Saying Grace
Cornelis Pietersz Bega, 1663
Some thoughts on this week’s bulletin art
On Sunday, we heard one of the best known and most loved sections of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.“
When I talked about this section in my Lenten video series on Romans, I mentioned that this reading was one of the readings at our wedding. Michael and I chose the reading because we were aware of the fact that marriage, though a joy and a gift from God, was going to be work and that we needed to be reminded that Christ’s love transcends anything we can throw at it (or each other).
In our Sunday bulletin art, we see Dutch Golden Age painter Cornelis Pietersz Bega attack it in a different way. Bega paints an elderly man and a younger woman, peasants by their dress and amenities, surrounded by the detritus of everyday living. A coal stove heats their room as they are about to eat a broth soup. What does he picture them doing? Saying Grace.
The Reijksmuseum (where this piece is housed) website describes it thus: "Seated at a table in a run-down interior, an elderly man and a young woman pray before their meal. The painting contains a lesson that many Dutch Protestants learned at their mother’s knee: whether you are rich or poor, sick or healthy, be grateful for all you have, for it is a gift from God.”
In other words, nothing can separate us from the love of God and thus we have an obligation to make sure that nothing separates God from the love of us. Each of us imagines that we don’t have enough, in some way, but we are incomparably blessed by a God who loves and cares for us… offering thanks to God is our primary prayer.
=Fr. Patrick
