Walking with “The Walking Madonna”

We have just celebrated the feast of the Annunciation. A submissive Mary or a courageous Mary – depending on your take on the story or perhaps on women, themselves – has just said either: “Let it be done unto me” or “Yes”. Most of us, I hope, prefer the latter.

In any case, Mary did receive a call, did answer positively, and did undertake her mission with or without the blessings of her community. We cannot be but lament that our Church has refused to acclaim that kind of call, response, and fulfillment of sacred mission as a model for all, not just the masculine among us. Instead, its narrow and narrowing interpretation of her as the exemplar of humble obedience, matchless purity, immaculate to the end is our limiting legacy.

No wonder, Elisabeth Frink’s magnificent sculpture outside of the Cathedral in Salisbury, England, has Mary walking away from – not toward – the Church.

Dr. Melanie Veasey, art historian, commented on the sculpture: “Her diminutive frame stands just less than 2 meters and is dominated by the scale of the Cathedral. Perhaps this tension of scale is a reference to humanity’s perceived insignificance against the presumed might of the Church.”  

And it is from this might of this Church that Mary turns away. Fortified by her true calling, she walks with resolution but also with tense tautness and perceptible anguish. The needs are out there in the world, and they are, make no mistake, fierce and formidable, but that is where she, and if the Church would only follow, where it, too, needs to be.

Fortunately, and thus perhaps acting as another model besides Mary for our own Catholic leaders, the parish elders of Salisbury Cathedral, recognized the importance of the message behind the statue’s positioning. Veasey quotes the Dean as saying they had the Walking Madonna placed “moving out from worship to be where human needs are to be met, not just in Salisbury but in the wide world”. He noted further: “This figure symbolises … human dignity and creativity over militarism and totalitarian disregard for human dignity and rights.”

 Veasy is not entirely convinced this liberalizing view was completely intentional: “In making this decision the parish elders, probably unknowingly, redefined the principle that traditional ecclesiastic sculptures were set apart from their brethren. Here the Walking Madonna integrates with the crowds, allowing her to gain the community’s acceptance.”

 In fact, viewers cannot help but actively engage with her. Mary meets them with face-to-face accessibility. She is not lofty; she is eternally present walking toward and with them. And they respond: The patina on her empty hand has been worn smooth by all the visitors holding it, sometimes even grasping it. They know -we know – even if the Church fathers do not, which way and with whom we should walk.

But all the above commentary pales, I think, in the light of Nicola Slee’s poem inspired by the statue: