You know what I did to restore myself
after the demands of the Christmas season?
I looked at faces. Well, that’s
not all. First, I slept. Only thus refreshed did I go into the city
with Fr. Nick for a New York Philharmonic concert. (Shostakovich – a personal favorite. Excellent.)
That was very restorative; I hadn’t been to the symphony in ages.
Later, it was on to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, and not just to wander around, for I knew what I wanted to see:
the Spaniards. Working my way toward
Velasquéz, Murillo, and Zurbarán, I had to ask an usher where they were. He was very helpful, even concerned. After I spent over an hour walking three
rooms, he found me to tell me about another part of the museum that would have
things I would enjoy.
Saint John in the ecstasy of
Revelation; a cardinal with round glasses and a beard like my dad’s; Jesus
carrying his cross, raising his eyes to heaven.
All of these El Greco, “the Greek” who painted in Spain, revealed in a
style that could be modern, but is timeless.
He and several others of diverse ages
and places painted Saint Jerome. Piero
della Francesca showed the ascetic holy man’s sharp edge in the eyes he levels
on a supplicant, the painting’s donor. How
could a man so prickly also be holy?
Bronzino, the Florentine, portrays a
handsome young nobleman is black silks.
Staring confidently at the viewer, his direct gaze disguises his
wandering wall-eye. Erasmus, that most Renaissance
of Renaissance men, is every bit the match, intellectual and personal, of his
friend and correspondent Saint Thomas More, even though the same painter, Hans
Holbein the Younger, gave him a smaller and sketchier portrait.
In wood as well as oils, every face
reveals a life and character. A bishop
raising his hand while raising a point; one of the Magi, focused and impatient,
looks more like the Habsburg heir apparent who was his imperial inspiration
than he does an adoring royal. Those
anonymous Germans who carved wood seven and eight centuries ago knew the contours
of life!
There is nothing in nature or manufacture
more beautiful, more powerful, more revelatory, or more arresting than the
human face. True art plumbs its depths
and reveals its reality, an exploration that will never be completed.
So God
created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and
female he created them. (Gen 1:27) He is
the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation. (Col 1:15) Just as we have borne the image of the man of
dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Cor 15:49) And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,
full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son
from the Father. (Jn 1:14)
Even amidst the sought and unsought
anonymity of the big city, where eyes are averted and faces downcast on
sidewalks and subways, when I am wearing my priest’s collar, people make eye
contact with me. Business-people, laborers,
waiters, ushers, cops, train conductors, tourists, and natives; it’s as if they
know that it’s okay if their eyes meet mine.
Even in New York City, when you look into
people’s faces, you can see how they resemble God.
Monsignor Smith
