The story, carried by Our Sunday Visitor, is familiar to me because it is written about a hospital 45 minutes away, where I have many times walked the halls and seen the crucifixes in every room. Significant also is the fact that in this Baptist mecca of Nashville, St. Thomas, the Roman Catholic hospital, has taken over the Baptist Hospital so that the name remains but it is a wholly owned agency of the St. Thomas Health Organization. But, I digress...
It is the story of a Baptist who comes to terms with the crucifix all the while recovering from debilitating injuries. It is not a doctrinal piece but the story of an event, a hospitalization, a perception of the crucifix, and the way that perception changed as the healing process continued....
Read it if only for way it aptly describes the struggle to be a confessional Lutheran in the evangelical capital of the nation....
21 comments:
What a wonderful story.
Yes, when one ponders the crucifix deep in one's heart it gives a new meaning to human suffering, indeed the suffering of the entire broken creation.
The One on the cross understands it completely.
I regret in my early upbringing as a Lutheran I viewed the crucifix with very different eyes than I do now. No one in my Lutheran family every made the Sign of the Cross nor displayed a crucifix in their homes. It was deemed unLutheran.
An unfortunate legacy carried to these shores by many post-Reformation Lutherans.
Christine
Our Sunday Visitor? Oy.
The article does point out though something one rarely if ever hears -- the English word "excruciating" comes from the Latin, which means to crucify, and also to torture.
All the more remarkable in that crucifixes are a rather tidy, sanitised (literally and figuratively) representation of what actually happens in a crucifixion.
Happily the person herself seems not to have descended into the round of "The Catholic Church, The Catholic Church, The Catholic Church" that the comments quickly do.
There is nothing unLutheran whatever in a crucifix or a Sign of the Cross, which the Small Catechism includes in its Daily Prayers. The corrective for a "Protestant" influence is not a Catholic one.
And as to that, mileage varies, as they say. Years ago I was wheeled into the emergency room of a rather famous Catholic hospital. I remember being impressed and grateful as a sister (nursing Franciscans wore a white rather than brown habit, and they ain't nuns) crossed herself and prayed for me.
Now, you can hardly find a sister there, and if you do, you can't tell her from anyone else. This same world famous hospital, in whose chapel I served conventual Mass for years and where my Catholic dad was a physician for decades, sent him an ELCA female minister on his deathbed.
I forgot -- she had a damn collar on, hell yes!
My Lutheran brother-in-law recently underwent bypass surgery at a Catholic hospital run by the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph.
I was glad to see that crucifixes are still prominently displayed in the hospital. I was also pleased to hear the positive comments from my sister and her husband about his stay there.
There is nothing unLutheran whatever in a crucifix or a Sign of the Cross, which the Small Catechism includes in its Daily Prayers. The corrective for a "Protestant" influence is not a Catholic one.
My point was that after the Reformation too many Lutherans even in Europe lost sight of that. The only person I remember making the Sign of the Cross in my immediate family was my Catholic father.
It is also absurd to claim that Lutherans didn't carry over their art from their Catholic heritage, they most certainly did, especially in Europe.
None of the Lutheran churches in the U.S. I attended in my later adult years ever had a crucifix, in fact most of them looked more like Methodist churches with hardly any ecclesiastical art at all.
As for your claim that crucifixes are "santized" you are assuming that most people are not aware of what crucifixion actually entails. A rather broad assumption, I would say. Nevertheless, the writers of the Gospels simply state that He was crucified, leaving out all the gory details. Christians are free to portray the crucifixion in many ways.
By the way, does your congregation use a crucifix??
Christine
The big Roman Catholic Hospitals
in the Mid-West who are part of the
order of St. Francis have a crucifix
in their Operating Rooms. When you
go in for surgery it is possible for
the patient to see the crucifix
during the surgery. For example while
a cardiac stent is being placed
during angio-plasty. It is very
comforting.
Anonymous, I agree. When my husband was undergoing surgery at a local Catholic hospital the crucifixes gave me tremendous comfort, as did being able to attend Mass and receive Communion at the hospital chapel.
It is clear that seeing the "sanitized", as Terry puts it, crucifix was sufficient for the writer of the OSV article to view the symbol of Christ Crucified in a new and deeply meaningful way in light of her own suffering.
Christine
Hooray! Former Catholics sparring! I felt so inadequate as a former Baptist!
Just kidding. Christine, you make a good point. May I add that there are plenteous examples of artwork that are not 'sanitized' of blood and gore.
Terry, just why must we have that on our crucifixes in order to remember how gory it was? Do we need to smear that lasagna on our shirts in order to remember how good it was?
Sorry, I'm in an impish mood.
Seriously, the artists (whether of sculpted crucifixes or painted tryptychs, etc.) of the past and present have a struggle. Art is meant to inspire, it is there to appreciate (I mean that in the fullest definition). Sometimes life, history, and Truth are ugly. Do we portray it in it's ugliness to shock viewers? Do we "sanitize" it and hope viewers have enough knowledge to fill in the blanks? Do we make a cruifix from polished silver or gold with a magnificent corpus on it? Do we make a rough wood carving with a marred corpus on it?
You see both if you look long enough. Take a close look at the hands of Christ in the Grunewald Crucifixion (never mind the likely inaccuracy of the nail placement). They are tortured, spastic. Yet the entire painting is beautiful. Artists understand. Rembrandt didn't put himself at the crucifixion because he had an ego....
In the interest of full disclosure, Janis, I am a practicing Catholic. I was raised Lutheran (Lutheran mother, Catholic father), became Catholic in 1997, tried to return to the Lutheran Church two times and found that it wasn't working. My life as a Catholic had far more influence on me than I realized and at heart I was and am Catholic.
It sounds to me that you have found total fulfillment in your move from the Baptists to the LCMS and that is wonderful. The LCMS is blessed to have you.
Christine
Amazing. No wonder some go off the deep end about "no graven images". My point was not at all that crucifixes should not be "sanitised" or should be graphic (you'd have to start with the loincloth; crucifixions are done naked) but rather, that mild as they actually are they serve to impress the viewer with the sufferings of Christ.
Then again, it was at a Catholic retreat, and no not at die Abtei and yes officially sanctioned, that I learned that we need to get off this "Christ on the cross" fixation and also remember that he rose, and that without the Resurrection the sufferings and death are no more than any other altruistic hero, therefore, a cross, or one with a risen Christ on it.
I'm for crucifixes. I'm for the Sign of the Cross. Their legitimacy is clear from Lutheran sources; no need for RC ones. I'm not for making their use into some kind of law or sign of authenticity. No, my parish does not have one. Some other LCMS parishes do. Fine either way.
My point was not at all that crucifixes should not be "sanitised" or should be graphic (you'd have to start with the loincloth; crucifixions are done naked) but rather, that mild as they actually are they serve to impress the viewer with the sufferings of Christ.
Oh, let's go back and see just what it was you posted:
All the more remarkable in that crucifixes are a rather tidy, sanitised (literally and figuratively) representation of what actually happens in a crucifixion.
And where exactly did you state previously:
but rather, that mild as they actually are they serve to impress the viewer with the sufferings of Christ.
Seems to me that's a tailored response to the comments your post evoked.
My parish was just gifted by a generous parishioner with a magnificent crucifix centrally located over the tabernacle. It is replacing the former crucifix. The crucifix and tabernacle are the central locus of vision when one enters the church.
Power Point screens just don't have the same effect on me. They also tend to relegate hymnals to the book rack.
Christine
My apologies, Christine! I took you to be another Christine who comments regularly. And thank you for your kind comments; I truly have found the Gospel in the LCMS.
Terry, mea culpa for misinterpreting you, also! And yes, the loincloth would have to go for the sake of accuracy. I once had an argument online with a Reformed Baptist over nudity in art. One of the things that sent me out of there!
My apologies, Christine! I took you to be another Christine who comments regularly.
No apologies necessary, none at all. I probably am the same Christine, I returned to my Catholic parish last September, although I will always be interested in what happens in the Lutheran world because my family is made up of both.
Christine
Judas H Priest OSB, read the black, not the white. Although, "you said what we say it means not what you say it means" is a classic of RC argumentation, so I suppose the longer one inhales the Roman hallucinogens the harder it is not to take it in by osmosis.
All the more remarkable. To what does "all the more remarkable" refer? Its antecedent, which was that the article mentions the origin of "excruciating" in a Latin adjective for crucifixion, and that by way of referencing the reality of Christ's suffering in which the author relates her coming to see that in the crucifix. So, the story is already remarkable, and all the more remarkable in that even in the mild representations we see in crucifixes, the literally excruciating reality can be impressed on the viewer.
And, no problem, Janis. I like impish Lutherans! Hope to be one myself someday!
I hope to be inhaling those hallucinogens until I can't inhale any more.
the story is already remarkable, and all the more remarkable in that even in the mild representations we see in crucifixes, the literally excruciating reality can be impressed on the viewer.
Put that way, the context as a whole sounds a lot more logical to me.
I suspect this lady won't be the last Baptist, etc., to see a crucifix in this new way.
As for you becoming "impish", Gott hilf uns.
Christine
Well, although the case seems acute but not terminal at this point, nicht sorgen, you appear to be well on your way.
Gott sei dank!
At any rate, I was trying to picture what it would mean to be an impish curmudgeon.
An entirely new mode of being :)
Christine
Note to innocent bystanders: not to worry, exchanges like the above between die Christine and me are sort of like watching the WWE, looks fierce but nobody's really getting hurt here. You might pull up an online German dictionary though as things will lapse back and forth here and there.
Danke, Terry!
It all actually goes back to my deep dismay at Terry writing at the Past Elder blogspot implying that I might by flying my broom to Blocksberg for Walpurgisnacht (let the reader understand).
Sorry, can't help it, I'm not only German but Bavarian, a double burden.
Terry, you are hereby sentenced to wear the ugliest, most uncomfortable hairshirt for a fortnight in the finest monastic tradition.
Also sprach die Christine!
And you all thought the battles of the Reformation were over, hah!
Looks like I'll have to create a new gmail address since my prior one got the ax.
Christine
Well, at least I know now that my Christmas e-card got returned because of system reasons rather than that you were offgepissed and blocked me.
Bystanders: I am not German at all, I just play one in LCMS. I did however grow up in MN, where at the time pretty much everybody was Lutheran, and went to university in a Bavarian settled area, German very much spoken in those days though no longer in the classroom, the school and abbey with roots back to Kloster Metten and originally sponsored by money from King Ludwig himself.
Aber nein! I missed your Christmas e-card??? I am ausgefreaked! Ja, mit brennender sorge I must relate that my gmail ist kaput, I need to create a new one which I will do shortly.
I need to revisit Past Elder, after all, to see what kinds of outrageous things are you are writing about Holy Mother Church so I can sputter, fume and exude smoke from my ears (no, no, that's NOT how they announce a papal election)!
I am sorry to have missed your Christmas e-Card.
To my fellow commenters here, Terry is very well versed in German.
And we have here, publicly agreed that both Lutherans and Catholics value crucifixes.
Let a Te Deum resound!!
Christine
I have nothing outrageous to say about Holy Mother Church. About the RCC, a distinct entity from Holy Mother Church, well ...
I think we not only agree that we value crucifixes, but that they ought to be valued.
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