A Meditation on two Statues (written in September of 2014

Just a week ago I watched as the Bronze doors of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City opened for the world outside. 8 am Mass was coming to a close and the beautiful Church doors gave a view of the busy 5th Avenue outdoors. What impressed me was that, while in Rome on a rare occasion when St. Peter’s main massive doors give to a sight of an ancient Egyptian obelisk crowned with a Latin cross, St. Pat’s introduces us to the colossal figure of Atlas who carries the world upon his back. The Obelisk in Rome is an impressive sight, made of a single block of Egyptian limestone and carried over by the conquering Roman Legion. Atlas, on the other hand, stands before the once almighty Rockefeller Center. The pair, statue and building, make for a perfect portrayal of the Nietzschean Ubermensch or the Heideggerian Dasein, Man independently self-immortal projecting himself for his own destiny. Atlas is the master of a world upon his shoulders yet one by which He is also enslaved.

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The emblematic Rockefeller Center capped by the colossal statue of Atlas is the perfect symbol of Capitalism or Neo-Capitalism. On the one hand it is a symbol of wealth and opulence. Russian-born author, Ayn Rand, the writer of the famous novel Atlas Shrugged once wrote:

“For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors - between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it.” (Atlas Shrugged)

In some ways Atlas represents the common struggle of man. Atlas was a Titan, the brother of Prometheus (He is found on the other side of the Rockefeller Center), and both were punished in the war against Zeus and Co.  Both suffer a Passion Play without end. In many ways our lives mimic the weight and suffering of the Titans.

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Atlas faces East. Before him lies the biggest cross in the Empire State. St. Patrick’s, constructed with a cruciform Neo-Gothic floorplan, I’m sure, makes for the largest cross in the Big Apple, not to mention, in the State of New York. The Latin Cross boasts the massive proportions of 330ft by 172ft (100m by 53m), in short a football field, where greatest game is played. As you enter the Cathedral the splendor the Cathedral is dimmed both within and without by scaffolds and the large skyscrapers or demi-skyscrapers that hide the heavens. The renovation of the masterpiece has shrouded the beautiful nave and many of the side chapels. As you approach the transept a glance behind offers a view of one of the most beautiful rose windows to date. The massive diameter of the crystal rose is accompanied by a chromatic beauty second-to-none, even to the rose windows in the Notre-Dames of Paris or Strasbourg. The sleek grand pipe organs look ready to bellow out sonorous notes. The scaffolding has now shrouded most of the central nave and the high altar. There is not much of a view but that of a Cathedral in reconstruction. The curious onlooker; however, ventures towards the endzone.

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In the far eastern apse of the Cathedral where no scaffolds have been raised a small statue of a woman in prayer stands above the tabernacle in a altar and chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Though unseen but from the apse she faces the incoming pilgrims from 5th Avenue, Atlas and the Rockefeller Center. Unnoticed and miniature in comparison to hulking Atlas she is often forgotten within the whole complex of arcades and stained glass windows. She appears with her hands just above Her Heart as if encasing something invisible. She is essentially a Mother, a mother who carries the burdens of Her Son. In the right transept chapel Our Lady of Guadalupe is depicted with a sash around Her waist, symbolic of a pregnant mother-to-be. This small white statue is somewhat the same. She doesn’t hold Her Son’s limp body as in the Pietà found nearby. She holds Her Son in her womb. Another interpretation of this simple woman is that she holds the Mysteries of Her Son in Her Heart as St. Luke once wrote: “And she kept all these things in Her Heart” (Lk 2:19). Another mode of interpretation would include the cruciform Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, in motion towards Heaven. She is the true scaffolding that holds the Church together. The Church body leans upon its Mother’s grasp. She sustains it in its Earthly sojourn. Whatever the case, Mary is there. She faces Atlas. She receives the giant into her fold. The Cathedral is as a veil that covers Her sacred Face.

The First Christians didn’t just see in Jesus a Herculean figure that would ‘swoop down’ and ‘save’ us as did Hercules did for Atlas and Prometheus. They never denied the fact that Jesus, as did mythical Hercules, carried the great load to redeem us. Jesus however did more than carry a Cross. He said that while He was “raised up I will draw all to myself” (Jn 12:32). While Hercules took on the globe from Atlas’ shoulders for a time Jesus takes up our Sins for all Eternity. Upon His Cross, His Earthly Throne, the Church He draws us out from the 5th Avenues of life. The busy burdensome world which seems to drag us down. The Jn 12 paradigm is the source from which our Redemption is wrought. We do not save ourselves. We are saved. It is a passive action, not an active one. Each of us are as Atlas, burdened and toiling for something seemingly unattainable. Jesus raises us up within a Church and She is Beautiful. Mary is the perfect prototype of the Church, a Mother that draws us to encounter Her Son with whom we can be freed of our burdens and be made free in Her Son.

Ayn Rand considered it wrong for us to dedicate our lives to God and our fellow man without a consideration for ourselves. I agree but only in the way Mary dedicated time to Herself. She gave her time and energy and took on the burdens of others, especially that of the Child Jesus. We are not Immortal statues, we are people made of flesh and blood. We feel our failures and we suffer them day after day. I suggest that we enter, arm-in-arm, into the Church that bears the struggles of time with us, and there let us find Jesus who raises us up unto Himself.