Mary and Elizabeth
Kate Green, watercolour and ink on paper

The artist Kate Green recently took part in an Ignatian prayer meditation exercise as part of a spiritual direction training course. Participants were encouraged not only to read the story often titled the visitation of Mary – and celebrated in the western church on 31 May – but to enter into it by giving full rein to the imagination. She said: ‘I felt hugely inspired by the Holy Spirit as I became aware of colour, texture and emotion. I thought about not only Mary and Elizabeth greeting each other but also the greeting of the babes yet unborn.’ The shapes and closeness of the two women, and the textile patterns that symbolise the babies, expresses the uniqueness of this four-way dynamic greeting. Mary’s expression shows the sheer relief she must have felt at the prospect of being with someone who fully empathised with her situation. The piece was painted ‘in a flurry of urgency, the day after the meditation,’ Kate said, ‘having had my eyes opened to the sheer vulnerable humanity of Mary and the sheer obedience of Elizabeth.’

Art in focus is curated by Meryl Doney

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This article was published in the May 2019 edition of Reform

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