Images of Our Lady of Light

This likeness of Our Lady of Light that appears on this website and on the Our Lady of Light prayer card was painted by a Cincinnati artist. In 1992, she was presented a wonderful opportunity to portray the local appearance of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. This is her story.

In 1990, the artist and some members of her family had made a pilgrimage to Medjugorje. While there, like so many others, she had experienced a strong conversion. On returning to the States, she had felt in her heart the desire to create something artistic in praise of the Mother of God, to use her talent in the service of Mary.

One Friday night in 1992, she attended a prayer session, held at St. Joseph Church in Cold Spring, Kentucky, which was led by Fr. Leroy Smith. There she learned of a Batavia, Ohio visionary and how this person was privileged to have seen Mary. The artist imagined in her mind how this Lady of Light, as she was being called, might look. Again she experienced a strong desire to reproduce Mary’s image in a painting.

A few weeks later, while attending another Friday night prayer session at St. Joseph’s, the artist spoke to a young woman she knew about the painting she was working on. After a while, the young lady confided in her that she too had experienced a vision of Our Lady of Light and asked whether she might see the unfinished painting. After viewing the painting in progress, the young woman asked the artist if she might describe her vision as Mary had appeared to her. This is how the woman described the vision:

“Our Lady glowed with a heavenly, inexpressible beauty. Mary appeared in a long, flowing white dress and white mantel. The entire mantel was trimmed in gold. On her head, she wore a sparkling golden crown which was shaped with tall slender pinnacles. The crown was covered with shimmering diamonds. A radiant, moon-like glow emanated from her and surrounded her. The background was simply the deep dark blue of the night sky. She held her hands slightly out from her body, as if inviting and beckoning her children to listen to her words.”

After hearing this wonderful description of Mary, the artist was inspired to begin again with renewed spirit and vigor to try to capture Mary’s beautiful image in a painting. The style, media, and method of painting is uniquely the artist’s. She wanted to emphasize the spiritual aspect of Our Lady of Light’s appearance and the importance of her message, a message of prayer, fasting, conversion and reconciliation with one another, as well as a personal consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She would accomplish this by painting a symbolic or icon-like image.

The painting was completed by August 31, 1992, and was presented to Fr. Leroy Smith the following day, September 1, 1992, at St. Joseph Church. Fr. Smith brought the painting with him to Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Center when he came there to live in the spring of 1993. The painting now hangs in the headquarters of Our lady of Light Ministries at Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Center in Norwood (Cincinnati), Ohio. It has been reproduced for the prayer card, and for all subsequent renderings of Our Lady of Light, including the home page of this web site.