Francisco de Zurbarán, 1627, Art Institute of Chicago
“That I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord and contemplate his temple.” What a beautiful way to begin our meditation on today’s readings. Imagine yourself sitting before the Blessed Sacrament, smiling up at Him. As He looks back at you, your joy is complete. He is not a distant God. He is close, closer than we may realize.
Contradictions of Love: The complexity of the Readings
We are called to contemplate God, yet we are also asked to carry our own cross. We hear Jesus speak of hating our mothers and fathers, our wives and children, and even our own lives, yet the Psalmist longs “to see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living.” How do we reconcile these things?
Jesus is not asking us to stop loving our families. He is asking us to love Him above all else, to detach ourselves from anything that might take the place of God in our hearts. Whether possessions, relationships, or even our own desires, nothing can become more important than our relationship with Him.
Detachment and Surrender
In the first reading, we are told, “Do everything without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish.”
Christ is asking us to become like Him, the Crucified Lord, who, out of love and obedience to the Father, surrendered Himself completely. He accepted the Cross without grumbling, giving Himself entirely out of love for the Father and for us. This surrender is not forced upon us. We are invited to choose it freely, not because it is easy, but because we love Him.
Beholding the Beauty of the Cross
Let’s go deeper into the readings with a painting I discovered while researching Hans Urs von Balthasar, an image I think he would have loved: Christ Crucified (1627), by the Spanish Baroque artist Francisco de Zurbarán. Von Balthasar saw that our human inclination toward beauty could open our minds to the truth of God, taking us by the hand and leading our hearts toward Him. We can see this idea at work when we contemplate Zurbarán’s painting through visio divina, allowing the beauty of Christ’s sacrifice to lead us more deeply into the saving truth of the Resurrection. Hans Urs von Balthasar would have recognized this as true beauty, as it leads us to goodness and ultimately to truth.
In this painting, unlike traditional images of the Crucifixion, where our Lord’s feet are crossed and nailed together, Christ’s feet rest separately upon a small support, with four nails used. This detail invites us to contemplate the Crucified Christ in the light of the risen Lord, both united in this one image. He is crucified, yet he is almost standing, as if already risen. Can you see Zurbarán walking you through the story?
We see His wounds, yet they are unbloodied. The image does not deny the suffering of the Passion; rather, it draws us toward the mystery of Christ’s victory over death. The more we sit with a masterpiece, the more we see. The same is true of Adoration: the more we go to Him, the more we come to know Him.
Zurbarán crafts the Crucifixion to provoke an intimate encounter with Christ and confront us with our own reality, much like our experience in Adoration. The scene is dark, with only you and Christ. There are no crowds or soldiers competing for our attention. Its starkness evokes the profound reality of His love and what He did for us. More than that, it helps us see ourselves at the Cross, stripped of our possessions and idols, and brought close to the Father. It is peaceful yet demanding. Lonely yet intimate. Stark yet rich.
Signature
Look closer. Zurbarán himself seems to leave a small, quiet opening for our own response to this. Beneath Christ’s feet, we see a small piece of paper with his signature. Was he just signing it, or perhaps he was asking us too to place our own name beneath the Cross? In life, a signature is often an affirmation that we agree with whatever we choose to put it on. Are we ready to sign in obedience, detaching from everything and letting the grace of the Cross transform us? In this quiet encounter, we leave our personal note with God: our pleas, our praises, our petitions for others, the things we want to detach from, even the difficult people we must forgive or put in our Lord’s hands, like those He asks us to separate from in the Gospel.
We sign it, entrusting everything to Him and allowing our hearts to rest in His. The peaceful tucking of it under His feet is a soft and lovely gesture, almost like you are there with Our Lady doing it. To place our name there, signed with our year as Zurbarán perhaps taught us to do, is to say yes to Him, to accept the call to discipleship and entrust ourselves to His love. Then we can proclaim, “The Lord is my light and my salvation.”
Encounter the Cross
Perhaps this is what both the readings and the painting are asking of us today. Let us discover that the Cross, which seems to be so heavy at first, becomes a little lighter, a little more purposeful, as we encounter the deepest love, the greatest beauty, and the fullness of joy. As the reading tells us, “He shares His joy with us, and asks us to share our joy with Him.” And one day, by His grace, we will gaze forever upon the loveliness of the Lord. The greatest gift is to behold beauty and let it lead us to contemplate God.
