Weekend Reflections for 3/26/21
In this holiest of all weeks, Christians are confronted with the suffering and death of a Christ who was crucified. How do we imagine the death of Jesus?
My own imagining of the death of Jesus was transformed about 12 years ago when, while living in Madrid, I had the opportunity for the first time to visit the family castle of the great Jesuit missionary St. Francis Xavier in the Spanish region called Navarre. In a small chapel within the castle there is a crucifix, probably dating from the 13th century. (Xavier himself lived from 1506-1552.) On that cross, the suffering of Jesus is clear: Jesus is stripped, arms outstretched, head crowned with thorns and, of course, he is nailed to the wood. But his face is unusual. Rather than pictured as wracked with pain, he is depicted as peaceful and serene.
That sculpture is known as “the smiling Christ.” Perhaps that seems shocking or even blasphemous; however, it seems to me that it points to a deep insight.
We may never be called upon to suffer and die as did Jesus Christ or the Christian martyrs. Yet the liturgies of Holy Week remind us that the cross is the only way to life. For those who are faithful, Good Friday leads to Easter Sunday. The smiling Christ points to a loving Father, who at the moment of deepest suffering reaches down in love to accept the life and work of his Beloved Son. Love triumphs over death.
The Christian life does not promise us freedom from suffering, but reveals a more significant truth... it is through suffering that we are saved. And, as Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans, nothing can separate us from the love of God that comes to us in Christ, not trial, not distress, not persecution, not death.
May the many “faces” of Christ which we observe during this holiest of weeks, lead us to the full joy and peace which came to be his own and which is meant to be ours as well because of what he has done for us.
Fr. Frank Reale, S.J.