This past week, Pope Francis visited the city of Vilnius, the Capitol of Lithuania, and the second largest city of the Baltic States. Above the city gate, residing in a small chapel, the icon of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn resides. The icon is visible to all, as we can see in the photo above, and is protected from rain and snow by glass doors. We can also see that the icon is large: 64 by 79 inches. In the photo below, we see Pope Francis speaking from the balcony of the chapel with the icon behind him.
The icon's story is complex - a long trail of who owned it when and where, the impact of invaders and wars, the miracles attributed to it and even Our Lady's deadly punishment for those who would mess with her.
For all of that, we can miss the spiritual content and invitation. Here is another photograph of the icon without the golden riza which covers her. Oh, why can't we leave Mary to be the humble, un-adorned servant she proclaims herself to be in Luke's Gospel (1:46-48) when she hurries to visit her pregnant relative, Elizabeth. Would people be less inclined to visit her chapel were she not dressed in layers of gold and silver?
The title of the icon: Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn, contains two spiritual themes which extend an invitation. Our Lady of the Gate. If an enemy seized a city's gate, that enemy was considered to have been victorious. The Vilnius icon is a hold over from that thinking - powerful in keeping physical invaders at bay. But today, more importantly perhaps, is the identification of those enemies which look to invade and might do us harm spiritually.
The word fetish comes from the Latin word, facere - to do or make. Often we limit our understanding of a fetish to sexual things, but that would be an exceedingly small understanding. A fetish is a compulsion, fixation, obsession or mania (a kind of craziness). A fetish is a human made thing that is worshipped (that has even unwittingly taken the place of God in someone's life). A fetish can have attributed to it irrational magical powers. Our culture is filled with fetishes understood this way - they are in a sense, "at the gate."
the money fetish
the gun fetish
a military (or other) power fetish
a youth forever fetish
the nation's drug fetish
the amendments over commandments fetish
the tribal, political party fetish
a shopping fetish
a stock market fetish
a media fetish
an anger fetish
Look, Mary's hands don't hold the Infant Christ but are crossed in front of her. The literature says this placement of hands symbolizes her virginity and humility. I think there's more. Her hands form a kind of chalice or cup under her heart. St. Augustine wrote: "Mary conceived Jesus in her heart before she conceived him in her womb." We might say, Mary is fetish-free. She is held only by God. You and I want that as well, for ourselves and our dear ones. We can make this our prayer as we sit silently before the icon.
Secondly, she is Our Lady of the Dawn. Dawn is the start of the new day. Can you name that for yourself - our desire to begin again - to let yesterday be yesterday and to start afresh. Afresh with a new attitude, new insight ("Then it dawned on me.."), new first steps after forgiveness. Dawn, which is a decision to embrace some new work or direction, a new faith or freedom coming out of addiction, mourning, resentment or depression. To live by a new light. It's very personal to each of us. So yes:
Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn ~ pray for us.
