OUR LADY OF CLEMENCY

Day 308: March 16

Translation of the image of Our Lady of Clemency, Rome



The Translation of the Image of Our Lady of Clemency takes place in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere. This image is among the oldest ones in Rome: it dates back to the eighth century. Mary is represented in her royal majesty as Mother of the Lord. Even the Basilica, which contains it, the oldest Church in Rome dedicated to Mary, in Fonte Olei (Fount of the oil that would have flowed on the night of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem) is one of the most famous monuments in the world. It contains the most famous Marian mosaics.

After that, the icon has always remained in Santa Maria in Trastevere (first in the early Christian Basilica then in the building rebuilt in the twelfth century by Innocent II), in the chapel built by Cardinal Altemps in the sixteenth century. This Madonna is a Basilissa or Queen, she wears the same robes that the Empress Theodora wears in the mosaics of Ravenna.

It is probable that this painting is from the beginning of the eighth century because next to the Madonna there is a figure who could be John VII (705-707), a pontiff of oriental origin who was very devoted to the Virgin. An inscription engraved on the ambo of St Maria Antiqua refers to him with the words: "slave of the Mother of God."

It is an acheropite icon, i.e. not painted by human hands (this is for example reported by a pilgrim from Salzburg visiting Rome in the early Middle Ages).

In 1953 it was decided to restore the icon to the Central Institute of Restoration, under the incrustations we find the Virgin Queen seated on a throne with the child, with two angels on either side and a kneeling pope at her feet in an act of devotion.

Maria Andaloro, professor of Byzantine art history at the University of Viterbo, says: "… in his painting one of the most exciting encounters that can occur between ancient language and modern thrusts, between the artistic dimension of Byzantium and an elaboration of Roman matrix, between the Hellenizing harmonies evident in the face of the angel on the left and in that of the child, and the anti-classical disharmonies such as the representations of bodies. Secondly, it is the oldest icon of this size (165 cm x 110) to have come down to us almost intact. Third, it is a very high testimony of the Christian liturgy in Rome. As well as the other Marian icons of the Pantheon, Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Maria Nova in the Roman Forum."

The chronicle tells that a restorer, at the end of his work of cleaning the image, returning home was involved in a car accident, he went into a coma for six days when he woke up, the only thing he remembered was the Madonna who got up to hand him the child.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"Heaven possesses you now, but earth has not lost you. You carry in your heart the whole world and its inhabitants and you will be fully blessed only when you will see everyone in God's Glory and Grace forever. Grant that this blessed day which opens the gates of Paradise for us may fittingly come for us. Blessed are you, O Mary."

(Justin Russolillo, Spirit of Prayer, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, Newark, 1996, p. 160)

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