This image represents the heart and vocation of every spiritual mother, which is also the vocation the Lord has assigned to me. With Our Lady at our side, we encounter Christ upon the Cross, and we respond to the Holy Spirit by allowing His divine Life and Love to pass through our hearts to the world.

I wanted others to see themselves in this image, so initially I wasn’t going to depict myself but someone else at the foot of the Cross. Thinking more about it, I realized that I’m of mixed races, so I decided to draw from my own face and body. I’m wearing a white dress, symbolic of the white robe of our baptism. This garment of grace is our “wedding garment” for the eternal marriage feast of the Lamb (Matthew 22). This feast is already being celebrated on earth at every Eucharist. In every Communion, the spiritual mother is physically united to her heavenly Bridegroom in a divine consummation of their love.

I’m wearing my hair long and down because in Christian art, long, flowing hair is a symbol of repentance, as with Mary Magdalene. It is our personal repentance and reception of Divine Mercy – symbolized by the river gushing from the side of Christ – that enables us to become channels of God’s Mercy to the world: “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). The sheep represent those souls, beloved by God, whom we are called to be life-bearers to as emissaries of the Good Shepherd. The spiritual mother gives life to His precious lambs through prayer, works of mercy, apostlehood, penance and redemptive suffering; in a word, through divine love.