COSMIC VIRGIN
I.
“I was set up from everlasting,
from the beginning, or ever the earth was”
(Proverbs 8:23).
Dense clouds gather in the primordial darkness,
churning the atmosphere of a nascent world.
The Blessed Virgin stands
on the orb of the moon.
Fiat lux!
Velazquez painted his “Immaculate Conception”
in smoky tones of charcoal, rose, and blue.
The clouds are dark and dramatically lit.
The Virgin is lovely and serene.
God’s first creation.
God’s perfect creation.
She watches the cosmos unfold.
Bang! It begins. Light where there was none.
Eons of light radiating through the nothing.
Then galaxies form.
Galaxies full of stars.
And for billions of years there are stars
lighting the darkness,
exploding,
seeding the cosmos with stardust.
Then the Sun is born.
The sun that will light the world. Then Earth.
Molten lava.
Burning liquid rock.
Meteorites bombarding its face.
But it cools, solidifies. Earth becomes Earth.
Volcanic gases form an atmosphere.
Water condenses and there are oceans.
Fire. Earth. Air. Water. The ancients knew.
What molecule, what miracle, what spark
made alive that which was not?
First there are cells.
Then fish and reptiles and mammals.
Ice comes and goes.
The land shapes and reshapes itself.
Flowers bloom for the first time.
Do they bloom for joy
that one more beautiful
than they smiles upon them
from her heavenly home?
The animals are fruitful.
They multiply and fill the Earth.
They swim. They crawl. They fly.
They are good. But they are not enough.
The World must know itself.
It is warm and green and alive,
but it knows not that it exists.
It must become conscious.
It must become as God is.
It must know itself.
Millions of years go into
the making of Man. The genus homo.
The creature formed in the image of God.
First there is one.
Then there are two.
Self-aware and hungry for knowledge.
Curious.
Eager.
Insatiable.
They are fruitful. They multiply.
The World is theirs and they want it all.
Homo Sapiens: Bits of cosmic dust
and particles of light
seeking wisdom;
the cosmos become conscious.
And the expansion continues.
II.
“Behold,
from henceforth
all generations shall
call me blessed” (Luke 1:48).
In the Morris tapestry,
the Star of Bethlehem
is held in the hand of an angel.
The Blessed Virgin sits embowered,
the infant Christ in her lap,
her faithful Joseph at her side.
Flowers bloom all around her.
Roses and lilies
and the blue flowers
of heaven.
They burst into blossom
in the holy night.
And the Magi adore.
Generations of men and women
come and go.
Born in sin,
they die in sin.
They cannot help it.
They are what they are.
Insatiable like their parents.
They build cities and worship gold.
They love and they kill.
They advance in all things save wisdom.
But they are unique among creation.
They must be saved.
A girl is born,
conceived without sin,
a shining star.
In her womb,
the Light of the World will grow.
But for now, she is a child.
An astonishing child
who dances on the steps of the altar.
Then she is
a young woman,
a virgin, a bride,
a mother-to-be.
A humble Nazarene wife,
heavy with child,
on a journey to Bethlehem.
She sits upon a donkey.
Its hot breath visible
in the cold winter air.
And the child is ready to be born.
Joseph,
upon whose head
a dove once alit,
seeks shelter.
Amid the pristine snow,
he finds a stable,
and there,
among the animals,
Mary lies in childbed,
wise and warm
in the soft hay.
And Joseph,
whose angelic visions
guide the holy family to safety,
seeks a midwife,
and as he walks,
time stands still.
Clouds and birds pause in midair.
Men and animals stand frozen in place.
It is strange and wonderful.
The savior is come.
In the vastness of the cosmos,
a light appears.
It burns pure and bright.
A supernova perhaps,
or the conjunction of
Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars –
those three wandering stars
fused into one
magnificent point of light.
In the stable,
the virgin mother
lays the babe in a manger
and the beasts worship him.
Nearby,
shepherds are watching their sheep.
An angel appears to them
and a heavenly chorus sings of
peace on earth
and good will to men.
And they go to adore the newborn king.
And tell Mary of the angel.
And Mary ponders their words
in her immaculate heart.
The new star is seen by astrologers
and they follow where it leads.
Melchior,
Caspar, and
Balthazar.
They too come to adore.
Draped in Oriental finery,
their dromedaries bearing gifts
for the divine child,
they pay homage.
Kings alongside commoners,
they pay homage.
And the Virgin Mother
smiles a blessed smile.
III.
“And there appeared a great wonder in heaven;
a woman clothed with the sun,
and the moon under her feet,
and upon her head a crown of twelve stars”
(Revelation 12:1).
History moves inexorably forward.
But eternity is changeless and constant.
The things of the cosmos come into existence.
They grow, then decay with the passage of time.
And they go out of existence.
For death comes to all things in the cosmos.
The Earth will be swallowed by the Sun.
A red giant. And the Sun in turn will die.
Its hydrogen, its blood, depleted,
it will cool
and shrink
and go dark.
A cold hard diamond in a lifeless universe.
Even time will die. And space.
And all other illusions.
Only reality will remain.
Pure being.
Eternity.
Mary dies.
As everyone dies.
But when Mary dies,
she is assumed into heaven.
Body and soul.
There will be no burial in the earth,
no rot,
no decay.
Nothing to mar
the perfect beauty
of the mystic rose.
No worm will spoil the head
upon which Christ
will place the crown.
In the Ghent Altarpiece,
Jan van Eyck paints
the Blessed Virgin
seated on a throne.
She is majestically attired
in a jewel-encrusted gown.
A gown of sapphire
as befits the Queen of Heaven.
Her hair is soft and long.
It cascades down her shoulders in waves.
And upon her head sits a crown
of flowers and stars.
Flowers blooming
for the Queen of the May.
Twelve stars shining
for the Morning Star.
Queen of peace.
When the apocalypse comes
and the cosmos is ripped apart,
when the nothing
that became something
becomes nothing again,
the dead will stand before the Light
and Mary,
mother of mercy,
celestially beautiful and infinitely sweet,
will lead them home.