Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

 

This very contemporary Annunciation by John Collier was created for Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral in Charleston, WV. Note that Mary is standing within the branches of a fig tree, a clear allusion to the Garden of Eden and the fig leaves with which Adam and Eve attempted to clothe themselves when they lost the garment of sanctifying grace. Mary, instead, created (as our first parents were) in the state of grace, remained faithful to that initial clothing, and so was addressed by Gabriel as "full of grace."