While in Seattle, I visited the Chapel of St. Ignatius on the campus of the Jesuit's Seattle University. The chapel, designed by architect Steven Holl using "A Gathering of Different Lights" as the guiding concept, won a design award from the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the scale model of it is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The chapel is stunning. All of it. But today, being the feast of Our Lady, Mother and Queen, I decided to focus on one of the striking elements of this place of prayer. I don't identify the title of "Queen" for Mary, but "Mother" is another story.
"Be sure to see the statue of Mary," my Dutch cousins suggested when they learned I would be visiting the chapel with my friend the following day. "It is unique." How right they were. One walks through the chapel doors (a story themsleves) along a sloped entryway and along the processional corridor, and looks to the right into the nave or main sanctuary. Much vies for attention in a subtle kind of way, but my eyes fell immediately on the Mary statue, unlike anything I have seen before. Read More
"On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food...And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples...Then the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces...Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation for the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain." Is 25:6a,7a,8a9b.10 (from today;s Mass readings)
"...Others fell on rich soil and produced their crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty..."