Commentary
This mosaic appears in the apse of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome. The first time I saw it, I was spellbound. I had never before seen art where Jesus was holding his mother.
To be precise, Jesus is holding the soul of Mary at the moment of her dormition: he hastens to her bedside at the hour of her death. And she, who is the first and perfect disciple, never stops following her son: She rises in haste to join him in the heavenly places.
The image captures a moment of profound tenderness and theological significance — the Creator cradling the soul of the creature who once cradled him.
In the Annunciation, Mary becomes the new mercy seat, the throne where God comes to dwell with his people (see Ex 25:17-22; 37:6-9). Her womb is the first throne of the Son of God in this world. Then, by the wondrous exchange effected in God’s beautiful love, that same woman who made of herself a throne for the Almighty is, in the end, crowned as Queen of Heaven and Earth.
What began on earth is completed in heaven: The Word became flesh so that human flesh may be raised to glory. The arc of salvation history bends from Nazareth to the New Jerusalem, from the fiat of a young virgin to her assumption into the dwelling of the Triune God.
The Lord forgets nothing and completes everything: the hospitality of a mother’s love that welcomed him into the world is recalled and reciprocated in bounteous measure when he welcomes her into heaven with all the tenderness of human affection and all the riches of divine glory. The roles are beautifully reversed unto the mystery of mutual beholding.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux — that great saint whose love for Mary was unsurpassed — contemplated this mysterious exchange in prayer and poetry, in scholarship and devotion. It was for that reason that Dante, when he opened the final canto of his Divine Comedy, puts the final spoken words of his entire poem on the lips of St. Bernard, who offers to Mary enthroned in Heaven unmatched praise according to the paradox of her motherhood and discipleship:
“O Virgin Mother, daughter of your Son, most humble, most exalted of all creatures chosen of God in His eternal plan, you are the one who ennobled human nature to the extent that He did not disdain, Who was its Maker, to make Himself man.”
These lines capture the stunning reversal: the mother who is daughter, the handmaid who is queen, the creature who bore the Creator.
The mosaic in Trastevere makes visible what the poetry proclaims. Here, surrounded by apostles and angels, by the golden light of eternity breaking into time, we see the culmination of Mary’s earthly pilgrimage. Christ stands at the center, not distant or removed, but intimately present at his mother’s deathbed.
The tenderness of the scene reminds us that the Incarnation was not just a theological necessity but a choice made in love — which continues to the end and beyond. What mother has not held her sleeping child and marveled at the fragility and beauty of new life? Here, the Son holds the soul of his mother with that same wonder, that same care, as she enters into new and everlasting life.
Leonard J. DeLorenzo, PhD, is professor of the practice in the McGrath Institute for Church Life and concurrent professor in the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. You can find him online at leonardjdelorenzo.com.
Viriditas2: Soul Greening will return in the next issue.
Above: A mosaic depicting “The Dormition of the Virgin” in Rome’s Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere. (OSV News / file)