Time to wish you all a Happy Christmas, and thank you for accompanying me with my drawings through 2021.
This is the Virgin Mary as Stella Maris, ‘Star of the Sea’. The figure is based on a statue on the Brittany coast, which is sited on the Pointe de Kerpenhir, Mary looking out to sea to the fishermen and sailors she was thought to protect.
I love her strong, confident stance, and the way she is holding the baby high. He is not just the baby Jesus, but, as Richard Rohr puts it, ‘The Universal Christ’.
I’ll leave you with the Breton fisherman’s prayer, which seems apt for us all:
Dear God, be good to me;
the sea is so wide,
and my boat is so small.