Years ago, I was tutoring a tweenie in religion in her home. Her mother was home schooling. WE did a section on Our Lady and I told her about the customs of the Jewish women at the time of Christ. We talked about the Circumcision of Christ as part of the Presentation of the Temple. We discussed the two Passovers in John. She was ahead of most children her age and loved Bible History.
After one class, the mother of the house came to me and told me I was fired as a tutor. I was shocked at the abruptness of the announcement. She told me that I had taught her daughter that Jesus and Mary were Jews. The woman's husband was racist and he never wanted his daughter to discuss Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the apostles as being Jewish.
I left with a sad heart. I had known the mother for years, but I never knew her husband's deep seated antisemitism until then. The denial of the truth won the day.
Sadly, some of the new paintings used for the mysteries on EWTN have dropped the Jewishness of both Jesus and Mary. I do not understand this.
Because of time, I have only two more criticisms. There may be cause for more, but I can only state these two today.
One of the most disturbing image is that of Christ is shown "crawling" out of the tomb at the Resurrection in that Glorious Mystery in a modern depiction. The artist has made no attempt to understand or portray a glorified body. In fact, the body is not beautiful, but contorted, ugly. The body reminds one of paintings of Sisyphus, not Christ. All art should be in context, the cultural context of centuries of art to some extent. Some of the new art reveals ignorance of Catholic symbolism and pagan symbolism. Distortion is not from God, as it purposefully deceives. I do not think the artists I am criticizing want to deceive, but they do distort.
Now, the revelation of the glorified body is hard for us to understand, but we must take St. Paul's words on the glorification of the body, and the fact that the disciples did not recognize Christ on the road to Emmaus until the breaking of the bread.
Christ is not to be depicted merely as some superhero who has overcome a fight, but as far as possible, as the God-Man in a glorified body; yes, with the scars of the Crucifixion, but not as a human looks normally. The Transfiguration scared the apostles and that episode prefigured the Resurrection.
I paint and some of the artists who are doing the new interpretations have great talent, but some do not understand Christ or Christology.
Here are some passages from the greatest Doctor of the Church, Thomas Aquinas:
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4054.htm
But Christ's body after the Resurrection was truly made up of elements, and had tangible qualities such as the nature of a human body requires, and therefore it could naturally be handled; and if it had nothing beyond the nature of a human body, it would likewise be corruptible. But it had something else which made it incorruptible, and this was not the nature of a heavenly body, as some maintain, and into which we shall make fuller inquiry later (XP, 82, 1), but it was glory flowing from a beatified soul: because, as Augustine says (Ep. ad Dioscor. cxviii): "God made the soul of such powerful nature,
that from its fullest beatitude the fulness of health overflows into
the body, that is, the vigor of incorruption." And therefore Gregory says (Hom. in Evang. xxvi): "Christ's body is shown to be of the same nature, but of different glory, after the Resurrection."
Reply to Objection 3. As Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiii): "After the Resurrection, our Saviour in spiritual but true flesh partook of meat with the disciples, not from need of food, but because it lay in His power." For as Bede says on Luke 24:41:
"The thirsty earth sucks in the water, and the sun's burning ray
absorbs it; the former from need, the latter by its power." Hence after
the Resurrection He ate, "not as needing food, but in order thus to show the nature of His risen body." Nor does it follow that His was an animal body that stands in need of food.
And
I answer that, Christ's was a glorified body in His Resurrection, and this is evident from three reasons. First of all, because His Resurrection was the exemplar and the cause of ours, as is stated in 1 Corinthians 15:43. But in the resurrection the saints will have glorified bodies, as is written in the same place: "It is sown in dishonor, it shall rise in glory." Hence, since the cause is mightier than the effect, and the exemplar than the exemplate; much more glorious, then, was the body of Christ in His Resurrection. Secondly, because He merited the glory of His Resurrection by the lowliness of His Passion. Hence He said (John 12:27): "Now is My soul troubled," which refers to the Passion; and later He adds: "Father, glorify Thy name," whereby He asks for the glory of the Resurrection. Thirdly, because as stated above (Question 34, Article 4), Christ's soul was glorified from the instant of His conception by perfect fruition of the Godhead. But, as stated above (14, 1, ad 2), it was owing to the Divine economy that the glory did not pass from His soul to His body, in order that by the Passion He might accomplish the mystery of our redemption. Consequently, when this mystery of Christ's Passion and death was finished, straightway the soul communicated its glory to the risen body in the Resurrection; and so that body was made glorious.
Reply to Objection 1. Whatever is received within a subject is received according to the subject's capacity. Therefore, since glory flows from the soul into the body, it follows that, as Augustine says (Ep. ad Dioscor. cxviii), the brightness or splendor of a glorified body is after the manner of natural color in the human
body; just as variously colored glass derives its splendor from the
sun's radiance, according to the mode of the color. But as it lies within the power of a glorified man whether his body be seen or not, as stated above (1, ad 2),
so is it in his power whether its splendor be seen or not. Accordingly
it can be seen in its color without its brightness. And it was in this
way that Christ's body appeared to the disciples after the Resurrection.
To not try and show Christ in the splendor of glory is to misrepresent the Resurrection. That event was not a "resuscitation" but a resurrection.
I shall continue with the second one in the next post...
