LENT FOR THE WHOLE WORLD

 

The world is being carried along on a rushing torrent of events which are beyond human control.  Armageddon seems to be approaching in one form or another. However, there is one power available to change the course of events and to support us in the great crises of life, and that is the power of prayer.  

Due to the crises in the Ukraine, which has the whole world reeling with worry, I would like to focus this Lent on the physical suffering of Jesus  in His last hours. We have in past Blogs seen the  Isenheim Altarpiece by Grünewald, which is a good place to start our meditation for a most difficult Lent for the world.

Bishop Robert Barron  (Los Angeles) said of  this piece , “What is, for me, most disturbing are the shut eyes and the gaping mouth: this Christ is no longer seeing or speaking; He is simply lost in the terror of the moment.”  

This work, is for me  the masterpiece which most  expresses for us the suffering of Jesus.  This haunting work  was never meant to just be looked at  as a piece of art, but rather it  was meant to be a means of worship, speaking to a people  suffering in extreme pain and facing  death. The painting was supposed to prepare people to bear their sufferings, facing death with their faith intact.  

At the Isenheim hospital, the Antonine monks devoted themselves to the care of sick and dying peasants, many of them suffering from the effects of ergotism, a disease caused by consuming rye grain infected with fungus. Ergotism, popularly known as St. Anthony’s fire, caused hallucinations and skin infection, and attacked the central nervous system, eventually leading to death. 

This depiction of the suffering Jesus, shows the violence and ugliness of crucifixion.  The darkness and despair of this painting is prophetic of the brokenness of the Church in its day but also of our world today - a brokenness which seems beyond repair except for the Resurrection.  But when one gazes upon this scene one does not yet know what is ahead.

The black background, vacant of any form, perhaps gives us the impression of Jesus' forsakenness by His Father, yet is the means  of bringing Him into the foreground- closer to us. We have nowhere else to look other than  His  broken body.