Her Indigo Mantle

In the 2018 restoration of the Salus Populi icon, Mary had her mantle restored to its original indigo. The King James Version of the bible uses the word indigo more than forty times. Other translations more simply say blue. But we know the biblical blue was not baby boy blue or even what a 1950's Catholic would recognize as Blessed Mother Blue. In the icon, the Mother of God, holding her Divine Child, has stepped up to heaven's window, wearing a globe-covering maphorion of indigo blue: we are covered with heaven.

But as indigo is a rich color, so is its meaning. It is the color of intuition or perception - what we might call the third eye - that capacity to know someone deeply by looking at them, even before  words are spoken. 

Indigo is the color of integrity, which is deep sincerity. It is the color of devotion, justice, wisdom, fairness and impartiality. The world could do with being wrapped in some of this. Indigo seems to reduce things to their most fundamental and essential.  

Prayer to the Mother of God, Who Wears a Banishing Blue

Virgin Mary,
Banishing Blue, 
Dislodge the soul clogging resentments,
Dispel the exhausting fears,
Disperse the shade of cynicism,
Allay the hunger to be consulted,
Drive off the rehearsals of punishing revenge,
Expel the provocateurs of hate.

Virgin Mary,
Banishing Blue,
Scatter the tendency to keep God small and leashed,
Rout the old damage which causes us to hurt others,
Oust the hidden desire to be privileged and preferred,
Quell the noisy pride; the ugly arrogance,
Dismiss the joy-stealing complaints,
Cast out the un-Christly bits within.

Virgin Mary,
Banishing Blue,
Exorcise from the nation's heart the demon-spirit of gun lust.