Extracts from information available in the Cathedral, written
by Dylis Simpson, who designed and embroidered the banner:
Historically it has been seen as appropriate to depict Mary in
a manner which both glorifies and contains. Her womanhood has
been denied and purity has been equated with virginity, placing
her,
often literally, upon a pedestal. She has been portrayed as porcelain
rather than flesh, and ‘clean’ to the point of being
out of contact with the earth. The births of her children have
left no mark. Mary is not just a historical figure and today
she must be for us someone with whom we can have an intimate
relationship,
talking and working together in total trust, a friend. She will
put men at their ease and be a sister for women, a model for
freedom and equality and an assurance that we are co-inheritors
of grace
and co-workers in the ongoing process of Creation.
Mary is a ‘real’ woman – not pretty and fragile.
She was probably born in a cave, tough, illiterate, one time
refugee, childbearing and hardworking. Pain and the severity of
her life
will have left its mark, but also merriment and confidence. She
is not sheltered from life. Her face and hands will show the
effect of aging and her body will no longer be that of a young
woman,
but thickening with maturity. She will be vigorous and intelligent,
and her eyes will be alive to the world around her, not focussed
upon a heaven yet to come.
