The Pope and the Artist, on Suffering and Being Human

What makes a person truly human? How does one measure the humanity of a society or culture?

Reading Pope Benedict XVI's recent encyclical Spe Salvi, I found a somewhat startling answer. For the Holy Father, the humanity of an individual or of a society is gauged by their response to suffering. "The true measure of humanity is essentially determined in relationship to suffering. . ." (38)

If a society closes its heart to those suffer and does nothing to help them, then it is "a cruel and inhuman society." (38) That is clear. But, the Pope goes on to say that when people seek to escape from suffering in their own lives, "when we attempt to avoid suffering by avoiding everything that might involve hurt," (37) when we choose convenience and comfort because being persons committed to truth, justice and love involves pain, then we become less than human too. "To suffer with the other and for others; to suffer for the sake of truth and justice; to suffer out of love . . . --these are fundamental elements of humanity, and to abandon them would destroy man himself." (39)

The Holy Father's insights are movingly depicted for me by two stations in Sieger Koeder's magnificent Stations of the Cross.

Koeder's second station depict a pair of hands holding a plank of wood that will eventually be the cross beam. When I contemplate these hands, I see in them weariness and exhaustion. After all, Jesus has already gone through arrest, a sleepless night of torture, and public judgment. The fingers, on one hand slightly splayed, hold the wooden beam but seem without strength to grip or clutch. Their uneven position, one hand higher than the other, suggests that the man holding it is not standing erect, but bent over or bowed down, perhaps using the cross beam as a support. There are traces of scars on the forearms and a hint of blood red towards the elbows, probably the edges of his sleeves, but suggestive too of what is to come.

Koeder has entitled this second station, simply, "Embrace." Jesus, in all his weariness, accepts suffering, embraces the cross, out of love.

Koeder's fourth station shows only hands again. But instead of the hands of one
person alone, we see hand touching hand on the wood of the cross. With reverent discretion, Koeder depicts Jesus' encounter with his mother on the road to Calvary. Jesus wears a blood red robe, and the position of his hands, one hand much higher than the other, once again conveys disorientation and weariness, suggests Jesus is clutching the wooden beam just to be able to stand. Mary is wearing a robe of spring green, a color suggesting freshness and life. One of her hands is lightly placed over Jesus'; the other is hidden, perhaps stroking Jesus' back, or gently touching his face. How they look at each other, what they say, what depth of grief or faith this encounter involves, is hidden from our view by Koeder's delicacy, as an exchange too private, too intimate to expose.

But Mary's hand upon Jesus' is enough. Koeder entitles his painting, "No words." It powerfully conveys the meaning of compassion: the capacity, deeper than easy or cheapwords of comfort, to share another's pain and in so doing, ease it. It illustrates Pope Benedict's explanation of the beautiful word "consolation," in Latin, "con-solatio": "It suggests being with the other in his solitude, so it ceases to be solitude." (38)

I think Koeder has purposely not shown any faces in these paintings. Jesus' refusal to run away from suffering and Mary's compassionate sharing of Jesus' pain become, not singular events that happened to two people two thousand years ago, but invitations to all people to the courage and compassion that alone can make us truly human. These are not just the hands of Jesus and Mary. They might, if we choose, be our hands.

Part of me resists Benedict's words and Koeder's images. I can get so tired that I want to run away from the suffering my life seems to involve. They are not great sufferings, to be sure; but sometimes the volume and frequency of aggravations and burdens, the load of responsibilities, seem a bit much. I can get so tired sometimes that I want to shut out all those who come to me with their pain and confusion and anger, and say, "Basta! Enough!Find someone else!"


My resistance leads me to a third painting. Koeder's fifth station, entitled "Unison," shows two men, Symon of Cyrene and Jesus of Nazareth, with one hand each holding up a single cross beam, and the other hand around the other's waist.

The question is: what will make it possible for me to accept suffering, my own or that of another? Koeder's painting illustrates beautifully the teaching of Pope Benedict. We can bear suffering with courage and hope because "in all human suffering we are joined by one who experiences and carries that suffering with us; hence con-solatio is present in all human suffering, the consolation of God's compassionate love--and so the star of hope rises." (39)

In this station, I am led to see that it is perhaps not so much Simon who is helping Jesus carry his cross, but Jesus who bears Simon's cross with him.

This Lent, the words of the Pope and the images of the Artist, invite me to prayer, and, despite my resistances, to deeper humanity.