“What Are the Instruments of Good Works . . .
47. To keep death daily before one’s eyes.”
—St. Benedict’s Rule for Monasteries
Today is Ash Wednesday.
When I find myself at church in a few hours, I will let a priest or a deacon or a lay minister put ashes in the sign of the cross on my forehead. They will tell me:
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Repent and believe the Gospel.
If there’s one day out of the year when we’re called to remember our mortality, it’s today.
But among his “instruments of good works,” St. Benedict instructed the monks of his community to “keep death daily before [their] eyes.” Not just one day a year, but every single day.
His counsel makes me ask: How often have I given a thought to my own death in, say, the past week?
In the past year?
We’re often forgetful of death. Each year, we need the help of Lent to remind us.
The works of twentieth-century Benedictine priest and painter Dom Gregory de Wit, OSB can also help us face our death. Even in the middle of our busy jobs and obligations, we can find time to let meditation on death do its work in us—and help us cling more closely to the life that only Jesus brings.
[Thanks for reading. This post continues our series Monastic Wisdom for the Marketplace. Check out our other posts on faith and work and spiritual growth for more resources on living an integrated Christian life. Subscribe to get the next post in the series in your inbox.]
Avoiding Death Reminders
Life is sprinkled with reminders of death: Whenever our bodies show their frailty in sickness or injury, when we read of death in the news or when it strikes closer to home, when we attend a funeral or spend time with the elderly.
For most of human history, death has been unavoidable; almost everyone had regular contact with children and adults who died. In the developed world, not only do we experience less bereavement than earlier generations or more vulnerable populations, but in our cultural context we are also skilled at avoiding even the subject of death.
I attended a philanthropy training recently that touched on soliciting estate gifts. One of the slides counseled us to “avoid using death reminders” in conversations with prospective donors. Better to speak of “smart ways to give” and “estate planning.” As a matter of tact, this seems wise. But it’s also an expression of our discomfort with death. We are beholden to euphemisms; we buy “life insurance” and say that so-and-so “passed away.”
When we skirt around an issue in our speech, it’s usually a sign that we are unwilling to face it honestly. But that is precisely what Jesus and his church invite us to do, especially during the season of Lent: To face death head-on, with no side-stepping or wishful thinking. Lent tells us, in so many words, “You will die.”
If you look at the photo at the top of this post, you’ll see that Dom Gregory de Wit took the reminders of the church calendar and of the Benedictine order to heart. In both the photo and his self-portrait, he wears a calm smile even while the Grip Reaper sneaks up on him. How does he face death so unflinchingly? In this painting and in his whole body of work, we see that his confidence comes from setting his eyes on the cross of Christ. His art helps us do the same.
An Unapologetic Artist
Dom Gregory was born Johannes Aloysius de Wit in the Netherlands and entered the Benedictine order in his mid-twenties, taking the name Gregory from pope and monk Gregory the Great. Despite this auspicious namesake—and, by all accounts, a healthy dose of personal ambition to go with it— de Wit’s personality and work is described as “infamous” rather than “famous” by his biographer Edward Begnaud, due to his reputation for controversy.
As described in David Michael Warren’s documentary Hand of the Master, de Wit once painted two donkeys on the refectory (dining room) ceiling directly above the seats of a couple monks he sincerely disliked, pun intended. On another occasion, he got in trouble for how much leg he painted the woman at the well as showing off during her encounter with Jesus. His Christ Pantocrator above the altar of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana is often referred to as the “big scary Jesus.”
What all these anecdotes have in common is de Wit’s unapologetic approach to his subject matter. If a couple of monks are making asses of themselves, he paints them that way. If a woman in a Bible story has a complex sexual history, he paints her that way. If Jesus is the great and terrifying Lord of Hosts, he paints him that way.
Blessed Directness
This directness is a spiritual help to those of us who have trouble facing death honestly. Consider de Wit’s Crucifix at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Baton Rouge.
This is an icon of suffering. Jesus is emaciated. His mouth is drawn in a taut grimace of pain. Real nails pierce his outstretched hands and feet. But what strikes me the most is his gaze. Jesus is looking straight ahead, unflinchingly. He is looking at me.
This is a work of gentle confrontation. Jesus’ arms are stretched wide as he offers himself for the world, and for me. This is the gift of God. At the same time, his steady gaze asks me to enter into his sacrifice. This death is my destination, too, if I am this man’s disciple.
There is no sentimentality or beating around the bush here. De Wit reminds us that the way of Jesus is the way of the cross, of laying down our lives for others in love as he did.
Nothing Without Jesus
Jesus holds our gaze with a markedly different expression in de Wit’s I Am the True Vine.
In the Hand of the Master documentary, Edward Begnaud explains that this painting was a functional artwork in the life of Saint Joseph Abbey in St. Benedict, Louisiana. Notice the small holes at the edges of the piece. The background behind Jesus is in fact a floor plan of the Abbey Church, with each hole marking a location for prayer at or near one of the side chapels. Each monk was represented by a distinct peg, and the Prior would place the pegs to assign the monks locations for daily private prayer.
Here, Jesus looks at us with gentle and joyful invitation. As the monks approached the painting to see where they were each assigned that day, they were also welcome to see Jesus as the source of their prayer.
In an address to the Abbey community, de Wit draws on several passages from the Gospel of John to explain his paintings, including Jesus’ Upper Room Discourse on the night of the Last Supper, recorded in John 13-17. In that passage, we find the source text for this work: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. . . . I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:1,5 NIV).
Apart from me you can do nothing. This stark verdict on our own powers echoes the Bible’s wisdom literature, with its bleak view of personal achievement given the finality of death. The writer of Ecclesiastes bemoans his fate:
I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to my successor, and who knows whether he will be wise or foolish? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.
Ecclesiastes 2:18-19, NRSVue
Everyone comes naked from their mother’s womb,
and as everyone comes, so they depart.
They take nothing from their toil
that they can carry in their hands.
Ecclesiastes 5:15 NIV
Jesus’ invitation to us is joyful, because he gives us life. But to receive this life we must surrender our own claims to any lasting legacy apart from him. Without his gift of life, death really does have the final word over all our ambitions and accomplishments, over every day of work and our whole career, over any memory of our life or what it meant. We can do nothing that truly lasts without Jesus.
Christ the Apple Tree
A third image of Christ with outstretched arms comes to us in de Wit’s Christ the Apple Tree:
Painted for St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana, this painting includes five monks who worship Jesus at the moment of his sacrifice. Here, Jesus’ eyes are downcast. He has already breathed his last.
And yet, out of this death comes beautiful, colorful life. Here, instead of nails, the stems of the apples extend out from Jesus’ wounds. The food and life that will sustain the monastic community springs from Jesus’ offering of himself on the cross.
Although the metaphor of Christ as apple tree had been explored in earlier centuries, de Wit’s contribution here is to situate the monks and Jesus right in the Midwestern setting of the Archabbey itself. It’s not hard to imagine apples that look just like that growing in Indiana. Jesus’ death meets us right where we are: In our work, in our chores, in our families and communities.
As disciples of Jesus, our meditation on our own mortality is always completed by our meditation on Jesus’ death on the cross. Jesus laid down his life for us so that we might do the same—and yet we know that when we do, we receive a life that defeats death itself. What we do by God’s grace in our everyday work and lives does last into eternity, if and only if it is filled with the life-giving love of Jesus the Crucified.
In his later address to the Saint Joseph Abbey community, de Wit asked about life in Christ: “How will you give it, later on, to people if you have it not yourself, if you have not lived it?”
That is a question for us to carry into a holy Lent this year. We remember the Apostle Paul’s promise, “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him” (Romans 6:8 NIV). It is this life of Jesus in us that lets us face death unflinchingly.
Series photo by Bs0u10e01 on Wikimedia Commons, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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