Incongruent Image and Mixed-up Message

“Advent: The National Life Monument,” is a larger-than-life bronze statue by Canadian Catholic artist Timothy Paul Schmalz which depicts the Blessed Virgin Mary pregnant with an unborn baby Jesus and is located on the campus of The Catholic University of America’s Theological College in Washington, DC.

Personal reflection:

 

Why is Baby Jesus in what looks like a cold, sterile, stainless steel operating-room basin?

 

Where’s Mother Mary's warm, welcoming womb, the umbilical cord, the life-giving, nurturing connection between Mother and Child?

 

Where is the halo on Mother Mary and on Baby Jesus?

 

The statue seems to conjure an image and message of an abhorrent abortion and is not at all an image and message of pro-life that it purports to be!