In the presence of the bishops of Korea and on the feast day of Saint Andrew Kim and his fellow martyrs, September 20, the mosaic of Our Lady of Peace was inaugurated in the Vatican Gardens.
The inauguration and blessing of the work of the artist Shim Soonhwa Catherine was carried out in the presence of Cardinals Fernando Vérgez Alzaga and Lázaro You Heung sik, respectively president of the Governorate of Vatican City State and prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy; as well as the Korean bishops who are visiting ad limina.
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This visit is made by bishops from all over the world, by country and every five years, to report on the work of their respective dioceses and in which they have the opportunity to dialogue about it with the Pope and with the different dicasteries of the Curia. Roman.
According to reports Vatican NewsAbout 200 people, including lay people, priests and nuns, also participated in the event. After the blessing, the Rosary was prayed, to pray to God and the Virgin of Peace for this gift for the whole world.
The work was commissioned by Cardinal Lazarus You in May 2023. After a visit to the Gardens to decide the size of the mosaic, Shim Soonhwa Catherine began painting the Marian image with acrylic on canvas in October and, upon completion, made the mosaic .
The mosaic measures one and a half meters long by one meter wide, but if the marble frame is added, the total size is 1.86 meters long by 1.3 meters wide.
The canvas has been placed at the headquarters of the Dicastery for the Clergy, while the mosaic was made in Korea and shipped by plane, and the marble molding that surrounds it was made in Carrara (Italy).
Our Lady of Peace
Vatican News specifies that the Marian image dresses in this work a Hanboka traditional Korean costume, and is colored red and turquoise green, where red represents motherhood and turquoise represents peace.
The Virgin Mary, with the Rosary crown in her hand, steps on the snake, a symbol of evil, while the crown symbolizes the weapon of prayer to defeat it.
The work also represents the Child Jesus of the Blessing, who holds the globe in his hand. The Child’s clothing is traditional for young Korean children.
The artist has placed the Virgin Mary standing, with the Child Jesus in her arms, to express the hope of peace for the world, devastated by war.
You can also see a dove that represents the Holy Spirit. The background is gold to represent the glory of God.
Our Lady of La Paz or the Virgin of Peace is the twelfth Marian image placed in the Vatican Gardens.
Walter Sanchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.