April 2 COVID-19 Faith Reflection
Vatican Museum
One of the websites that I check regularly is the Vatican News
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope.html. It carries the Pope’s daily Santa Marta Mass and message, his general audiences every Wednesday, and his messages to various groups. It has his litany from last Friday evening and his special blessing for the world suffering the pandemic.
I like the Vatican News website because it goes beyond the our American-centered media. Reading it this week, I learned that the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development published recently a document on the need to safeguard and care for the planet’s water reservoirs and provide clean water to all, which the pandemic has made even more urgent. It reported Philippine Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle urging that rich countries write off the debt of poor countries, whose lack of medical care and resources in the economic crisis will multiply the suffering of their peoples far beyond wealthy countries such as ours.
The Vatican News, despite its name, is not all news. It has a new feature: masterpieces from the Vatican Collection accompanied by comments from the words of the Popes. For two thousand years, the Good News has been translated into art. Transcending language and time, its beauty unites believers from the past and present.
Today’s masterwork from the Vatican Museum is Vincent Van Gogh’s
Pietà. In the oil on canvas, the dead body of Jesus is slumped in the center. Mary, looking at us, kneels behind him, hands around him but not touching him, as if she is offering him to us. In the upper right hand corner, the gnarled trunk of a tree recalls the cross, the tree of life. Van Gogh’s strong brush marks give power and movement to a scene that is traditionally painted as posed and reflective.
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2020-03/vatican-museum-beauty-art-spirituality-comfort-faith-pope.html
The painting is accompanied by a reflection from Saint John Paul II. (Today April 2 is the 15th anniversary of his death.) The reflection is taken from a talk he gave in March 1987 to an Italian organization called OFTAL which, among other things, accompanies the suffering and disabled on pilgrimage to Lourdes. In part he said,
Look, therefore, to the crucified Christ,
together with the most holy Mary,
to feel in your hearts the importance
and greatness of your suffering!”
For his fuller reflection on the Christian meaning on human suffering, take to prayer his beautiful reflection “Salvifici Doloris”
Saint John Paul II’s words guide our reflection upon Van Gogh’s Pieta. They guide also our reflection upon our own suffering. Our suffering unites us with Christ on the cross, whose suffering love redeems the world.
Blessed Lent,
Father David