Finding Maternal Strength in NYC
I was walking down West 51st street one cool October afternoon, with my hands buried deep in my coat pockets and my feet briskly pacing the concrete sidewalk, when I came across this statue of the Virgin Mary. I was en route to my favorite ramen place and decided to take the long way since the sun was just going down and I wanted to watch it set along the Hudson River. I remember coming up from the north end of the street when I spotted, from the corner of my eye, a small white figure standing modestly between two empty planters. Immediately I stopped at the short brick wall and peered through the cold iron bars that encased a barren garden filled with long boughs of ivy and piles of fallen leaves. Her presence in the garden was so subtle and quiet but yet so powerful and compelling. There was a narrow opening into the courtyard, so I decided to explore. I slipped in through the fence and glanced around, before I made my way over to the statue for a closer look. The pure-white figure stood in sharp contrast to the dying garden and dark-brick walls surrounding her. As I moved nearer, a stinging gust of wind picked up a cluster of dead flowers and lifted them into a circle around the statue. She remained completely still as the wind swept up everything into a frenzy around her and, all at once, I felt at peace. Her face was bent down at the ground, but her little arms were widely outstretched.
As I stood there, I felt a light tap on my back. I turned around to find a
petite young woman, wearing a white coif and a black robe. I was a little
startled and began to stutter, but she smiled and greeted me formally into the
garden. Her name was Sister Caroline and she was a resident of the Catholic Sisters of Life. She seemed very pleased
to inform me that the building alongside the courtyard was their home and that I was standing in their residence
prayer garden. She explained to me that each sister in the Sisters of Life takes four vows of chastity, poverty, obedience,
and to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life within NYC. Their main
focus is to help women who question whether or not to get an abortion; they try
to provide support and other alternative options for single mothers to raise
their baby in the Catholic community.
She explained to me that the Virgin Mary
represents maternal strength and the power of a single mother and that every morning they pray to the statue because they believe that every prayer to her will help strengthen their mission to help the
modern day single mother. Many single mothers come to the garden and sit by Mary to contemplate their situation and find a refuge away from the bustling streets of NYC.
After hearing this story and visiting the statue, I
found myself reflecting on Day’s sacrifice having a husband in order to
raise Tamar as a Catholic. She raised her daughter as a single mother and admitted
that at first “it was hard. It was years before [she] awakened without that
longing for a face pressed against [her] breast, an arm about [her] shoulder.
The sense of loss was there. And yet…[she] had Tamar” (236). Day was able to
find immanent strength in her baby and in the Catholic community. This is
precisely the message that the Sisters of
Life are trying to send to their young women. I have seen many Virgin Mary
statues, but the placement of this one is truly the most symbolic and relevant
to both the sisters’ and Dorothy Day’s mission to social justice.
Cited Sources: Day, Dorothy. The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist Dorothy Day. New York: HarperOne, 1997. Print.
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