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Ingratitude des Hommes…. [Man’s ingratitude….]
Anonymous; L. Turgis Publishers, Paris (publisher)
ca. 1850
steel engraving, hand-painted with water colors
11.9 x 7.9 cm
credit: From the collection and courtesy of Pierluigi Stradella
THUNDERBOLTS
“To pray for the soul in mortal sin is a far more
profitable form of almsgiving that it would be to help a Christian whom
we see with hands strongly fettered behind his back, tied to a post,
and dying of hunger.”
—Teresa of Avila, El Castillo (The
Interior of the Castle)
Can this be true? No heretic, beatified
in 1614 and canonized in 1622, Teresa of Avila was the first woman named
a Doctor of the Church, along with Catherine of Siena, in 1970.
You rise before the sun appears. It will take two days to walk from
your home in the narrow valley to your brother's farm in the highlands.
The road winds through fields of corn before dipping down to bottom
lands where tobacco grows. Five hours later you reach the mouth of the
long twisting valley, opening onto the wide river and the small village
where you occasionally buy supplies.
A small wiry black and white dog snarls and lunges at you from behind
a low, unpainted picket fence. As you enter the square in the center
of the village, you greet an old woman leading a small child by the
hand. A two-tiered fountain sparkles in the noon sunlight.
At the far side of the square stands a thick prisoner post. A man in
his twenties, his hands fettered behind his back, is tied to the pole.
A placard hung around his neck reads "Murderer." He sprawls
on his side, panting his swollen tongue protruding between cracked lips.
As you draw near, he motions weakly with his head toward the fountain
and implores you with his eyes, sticky with pus.
Following the admonishment of Saint Teresa of Avila, you kneel before
him and pray fervidly for his deliverance from sin, and afterward proceed
on your journey, leaving him dying in the midday heat.
And Nietzsche railed against Christianity for its pity toward the weak.
This mid-19th century holy card pictures a crucified Jesus
in the tomb wrapped in linen cloth. His pose vaguely echoes Jacques-Louis
David’s The Death of Marat. Emblazoned on his breast is
the symbol of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Imagine that this is not a symbol, but a real heart. A
pulsing fist-size muscle that has been rent by a Roman spear. Blood
gushes out from the deadly wound. Remember the pain of a single thorn.
Now imagine the pain from a crown of sharp thorns wrapped around your
wounded heart. Imagine a cross thrust into your heart as searing flames
consume it.
Nietzsche thirsted for thunderbolts.
Behold the Sacred Heart of Jesus!
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