Room for the Likes of Him

 
                    'I gave the keys of my heart to Love - to Love on a blood-stained tree,
                    Whose Heart and Hands and Feet were pierced as a purchase-price for me,
                    Whose Head hung heavy beneath the crown which marked Him King of Grief.
                    I gave the house of my heart to Love as hospice for His relief.
                    And yet, when He comes to claim His own, to shelter Himself with me,
                    How often I fail to pierce the guise of the King Whose Throne was a tree.
                    How often I ask that He garb Himself with raiment befitting my whim -
                    How strange that I keep Him waiting to know if there's room for the likes of Him.'

(from The Living Pyx of Jesus by A Religious, Pelligrini, 1941, p. 57)

Painting: Fra Angelico

Which Sweetens All Pains

Painting: Joseph Noel Paton, Christian at the Foot of the Cross, Pilgrim's Progress

The Cross Stands Firm

(This was originally posted on my other blog, The Breadbox Letters)

The Cost of Silver

My preference for realistic religious art (especially in churches) has been with me for decades. In 1993, 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 was nailed to a very real wood cross; He was 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 organs, no guitars.  There were just the moans of men 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 that day, 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, safely incensed.  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 slightly edited repost from our archives. It is linked to Theology Is A Verb  and Reconciled to You for 'It's Worth Revisiting Wednesday.'  
 



Text not in quotes © 2012 Nancy Shuman
thecloisteredheart.org      

Now the Bright Gate

'Once as the tree of torture known - now the bright gate to Jesus' throne.'

St. Peter Damian

Painting: James Tissot, 'It is Finished'

Written with a Strange Beauty

'The law that is perfect because it takes away all imperfections 

is charity, and you find it written with a strange beauty 

when you gaze at Jesus your Savior 

stretched out like a sheet of parchment on the Cross, 

inscribed with wounds, 

illustrated in His own loving blood.  

Where else is there a comparable book of love to read from?' 

Blessed Jordan of Saxony

Painting: James Tissot

A Gift, Unwrapped

Looking through the grille, I see that "God makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him" (Romans 8:28).

Looking at my circumstances last night, I get a tiny glimpse at one of the "hows." 

By the grace of God, I came to prayer - at the computer screen.  I decided that seeing stations of the Cross in pictures would help me focus on Christ instead of on my own little "miseries," so I went to Prie Dieu and clicked on the stations. 

And there it was.  A picture of Our Lord looking right "at me," and on His shoulder was the Cross.

Hurting in my own left shoulder, across the upper back where Jesus would have felt the weight, I thought in a whole new way of His walk to Calvary.  I'd meditated on various aspects of the Passion during my life, but never on the actual carrying of the Cross.  Last night's realization of that kind of pain was, I believe, pure gift.

I saw Him fall, I imagined His acute agony, and suddenly my little ache was nothing.  Compared to His Cross, my discomfort was less than a splinter.  A tiny thorn I could offer Him in thanksgiving and intercession. 

I said I'd let you know how things went, and this was the essence of it.  I received a gift of love from God.  A gift I wouldn't have unwrapped had I chosen not to spend that time in prayer.

God makes ALL things work together for the GOOD of those who love Him.

That is the truth of it.  That is the view through the grille. 


Lorenzo Lotto painting

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Afflicted God-Man, Be My Support

'O suffering God-Man,
I beg You with all my soul,
never let me
take my eyes from You.
If I keep on trusting in You,
You will inflame me completely.
I will try with all my strength
to come back to You
and to fix my eyes on You.
I want to be continually
returning to You
and travel the ways
of the Passion
and of the Cross...

'O afflicted God-Man,
be my support.'

Blessed Angela de Foligno

Whose Debt You are Paying

'Oh Jesus, 

You were led to death

like a lamb, like a sheep 

that does not open its mouth

before its shearers. 

You utter no word of complaint

to Your Father Who sent You,

nor against the men 

whose debt You are paying.'  

St. Bernard




Painting: Champaigne, Ecce Homo
Comments welcomed in the Parlor
This post is linked to Catholic Bloggers Network Linkup Blitz 

Sin. A Serious Thing.

'Oh, what a serious thing sin is, for it was enough to kill God with so many sorrows!  And how surrounded You are by them, my God!  Where can You go that they do not torment You?  Everywhere mortals wound You...

'What extraordinary ingratitude, my King!  That we serve the devil with what You Yourself gave us!  ...Oh, my God, how much You suffer for one who grieves so little over Your pains!'

                                                                                                                               St. Teresa of Avila 


 Painting:  James Tissot, The Grotto of the Agony
 Click here to leave comments in the Parlor

He Took Upon Himself

'Christ did not suffer because of some accident or another, but really took the whole history of mankind into His own hands. 

'His suffering for us is not merely a theological formula.  To see this and then to let ourselves be drawn by Him to HIS side, and not to the other side, is an existential act. 

'In meditation on the Way of the Cross we realize:  He is really suffering for us. 

'And He also took upon Himself MY cause.

'Now He is drawing me to Himself by seeking me out in the depths of myself and bringing me back to Himself.' 

- Pope Benedict XVI, Light of the World, Ignatius Press, 2010,  pp. 36-37

Lord, Free Me of Sin

The picture of the wall on this post is not "pretty."  It isn't supposed to be.  It is here to represent the thing that walls us off most fully from connecting with God, and that thing is unspeakably ugly.  It is so ugly that our Lord Jesus suffered an excruciating death to free us from it, to break through the wall of it, so we can enter the presence of God.

I am speaking, of course, of the wall of sin.  The thick, dark, grungy wall of sin.  The sin that separates us from God, darkening our minds to the light of Christ and causing us to flee from that light as we might from a searing blaze. 

Hopefully, we are not experiencing a wall that thick as we read this.  However, I daresay many of us have known it, at one time or another, and many live in such bondage today.  It can be hard to even want to get out of it.

Such a wall, can, in time, begin to feel comfortable.  We fool ourselves into thinking of it not as the place of danger it is, but as actually something of a "safe place."  If I cannot perceive God because of this wall, maybe it works both ways (I tell myself).  Maybe He can't see ME.  Maybe He'll forget all about me, and then He won't notice that I'm living in sin.  Maybe there isn't any such thing as sin; I mean, all I have to do is turn on TV to know that "social norms" seldom recognize its reality.

I can do a lot to hide that pesky wall.  Add a bright coat of paint, plant some ivy, maybe even put up a hedge so I don't see the wall at all, in time. Sin can be made to look quite attractive and normal.  Just a spray of denial and a dulling of conscience, and I'm all set.

Except that I'm not.  I'm not set at all.  I'm walled off from God; and in my moments of honesty, I am miserable. 

If I find myself in such a spot as I read this, I don't have to stay there.  If I am in serious sin, I daresay I know it.  I might have tried fooling myself, playing some "everybody's doing it" games in my head.  But I know.

The great thing is that I don't have to break down this wall myself.  There is a hole in it.  It is not a wide hole, but it's large enough for a person to get through.  It is a hole the size of a cross.

photo attribution

"Jesus, uttering a loud cry, breathed His last.  At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom."  (Mark 3-38)

"It is in Christ and through His blood that we have been redeemed and our sins forgiven.:  (Ephesians 1:7)

"If we confess our sins, He who is just can be trusted to forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrong."  (1 John 1:9)

Lord Jesus Christ, I confess to You that I am a sinner.  In particular, I ask forgiveness for these  transgressions___________.  I am so sorry.  If my sins have been grave, help me get to the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Give me the strength to turn away from sin and temptation, and to avoid occasions that would lead me into sin.  Thank You for Your grace and mercy.  I ask You to break down any walls of sin that keep me from You.  Jesus, I trust in You.  Amen.

"I am more generous toward sinners than toward the just.  It was for their sake that I came down from heaven; it was for their sake that My blood was spilled.  Let them not fear to approach Me; they are most in need of My mercy."  (Jesus to St. Faustina)

Text not in quotes © 2013 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org   



This is part of a 'mini'-series' of posts on walls.  To continue in chronological order, click this line.

A Wall in the Forefront

"With the sign of the living cross,
seal all your doings...
Don't go out the door of your house
till you have signed the cross.
Whether in eating or drinking,
whether in sleeping or in waking,
whether in your house or on the road,
or again in leisure hours,
don't neglect this sign -
for there is no guardian like it.
It will be for you like a wall
in the forefront of all you do."
                                            (St. Ephraem)




(painting of St.Paul of the Cross in public domain)