Tintoretto, 1566-67, Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice
Around the judgement seat are grouped a motley crowd. Men and
women of every rank, the high-born Jewish maiden, the rough Samaritan woman;
haughty Scribes and proud Pharisees mingle with the common loafer of the great
city. Hatred has united them all for one common object; hatred of One Who ever
loves them and to their wild fury has only opposed acts of gentle kindness. A
mighty scream goes up, a scream of fierce rage and angry fury, such a sound as
only could be drawn from the very depths of hell. “Death to Him! Death to the
false prophet!” He has spent His life among you doing good – Let Him die! He
has healed your sick, given strength to the palsied, sight to your blind – Let
Him die! He has raised your dead – Let death be His fate!
El Greco, 1600-05, Museo del Prado, Madrid
Away from the palace now a sad
procession is winding. On the faces of the multitude a fiendish joy is written,
they have had their wish and now issue forth to glut their eyes on the dying
struggles of the suffering innocent One. Painfully He is toiling up the long
narrow street, narrower still from the crowds that line the way; each step is
agony, each yard of ground He covers a fresh martyrdom of ever increasing
suffering. With a refinement of cruelty His enemies have placed upon His
shoulders the heavy, rough beams which will be His last painful resting place.
Cruelly the heavy beam weighs
upon His mangled flesh and cuts and chafes a long, raw sore deep to the very
bone.
Raphael, 1517, Museo del Prado, Madrid
Fourth Station: Jesus meets his Blessed Mother
The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin: Mother of Sorrows
Bravely has our Lord borne the
galling weight of His cross; bravely has He struggled on, tottering and
stumbling, longing for a moment’s rest, yearning for a respite however short.
But rest He will not, that He may teach us how unfalteringly we must press on
to our goal. But nature will have its way. His sight grows dim; His strength
fails and with a crash our Saviour lies extended on the ground. Oh! if you have
not hearts of stone let Him lie even thus, poor, crushed and broken thing. If
you have but one spark of compassion left, one tender feeling of sympathy urge
Him not on awhile, so spent, so weary. On a poor maimed brute you have pity –
think of the sorrow of Him extended there.
The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin: Mother of Sorrows
Albrecht Dürer, c.1496, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
To sensitive souls the pain they cause others is
far worse than any sufferings they may endure themselves. They may have much to
endure, but to see others in pain causes them deeper grief. Jesus and Mary
meet. Alone He could have suffered with joy so that she, His dearest Mother,
might have been spared the agony of seeing all He must endure. With one look of
pity Jesus reads the anguish of that cruelly lacerated heart; with one long
gaze of infinite love and pity Mary sees the depth of her Son’s woe, His long
hours of torture, His utter weariness, His sorrow, His grief, His anguish. May
she not help Him? At least lift for one moment that cross?
Master Thomas de Coloswar, 1427, Christian Museum, Esztergom
When God lays a cross upon us, some misfortune, some
unexpected burden, instead of thanking Him for this precious gift, too often we
rebel against His will. We forget that our Saviour never sends a cross alone,
but ever sweetens its bitterness, lightens its weight by His all-powerful
grace. With reluctance, with unwillingness, Simon bears the cross of His
Master. At first his spirit revolted against this injustice, his pride rebelled
against this ignominy. But once he accepted with resignation, his soul was
filled with heavenly sweetness, he felt not the weight of the heavy beams, he
heeded not the jibes of the multitude but pressed on after His Master, proud to
be His follower.
El Greco, c.1580, Museo de Santa Cruz, Toledo
As the sorrowful procession moves slowly on, a woman, who
with anxious gaze has watched its approach, steps forward and wipes the sacred
face of Jesus. It is a simple action, yet reveals the kindly thoughtfulness of
a charitable heart. Gladly would Veronica have done all in her power to lessen
the sufferings of the Lord, to ease the dreadful burden which was crushing Him,
to show some mark of sympathy and compassion. That little act of love touched
the broken Heart of Jesus; He wipes the clotted blood and streaming sweat from
His Face, leaving His sacred image stamped on the veil of Veronica; but deeper
and more clear cut did He impress on her heart the memory of His passion.
Rubens, 1634-37, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels
Jesus falls a second time, crushed beneath the weight of His
awful sufferings which are fast draining His strength. Exhausted and spent He
lies upon the rough-paved ground, a cruel resting place for His bleeding,
lacerated body. Vainly He tries to rise, for love impels Him on to the consummation
of the sacrifice, but His tottering limbs will not support Him and once again
He falls upon the ground. Again the soldiers with fiendish brutality drag Him
to His feet with coarse jibes and mocking laughter, with kicks and blows they
drive Him on, pulling Him now forward, now back, striving if possible to add to
the sufferings of the patient victim.
Jacopo Bassano, 1550-55, Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest
The disciples of Jesus have
deserted their Master, and fearful for their own safety, have abandoned Him to
His fate. Peter who would die for Him, Matthew who left all to follow Him, are
far from Him now and dread to be pointed to as His friends. Yet Jesus is not
alone. A few, a faithful few, remain beside Him still, poor, weak women, but
strong with the courage of love. The brutal crowd surge round, inflamed with
hate and lust for blood; but they offer Him the tribute of a woman's heart the
silent tears of sympathy.
“Weep not for Me,” He says,
“weep rather for those who unlike these My executioners will one day crucify Me
again with full knowledge of what they do.”
Christ Carrying the Cross
Hieronymus Bosch, Palacio Real, Madrid
The hill of
Calvary is almost reached, the hour of the great sacrifice is at hand. Still
the heart of Jesus thirsts for suffering to show His great, His all devouring
love for us. Again He falls! With limbs all bruised and broken, with a body all
one raw, red, quivering sore, each step He took was agony. But to fall thus
helpless on the ragged ground, to be kicked and beaten as He lay with nerveless
limbs all paralyzed with pain must have been to His high-strung, delicate frame
a thousand-fold martyrdom. The executioners were alarmed. Was death going to
rob them of their victim and cheat them of the joy they promised themselves as
their victim writhed in the agonies of death?
The Disrobing of Christ (El Espolio)
El Greco, 1577-79, Sacristy of the Cathedral, Toledo
At last He
stands upon the hill of shame to pay the price of our redemption. In the eyes
of His Eternal Father, a sinner laden with the crimes of a wicked world; before
men, the most abject and abandoned of creatures. A brutal soldier advances. He
lays his hand upon the garment of Jesus and roughly tears it from His sacred
shoulders. The cloth has sunk deeply into the gaping wounds left by the recent
scourging, and driven deeper still by the weight of the cross and the
oft-repeated blows. With a horrid, rending sound the wounds are torn open
afresh, the sacred blood gushes forth anew and bathes His limbs in its ruddy
stream. It is a moment of awful agony.
Christ in Agony on the Cross
El Greco, 1600s, Art Museum, Cincinnati
Upon His last resting place
Jesus lays Himself down. No soft bed, no easy couch to ease the agony of His
aching limbs, but a hard, rough beam must be His place of death. Meekly He
extends His arms, those arms ever open to welcome back the repentant sinner,
and offers His hands to be pierced as the Prophet had foretold. A long, blunt
nail is placed upon the palm: a heavy, dull thud, the crunch of parting flesh
and rending muscle, the spouting crimson blood which covers the face and hands
of the hardened soldier and Jesus is fastened to the cross. Come, sinner, gaze
upon your work for you have nailed Him there! Your sins it was which flung your
Saviour down, your sins which drove the iron deep into His sacred flesh.
Christ on the Cross, with the two Marys and St John
El Greco, c.1588, National Gallery, Athens
Upon the cross
He hangs now, the most abject and despised of all men, the butt for vile jests,
a common mark for all to hurl their jibes at. There He hangs, in agony no human
lips can tell, no mind conceive, an impostor, a vile hypocrite, a failure. “He
came to make Himself a King! See, we have crowned His brow with a royal,
sparkling diadem. He sought a kingdom! From that elevated throne let Him look
upon the land which will never be His now. He threatened our Scribes with woes
and punishments, let Him look to His own fate and if He has that power which
some say was His, let Him come down now from the cross and we too shall believe
in His word.”
Pietà (The Lamentation of Christ)
El Greco, 1571-76, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
Mary stands at
the foot of the cross to receive in her arms the lifeless body of her Son. Once
more His head is resting on her bosom as it used to do long years ago when a
little child He nestled to His Mother#s breast. But now that sacred head is
bruised and swollen, stamped with the cruel mark of the mocking diadem; His
hair all clotted with the oozing blood, tangled and in disorder. Even she, upon
whose heart is stamped every lineament of her Son’s dear face, can scarcely
recognise His features now. On every line is marked the anguish of long drawn
agony, of torture and agonizing pain, of woe, unutterable woe, of sorrow,
suffering and abandonment.
The Entombment of Christ
El Greco, 1560s, Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens
The
final scene of the awful tragedy is drawing to a close. Reverently the faithful
few bear the dead Christ down the hill of shame, that body from which all the
care of loving hands cannot remove the marks of the cruel scourge, the rending
nails, the lance’s gaping thrust. Into the tomb they bear Him, the burial place
of a stranger, best suited to Him Who during His life had not where to lay His
head. Reverently they lay Him down; one last, fond embrace of His own Mother
before they lead her hence, and then in silence and in sorrow they leave Him,
their dearest Master, to the watchful care of God’s own angels. Sin has done
its work! Sin has triumphed, but its very triumph will prove its own undoing.
+++
All paintings from Web Gallery of ArtReflections by Fr William Doyle SJ from Remembering Fr William Doyle SJ.
Fr William Doyle SJ was finally appointed during World War I chaplain of the 16th Irish Division, serving with 8th Royal Irish Fusiliers, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 9th Royal Dublin Fusiliers, 6th Royal Irish Rifles and the 7th Royal Irish Rifles. Having fulfilled his priestly duties in an outstanding fashion for almost two years, he was killed in the Battle of Ypres on August 16, 1917, having run “all day hither and thither over the battlefield like an angel of mercy.” This good shepherd truly gave his life for his sheep.
Fr Doyle’s body was never recovered.
Fr William Doyle SJ (3 March 1873 - 16 August 1917)
Many thanks to Pat Kenny, blogmaster of Remembering Fr William Doyle SJ.
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