ISRAEL SHAMIR REFLECTS: OUR LADY OF SORROW

Our Lady of Sorrow
[This was written after the Israeli invasion of Bethlehem, in March 2002].

In the Upper church of Annunciation in Nazareth, there is a striking collection of images,
the homage of artists to Mary: in a setting of blue-and-golden flowers, a dainty Virgin in a
colourful kimono holds her child in ceremonial Japanese royal robes; a naïve Gothic face of
Madonna, transferred from French Cluniac illuminations; a Chinese Queen of Heaven carved of
precious wood by Formosa devotees; a richly inlaid Cuban statue of Virgen del Cobre; a Polish
Black Madonna; a tender face of the Byzantine Mother of God, and a modernist, steely Madonna
from the United States all look from the walls of the church and unite us in one human family.
There is hardly an image in the world as universal and poignant as that of the Virgin and the
Child.

Wherever you go, from Santiago de Compostella in the far west of Spain to the golden
domes of Russia, from frozen Uppsala in Sweden to Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, you will
find this adorable face. The best artists depicted her compassionate features, her love for her
child and her sorrow. Botticelli painted her with a pomegranate and among the Kings of the East;
Michelangelo and Rafael, Cimabue and Titian, van der Weyden and Fra Filippo Lippi were
inspired by her image. This unique mix of a young girl and mother, of vulnerability and
protection, of admiration and love, formed the spiritual and inspirational base of our civilisation.
She appeared to a Mexican peasant, and her flower-covered image arrested the strife and
united Native Americans and Spaniards in one nation. She gave her rosary to Saint Dominic and
a letter to Portuguese kids in Fatima. Prophet Muhammad saved and cherished her icon found in
the Mecca shrine, writes Maxim Rodinson. She appeared to a wealthy Jewish banker Alphonse
Ratisbonne, and he took orders and built the convent of the Sisters of Zion in En Karim. A
Palestinian Muslim in a refugee camp of Lebanon preserved the image he took from his native
Galilee, tells Elias Khoury in his novel Bab Al-Shams (recently translated into Hebrew by Moshe
Hakham and edited by Anton Shammas). Syrian astronauts asked for her protection in the shrine
of Seidnaya before the ir flight on the Soviet space shuttle1
.
In medieval legends, the Jews were often perceived as enemies of the Virgin. The
Talmud refers to her in most blasphemous and hostile way. A certain column-stump on
Jerusalem’s Via Dolorosa marks the place of a legendary attack of Jews on her person, while in
Antioch in 592, Jews were found despoiling her image. These are old tales. And now some new
facts. This week in Bethlehem, a Jew shelled the Virgin. A Jewish soldier in the formidable tank Merkava-3, constructed according to US technology at US taxpayer’s expense fired a shell from
a distance of fifty yards at the statue of the Madonna a-top the Holy Family church in the
Nativity town.

The Virgin lost an arm, and her pretty face was disfigured. She became one of a hundred
Palestinian women shot by the Jews in the present outburst of war. This seemingly unnecessary
act of vandalism could not have been an accidental shot. No terrorist hid behind her gentle figure
on the pinnacle of the hospital church. At fifty yards, you make no mistake. It could have been
orders; it could have been a spontaneous expression of feelings by a Jewish fanatic. Our world
rewinds full speed back into the Dark Ages, and as Israel rekindled traditional Jewish hostile
rejection of Christianity, it can not be excluded.

After the shelling by the Israeli soldier

(Taken from Our Lady of Sorrow, The Collected Essays from the Holy Land by Israel Shamir, which can be ordered here.)