My grandfather is extremely well traveled, and he always paints his favorite places. Perhaps the largest of all his paintings is an enormous canvas of Mont-Saint Michel, which I immediately recognized as a photo in our text. The cathedral was one of his favorite places, and both he and my grandmother often point out how it seems to blend right into its surroundings. This large painting seems to have become a symbol for them, of the time they have spent together and perhaps their own religious pilgrimage.

After reading the text on the Virgin Mary, I began to understand why Cathedrals such as Saint Michel can become so important in people’s lives. Not only do they serve as places of worship, they serve as a connection with the human side of the Christian story—the Virgin Mary. At Chartres, visitors are welcomed by “the seated virgin…over the right door,” (Adams, 675). This placement immediately shows Mary is a symbol of welcoming, both to the Church and to the religion itself. According to Adams, “in the Virgin’s churches the public is never excluded, but invited” (678). The virgin became such a well known symbol that “The people knew the Virgin as well as they knew their own mothers…the Virgin was familiar to every one of them as the sun or the seasons; far more familiar than their own earthly queen or countess” (Adams, 683).

Out of this familiarity, and perhaps because of it, rose the “Mary cult” (Greely, 688B). Having attended only Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches, this was never something I fully understood—how could Mary be so important when we were supposed to be worshiping God and Jesus? However, I have grown to understand why Mary holds such an important place in many people’s religious experiences; she serves as a link, something personal, “of heaven and earth; of all time, ancient and modern; of all thought, Christian and Pagan; of all men, and all women” (Adams, 676).