(Damn! Via I Have to Sit down (via New Advent) & via St. Gaspar's.)
That's the "don't f*^@k up or Mary's gonna beat the hell out of you Mary. That's the I'm about to beat the holy $h!t out of you, with your frikkin questions, so papa don't come home and beat the $h!t out of me Mary.
It's such a wrathful side we don't hardly ever see depicted.
1 comment:
I think you missed the story behind that image. It is a devotion from Italy known as "Our Lady of Succor." The story can be found if you do a search for it, but the short version is that an Italian mother got exasperated with her mischievous son and exclaimed, "May the demons take you away!" Well, the demons came to take the boy away. The mother realized what she had done and promptly begged Our Lady to come rescue her son and undo what she had done. Our Lady appeared with a club to beat away the demon (not the boy). The boy fled to Our Lady. In the image you see the demon still trying to drag the boy with it as it flees Our Lady's blows. The boy clings to Our Lady and the boy's mother thanks Our Lady for saving her boy.
There is no rage there, only loving protection for her children who are threatened by by the evil one. Her forceful protection mirrors that of her Son in defending the Temple from the money changers who had profaned it.
But it is a rather awesome image. The title, "Exterminatrix of Heresies," is an ancient title of the Blessed Mother.
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