Mary looked downward

The one person, Jesus Christ, both true God and true man, stooped into our littleness to draw us up to the greatness of life eternal, which is not this life infinitely extended but is the very life of God. From the beginning and through the millennia, human beings looked upward in search of the divine. Mary looked downward, at the baby in her arms. She looked into the very face of God.

— Fr. Richard John Neuhaus

Rembrandt. Holy Family. 1645. Oil on canvas. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia. (Via Olga's Gallery)