Once Michelangelo was passing by the market where marble was sold, and he saw a big piece of marble in front of a shop. He asked the owner, ”How much will it cost?”
The owner said, ”Nothing, because it has been there for ten years and nobody has even asked about it. I don’t have space in my shop, so I have thrown it out on the other side of the road. You can take it, it will give me space to put a few other rocks. This rock seems to be absolutely absurd, of no use.”
So Michelangelo took that rock, and after a year he invited the owner of the shop, ”Now you can come and see. Your rock has blossomed.” And it was Michelangelo’s greatest work of art. It was a statue of Jesus Christ. His mother, Mary, has taken the body of Jesus Christ from the cross.
The shop owner could not believe his eyes. He said, ”How did you manage it?”
He said, ”It was not me. When I passed by the side of the rock, Jesus called to me, ‘I am lying down in this rock. Just remove the unnecessary parts and I will be revealed.’
”And as I looked at the rock, I could see Jesus in the lap of his mother by the side of the cross. It looked strange, because this statue was hidden inside it – the cross, Jesus lying in the lap of his mother, and Mariam. So it looked a very strange type of rock. But I have just done a little work of chipping away unnecessary parts, and you can see the miracle that has happened.”
