"LAMENTATION" ^_[1]

TAKEN DOWN

1. Lamentation^[2] is the name of a remarkable painting featured in the Houston Museum of Fine Arts 1997 exhibit The Body of Christ. The artist Quentin Massys, appropriating a religious motif popular in 15^th and 16^th century Netherlands, bids the observer to meditate for a short while on the image of the crucified Christ. Massys completed his painting, an oil on panel, about the year 1520.

2.  The body of the saviour has been taken down from the cross. It reclines lifeless on a white cloth stretched over the ground^[3] in front of the desert hill of Golgotha. In the background, the two thieves remain nailed to their crosses. One has died in his sins. The other gazes heavenward in anticipation.

ROYAL RED

3.  John, the Beloved Disciple, is cloaked in red as a sign of unswerving loyalty to his fallen sovereign. Elevating Jesus' body by the shoulders, he enables Mary to press her son's life-less face to the warmth of her own. The artist situates Mary Magdalene in her honored place at the young rabbis' feet.

4.  Reminiscent of happier days, she reprises her role by washing Jesus' wounds with her tears, drying his feet with her hair, and anointing them with perfume. She, too, wears a royal red cloak. Of the five women portrayed,^[4] only the Magdelene's head is uncovered.

BENEDICTION 

5.  Although specific events bridging Christ's crucifixion and burial were not recounted in the four gospels, Renaissance artists (particularly in the Netherlands) offer us a legacy of heart-rending visual interpretations of the sorrowful interlude before Our Lord's entombment.

6.  Massys' Lamentation begs that we be allowed a few minutes, perhaps a holy hour, to mourn before the burial of the Messiah and the commencement of Sabbath. Lamentation is formalized in the Catholic prayer of benediction. We kneel before the Body of Christ exposed.

7. For our Divine Lesson today, I would invite you to meditate upon the spiritual meaning of suffering and compassion. Suffering is universal, a fact of life in every age and culture. Serious illness, the death of a loved one, an accident, a betrayal, the loss of an intimate relationship, a grave sin, or other traumatic experiences indenture every individual to the human condition.

GESTURES OF COMFORT 

8.  Suffering is invitatory. It invokes the benevolent response of compassionate persons. The word compassion means to suffer the experience of another. We dare to embrace a human being who is hurting because we, too, are not exempt from painful experiences. In our suffering, we accept gestures of comfort to help lessen our pain and to hasten the healing process.

9.  Man seeks the company of others with whom he can share his frail humanity. He searches for meaning in suffering, and more often than not, he finds it. Yet the litany of mankind's unhappiness cannot suppress a profound spiritual truth:  Suffering is intrusive to human dignity. Man was not created to suffer. Although suffering is within the norm of human life, it is not normal: 

...BECAUSE THE creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.   [Rom 8:21-23]  

SHATTERING STRONGHOLDS

10.  Our reluctance to speak of affliction, especially in spiritual terms, is understandable. Human vocabulary is painfully thin, and suffering is rarely the topic of day-to-day conversation. Not infrequently, when a painful or tragic situation occurs in the life of someone dear to us, we do not know what to say. We enter into unfamiliar territory, struggling to speak profoundly^[5] without being intrusive or heedless. Often our thoughts sound hackneyed, even false. As if to rebuke presumption  (Gk. hubris), our words plague us with embarrassment.

11.  Suffering shatters the powerful strongholds of human intellect and will. Man may deny grief, but he cannot dispute its existence.^[6] The passage of time may relieve the sharpness of pain, but sorrow does not end on its own accord or by force of will. Recognition of grief may be delayed inexplicably by weeks or months, and years of effort may be needed to work through its  many dimensions. Sometimes why we grieve is not entirely clear to us. Feelings of hostility and guilt may complicate our suffering.

VALLEY AND DESERT

12.  Paradoxically, a sorrowful experience can engrave itself in human memory with vexing clarity, while the process of healing seems wholly indistinct and equivocal. Often a tragic experience is the first avenue by which the human person enters into an authentic spiritual reckoning. Feeling overwhelmed and broken,^[7] the grieving person may believe that his soul has dissolved into a limitless abyss.^[8] Mysteriously, however, the experience of sorrow offers the hope of spiritual resurrection to a person lost or divided within himself.

13.  The grief process invites the sufferer to become spiritually renewed even as he dwells in the heart of the desert.^[9] Grief seeks reconciliation, and this reconciliation must be suffered through. It is not enough for a person walking in the green valley merely to shout out words of consolation to the person who suffers in the desert. Mankind's common frailty before principalities and powers  [cf. Eph 3:10, Col 2:15]  greater than itself reveals that such a gap is artificial, and functions primarily to shield those who fear honest engagement with the vicissitudes of life.

CRUCIAL JUNCTURE

14.  Compassion is a most difficult vocation, precisely because it is not a negotiated transaction between relative equals. Not everyone can summon the courage or compassion to acknowledge suffering honestly. Some may have suppressed profound grief in their own lives and cannot bear to recall it. Friends or family members may be apprehensive. Intimate companions can accomplish only so much even when they try their best. Hence the companionship and comfort of others is not promised when we suffer. We may be shunted aside and neglected, even abandoned as was Our Lord.

15.  The spiritual man, however, recognizes his inability to address the mystery of suffering itself with mere words. Jesus teaches his followers "to be merciful, even as your Father is merciful". [Lk 6:36] The good Samaritan  [Lk 10:30-35]  knows that sorrow and suffering represent a stopping place in one's journey, a crucial juncture in which the help of a friend or stranger plays a critical part in one's destiny. The Samaritan draws near to the person who suffers that he may not be left behind in his stopping place. The just man understands that his presence to the one in distress helps to alleviate some of the pain. Likewise, the proof of love heals some of the sorrow. 

GATHERING RELICS

16.  Two rather unusual movements emerge from the choreography of this Dutch painting. Both movements portray the act of giving, one with a view to the past, the other with a vision of the future. Both actions carry the observer beyond the traditional scene of Mary embracing her deceased son. Immediately behind the trio of Mary, Jesus and the Beloved Disciple, the artist portrays a man offering the nails of the cross to one of the women.

17.  A closer look reveals that he has reserved one nail for himself. Although most lamentation paintings are strictly programmed, this noble man's identity remains a mystery. Unlike his companions, whose faces are directed to the body of Jesus or to the right or future side of the painting, the face of the unknown man gazes left as if to beckon future generations to look back on the crucifixion of Christ as the universal archetype embracing all mankind's suffering. Hence his desire to preserve the memory of tragedy by gathering relics.

OBTAINING VALUE

18.  With chin thrust forward, head tilted back in courtly sorrow and eyes downcast, the unnamed man extends his right arm fully to make a gift of the nails. The unidentified woman, nearest Mary, reaches out with both hands to receive them. Clearly the two anonymous figures are removed somewhat from the pietatis  (Lat. devotion, pity)  of mother and son which the Church so appreciates and reveres. That both man and woman are unidentified serves to emphasize their singular act of giving and receiving. Neither is obliged to the other.

19.  The spikes themselves possess no intrinsic value. When contrasted with Mary embracing the body of Jesus, the nails appear to be a pathetic  (Gk. pathos)  and forlorn memento. According to Massys, these sacramentals obtain their value by the act of gratuitous benevolence. Thus the artist awakens the observer from complacency:  The exchange of compassion is the most courageous act of communion possible between human persons. One reaches through his perceived inadequacy to offer compassion. The other reaches through her aloneness to receive it. Each unites himself to the other in charity. Both are blessed by their decision to remain present to one another in this tragic situation. The depth of their loving kindness extends even to the dead. They, and their little community, cherish the body of Jesus.

GENERATIONS OF BELIEVERS

20.  The second unusual movement in Massys' Lamentation centers on two figures positioned to the right of the Apostle John. The man standing is Joseph of Arimethea who has donated his own tomb for Christ's deposition. The man kneeling is Nicodemus, the virtuous and devout Pharisee. Remarkably, neither man directs his attention to the sorrowful scene of Christ and his mother. Nor are Joseph and Nicodemus constrained by the physical boundaries of Massys' painting. The right border of the panel cleaves part of both figures, suggesting that however self-contained this lamentation setting may appear to be, the future has claimed a portion of its significance.

21.  Most striking of all, the kneeling Nicodemus elevates the crown of thorns on a white cloth. Massys directs the gaze of these two saintly witnesses off the painting in the act of bequeathing the meaning of the crucifixion event to the generations of believers that will follow. The crown of thorns, second only to the cross as a sign of suffering, is a legacy to all future disciples who will believe without having seen.  [Jn 20:29]  Massys presentation of the crown of suffering on white cloth witnesses that the afflictions of all humanity are woven into the seamless garment  [Jn 19:23]  of Jesus' passion, death and certain resurrection. 

PITCHING OUR TENT

22.  Suffering is, in short, a station of the cross. No mortal is offered immunity from the consequences of the human condition or his moral duty to accept them. If redemption is to be found in sorrow, then it will be found in Jesus Christ and among those who share his merciful love. We pursue the spiritual life precisely that we may be schooled in compassion. We learn to suffer the experience of another by entering the desert and pitching our tent with him.^[10] It is sufficient that we reach out to care and protect the wounded, the hurting, the weak. We are not required to articulate why.

23.  We trust in God's truth without grasping for answers.^[11] Human dignity entreats a response of authentic love and service, for God's own blessing is unconditional:  "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."  [Mt 5:3-4]  Art, in service of the Church, embodies the stories painted on the human canvas. It offers us a powerful treatise on the human person, obliging us to acknowledge the fact of the human soul and the souls orientation to the divine. Hence, suffering is an encounter with Christ crucified.

GRACED LIKE SIMEON

24.  In union with the sacramental outpouring of His Only Son's humanity on the cross, the Father wills a blessing of consolation on all who suffer. To know God is to comfort one another. The spiritual man may be graced, like Simeon,^[12] to bear another's burden for a time. He chooses this servitude in remembrance of his saviour who stumbled and fell in his way of sorrows. (Lat. via dolorosa) He offers this as a sign of love. To give and accept simple gestures of human compassion is to pierce the veil of obscurity  [cf. Mk 15:38]  separating man from God.

25.   Christ transforms desert desolation into bounteous bloom. Our participation in the model of salvation given to us by Our Lord enables us to lay down our fear of suffering and to derive profound meaning from it. We permit ourselves to be perfected by Divine Compassion, that the weak and strong alike may share in the world's consecration and the triumph of God's merciful love. Mysteriously, the Father has linked unity among men to communion with himself:  "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."  [Mt 5:7] 

PROOFS OF LOVE

26.  That we might not be strangers to God, Christ directs us to offer proofs of love to the impoverished. By standing in the breach  [cf. Psa 106: 23; Eze 22:30]  for the afflicted, by easing their distress, we lessen the distance between ourselves and our transcendent God. Confidently, we respond to the lamentation of those who suffer by offering spiritual and temporal gifts of compassion. Trusting in Our Lord to guide and protect us in ways that we cannot, we rejoice:  "Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. For thou hast delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling; I walk before the Lord in the land of the living."   [Psa 116:7-9]