Art/ Heritage

SACRED ART IN 100 WORDS -The Flagellation of Our Lord Jesus Christ-William Adolphe Bouguereau, 1880 – Musée des Beaux-Arts de La Rochelle

The painting depicts the compelling agony and brutal pain of Christ being flayed by a whip. His feet are limp. Notice how they give way and droop to the ground. In all vulnerability, Christ submits to His suffering.On either side stand two torturers with their hands and their whipping ropes in mid-swing, ready to strike. The third sits in the foreground, fastening birch branches to fashion yet another instrument of torture. The bystanders include indignant perpetrators, curious spectators, fearful children, and indifferent executioners. Amidst them hangs the radiant Lamb, bound and led to slaughter. AsChrist raises his eyes to His Father, He offers Himself as a ransom for the world, perhaps praying‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do.’

– Archdiocesan Heritage Museum

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Art/ Heritage

SACRED ART IN 100 WORDS- Christ before the High Priest – Gerrit van Honthorst About, 1617 – The National Gallery, London

The scene is solemn yet threatening. Christ stands before the High Priest, his hands bound, his white robe cut open across his shoulder. Two accusers stand behind the High Priest and stare intently at the prisoner. The High Priest sits on the Judgement Seat, wagging an accusing finger at Jesus, who stands silent yet strong. Notice the irony in the image. While the Book of the Law faces the High Priest, the quill pen leans towards Christ, indicating that He is the author and the fulfilment of the Law. The composition is arranged around an illuminated candle. Yet, Christ is the most radiant in the room, indicating that Jesus is the Light of the World.- Archdiocesan Heritage Museum

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Faith

Religion hanging by a thread – 6th Sunday in Ordinary time – Matthew 5:17-37

For four hundred years before the coming of Jesus, the prophetic voice of God was silent. In the time from the prophet Malachi to John the Baptist there arose among the Jewish religious leadership groups people who desired to be devoted to God. When called a Pharisee today, the only connotation that conjures in your mind is that of a hypocrite. This was not the case when these religious men ‘separated themselves’ (that’s what Pharisee means) in order to devote their lives in greater fidelity to the law of God. In time however they lost the plot.

By the time of Jesus, the Mosaic law had taken on several interpretations. These oral laws and traditions had more restrictions than prescriptions. The love of God was replaced by rigidity to these many traditions and oral teachings. The Mishnah, a collection of oral laws supplementing scriptural laws, listed 39 primary kinds of labour that were not allowed on the Sabbath day. God on the contrary had just one law, ‘Keep it holy.’ The rest, was interpretation and more interpretation.

Sadly, tradition seems to have more of a sway on us than the core element of the faith. Who places the crown on our blessed mother and how it is placed and when it is placed seems to take more precedence than the example of faith that should have been imbibed. It is for this reason that Matthew lists six hyper theses in rapid successions in the Gospel of today.

What is the point that Jesus wants to make? The Pharisees had wrapped the law in a series of demands that left religion hanging by a thread; more thread and less religion. Religion had become a set of rules governed by human traditions. What was inconvenient was altered and what could be ceremonialized was amplified. it was the mind of Jesus to rectify the inadequate interpretation of the law as interpreted by the Scribes and Pharisees.

Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to deepen it and so, for example, while He does not diminish the law on homicide, He went beyond it. Jesus wants His disciples to go beyond the law of the Old Testament by deepening and radicalizing it to the original will of God. However, He never moves them in a lax direction; rather Jesus moves us to more, and hence they are called hyper-theses. This is why, six times he says, “You have heard it said to you but I say to you.”

Today, Jesus wants us to challenge ourselves not just to live the traditions of popular faith but to live in faith. He wants us to realise that it is not the gift we give him at Mass but the condition of our heart that is more important to him. He wants those we hate to be placed not our hit list but on our prayer list. He wants us to be holy in what we choose to see, to guard our eyes, our lips and our hearts.

Perhaps we may have settled in and settled down thinking that we are good in God’s eyes. I have news for you. Good is not good enough for the GREAT and MIGHTY God we serve.

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Faith

Monkeying around – Tuesday, 7th Week in ordinary time – Mark 9:30-37

Read also https://www.pottypadre.com/making-a-point-or-making-a-difference/ based on the Gospel of today.

Today is shrove Tuesday – https://www.pottypadre.com/why-is-the-day-before-ash-wednesday-called-shrove-tuesday-pancake-tuesday-or-fat-tuesday/

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday – https://www.pottypadre.com/why-are-ashes-used-on-ash-wednesday/

Often in life our pre occupations, be they personal goals or personal agendas can deter us from seeing the bigger picture. Jesus, the son of God was in the midst of the twelve. He has been sharing with them the bigger picture of the kingdom of God and how achieving that goal will fly in the face of the way the world operates.

In chapter eight, Jesus spelt out clearly that the Messiah was not their home-grown version of a mighty warrior or a magician but a suffering king who be rejected and put to death. He took great pains to back this with a teaching on discipleship. This discipleship involved self-denial, embracing death on a cross and a constant and daily following of the long and narrow road.

One chapter later, Jesus reiterates this suffering in the hope that his message has hit hard and hit home; ironically it had not. Chapter 9:32 tells us that they had “failed to understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.” Jesus was no tyrant with a whip, so their fear could only mean one thing, they were self-absorbed with their own agenda and could not empathies with him and his kingdom of suffering. Peter was still clinging on the keys of the kingdom and now we are told (9:34) that they had been arguing with one another as to who among them was the greatest.

There is an interesting anecdote that is told as to how hunters of old used to trap monkeys. Rather than chasing them up a tree or shooting arrows from below, they’d put a heavy glass jar with a narrow neck on the floor, with a large ripe orange. They’d then step back and hide, waiting for the unsuspecting animal to approach.

When it did, the monkey would reach inside, clench a fist around the orange, and try to pull it out. However, the narrow neck of the jar would stop the poor monkey from getting its hand out! It would pull and pull, but to no avail. There was simply no way to get its hand out of the jar without releasing the food. They would refuse to let go of what seemed to be a meal only to become a meal for the hunter.

The disciples could not let go of honours that men bestowed on each other; who is the richest, who is the prettiest, who is the wisest, who is the greatest. So, Jesus did what he did best; he taught them once again, “whoever wants to be fist must be last and servant of all.” This time he backed his teaching with a session of ‘show and tell.’ Taking a little child, he put that child in their midst. This is what they were to become if they were to be his disciples; not childish but childlike.

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Faith

God’s grace is free but not cheap – Friday, 6th Week in ordinary time – Mark 8:34-9:1

Dietrich Bonhoeffer makes it clear; While God’s grace is always bestowed freely, it is never bestowed cheaply. Discipleship has its demands and Christ peels the layers of the onion on each of these demands, perhaps even drawing us to tears!

Jesus has shut up and shut down Peter’s ambition. Jesus was teaching his disciples on the reality of what Messiahship would entail. He described his passion, death and resurrection much to Peter’s horror who took it upon himself to remonstrate with the Master. Now Jesus had to take this teaching one step further, setting their minds not on ‘human things but on things divine’; namely the plan of God for the salvation of the world.

This teaching that Jesus gave was not to a select group of twelve. We are told that Jesus now calls the crowds with his disciples. He clearly intends this teaching for all, not just his followers. This was to be a way of life for anyone who would ever seek to follow him down the ages.

The world we live in has perfected the art of marketing. Its goal is to sell at any cost even by deception. We choose the most appealing image even though it may be unrelated to the product being sold. We pick words carefully, words that would draw in many more takers. We sensationalize, airbrush, exaggerate and promise the earth. Christ did just the opposite when he made his pitch for followers. He laid every card out on the table, spelt every consequence, highlighted the small print and then and only then, in freedom, called us to follow him. There is no bait dangled just an a free invitation but with a clear list of demands that were not tied up with paper and ribbon.

While the text of today has many beautiful reflections I would like to focus on two. The call to discipleship involves “denying yourself.” “Denying self is not the same as self-denial. We practice self-denial in the season of Lent when, for a good purpose, we give up things or activities for a period of time. But we deny self when we surrender ourselves to Christ and decided to obey His will.” Obeying his will is far more challenging than passing over an ice cream, it is passing our own ego so that Christ’s will be done. Discipleship implies a loss of identity and taking on a new corporate identity as members of Christ’s body. St Paul says, “ I now no longer live, Christ lives in me.”

Discipleship implies taking up ones cross. Sadly this very line, “taking up ones cross” has been trivialized, it has become a casual metaphor for suffering. We seem to suggest to each other that whenever a suffering comes our way we should embrace it as if it was ‘our cross.’ The crowds who heard Jesus must have gasped in horror. The cross was an instrument of shame and suffering. The Romans used it as the worst form of death and so gruesome was it that Roman citizens condemned to death would be decapitated than be crucified.

Therefore, “Take up your cross and follow Me” means being willing to die in order to follow Jesus. This is called “dying to self.” It’s a call to absolute surrender. After each time Jesus commanded cross bearing, He said, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?” Although the call is tough, the reward is matchless.

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