Patience on a Monument

by the Revd Naomi Gardom

Henry Moore (1898-1986), Madonna and Child (1943-4), St Matthew’s Church, Northampton

This Advent, I have been seeking out all sorts of images of the Madonna and Child. These images give the sense of being caught outside of time, the focus on the fact of the Incarnation itself, in contrast to crib scenes with their wealth of contextual details. My favourite new discovery this Advent, thanks to a friend, has been this Madonna and Child by Henry Moore, carved for St Matthew’s Church in Northampton during the Second World War. It still stands in the North Transept there. Mary is a majestic and monumental figure, the outline of the block of marble almost still visible in her foursquare strength. The Christ Child is a sturdy-limbed toddler, his legs slipping to one side on his mother’s knee.

Moore modelled these figures on sketches of mothers and children he observed sheltering in London Tube stations during the Blitz. There is a weariness in Mary’s eyes and an anxiety in the eyes of Jesus that bears this out: patiently and austerely, they sit waiting for calamity to pass. Mary’s clothes are recognisably of the period, a sensible house coat, although the cloth that covers her knees looks more like swaddling or a shroud, perhaps looking forward to the day when she will receive her son’s body on her knees again. She holds him close, sheltering him with her body but looking past him, alert to the danger that surrounds them. But for all that these two figures are grounded in a particular moment in recent history, the sculpture also has a living presence. Mary’s knees are grey and shiny from the hands of thousands of visitors and pilgrims over subsequent decades, each of them seeking a moment of physical connection with this patiently waiting pair.

As we enter the final days of Advent, we’re praying for Christ to enter our lives and meet us wherever we are – Tube station platform or church, anxious or rejoicing, patiently waiting or reaching out grasping hands to touch him.