Mary

A wedding at Cana in Galilee. The party is in full swing when someone notices, before anyone else, that the wine jars are empty. It is Mary. She tells her son, “They have no wine,” then says to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” The scene, told by Saint John, is a good starting point for a Mary emoji: a practical woman who pays attention and sees what others are missing.

The Gospels say little about Mary, but every word counts. A young woman of Nazareth who asks the angel a question before saying yes. A relative who hurries into the hill country to help Elizabeth and sings the Magnificat as she arrives. A mother who searches three days for her twelve-year-old son, and who later stands at the foot of the cross. Eastern Christians call her Theotokos, Mother of God, a title proclaimed at the Council of Ephesus in 431.

To draw her, tradition offers a clear vocabulary: the veil, the blue mantle, hands joined or held out, sometimes the Child in her arms. A veiled figure leaning toward someone, or a Cana wine jar with a small heart: send us the Mary who speaks to you, the one you could slip into a message to say “thinking of you, praying for you.”