Maternal mystery

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 years since that first encounter, the surprise of this image has led me to ponder anew the mystical connection between the first joyful mysteries of the rosary and the final glorious mysteries.

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 final assumption into the dwelling of the Triune God.

In like manner, and even more directly relating to this arresting mosaic, at the Nativity, the Maid of Nazareth beholds her newborn child. She cradles him, holding him close to her heart in the poverty of Bethlehem. And in the end, when the work of our salvation has been wrought and she, after her child, ends her time on this earth, her son is there to hold and cradle her as she is newborn unto heaven.

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 merely a theological necessity but a choice made in love -- and that love 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 protective care, as she enters into new and everlasting life.

That same paradox is rehearsed by every trip around the rosary. As we pass through the mysteries by which the Lord worked our salvation, we enter with Mary into that profound mystery that she was the first among us to experience in her own flesh: humanity welcoming God so that, in the end, God might welcome our whole humanity.

The Lord was enthroned in her womb and then he enthroned her in heaven. The Lord was beheld by his mother in the manger and then he beheld her in his Father's house. From joy to glory, from glory to everlasting joy.

Each decade of the rosary reminds us that the same hands that once reached up to touch her face now reach down to lift her soul into paradise. Our hands touch hers and his in the posture of devotion.