“Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” John 21:18
Picasso’s Crucifixion. People who have had near-death experiences, or profound moments of agony and facing mortality, often describe Continue reading
“We would rather be ruined than changed,
we would rather die in our dread
Than Climb the Cross of the moment
And see our illusions die.”
(W.H. Auden)
Christ on the Mount of Olives, life-size sculpture in Strasbourg Cathedral, 1498
This collection of sculpture twists time, featuring a few Jesuses–here seen both kneeling at the Mount and hanging on the cross. This combination artwork of both relief and free-standing sculpture bends expectations in many arenas–time, space, sound, light. How does Jesus’ Passion bend and stretch our expectations?
Michaelangelo’s Pieta Housed in St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome, Italy; in Carrera marble.
Contemplate Jesus’ body, the lifelessness communicated in the marble, the way Jesus’ shoulder and its flesh yield to his mother Mary’s hand as she holds her son for the last time.
Jesus is human, suffering and obedient to the point of death, gaunt and spent in the first arms to have comforted him.
Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. (Matthew 25:40)
Where ever there is pain, brokenness, oppression, lack, loneliness, hunger, darkness–Jesus is there. Continue reading
