Saturday, April 12
A Murdered Jew, Timothy Matthew Collins (2019).
“If a man despises the Jews on principle, he will eventually also despise the Jew Jesus Christ, the Son of the eternal God.” — Gregory Baum, Progress and Perspectives: The Catholic Quest for Christian Unity (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1962), 206.
Years ago, I was the lucky recipient of a mixed media piece created by my dear friend (and former CAC president) Tim Collins. He and his wife Juliana were relocating to her native Singapore, and he had art to spare. It hangs in my apartment now.
Tim’s website contains the above epigraph from Gregory Baum, which gives greater context to his artwork. It’s a challenging piece to contemplate.
In the piece, Jesus is standing in a pool of blood, at a distance from what appears to be a concentration camp. His face is smudged, his body blurred, as though he has emerged from a terrible fire. From the ground shoot up harsh trees and branches, crafted from quotes by Christian philosophers meditating on the very existence of the Jewish people.
It may surprise you to learn that in years past, Catholics prayed during the Good Friday liturgy for the “perfidious”—meaning, deceitful and untrustworthy—“Jews.” This isn’t a phrase clumsily coined by a random pastor—this is the actual translated text of the Latin missal from the previous century. It did not change until the Second Vatican Council.
As Catholics, we look forward to the thoughtful pace and rigor of Lent and the joy of Easter, but these seasons have led to frightening times for our Jewish brothers and sisters. The language of our liturgy pre-Vatican II seemed to tolerate—even encourage—violence against Jews by Christians who gleefully tried to recreate the terrible events of Good Friday.
Antisemitism is woven into our Christian history, and as Tim’s artwork shows so beautifully, it infiltrates and stains the very roots of our faith tradition. As Catholics we must reckon with this painful truth, especially during Lent, when the readings feature Christ being questioned and handed over to Pilate by the local Jewish authorities of the day.
It is not enough to simply shake our heads and tut at swastika graffiti or Nazi salutes when we see them in public. We must forcefully denounce antisemitism and hatred, and render it unwelcome in our homes and unthinkable in our hearts. For whoever hates the Jewish people—both those who lived during the time of Jesus and those abiding among us as our friends and neighbors today—hates Christ.
Jesus came into the world as a symbol of God’s love for all humanity. This Lent, may we see Christ’s face in all our neighbors—Jew or Greek, male or female, enslaved or free—and offer our love unconditionally.
Laura Pittenger is a NYC-based novelist, playwright, and director, specializing in dark comedies which challenge the body, heart and soul. She is the treasurer of the Catholic Artist Connection.
You can find out more about her here.