Order includes:

• high-res image file formatted for print

• high-res image file formatted for web/projection

• A PDF of the artist's statement & scripture reference for the visual

• A visio divina Bible Study Guide for you to use this image in a group study session that incorporates the ancient Benedictine spiritual practice of "divine seeing."

Credit Info:

When printing and sharing online, please always include the following credits:
Artist's name | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org

FROM THE ARTIST:

The central image in this quilt square design is of Mary’s soul, an abstract and concentric shape that begins to look like an eye. It originates as an outward spiraling abstraction of the soul magnifying God. For Mary’s soul magnifies her creator. In her song, Mary honors her God who mirrors the life her son will live: lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry, coming to the aid of God’s people, bringing down the powerful, sending the rich away empty, and scattering the proud.

One Advent, the art team at my church created a set of banners based on the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah in Luke 1. In the design, Elizabeth (Mary’s cousin) stood, full with child. Surrounding her were patterns of tablets and writing tools (representing muted Zechariah’s need to communicate through writing) and patterns of hands (representing Elizabeth’s caretaking in raising up her son, John). The banners hung in the sanctuary throughout the whole Advent season. On December 24th, the pastor told me, “It’s Christmas eve; I have to preach the Magnificat. Elizabeth will have to be Mary today.”

It occurs to me that we are all Mary today, dreaming of a better world and working toward it through right relationships and healthy communities. So why does it seem that the world keeps falling apart? Where is the “arc of justice” of which Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke?6 Can you see it? Can you feel it? Why does it seem so far out of reach? Like Moses on the mountaintop, can you see the promised land? As global politics heat up, it feels so far away.

Mary is on the verge of delivering God’s depth and beauty into the world; God will be embodied by a child. Mary, the earthly mother of our incarnate God, can see it. She can see hope, justice, and right relationships. In the Magnificat, she speaks the way of God into being, just before Jesus is born. Like my mother whispering in my ear when I was a child, calling forth whom I shall become, Mary speaks her dreams into existence.

—Hannah Garrity