The Third Reflection on Emvin Cremona’s Our Lady of Aviation

As once again we turn our gaze towards Emvin Cremona’s magnificent painting Our Lady of Aviation, we cannot fail to notice how the artist incorporates five doves into the composition. Their form inevitably recalls that of aeroplanes, as though to suggest that the true prototypes of aircraft are God’s own birds. According to the first account of creation in the Book of Genesis, the birds were created on the fifth day together with the fish that teem in the sea. This act of creation formed part of God’s work, begun on the fourth day, to fill the three realms he had established—heaven, the sea, and the earth—and reached its fulfilment on the sixth day with the creation of humanity. God created the human person in his own image, entrusting to him dominion “over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth” (Gen 1:26).

God did not create the human person for mediocrity but for greatness. That is why the human heart is filled with aspirations. Yet the higher we rise—even into the skies through flight—the more we marvel not only at the intelligence with which God has endowed us, but also at our own finitude and limitations. We become ever more aware of how small and seemingly insignificant we are. Yet, in the hands of this Mother, through her Son Jesus, we recover our true greatness: a humble greatness that springs from our dignity as God’s adopted children. This dignity is given to us freely through Baptism, yet it came at an immeasurable cost to God, who descended from the infinite heights to the deepest depths so that he might raise humanity up with himself once more.

The next time you board an aeroplane, or simply watch one soaring high above you, give thanks to God for the confidence he places in humanity, entrusting even the skies into our hands so that we may travel through them and beyond. At the same time, remember your own humble greatness: seemingly insignificant within an unimaginably vast universe, where we are but dust carried on the wind, yet so precious to God that he did not disdain to become one of us.

Photograph courtesy of MUŻA – Heritage Malta.