Easter in Art

Coexistence of you and me

 "I long to let these two versions thrive inside of me simultaneously, hoping they would not collide.  Is the idea of coexistence between the two worlds just wishful, naive thinking? Are they so far from each other, so different in nuances, that it begs for a choice between the two?"

These are the words of a young artist speaking of her work which I encountered in the last few days at a school exhibition of art and design offered by their graduating students.  I found the exhibition an amazing experience of young artists sharing a valuable message.  I found this a powerful piece that spoke to me of life - life both crucified and risen.  

Such is Holy Week.  Life and death go together.   One feeds into the other.  Death is part of life but does define nor limit life.  It rather enriches and refines life.  Our life is made up of both together.  

The Crucified God of Good Friday is the Risen Christ of Easter Sunday.  

Hospitality

Hospitality is a key part of who we are as Christians.  A  valued friend rightly observed that all this talk of love throughout the church just seems meaninbgless.  How true!  Reason why?  Love is primarily a verb, not a noun.  I am told by missionaries I have met from Papua New Guinea that, in some local dialects, there is no name for words like love or compassion.  They are all verbs.  It is not what we keep saying that matters.  It is what we do.    

I keep referring to the great line supposedly from St Francis of Assisi - 

"Preach always.  Use words only when necessary."

As we approach Holy Week, we see love at the centre of all that Jesus does and ultimately suffers.  Without love, Jesus'  actions make no sense to human reason.  Love gives the rightful context to all he did and suffered in reaching out to humanity.  Love gives the meaning and deepens his human actions to show forth God, the divine living in the midst of our reality.  

So being together matters.  Human solidarity matters.  Hospitlaity is ever the key to who we are.   Henri Nouwen, Catholic priest and spiritual writer of latter 20th century, reflected: 

It is "obligatory for Christians to offer an open and hospitable space where strangers can cast off their strangeness and become our fellow human beings."

It's the Journey that Matters

 In Jesus' day, horses were ridden when making war; donkeys were ridden when travelling in peace.  So when Jesus was entering Jerusalem for the last time, he was entering in peace but we know what happened.  Peace did not rule the day and he met a most cruel, unjust and violent death. 

We go along the path of life.  The path is often unsure and rough.  We continually falter and fall. Still we keep going.  Life must go on, and it does.  I am thinking of this as I approach the Sacrament of Penance as part of my Lenten journey into the desert.   

Other thoughts go through my mind.  I keep doing the same old things.  So what is the point?  I have issues in my life I like to avoid or just ignore.  Why don't I just face my realities, do something about my life and get on with it?  Then I remember that it is not just about me.  I am not a solo act in life.  I remember who is in charge.  Not me. So do get on with it.  

 

Life is a journey.  Then I read from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers of the early Church: 

'Whoever has not experienced temptation cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. ' And then, 'Without temptations no-one can be saved.'  (St Anthony the Great)

It's the people that matter.

Mary and Child at St Nicholas Church.  

On Saturday, a three of us went on a short pilgrimage within Bangkok to visit St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church.  

What we discovered was more than we expected.  It was a most impressive Orthodox church built within suburban Bangkok.  It was so beautiful, inside and out.  Inside, the whole church was adorned with icons.  Just amazing.  You could feel the utter sacredness of the place.

Then in the midst of being immersed in this sacred space, there arrived a young Thai guy who was a member of the congregation.  From the very moment of his arrival, he made us welcome and at home in his church.  We expressed our appreciation of his church as being so beautiful and sacred, thanks to the wonderful icons.  His immediate response was - "It is not the building but the people within it that matter".  That stays with me.  How wise!  

I watched the Pope's visit during the week to Iraq with great interest.  He stood in churches that had been destroyed and desecrated by vicious terrorists under  the guise of  Islam, and prayed.  Powerful!  What he was doing there was not to rebuild churches but to build up people who had been so badly impacted by the great tragedy that had hit their lives. He stood with suffering people to help them rebuild their lives and communities. They were not to become lost and forgotten souls, collateral damage of a terrifying war. They matter, and so do their churches then matter, symbols of their worth and dignity.  

Sometimes we lose perspective.  We ever need someone like that young, Thai, Russian Orthodox guy in Bangkok or the Pope in Mosul to remind us. 

Transformation happens in our here and now

The site of the killing and burial of the Seven Martyrs of Thailand 

 Here I was again at Song Khon in Mukdahan Province of Thailand by the Mekong River.  The location is so beautiful and so peaceful but 80 years ago it saw the violent martyrdom of seven young Thai Catholics.  And why?  Simply because they stood up for their faith and for what they believed to be right.  For that, they were shot by the local police in a nationalistic Thailand then at war with "Catholic France" in this part of the world. 

Standing at the place where they were buried and seeing the now log of the tree under which they were shot on that same spot, one got a sense that this was no simple plot of land for here ordinary people committed an extraordinary and heroic act.  It is no simple matter to remain true to who we are, when that means death.    

So what was their home has been turned into a special place, a holy place, a place where you can feel that you are in touch with another reality or rather in touch with our reality at a such a deep level.  So they transformed the land, they transformed life for themselves and for us into what it can truly be for all, much more than what we do, own or understand. At its roots, our life is full of awe and mystery.  We are one with the divine which comes to us through our being human.  Life is transformed by such saints, by us when we too stand up for what is good and right, when we have a feel for what really matters in life and become immersed in it. 

Life has a purpose and a depth that truly transform us into who we are meant to be and who we truly are.  We are so much more than our daily routine and struggles.  Death and life are but one.  Suffering is part of life.  Death and suffering both transform the life that we know.  It is all mystery that takes us to great depths and transforms life and us into much more than we ever appreciate in everyday life.  

We just have to go to the desert.  Let's go!