We Must Carry It!

While the World Changes

Photo of The Cross at Ground Zero in public domain, via Wikimedia (cropped)

It Is Finished

Christ Without His Nails

             'Some... equate goodness with indifference to evil 
             and think that God is good if 
             He is broadminded or tolerant about evil. 
             Like the onlookers at the Cross, they want God on their terms, 
             not His, and they shout 'come down, and we will believe.' 

             'But the things they ask are the marks of a false religion: 
             it promises salvation without a cross, 
             abandonment without sacrifice, 
             Christ without His nails.'

Venerable Fulton Sheen

Painting: James Tissot, Jesus Wept

May We Not Ignore

My preference for realistic religious art, I have realized, goes beyond just personal taste.  Some years ago, I wrote the following … 

It is easy to accept shining, sterile depictions of Jesus’s passion.  It’s easy to prefer silvered crosses with a victorious Christ upon them, for these do not ask much of us.  ‘Take up your cross and follow Me’ can be distant words then, words from which we are insulated by a safe coating of bronze.

His body did not shine that day, so long ago.  He hung from a very real wood cross, He hung bruised and sweating and blood-stained.  His knees were scraped, His face contorted with pain.  Smells were of blood and dust and just-hammered metal.  There was no upbeat music that day; there were no songbooks, no guitars.  There were just the moans of people dying and friends watching them die.  There were crowd-sounds, possibly a joke or two, the occasional slap of a whip striking the ground.  Soldiers held back mourners and yelled out commands and probably thought about what they would do after work.

Overhead, a few clouds gathered.  Rain came then, soaking onlookers and washing rivulets of blood into the ground.  Three men hung dying that day, on crosses not made of silver.  They were pierced through with nails not coated with gold.  Three men writhed in pain, they sweated and bled, two of them were heard praying, and all of them died.

And how grateful we can be that the scene has been removed from us, safely tucked away in time, safely burnished.  How safe it is to hear the words ‘take up your cross and follow Me’ when looking at a cross made of silver, when meditating on a resurrected, stylized and sterile Jesus.  Yes, He was resurrected and yes He is crowned.  Yes, He lives today; He is not dead any longer.  Yes, it is appropriate to celebrate His rising, for risen is how He lives now among us.

But no, it is not appropriate to totally forget the price He paid for our redemption.  No, it is not appropriate to ignore the love poured out on us at Calvary, nor to ignore at what cost we answer the call to ‘come, follow Me…'

It is easy to count the cost when that cost is only Mass on Sunday and no meat on Good Friday.  It’s easy to embrace crosses of silver.  It is easy to forget to repent, to forget the love of so great a Lover, to forget to reform my life and allow my own selfish will to be crucified today...

This is a repost from The Cloistered Heart © 2012 Nancy Shuman.


Painting: James Tissot 

But Truth Will Prevail in the End

'Error may flourish for a time, 
but truth will prevail 
in the end. 
The only effect of error 
ultimately 
is to 
promote truth.'

Blessed John Henry Newman









Painting: Chełmoński, Cross in a blizzard

That Firm Foundation

'A house founded on the Cross will not fear wind, nor rain, nor storm.'

St. John Vianney

Painting:  Karl Bennewitz von Löfen (edited)

Down the Via Dolorosa

Loving Absurdity

"Let worldly wisdom go on constituting what it considers excellency in worldly glory if it wants to. The true Christian, who is tending toward perfection, should, contrary to all the reasonings of human prudence, place all his perfection in the folly of the Cross." (St. Francis de Sales)

"The message of the cross is complete absurdity to those who are headed for ruin, but to us who are experiencing salvation it is the power of God.  Scripture says, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and thwart the cleverness of the clever.'" (1 Corinthians 1:18-19) 





Painting by Giovanni Gioseffo dal Sole

Beneath Your Cross, I Adore You

 

'O Christ Jesus, prostrate beneath Your cross, I adore You.  Power of God, You show Yourself overwhelmed with weakness so as to teach us humility and confound our pride.  O High Priest, full of holiness, Who passed through our trials in order to be like unto us and to have compassion on our infirmities, do not leave me to myself, for I am but frailty.  May Your power dwell in me, so that I may not fall into evil.'           C.  Marmion

It is Time

'O Christians, it is time to defend your King

and to accompany Him in such great solitude.'

St. Teresa of Avila


Painting:  James Tissot, My Soul is Sorrowful Unto Death