Grace again

Some random thoughts on Grace

     Saying the rosary in Grace Cathedral today, I noticed anew the fresco of the Nativity in one of the chapels to the side of the choir.  There were painted waters from a rock, upon which were Mary and Joseph with Baby Jesus.  The waters seemed to flow down upon the altar itself, in a comingling of baptism and eucharist.  Like the words of the hymn, "sorrow and love flow mingled down," and at the heart of both sacraments, in these profound expressions of life reflected profound moments of the grief of both Mary and Jesus.  This reminds me, in these lenten days, that Jesus' love for us interesected the worlds desperate need for redemption in death, which death has become for us the vertex, or perhaps vortex, of Life.

     The waters hit the altar at the point of its crown, where sits a mother pelican, one of the images Christ's love, and perhaps, though not classicaly so, also a symbol of the love of Mary, whose flesh of her own flesh became the bread of angels and of mortals.