Crucifixion Archives - Kathryn Anne Casey

Reflections on Death on a Friday Afternoon, Chapter 3: A Strange Glory

Below are two reflections from Richard John Neuhaus’s book, Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross, Chapter 3: A Strange Glory.

To read my reflections from Chapters 1 and 2, please click here.

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“But at Cana, Mary is also learning, as all mothers must learn, to let go, to let him go on the way he must go.”

I admit it, I hate this. I hate that we can’t own them and have total security that what God has given us will be ours forever. “Our children are on loan,” and no one demonstrates that trust better than our Blessed Mother who was entrusted with the greatest gift imaginable, who, as Richard John Neuhaus explains in the third reflection of Death on a Friday Afternoon.

“The Greek word for this self-emptying is kenosis, it is the surrender of all that we hold most dear, and for Mary, it was the surrender of her dearest. Long before they looked at one another on Golgatha’s place of strangest glory, they had been prepared by many little surrenders for this surrender by which all was restored.”

If things go the way they should, we will have plenty of practice. They will learn to walk, they will fall, they will go to events without me, they will own their own beliefs, choose their own mind. There will be choices that hurt, choices that distance us, geographically, emotionally, perhaps spiritually. If it goes the way it should, all this will happen and one day they will bury me. With a faraway look in his eye, as my college professor expounded on Augustine’s Confessions, when Augustine’s writes of the death of his son, my professor said, “A parent should never have to bury his child.”

But it doesn’t go the way we want it to or the way he should. Something has gone wrong, and that something has gone wrong echoes down into the deepest chambers of the woman’s heart when she sees her child die.

Mater Dolorosa, Châteaux de Fayrac et Castelnaud

“Mary had nowhere to rest her heart.’ and now it had come to this, she pondered in her broken heart, in her heart that by its breaking was made whole. That is the way it is with discipleship. The way of the cross is the way of broken hearts.”

Mater Dolorosa. Workshop of Dieric Bouts the Younger, c. 1470–75.

Why does God do this to us? Why does he allow us to hurt and ache? Why does he allow those to hurt who can hurt and ache on the deepest level imaginable, deeper than can be imagined, a mother?

“In all this, Mary was following her son, step by inexorable step. Her kenosis mirrored his kenosis, her life’s song was entirely attuned to his, a letting go into the vastness of whatever will be, trusting that at the end will be glory. Now his hour had come, and his hour was completely hers.”

It makes motherhood a fearful thing.

“To say that Mary’s way is not our way is to say that Christ’s way is not our way, for Mary was in every respect the disciple of her son. In all our promotion of empowerment, fulfillment, self-esteem and self-actualization, we should know what we are doing. We are rejecting the very heart of what it means to be a Christian. ‘The disciple is not above the master.'”

The disciple is not above the master.

It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. (Hosea 11:3)

As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. (Isaiah 66:13)

“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. (Isaiah 49:15)

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not.” (Matthew 23:37)

Perhaps, because when a mother loves, she is most like God. Though Christ was male, though God is our Father, he loves with a perfect and complete love. So the love of a mother is as God loves. The love of a father is as God loves. They both are met in perfect unity with God.

And so in motherhood, I can learn the way God has laid for out for me to love him more perfectly by loving with a self-emptying love. By nursing as long as she needs to. By waking again and again and again.

Mary is the model of discipleship in her total availability to the will of God.

In her total availability to God, Mary is totally independent and totally dependent upon God’s providing. True availability to God overcomes the fear of being dependent on others, for God provides. It is our determination to be independent by being in control that makes us unavailable to God.

It is indeed a strange glory, paved with broken hearts.

The subverted art of Oregon Catholic Press, Holy Week edition

You may recognize this little artistic abomination.

But have you seen Holy Week?

To put it gently, I find this cover art repugnant. There are several reasons.

1. Art that depicts our Lord ought to have a certain sanctity about it.

Artistically, this is more like an animated cartoon on Cartoon Network than a piece of art for adult consumption. It is more like a cheaply thrown together piece for amusement rather than meditation. Any image of our Lord, especially him crucified ought not to be for amusement but be done with reverence and respect. In the Bible Jews did not even say or write the name of God, as he revealed it to Moses. In the past decade, OCP finally removed the name “Yahweh” from it’s songs, catching on. Muslims will not allow any depiction of Muhammud. But I guess Jesus is one of us, so we don’t need to give him reverence. This over-emphasizes his humanity and forgets about his divinity. In the end, God is God and his disciples did not even recognize him.

2. The representation of those at the cross lack subtly, quality or care and represents a substantial break from tradition.

In order to make the cats jive with this cool and mellow art, Mary (Theotokos) and Mary Magdelene and John all look about the same age as Christ. Of course, Mary would need to be older than Christ, in her late forties following the tradition; John is usually depicted as a younger disciple, often without a beard; and Mary Magdalene is usually depicted younger than Mary. Mary and John are traditionally depicted standing at the foot of the cross, the Mother of God in varying stages of grief depending on how the artist chooses to render it.

The Crucifixion - Lucas Cranach the Elder — The Crucifixion – Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1503

Mary Magdalene traditionally is depicted with a more passionate expression of grief than Mary the Mother of God, likely referencing, in the degree of expression, the passion of a woman who would burst into a room in tears and wash his feet or a woman to whom Christ would later say “stop holding on to me.”

The Crucifixion – (after) Maarten De Vos

Not every portrayal need be traditional, it is true.

Christ Nailed to the Cross The Third Hour - William Blake — Christ Nailed to the Cross The Third Hour – William Blake, c.1800

Breaking from traditional images, using a method more abstract than realistic, can be an effective way to communicate a message.

Golgotha - Edvard Munch — Golgotha – Edvard Munch, 1900

So what message does OCP seek to communicate?

3. The message conveyed in this image cheapens Christ’s act which atones for our sins.

The artist replaced “INRI” (Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews) with “Cristo Rey” (Christ the King). Christ the King is a reverent title and solemnity celebrated by the Universal Church (properly the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe). “Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews” was written and posted on the cross as a form of mockery. This change is unnecessary and distorts the meaning, lessening his suffering on the cross.

Richard John Neuhaus in the first chapter of Death on a Friday Afternoon offers us steps we can take in understanding the mystery of atonement.

“First, something has gone terribly wrong. We find ourselves in a distant country far from home.

“Second, whatever the measure of our guilt, we are responsible.

“Then, third, something must be done about it.

“[Fourth], whatever it is that needs to be done, we cannot do it. Each of us, individually, the entirety of the human race collectively—what can we do to make up for one innocent child tortured and killed?

“Somebody else will have to do it.

“It must be someone who is in no way responsible for what has gone wrong. It must be done by an act that is perfectly gratuitous, that is not driven by necessity, by an act that is perfectly free.”

God becomes what we are in order to save us.

Is that not enough? Does he need to come down from the Cross, clean himself up and give us one big group hug? If we cannot be comforted by his gratuitous act of love, is a hug really going to save us? If Christ is able to come down from the Cross to comfort those with him, has he really given all?

4. It also cheapens the grief experienced and the sacrifice made by the Mother of God.

Again from Neuhaus in the third chapter of Death on a Friday Afternoon,

“The Greek word for this self-emptying is kenosis, it is the surrender of all that we hold most dear, and for Mary, it was the surrender of her dearest…’Mary had nowhere to rest her heart.’ and now it had come to this, she pondered in her broken heart, in her heart that by its breaking was made whole. That is the way it is with discipleship. The way of the cross is the way of broken hearts.”

If Jesus would, metaphorically, allegorically, figuratively or literally, come down from that cross to comfort her in that hour than her hour had not come. It passed her by. As Neuhaus reminds us again and again of Christ’s words, no disciple can be above his master. Mary shows us the way of trust, of discipleship, of following Christ to the Cross.

OCP’s cover art would encourage us to trade this in for momentary comfort. That we are not to offer our lives to and along side Christ, but rather to seek him for comfort. What higher gain is this, than the comfort of Christ? After all, this is in tune with his message, “unless you take up your cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.” Oh, wait.

The message of a cleaned up Christ inviting us to his dinner party doesn’t sell, man. It isn’t the message of the New Evangelization.

“Reconciliation must do justice to what went wrong. It will not do to merely overlook the wrong. We could not bear to live in a world where wrong is taken lightly, where right and wrong finally make no difference. In such a world, we—what we do and what we are— would make no difference. Spare me the gospel of easy love that makes of my life a thing without consequence” (Richard John Neuhaus).

5. The Resurrection is the antidote to the grief of death.

Christ did comfort his disciples and his mother, as he comforts us today. It isn’t necessary to subvert the message of the cross. As Neuhaus exhorts us as he begins his book, stay with the Cross, do not rush so quickly to Easter.

Do not be afraid to stop and stare at the man on the Cross. Stay a while with your grief.

Reflections on Death on a Friday Afternoon, Chapter 2: Judge Not

Below are two reflections from Richard John Neuhaus’s book, Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross, Chapter 2: Judge Not. To read my reflections from Chapter 1, please click here.

An Approach to Faith

As a 8th grader, attending daily mass, I fell in love with the Lord through the Holy Eucharist. After high school I served one year with the National Evangelization Team, NET Ministries. In that year I learned how to pray using the lectio divina. Following that year, a friend invited me to make a holy hour every day. Throughout college I planned my courses around daily mass and my holy hour. It was a blessed time.

Then came adulthood. In my first year of full time work, I struggled to find rhythm in my prayer life. Then marriage, then pregnancy, then baby, so on and so on. During pregnancy I regained my spiritual strength to pray upon waking, but then baby. “Routine is beauty,” Mark Berchum, founder of NET Ministries said. How to find the beauty when the routine continues to change?

I struggled for a long time with this. The markers I used to diagnose my spiritual life had all changed. With a new vocation I had to look at it with a totally different tool. When I sought counsel, some excused me, some accused me. One day I attended mass, either without my child or with my child asleep. After communion I felt the Lord, I knew that presence, I knew him. “That’s right,” I said, “I love you.”

In the second meditation on Christ’s last words in his book, Death on a Friday Afternoon, Richard John Neuhaus has this to say:

When our faith is weak, when we are assailed by contradictions and doubts, we are tempted to look at our faith, to worry about our faith to try to work p more faith. At such times, however, we must not look to our faith but look to him.

Look to him with whatever faith you have and know that your worry about your lack of faith is itself as a sign of faith.

I learned to stop worrying. Periodically I have glimpses of his light and I am reminded, yes, I know you, I love you. I am the same person and you are the same God and our relationship still exists. Step by step, I will continue to follow his path. I have to remind myself to accuse myself, to confess. Each season I need to seek out ways to pray, to read, to grow. I try to be more merciful towards myself and how far we are from the goals we set for our family prayer.

So this is good advice for me.

Desire all to be saved

As Neuhaus reflects on the interaction between the Good Thief and Christ, specifically Christ’s response to him, “Today you shall be with me in paradise,” Neuhaus considers whether all can or should be saved.

“For paradise we long. Fer perfection we were made.”

“Given the evidence of Scripture and tradition, we cannot deny that hell exists. We can, however, hope that hell is empty. We cannot know that, but we can hope it is the case.”

Some might object to such a notion, and indeed many intelligent minds have. To one objection, Neuhaus reminds the reader of the parable of the workers in the vineyard, called at different times throughout the day, but paid the same wage. In response to the indignation,

“‘What is the point of being a Christian if, in the end, everyone is saved?’ People who ask that should listen to themselves. what is the point of being first rather than last in serving the Lord whom you love? what is the point of being found rather than lost? what is the point of knowing the truth rather than living in ignorance.”

Some would say that since no one can be saved except through Christ, that those without Christ do not know the truth, and thus cannot be saved.

“Everything that is true—in religion, philosophy, mathematics or the art of baseball—is true by virtue of participation in the truth who is Christ. The problem is not that non-Christians do not know truth; he problem is that they do not know the truth they know is the truth of Christ.”

At length, Neuhaus lays the foundation of understanding that God has made us for paradise and wants all men to be saved. So we must pray as the persistent widow.

“Prayer creates space for possibilities that would not otherwise be possible.”

We must care, we must desire that all be saved because this is what God desires.

“A Christian is not saved against the rest of humanity, to be separated out from the rest of humanity. Rather, we are saved, as it were, on behalf of all—to be reconcilers, intercessors, mediators for all.”

And we must make an effort to share that truth. We should not be bashful.

“Many Christians are embarrassed by this claim (that there is salvation by no one else). They are intimidated by a culture that decrees that all truths are equal. Who are you to claim that you have the truth and other do not? That is indeed an intimidating question, unless we understand that we do not have the truth in the sense that is it ours by virtue of our having discovered it; we do not have the truth in the sense of its being possession under our control.”

It is God’s truth, it is he who has made us aware of it. And so we should share it, and share in his desires that all men be saved. This is the way of evangelization. One more piece of the puzzle.

Fresco depicting the friar preaching to the Florentines

TRIDUUM (THREE): HE DRAWS ALL MEN TO HIMSELF

The girl felt far away, as though she could not reach him. She could not look. The girl did not dare look. If she looked she would see her beloved hung on the cross. She heard descriptions descriptions, but she could not picture it. This was pain incarnate. The king was there now. Her head was not turned away from him. She could hear his pain in her heart but the girl tried to absent her heart. His mother…where did his mother stand? She stood at the foot. The girl’s head stood only a little taller than where his feet were nailed.

She had to look. This was her king. The past two years she had had so much to do on this day. The girl had walked all day; she did not have time to look. But here she was. The girl’s heart cried out, aching for her for her to only turn her eyes! He was right behind her, closer to the right side than to the left. The girl began to turn in that direction, slowly. Her shoulder first, her head last. She turned. Her head came slowly. Oh God!

Her head hung to the left and her eyes were closed. They opened a little, but squinted at the ground. She fixed her eyes on the foot of the cross. It was covered in his blood. Her eyes raised and she saw his feet with nails going through them. Looking up she saw him in the same agony. She forced herself to keep looking. She wanted to turn away. She wanted to close her eyes. She looked on his body, wracked with pain. The girl’s body shook. Her eyes rested on his arms, his hands, his chest, and finally…and finally, his face. Oh her king! She did not even recognize him!

And, as in that battle, the whole world stood still. He stood tall, bound against the wood, and he looked at her with love, not with a love of consolations but with a love of the cross. Her king was broken in body and in agony. His love was full of pain, but so much the fuller for it. Her king! He was still a king. He would always be, even though she could not recognize him. He would always be: yesterday, today, and forever. He was her king.

When it was finished, the girl was a better servant than before. She saw his great love, his service, his sacrifice, and she understood more than before. And she longed to be his, to love him, and be purified and live on. She was his beloved, his daughter, his sister, and his bride. She belonged to him. And in his love, he belonged to her.