Maria showed me the first pencil sketch of her new and perhaps most beautiful work, it’s called The Blessed Mother, the Catholic Church name for the 14-year-old mother of Jesus Christ.

Maria is not conventionally religious, and neither am I. This piece is born out of a conjunction of art, love, friendship, and compassion.

Maria and I are very close friends with Sue Silverstein, the art and theology teacher at Bishop Maginn High School. She has guided me through the pain and challenge of this beautiful work. And she adores Maria.

Sue embodies everything that is beautiful about the Christian story – empathy, compassion, a true love for the vulnerable and the needy.

Sue is the real deal, what Jesus had in mind when he preached on the  Mount. She was the inspiration for Maria’s new piece.

We are in awe of the way her faith has guided her to save and support and comfort and inspire countless children, both from poverty in the inner city and from the awful trials and depravations of the refugee.

For the past month, Maria has been working with Sue to teach the refugee students how to sew to make quilts for the Afghan refugees and their own families.

A statue of the Blessed Mother sits right over the sewing machines, and Maria began thinking about and reading about a 14-year-old girl who became pregnant and finds herself the Mother of God.

When Sue is discouraged or exhausted, she asks the Blessed Mother to take over for her, and that is what has happened so far in her life.

Maria is not devout, but she is profoundly spiritual and touched by the story of the Blessed Mother and the impact it has had in the world.

There is tremendous feeling and emotion in this work, I am neither a Catholic nor a woman, but I can feel it.

You can follow the progress of this work on Maria’s blog, fullmoonfiberart.com.

Maria spent a month studying drawings and sketches and art representing the Blessed Mother, and today, she said, it all clicked.

The above work is the Blessed Mother as she imagines her. She imagined the Blessed Mother in several ways, and she finally got where she wanted today and knew it.

This will become a hanging piece that she will sell when finished. I am again amazed by Maria’s many gifts and the brilliant artistic streak that flows through her like a river in the Spring.

I don’t know when she will finish it or how much it will cost. I’m just proud to share it and to bow my head to the feeling and beauty it conveys.

I texted it to Sue Silverstein tonight, and she said it was stunning. So it is.