I Knew You in the Womb,
Sculpture by Timothy P. Schmalz (born 1969),
Created in 2016,
Bronze
© Timothy P. Schmalz, all right reserved
I Knew You in the Womb,
Sculpture by Timothy P. Schmalz (born 1969),
Created in 2016,
Bronze
© Timothy P. Schmalz, all right reserved
The massacre of the innocents
Matthew 2:13-18
After the wise men had left, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother with you, and escape into Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, because Herod intends to search for the child and do away with him.’ So Joseph got up and, taking the child and his mother with him, left that night for Egypt, where he stayed until Herod was dead. This was to fulfil what the Lord had spoken through the prophet:
I called my son out of Egypt.
Herod was furious when he realised that he had been outwitted by the wise men, and in Bethlehem and its surrounding district he had all the male children killed who were two years old or under, reckoning by the date he had been careful to ask the wise men. It was then that the words spoken through the prophet Jeremiah were fulfilled:
A voice was heard in Ramah,
sobbing and loudly lamenting:
it was Rachel weeping for her children,
refusing to be comforted because they were no more.
Reflection on the Public Sculpture
What a contrast in todays reading between Herod’s efforts to kill life and Joseph’s efforts to preserve life!
Herod ordered all the male children under two in the surroundings of Bethlehem to be killed to make sure that baby Jesus would be killed. In our reading we see how God is beautifully at work to preserve life, especially life at its most vulnerable. And yes, we tend to be at our most vulnerable at the very beginning of our lives, in our mother’s womb and as babies, but also at the very end of our lives at old age, when we have to deal with declining health. The gospel reading remarkably taps into our 21st-century Zeitgeist revealing that there are other forces in our world that, like Herod, want to destroy life, especially when it is at its most vulnerable.
Our modern bronze sculpture by Timothy Schmalz is titled I Knew You in the Womb. It depicts an angel hugging and weeping over an empty cradle. The angel is holding a rose in one hand. The sculpture serves as a striking visual pro-life memorial and a beautiful testimony to the value of the unborn. The artists said that 'this sculpture was an artistic celebration of the sanctity of all life'.
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Today’s image went right to my heart. The intention at Mass today in our parish is for all who have had a child who died – which includes me. There is no sadder loss. It never leaves you.
Rezo a San José y a Santa Maria, custodios de la vida de Jesús, para que te ayuden y consuelan Patricia..
“Lord, before the suffering of the innocent, rather than accusing you, help me to turn my gaze to the cross and to read there the mystery of a God of love who stands in solidarity to the end of our human condition. I do not pretend to understand everything, but I believe it: one day I will see “that there is no common measure between the sufferings of the present time and the glory that will be revealed for us” (Rom 8:18) in each of your children, beginning with the most tried. It is in this hope that I want to continue the journey with you, asking you for the grace not to revolt before the suffering of the innocent. (Father Joseph-Marie Verlinde, Prayer for the Feast of the Holy Innocents)
It is very sad that in many states in the U.S., particularly my own in Illinois, it is celebrated that a baby can be aborted up until the ninth month. The sculpture is a powerful reminder of the sanctity of life. Again, St. Joseph shows what kind of man he is. Although he never speaks a word in scripture, his actions and obedience to God are very loud.
This silent angel and silent St. Joseph bring to mind the woman in England silently praying near an abortion clinic recently. She was arrested, searched, taken into custody and questioned for hours for this crime and will appear in court in February.
God help us!
I read about her. We must pray for her.
She is not the only one in England.
A woman in her late 60s used to walk around the streets every morning praying her rosary. She walked past an abortion clinic and was arrested.
Patrick, that is one of the most powerful and moving images I have ever seen. Nowadays the rulers of this world don’t even wait for the child to be born.
For those who have an empty cot because they lost their child, or those who have an empty cot because they were not gifted with a child, we remember them in our prayers.
Thank you Anthony. That means a lot.