This morning in his homily Father M gave a beautiful explication of the Divine Mercy image. He explained it to the children, as we go to the “family Mass” but really it was for all of us. It was nothing knew to me and yet I had tears in my eyes.
I’ve been thinking again about this post from last September, about the word eleison: “Eleison literally translates into an image of one pouring oil on a wound…. When we pray Kyrie elesion me, we are asking God to pour His healing Grace on our wounds and heal us. We are asking God to make us whole.”
How powerful it has been for me in recent months to contemplate that image of God’s mercy as a healing balm rather than a sort of judicial reprieve. It’s become a touchstone for me in times of trouble. It is so different to plead for mercy when I understand that what I am asking for is for Christ the Physician to come and heal me rather than for Christ the Judge to remit my sentence.
I wonder too if the problem of bad art doesn’t have something to do with fear of offending someone.
When I look at the beautiful churches you have in the United States I marvel to hear that they were built with the pennies of the poor. Today Catholics have never been richer and many churches resemble scout halls.
I just love the girls’ Easter dresses and Ben’s Easter undress. lol
Sharon, We’ve got our share of ugly scout hall churches too. My parent’s church is pretty hideous. I’ve always thought it looks like a gymnasium with a few abstract stained glass windows thrown in. In fact almost everything built after the 1950s is pretty bad, with a few exceptions. But our parish church in Salem was one of those built with the pennies of poor Irish immigrants and it is really a lovely building, built with much love.
The Easter dresses were a generous gift from my mother-in-law. She’s always so good at making sure the kids have new dresses for Christmas and Easter and they usually match. I’m blessed because I’m sure that while I’d intend to get them something nice, I’d always forget and leave it to the last minute and we’d have to settle with some old thing I pulled out of a drawer.