The Catechetical Review - Communicating Christ for a New Evangelization

Learning Through Art: St. John Contemplates the Immaculate Conception

Authored by Dr. Caroline Farey in Issue #30.4 of The Sower

What a remarkable painting! And how unexpected to find it given to us as the painting to introduce the part of the Compendium on the moral life! One might have thought, naturally, that this painting could most easily be used to illustrate the doctrines of Our Lady, especially Mary as Immaculate. But in the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church the painting is being proposed, instead, as one that can be used to help people to learn about Catholic moral teaching, our life in Christ.

The usual title of the painting is, as we know, the Immaculate Conception but here the Church surprises us by placing a very different title over the painting: ‘Man’s vocation: life in the Spirit’. We need to look closely at the painting, therefore, to understand how the picture illustrates this point: to ‘picture’, to see, our vocation, to see what you and I are being called to, we are being asked to contemplate Mary immaculate. We might say, in fact, that if we do not contemplate she who has the fullness of life in the Spirit we cannot know well to what we are being called. In Mary we see what life in the Spirit is, and so in her we see our vocation.

A catechetical implication, then, is that when we teach any element of Catholic life or moral teaching, we would do well to help people to contemplate Mary immaculate in order to see more clearly what the Church’s moral teaching means and entails. If we do not do this, one might even say that we are actually making it harder for people to ‘see’ the Church’s moral teaching.

The rest of this online article is available for current subscribers.

Start your subscription today!


This article is from The Sower and may be copied for catechetical purposes only. It may not be reprinted in another published work without the permission of Maryvale Institute. Contact [email protected]

Articles from the Most Recent Issue

We Belong to One Another: Seeking Solidarity with the Poor
By Philip Couture
When encountering a person living on the streets, a distressing question is imposed on the well-intentioned passerby: “Should I do something?” The question is especially disquieting for the Catholic who is reminded of the Savior’s exhortations, who tells his disciples that anything they do for the “least of these” is done for him. And what... Read more
Practical Strategies to Promote Vocations
By Fr. Tyron Tomson
Most of them didn’t go to Catholic schools. A quarter of them never served at Mass. Only about half were ever in a youth group, and a good chunk are converts. A majority of them are over 40 years old. One in three has no European ancestry. By statistical and anecdotal analyses, the newest priests of the United States come from varied, even... Read more
Resting in the Lord: Liturgy and Education
By Leonardo Franchi
In his important apostolic letter Dies Domini (“Keeping the Lord’s Day Holy”), St. John Paul II argues that to rest is to re-member (put together again) the sacred work of creation on the day set aside for worship, thus orienting times of rest toward a deeper contemplation of God’s vision of humanity. “Rest therefore acquires a sacred value: the... Read more

Pages

Watch Tutorial Videos

We've put together several quick and easy tutorial videos to show you how to use this website.

Watch Now