Today's Gospel in Art - Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate

Compassion, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1897 © Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Gospel of 9th March 2020 - Luke 6:36-38

Jesus said to his disciples: 'Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate. Do not judge, and you will not be judged yourselves; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned yourselves; grant pardon, and you will be pardoned. Give, and there will be gifts for you: a full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap; because the amount you measure out is the amount you will be given back.'

Reflection on the Painting

This is one of my favourite paintings, titled 'Compassion'. Kept at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, this over-life-size painting, at 260 cm high, leaves a big impression when standing in front of it. A man who is carrying his own cross is embracing Christ on His cross. Some life is left in Christ's face, but yet the dark undefined tones of His beard, hair, thorns, eyes… are all dark and near black. He is about to die. The loincloth is vibrant white, already looking forward to the Resurrection to come. The man's belt, however, is black; the end of his life is yet to come. The sky is cloudy and we see a thunderstorm in the distance. The man and Christ are united. Compassion brought them together, through the cross… with crosses united… Christ's and ours…

Compassion was one of Jesus' most important virtues. The word compassion stems from 'con-passion', meaning 'to suffer with' someone. It also involves the sense that by suffering with someone, one comes to their aid. So it is an act of love, where we take on the pain of the sufferer, but hoping that by doing so some positive good will emerge from this shared suffering. In that sense it is far more than just having pity on someone. So when Jesus tells us in today's reading 'Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate', he is asking us to develop this virtue of shared suffering rooted in love… so beautifully illustrated in our painting today: the man sharing Christ's suffering by carrying his own cross…

LINKS

Today's story - https://christianart.today/reading.php?id=353

Christian Art Today - https://christianart.today/