The
Gospel of Luke testifies, “Then Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Father, into
your hands I commend my spirit,’ and when he had said this he breathed his
last.” This new painting captures the
center of this sentence; the moment between that last word and when His breath
escaped his lips. The painful writhing
is coming to an end and His Body begins to relax upon the nails that pin it to
the Cross elongating His wrists. We see
the hands in the process of unclutching, giving into the pressure caused by the
spikes driven through them and the downward weight of the body, exposing the
dirt on their palms that was ground into them when they were thrust forward to
protect Our Savior when He fell while carrying His Cross.
Jesus’ face, which a
moment ago was twisted in agony, now goes through a transformation as the pain
lessens with the onset of death. Though
the depiction of the sky reminds us that “darkness came over the whole land
until three in the afternoon,” a heavenly light falls upon Jesus’ face. Is it just now that He begins to see His
Father’s loving countenance? We are half
a heartbeat from death, halfway through the sentence in St. Alphonsus Ligouri’s
twelfth station of the Cross, “And abandoning Himself to the weight of His
body, bows His head and dies.”
Already the events that followed Christ’s death, portrayed
in the Gospel of Matthew, begin to infringe upon the scene. “The earth quaked, rocks were split, tombs
were opened, and the bodies of many saints that had fallen asleep were
raised.” In the Old Testament, the
coming of God is frequently portrayed with the imagery of an earthquake and
Jesus speaks of the earthquakes that will accompany the “labor pains” that
signify the beginning of the dissolution of the old world. The ground begins to crack open starting at
the base of the Cross and snaking out toward the bottom right of the
painting. The wind begins to pick up
curling the proclamation nailed to the top of the Cross and a flash of
lightning streaks over the city heightening the imagery of the disturbance of
the elements. “Surely this was the Son
of God.”
This is the moment everything changes, a match in the
process of being struck, the glass striking the tile floor but before it begins
to crack. In this moment, like a
specter, a skull appears at the base of His Cross. It reminds us of the transitory nature of
this life, it tells us this place is Golgotha, “the place of the skull,” and
lastly, reminds us that Christ, the second Adam, was crucified over the bones
of the first Adam, making a fitting ending to our estrangement from
heaven. “And so it is written, ‘The
first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam a life giving spirit’” 1
Corinthians 15:45)
2 comments:
Father -
I am grateful you shared this painting with us and for your commentary. I am a member of one of your cluster parishes and I intend to see this the next time I am at St. Seb's.
He suffered so much for us. Surely this is pure love.
Lenten blessings to you and your parish - Susan
Hello Everybody,
Below are the most recommended BTC exchangers (BUY/SELL):
Coinbase: $1 min. trade
CoinMama
Earn free Bitcoins with the best Bitcoin faucet rotator:
BEST Faucet Rotator
Post a Comment