Star of the Sea
Dear Friends,
As you know if you’ve been reading this blog for the past year and a half, I lived in Israel for a year. Specifically, I lived on Mount Carmel about one kilometer from Stella Maris the original monastery of the Carmelites. As a natural result, I developed a devotion to Our Lady Star of the Sea. The title Star of the Sea is an ancient title for Mary arising out of a mistaken etymology associating the name Mary with the Latin maris meaning “Sea.” It has also come to be associated Mary’s intercessory role for the souls in purgatory. But that is neither here nor there. The following is my absolute favorite painting of Our Lady Star of the Sea:
There is a ton of symbolism going on in this painting. I’ve been contemplating it since Christmas. Here are some of the most significant things I’ve observed in this painting:
There is a deeply mythological aspect in this painting. From listening to both Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Pageau, I’ve learned that the ocean is associated with chaos (which makes total sense). From that chaos, creativity and order emerge. Femininity is also associate with chaos, because life comes into being within the womb of women. This is why we say “mother nature.” Nature is chaotic and dangerous but also provides us with resources and is necessary for our well-being. This painting shows the benevolent side of motherhood, since the woman is clearly associated with the ocean (the ocean melds into her robes, for goodness sake!), but she is not bend on destruction. Rather, she is screening the storm-clouds out. (To any of my dear Protestant friends who may be reading this: Catholics do not worship Mary nor do we associate her with mother nature or do any nature worshiping nonsense. All I’m saying here is that for as long as humans have been telling stories, these are associations we’ve been making. There is some truth in these mythological understandings of chaos/order, creativity, femininity/masculinity because they tell us something about the world and our place in it. Consciously or unconsciously, this painting taps into these associations, which I think is fascinating.)
The sun coming up over the horizon is roughly on the same level as her womb. Christ is the light of the world who was born of Mary. So this is very fitting.
The Barque (ship) of Peter is an ancient term referring to the Church. The ship is not as close to the woman but in a similar place. Christ gave His mother to be our mother as well (John 19:27), so this also is fitting.
The mist rising above the sea: 1 Kings 18:44 — This is one of the passages that the Carmelites contemplated from their home on Mount Carmel. I read somewhere (perhaps in a pamphlet from El Muhraqa) that the Carmelites saw the cloud as a prefigurement of Mary because from the cloud came purifying rain which symbolized the Christ entering the world.
Birds: Birds indicate that a ship is nearing land, and thus that the ship is reaching its destination in safety.
Her clothing is reddish brown and dark blue. In the Orthodox iconographical tradition, the color brown is associated with the earth and, when used on Mary, indicates her humanity. Dark blue is color of the heavenly realm; and it is also associated with Mary’s queenship. These colors together tie this painting into that tradition, even though it is clearly not an icon. (Icon color symbolism source: here.)
12 stars: Revelation 12:1 — This image is cropped a little bit, but in the full image there are twelve stars around her head, which clearly associates her with the woman in Revelation.
Her face and hair: She looks Lebanese/Arab. This is fitting since Mary was Jewish and living in that area of the world. But wait, she’s so pale! Many of the Lebanese, Lebanese heritage, and Palestinian (all of whom are considered collectively as Arab) women have clear, very pale skin similar to this painting. Furthermore, this painting has a similar face shape. But my favorite is that you can see she has curly black hair. So many middle eastern women have densely curled, wild, black hair. So this physical depiction of Mary seems extremely fitting to me.
Oh my goodness! I love this painting.
Pax!
DS
