendition of her. 🙂
 
I almost forgot about that one. I was going to say, there is an icon that tradition says was painted by St. Luke himself. I’m not sure if it is Our Lady of Perpetual Succor or another one. Well anyway I guess Our Lady of Guadalupe would be the most accurate and the icon painted by St. Luke would be the second most accurate!
Actually, it is not the specific Icon we Catholics know as ‘Our Lady of Perpetual Help’ that is painted by St. Luke, but an icon that inspired these and other images similar to it (which belongs in a genre of Icons called the ‘Virgin of the Passion’).

The story goes that St. Luke here depicted the event in Our Lord’s childhood that once, He was playing when He saw the two Archangels, Michael and Gabriel carrying the Instruments of the Passion, symbolizing His future death. Terrified, the Child Jesus ran to His mother Mary, who then brought Him into her arms to comfort Him. He was terrified that one of His sandals loosened and dangled off.

The Icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was actually an icon stolen from an Orthodox Church in Crete at the end of the 15th Century by an Italian merchant. Along the way to Italy by sea, a great storm came and the merchant felt remorse (Since he thought the storm was like a kind of Divine punishment) and repented of his deed. They implored Our Lady to help them and they landed on dry land unharmed.

The merchant reached Rome a year later, where he got sick and on his deathbed, asked a friend of his, as his dying wish, that the Icon be returned in a Church. The merchant died, but his friend also died later not fulfilling his promise since his wife took a fancy for the Icon and had it on her bedroom.
It took an apparition of Our Lady to the merchant’s friend’s daughter to have her mother give it up. Our Lady commanded that the Icon be placed in a small church, the Church of St. Matthew, which is in the road that connects St. John Lateran and St. Mary Major (The present-day Via Merulana). The wife then went to the Augustinians who ran that church and gave the Icon to them. On March 27, 1499, the icon was transferred to the church and the icon was venerated there for 300 years.
 
During the Napoleonic wars in 1798, Napoleon’s general ordered several churches in Rome closed and destroyed. St. Matthew’s was one of these churches. The Perpetual Help icon was secretly taken by the Augustinian fathers to a nearby church, St. Eusebius. Later on they moved it to Santa Maria Posterula to a side altar. This was a period when the Icon was again moved to a chapel because the main Church already had another image of Our Lady. During that time, Our Lady’s icon was forgotten, so to speak. No devotees come and venerate her Icon, which is by now uncared for, ignored and covered with dust in the Chapel.

Pope Pius IX had invited a group of priests called the Redemptorists to set up a Marian house of veneration in Rome. They stationed in Via Merulana, not knowing that it was once the church of San Mateo and shrine of the once-famous icon. Later when they inspected their new property, they found a house, barns, stables, gardens – and the ruins of an old church. Inquiring into the history of the church, the Redemptorists learned that its name was St. Matthew’s, and that it once had housed a miraculous painting, a painting that had been lost.

One day, a Redemptorist father, Fr. Michael Marchi, who had heard stories of the icon and of the church in which it was once enshrined in his youth told to him by an old blind Augustinian sacristan, Augustine Orsetti, revealed that not only did the Icon still exist, but also that he knows where it is.

When Fr. Marchi was still an Altar boy, Br. Augustine would point to the icon and say, “See that picture, Michael? It is old – very old. It used to hang in St. Matthew’s Church, where many people came to pray to the Mother of God.” The painting, he said, had been rescued at the last minute, hidden from the marauding general in a humble cart, and transported secretly to this chapel. “Remember that,” the sacristan told him. Michael Marchi remembered.

Fr. Marchi built a small church next to the building called St. Alphonsus of Ligouri. The Father General of the Redemptorists, Most Rev. Nicholas Mauron, decided to bring the whole matter to the attention of Pope Pius IX. The Pope decided that the icon should be exposed to public veneration and the logical site was their church of St. Alphonsus of Ligouri, standing as it did between St. Mary Major and St. John Lateran.

Pope Pius IX wrote a short memorandum ordering the Augustinian Fathers of St. Mary in Posterula to surrender the picture to the Redemptorists, on condition that the Redemptorist supply the Augustinians with another picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help or a good copy of the icon of Perpetual Help in exchange. Upon the return of the icon, Pope Pius IX gave the icon the title Our Mother of Perpetual Help. Today, the icon is under the care of the Redemptorist fathers of St Alphonsus where the icon is now enshrined.

It is said when the Icon was entrusted to the Redemptorists by the Pope, He told them, “Make Her known throughout the world.” The Redemptorists embraced this command wholeheartedly by distributing reproductions of her picture and talking about her in missions and homilies around the world.
 
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