Lent

Art for the 4th Week in Lent, Year A

Commentary is by Daniella Zsupan-Jerome.

We enter into this fourth Sunday of Lent with the words of Samuel I telling us that, “not as man sees does God see.” At Mass, we then hear the story of Christ healing the blind man at the pool of Siloam. El Greco painted two versions of this story; here we explore his first rendition. Christ Healing the Blind tells the story but also reveals El Greco’s blossoming artistic vision. In this early painting, we observe El Greco learning to see with the eyes of an artist as he depicts perspective and the movement of bodies from all angles. Just as the blind man learns to see, El Greco is gaining his unique vision here.

Christ Healing the Blind presents two main groups of people: Christ healing the blind man on the left, and the Pharisees clustered on the right, suspicious and protesting. Front and center are the blind beggar’s meager possessions and a sniffing dog—perhaps his only loyal companion. Further back, two figures complete the circle, engaged in a pose of compassion and healing—God’s mercy juxtaposed with the confrontation below. Placing Christ and the Pharisees on the left and right is a point of irony: the Pharisees, who are assured of their right vision, are in fact blind to the truth unfolding before them, while Christ reveals the truth on the left. Behind the Pharisees a sky of swirling clouds reinforces their disarray, but Christ’s healing act takes place in front of a firm visual backdrop of stable architectural elements. Behind Christ, El Greco leads our eye to a vanishing point with a long row of arches, hinting that the sight Christ grants to the blind beggar is long-ranging and far. In contrast, the cluster of Pharisees obscures their own horizon, as their near-sighted vision lands on one another.

Finally, the four men gathered on the left seem unaware of what is going on. Here, El Greco inserts another kind of blindness: oblivion to grace unfolding before their very eyes. Their mild presence is perhaps more challenging than that of the Pharisees, who are lacking vision but not awareness.

This story invites us to open wider our eyes of faith and become aware of the merciful, healing grace all around us.

This week was the first day of spring on March 20,  “And Spring arose on the garden fair, Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere; And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Sensitive Plant”

Spring is about a change in vision. Part of this is the increasing sunlight and warmth returning to the land, this year in fits and starts. The sky has a variety of light based on the clouds. Flowers appear in waves. Animals such as squirrels wake up from their hibernation.

The Fourth Sunday of Lent is “Mothering Sunday” expressed with baking simnel cakes. It is sometimes called refreshment Sunday. This comes from Galatians 4:26 “But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.”

There are several possible origins of this tradition: 

1. A tradition of visiting one’s mother after this particular service. Expecting their families, mothers would bake this cake to serve with tea.

2. Serving girls on estates and in households were allowed this Sunday off to visit their mothers.

3. A family would travel to its ‘Mother Church,’ or parish they were originally from, on this Sunday.

These cakes became popular over time for that occasion midway through Lent, which was a good time to break the fasting a little. Much like the third Sunday of Advent, ‘Stir Up Sunday,’ with its baking tradition. “Simnel” is from the Latin ‘similis,’ as in similar or same, as the cakes were originally made with equal parts of flour and sugar.

But today is also sometimes known as Refreshment Sunday. Rather like the 3rd Sunday of Advent, it’s a day which stands towards the middle of the season of Lent, and traditionally, a certain amount of relaxation of Lent was allowed. 

Her website is Painted Prayerbook  She combines her art, poems and scriptural references in a wonderful review of church seasons and individual Gospel passages.

This poem is for Lent 3 – -the woman at the well. Richardson writes that “the encounter between Jesus and the unnamed woman offers something of an icon of the Lenten season and the invitation it extends to us. If we give ourselves to a daily practice, if we keep taking our vessel to the source even when we feel uninspired or the well seems empty or the journey is boring, if we walk with an openness to what might be waiting for us in the repetition and rhythm of our routines, we may suddenly find ourselves swimming in the grace and love of God that goes deeper than we ever imagined.”

Blessing of the Well

If you stand at the edge of this blessing and call down into it,

you will hear your words return to you.

If you lean in and listen close, you will hear this blessing give the story of your life back to you.

Quiet your voice quiet your judgment quiet the way you always tell your story to yourself.

Quiet all these and you will hear the whole of it and the hollows of it: the spaces in the telling, the gaps where you hesitate to go.

Sit at the rim of this blessing. Press your ear to its lip, its sides, its curves that were carved out long ago by those whose thirst drove them deep, those who dug into the layers with only their hands and hope.

Rest yourself beside this blessing and you will begin to hear the sound of water entering the gaps.

Still yourself and you will feel it rising up within you, filling every hollow, springing forth anew

This is a scripture of compassion and giving.

The key is that Jesus sees her, really sees her pain – she’s had five husbands before and then he reveals himself to her. She is living an unfocused life without husband and she is looking for direction and help.

He provides a direction with life giving words and his messianic identity. This is part of the living water. What Jesus is driving at is the divine life that is never exhausted even as it is given, since it is, in its essence, nothing other than giving. Jesus is uniting the tribes of Israel to “worship the Father in spirit and truth.”

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.” By leaving her water jar there she takes on a new more purposeful life.

Daniel Goldeman looked into compassion in a TED talk –“Why aren’t we more compassionate?”

He explains “And this is, I think, the predicament of our lives: that we don’t take every opportunity to help because our focus is in the wrong direction.”

What is the wrong direction ? Here is the TED talk for his answer