The Fresco Painter

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While he was painting frescoes in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, the artist James Thornhill became so excited about his fresco that he stepped back to see it better and was unaware he was about to fall over the edge of the scaffolding.

A horrified assistant understood that crying out to him would have only hastened the disaster. Without thinking twice, he dipped a brush in paint and hurled it at the middle of the fresco. The master, appalled, sprang forward. His work was damaged, but he was saved.

Raniero Cantalamessa, an Italian Franciscan friar, told this story about the 18^th century painter in his homily during Good Friday services at the Vatican.

His point: Thornhill’s experience could be similar to ours during the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m writing “could be” because most of us will probably focus on the risks of the disease, which are formidable, or the economic disaster it appears to be causing, and not on the opportunity it provides in the search for God.

But a clarification about the story.

God Our Ally

“…We need to be careful not to be deceived. God is not the one who hurled the brush at the sparkling fresco of our technological society. God is our ally, not the ally of the virus!”

If it were God’s punishment, Cantalamessa went on, how would you explain why it strikes the good and bad equally and why the poor – for whom God has a special affection – suffer the worst consequences? No, God simply allows nature and human freedom to take its course, a course about which most of us are ambivalent. We like the “freedom” part, but not when we suffer from it.

But like the painter’s assistant’s slap of the paint brush on the fresco, Cantalamessa points out, the pandemic could have a saving grace. It presents opportunities.

Raniero Cantalamessa

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I don’t want to continue with this blog without acknowledging the suffering the pandemic has brought to thousands of people, including the victims and their families and all the people directly or indirectly affected. And that includes people whose businesses have closed or are at risk, and all the people who have lost jobs, and the health insurance that comes with it.

Then there’s the anxiety that many of us feel.

“Sometimes, the anxiety surrounding the publicity is as contagious as the virus itself,” says a reflection on the web site of the Irish Jesuits called Sacred Space (www.sacredspace.ie), “spreading fear and nervousness among the community. In the developed world, in particular, we are in a state of shock. In many ways, we have come to believe that we are in control of our lives, that we have a cure for every disease, that we can fend off all the dangers that threaten our securities.

“We have built up solid walls to protect us against every unwanted guest, but now our walls have been breached, and the unwanted guest is here. Our securities no longer seem so secure, something in our world is out of our control, and many don’t know where to turn.

“It’s a reminder to us that we are never in total control of our lives, that we can never eliminate every misfortune or heal every illness. Ultimately, our trust has to be in something more solid than we can ever find here on earth. Ultimately, God alone is our security.”

False Sense of Control

This brings to mind the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible’s Book of Genesis. Many undoubtedly believe it’s a useless tale from a biblical author who is ignorant of modern science and therefore not worthy of our attention. But this tale is useful because it’s about this false sense of control to which we cling, not about any “apple” that was eaten.

The only response possible to the pandemic for people searching for God is empathy and compassion for others and the realization that the pandemic will affect all of us, one way or another, and to use the opportunity to come closer to God.

The fresco painter didn’t fall from the scaffolding, and neither will we if we trust in the object of our search.