Divisions in America go deeper and wider than state lines. Ethnicity, housing, income, race, faith, abortion, euthanasia, and, with increased rancor, politics: all these separate us one from the other. A fractured government. Politicians constantly belittling and embarrassing one another, intent to destroy the political careers of each other. A surfeit of disdain against organized religion. Schools failing to educate our inner-city poor. Streets strewn with the homeless and the addict. Many people rightly recognize that something is fundamentally awry with our society.

The Alka-Seltzer’s “Spicy Meatball” commercial first aired on television in 1969. It became an instant classic. A middle-­aged man sat at the kitchen table. His wife stood beside him waiting to hear him compliment the spaghetti and meatballs she had just served him. The actor took a bite of one meatball and then messed up his line. He did it again and again. He just could not get out the sentence “Mamma mia, that’s a spicy meatball.” His accent was off; the words jumbled. Yet, take after take, he ate another meatball. Finally, the commercial ended with someone saying, “Sometimes you eat more than you should. And when it’s spicy besides — mamma mia, do you need Alka-Seltzer!”

On May 15, Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama signed the most comprehensive anti-abortion bill in the United States. Most likely, the bill will make its way to the Supreme Court. It was specifically crafted to challenge the federal government’s protection of abortion under Roe v. Wade.

Ariana Grande. Steve Colbert. Michael Phelps. Vincent van Gogh. Lincoln. Emily Dickinson. Barbra Streisand. Marcus Morris. Donny Osmond. Paula Deen. All these famous individuals and many more have admitted that they suffer anxiety. Singers. Sports figures. Performers. Political figures. Writers. TV hosts and chefs. No profession is exempt. Even famous biblical figures coped with anxiety. Both Jonah and Job are classic examples of the struggle against anxiety and depression.

From the third century come our earliest representations of the Mother of Jesus. One image is found on the walls of the Catacombs of St. Priscilla in Rome. Mary is holding the child Jesus and nursing him. Another image is found on a sarcophagus in the Vatican. It depicts the three Magi adoring Jesus held in the arms of Mary. When Christians, therefore, began to represent Mary in art, they always portrayed her with her son. The child and the mother together.