Light On Dark Water

Literally the Greatest Thing That Ever Happened

In our universe, anyway. 

I had never seen this painting or so much as heard of the artist, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, until it was included in the Holy Week edition of Magnificat. (See this for art historian Elizabeth Lev's discussion of it.) 

I like the painting in part because I've always found the story of the faithful women at the tomb particularly touching. The gospel accounts are inconsistent about their identities, except that all four include Mary Magdalene, whose story (insofar as we know and speculate) is also particularly touching. 

The question is always: "Where were the disciples?" If I'd been one of them, the answer would have been "Off somewhere moping." And probably drinking.

But wherever the men were, it's strongly implied that the women were there at least partly because they wanted to prepare the body properly for burial. That is, they were going about the work that was, I assume, considered theirs, and probably a somewhat lowly task. If so, it put them in the position of being the first to learn of the most important event ever. That would constitute an excellent lesson in a principle that Jesus mentioned more than once.

By Our Own Powers?

Men have always known that something was wrong with human existence; that everywhere stupidity, injustice, deception and violence were at work. Consequently there was always the feeling that someday things must be set right and fulfilled. Some expected this clarification to come from human history itself: humanity by its own powers would fight its way through to a kind of divine existence. Let us allow this hope to die a natural death; it is flagrantly contrary not only to Revelation and Christian thinking, but also to the conclusions that must be drawn from a single honest glance at reality.

--Romano Guardini, The Lord

I admit that there's a part of me which is sympathetic to nihilism when it opposes sentimentality of the "arc of history" sort. 

Holy Week 2019