For this Christmas the Vatican will install, in the classroom Paul VI, a manger providates with the image of the Virgin Mary pregnant and 28,000 tapes that symbolize lives saved from abortion thanks to the prayer and institutions that help the woman.
The monumental work, entitled Joy (Joy), belongs to the Costa Rican artist of art Sacro Paula Sáenz, who told ACI Press that his work will measure five meters long, three deep and two and a half meters high. True to tradition, birth will include San José, the Magi, shepherds and animals; but introduce a novel detail: two interchangeable images of the Virgin Mary.
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Paula explained that before December 25, during the Advent, an image of the pregnant virgin, a sign of the “sweet wait.” Will be presented. Christmas Eve, that figure will give way to another Mary in “state of worship”, when the child Jesus is lying in the crib.
Under the straw and moss of the portal 28,000 tapes representing abortion will be placed thanks to the prayer and accompaniment of 40 days for life, an international initiative that organizes prayer and fasting campaigns in front of abortion centers to ask for the end of this practice. In addition to the Women’s Institute of Integral Health (Fumz) from Costa Rica who helps pregnant women in a vulnerable situation.
According to the artist, this gesture seeks to be “a cry of the sky of ‘Save, let’s take care of life from the belly.” Paula regretted that at present “there is a denial in which a human being is inside the belly, then (his work) is how to make that visible through the Vatican.”
“In these times I have seen, through many events that have passed, that we have fallen as in that culture of the self. It matters what I want. Not having that empathy for others, or think perhaps in others. That culture of the immediate has been done, what to live the moment,” he explained.
Therefore, he hopes his work will “reach the hearts of young people and see the importance of Jesus also in his belly.”
Next to this gesture, in the cradle where the child Jesus will be placed, he will carry 400 tapes with intentions written by children admitted to the National Hospital of Children Dr. Carlos Sáenz Herrera. For Paula, “this suffering of these children is what is going to heat that manger of the child God.”
He pointed out that it was thought of as a way of keeping in mind and praying, especially during Christmas, “for people who are in a hospital, especially children, who are either in a chronic or terminal disease.”
His vocation was born with “a miracle”
The story of Paula Sáenz is marked by “a personal miracle.” For years, she and her husband sought to have a baby, so she asked God that gift. Today, his son is 22 years old. Although he confesses that despite being Catholic “he did not lead that life of piety,” upon receiving what had implored so much, he deepened in faith.
“What I know is to draw, make art, how do I put this in your hands, that is, offer, give it as an offering?”, I raised to God. It was so that he decided to leave his advertising design work in a company and began to make sacred art.
Her path has led her to perform works both in Costa Rica and abroad, including a Sculpture of the Virgen de los AngelesPatroness of Costa Rica, for the Costa Rican embassy in the Vatican and a mosaic with the image of the “La La Negrita”, enthroned in 2021 in the Vatican gardens.
The manger Joy He was born at the initiative of Federico Zamora, Ambassador of Costa Rica before the Holy See who presented it to the Government of the State of the Vatican City. The ambassador to A local medium that the project was initially planned to be installed by 2027, but “for priority reasons” was advanced to this Christmas.
For Paula, although he represents a challenge, he felt “that hug of God, that hug of God, that great love of Him.”
“God is using an instrument for certain things. So that’s what I felt, the great love of God. I said, ‘My God, this is really going on.’ That they are going forward now, it really is a miracle.”
Recommendations to pray with art
Specialist in Byzantine and Colonial Art, explains that in his trade it is not painted: it is written. “Actually the icons that I do are writings, this is how sacred art, one as a artist in sacred art does not paint, but writes, write a sentence through symbols, colors.”
He commented that before starting a work, “Pray, prayer, I have to be silent to start writing that icon I do.” And recommend that families do the same by receiving a sacred image at home: reserve a special place, bless it and pray before it.
“I know that God reveals to each of us something different. It is like a written love letter for each one of us. Then, it is that, as soon as he opened his heart, being silent and crying in front of that. They will see, repeat it, they see it, contemplate it and there God is entering the heart,” he concluded.
Diego López Colín
I am a graduate of journalism at the Carlos Septién García school with experience of religious institutional communication. Since 2016 I write for digital media and, since 2018, I report the most important news about the Catholic event in Mexico for the Ewtn news channel. ACI Press correspondent in Mexico since 2023.