Tasters from the King's Table

You Don't Dare, Painters

"You are the most beautiful of the children of men" (Psalm 45:2a)

The most sublime figure never seen, the Man of antonomasia has been time and again the object of inspiration for painters of varied styles, and with different purposes and fortune.

There are symbolic, objective and realist Christs, and others stylized almost like sights. There are Byzantines, there are romantics. They correspond to the ideal of an epoch, or a narrow, particular vision.

Lately, there are also, to the measure of the time, delicate and feminine "unisex" figures of strange taste, true "models" of ambiguous beauty, inspired by minds that know deviated men of today, but that don't know the Christ of God.

Were any of them within God's secret so that He could reveal Christ to them? Were some of them in Christ's agonies, so that they might come out with a true vision? Before using their paintbrushes, did they stop to take the sandals off their feet and to consult God about what they planned to do? Did they fear to take the figure of God Himself, God incarnate, the god of Power, Wisdom and Glory to the canvas?

No, without a doubt, none were within the secret, nor did they fear, nor did they take off their sandals, nor did they request permission. But in their ignorance, in their pretense, they dared. And their paintbrushes were daubed for judgment.

You don't dare, painters, to capture in that coarse cloth the indescribable face of He whom we love without having seen. Of Him in whom believing, without seeing, we are filled with indescribable and glorious joy.

You dare us, painters, to profane His image that only the Holy Spirit is given to engrave in the most intimate pleats of the hearts of His chosen ones.

You dare us, painters, to poke into the secrets of God, and to trample underfoot what the Father has wanted to hide. His Christ is still hidden from profane eyes, so that those that really want to know him will look for him with the eyes of the spirit, in the Father's heart; the only place where they will truly find him.

You dare us, painters, that your paintbrushes should, after other figures had been impiously embezzled, be used in painting the very face of God.

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