Sacred art is very much part of my faith experience, and certain icons and paintings in my private chapel have always aided my prayers and reflections. These sacred images, despite the many years I’ve gazed upon them, appear somehow new to me every day. I am always amazed at how each time I contemplate these gospels of line and color, something new is revealed through them of the mystery of God and of man.

One form of Christian art that is special to me is the triptych (pronounced trip-tik), from the Greek word literally meaning “trifold.” A triptych is a work consisting of three connected icons or paintings that are meant to be viewed as a single image. Last year I offered a Marian triptych as a gift to the Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Mich., on the day their first convent home in our diocese was blessed.

Like these sacred works of art, Scripture provides us a particular triptych of the human person that helps remind us of our responsibility toward those most vulnerable and in need of our help. It is the triptych of the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner (cf. Exodus 20-22). By contemplating this sacred image of human beings in their extreme weakness, we can better answer the question, “What would Jesus do?”

In the approaching month of October, a month dedicated to Our Lady and to a special witness to the sanctity of life, we draw close to she who is particularly close to those living in fear and abandonment, the Mother of all, born and unborn, documented and undocumented.

Because thousands of years separate what we read in Scripture from the present day, we are sometimes challenged to see the connection between the sacred pages and our everyday circumstances. I know this was the case for me even though I had often read the passages repeated frequently in the Old Testament and the Psalms that charge us not to neglect the care of the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner.

Who are the widows, orphans, and foreigners of today? The new widows include those pregnant women whose boyfriends or husbands have abandoned their responsibilities to them and to the unborn children they helped to conceive—and it is these who are the new orphans. Many of these new widows, alone and overwhelmed by a fear of the unknown, readily respond to the culture of death’s invitation to take care of the “problem.”

Thankfully, we are witnessing growing solidarity in efforts to defend the life of the unborn and in our loving outreach to pregnant women. Healing help for post-abortive women is increasing as well. How grateful I am to those who promote healing through the Silent No More campaign and Rachel’s Vineyard. I commend all those who extend their witness and helping hand to the widow and orphan of our day, and I ask God to further bless their efforts.

But we also must remember the third person in this triptych image—the foreigner—represented in the person of Simon of Cyrene. In a special way, he shared in the cross of Christ, and his image is always found in the Stations of the Cross displayed in our churches.

Simon of Cyrene is not too hard to find outside churches as well. He may be the one roofing our house, laying brick and mortar, mowing the grass along our highways, or even landscaping our yard. Most of his very modest income, minus the taxes and Social Security he pays into our economy, is sent back to his family abroad.

These remittances, collectively, represent the largest and most effective poverty-reduction program in the world. When we attack the migrant, we increase poverty and take food away from the hungry.

But we are growing more fearful as a people and a society. When that happens, as history demonstrates, the weakest and most vulnerable in a society are attacked. The slogans are familiar: fear of overpopulation, fear of lost autonomy, fear of the foreigner.

The three panels making up a triptych must be viewed as a single image if we are to fully appreciate the mystery they reflect. It is no different in the triptych of the human person: we must contemplate not only the widow and the orphan but also the foreigner if we are to truly contemplate the face of Jesus in the human person.

Like the Israelites, suffering horrible injustices of fear and prejudice, who cry out in Exodus 2:23, the Psalmist echoes a cry that grows ever louder today: “How long, O Lord . . . , they kill the widow and the stranger and murder the fatherless child” (Psalm 94). Beneath this cross is our weeping Mother.

As a young boy attending the church and school of the Epiphany of Our Lord in South St. Louis, I still recall the ceremonies and processions, with the statue of Mary and everyone singing the hymn, “Bring Flowers of the Fairest,” with its refrain, “O Mary, we crown thee with blossoms today! Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May . . .”

All this came back to me again this past week as part of a pilgrimage to Poland’s famous shrine, Jasna Gora (literally, “bright mount”), where the icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa is enshrined. Icons are one of the great gifts of our faith and proclaim in line and color what Scripture communicates by words.

I have always been drawn to this image of Our Heavenly Mother holding the child Jesus. The reason for this attraction has little to do with the artistic quality of the image.

The dark facial features of Mary in this icon have caused many to refer to her as the “Black Madonna of Czestochowa.” Her right cheek was scarred by the desecration of an invading soldier’s sword nearly 600 years ago, leaving two deep furrows that almost give the appearance of tears. Though her expression looks like one of sorrow, she seems to beckon those who contemplate her gaze to make a complete offering of themselves to her. But she seems especially to desire our hardships and sorrows, which she takes and hides within her dark blue robe patterned with golden flowers.

Having then purified our offering with her maternal tears and care, she seems to offer, with a gesture of her right hand, everything to Christ. In turn, with his right hand raised, Christ seems to bless the offering from his mother, while embracing the Book of Gospels in the other.

When Pope John Paul II made his first visit to Poland after being elected pope, he returned to Jasna Gora to thank Our Lady of Czestochowa and to remind his countrymen and the entire world of Mary’s maternal love and care for each one of us. He reminded them of the birth of the Church at Pentecost in the Upper Room, where the Apostles had gathered in prayer with Mary. He reminded them that the Church is our spiritual Mother in the likeness of the one who is also the Mother of God. And finally he called us to consecrate ourselves to her and often to visit that Upper Room of prayer with Mary.

In contemplating this icon, which meant so much to Pope John Paul II, we can better appreciate his apostolic motto, Totus tuus, which is the beginning of the prayer of St. Louis De Montfort: “I am all yours, and all that I have belongs to you, O most loving Jesus, through Mary, your most holy Mother.”

But any discussion of the Blessed Mother would be incomplete if we failed to mention the importance of the rosary, the great school of Mary, through which we contemplate with her the face of Christ.

To highlight but one of the mysteries of the rosary—the finding of Jesus in the temple—we learn something of the broader maternal vocation of Mary in the reply of Jesus to his mother: “Why did you search for me? Did you not know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49).

Jesus was where he was supposed to be—in his Father’s house. But as Mother of the Church, Mary goes in search of each of her children wounded by sin in order to help lead them to the Father’s house, most especially when they have lost their way in life and despair of hope.

As we approach the great Solemnity of Pentecost, let us recall and heed the words of Mary at the wedding feast at Cana: “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5).