By JOE SIXPACK
This week I’d like to tell you the story of two painters. The first story is one I couldn’t verify for veracity, but it is a great story nonetheless. The second story is certainly a true one of Leonardo da Vinci. Both stories apply well to this week’s topic.
There was once a French artist who had been commissioned to paint a picture of the crucifixion for the Cathedral of Notre Dame. He spent more than a year working on the painting. He hired a poor young French woman from the streets to pose as the figure of Mary Magdalene. When she came to the studio the first time, the still unfinished painting caught her eye and her fancy.
She was so interested and asked so many questions that the painter found it impossible to paint her into the scene. She kept asking question after question: “Who is He? What has He done? Why does He have to suffer so? Why did they nail Him to a cross?”
Realizing that he couldn’t go on until the girl knew the entire story, he said, “I’ll tell you the whole story, but then you must promise to stop talking and look at me while I’m trying to paint.”
As briefly as possible he told her the story of the crucifixion. She hung on every word, and when he finished, she asked in tears, “He do that for you? And did He do that for me?”
“Yes,” replied the painter, “He did it for you and me, and for all of us, because we have all committed sin.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “If He’s done that for me, I always want to love Him. And how you must love Him, because you’ve known the story for so long!”
Long after she left, the girl’s words continued to ring in his ears, “How you must love Him, because you have known the story for so long.” For the first time in his life he realized how terrible sin really is and how great is the love of the Redeemer.
This first story of the unnamed artist reminds us that we’ve all committed actual sin. Jesus died because He loves us, and He doesn’t want us to suffer the consequences of our sins. Yet we don’t love Him nearly enough for the length of time we’ve known the story. How we should hate every willful thought, desire, word, action, or omission forbidden by the laws of God! How deeply we should love Jesus in return for what He has done for us!
There are countless stories of men who went to war and threw themselves on live grenades to save their comrades in arms, or otherwise sacrificed their lives to save the lives of their buddies. A survivor returns home with a deep love and devotion to the fallen hero, spending the rest of his life feeling guilty for having returned to loved ones when the man who gave his life for him couldn’t do the same.
If veteran soldiers can feel that way about the sacrifice of a mere man, why is it we can’t feel that way about Christ’s sacrifice for us? Look at the crucifix! The young woman in this story reminds us of how we should feel about Jesus’ sacrifice for us! Yet we take Him for granted nearly every day of our lives.
We’re all familiar with Leonardo da Vinci’s great painting called The Last Supper. Da Vinci spent years painting this most revered work of art. He used a man named Pietro Bandinelli as his model for Christ. He’d found Bandinelli in the choir of the cathedral of Milan. Da Vinci admired the young man’s face because of its beauty, innocence, and kindness, all of which came from Bandinelli’s deeply religious and noble character. The image of Jesus in The Last Supper is a masterpiece.
Years after painting Jesus, when he was nearly finished with the painting, Da Vinci had but one character left to paint — Judas Iscariot, the traitor. One day he met a man on the streets of Rome who would be perfect as a model for Judas. The man was incredibly ugly, and evil and greed were written all over his face. When they got to the studio and Da Vinci began painting this horrible face, he suddenly stepped away from the canvas in surprise, and his brush dropped from his hand. He recognized the lines in the man’s face, and asked, “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”
“Yes,” replied the ugly man. “You’ve painted me before. I am Pietro Bandinelli.”
For whatever reason, Bandinelli turned from the deep piety of his youth to live a life of sin. Chronic mortal sin changed the man’s appearance from a face of innocence to one of evil and greed. Mortal sin is its own punishment because it brings sadness, sorrow, and misery into our lives. It does indeed make bad changes in our appearance, but that’s nothing to the change it makes in our souls.
I recall a girl I knew in high school. She was sweet and pretty and popular. I admit that I had a crush on her. She seemed so innocent and caring and devout in her Baptist faith. Then I saw her thirty-eight years later. If she hadn’t told me who she was I’d have never known her. She’d had several husbands, some of her children had been born out of wedlock, and she had become coarse and crude. I suspect there was also a lot of alcohol and drug abuse as well.
She didn’t resemble the pretty and innocent girl of my teenage dreams at all. A life of mortal sin had changed her appearance and manner until she seemed to be the same person in name only.
At our Baptism, Jesus removes the stain of original sin, and if we happen to be converts baptized after having reached the age of the use of reason, the stain of all our personal sins is removed as well. This means our souls are whiter than the purest snow. But all sin — venial and mortal — changes the appearance of our souls. Venial sin adds a grayness to our souls. Mortal sin makes them blacker than the deepest, darkest moonless night.
St. John Bosco was one of many saints whom God would allow to see a soul as it really was. He said the souls of people who have mortal sin on them were not only black and exceedingly ugly, but that they had a stench worse than anything you could imagine. Don Bosco also said that when such a person would confess to him, as he granted absolution he could see that soul return to its former baptismal purity of bright whiteness.
It’s bad enough that any of us should permit the grayness on our souls caused by venial sin, a grayness that requires God’s justice with the pains of Purgatory. But to risk living for even one day with a mortal sin, for which God’s justice requires an eternity in Hell, is foolish and arrogant and prideful. We should work to avoid venial sin and the occasions of sin at every moment of our lives, but we should all develop a horror of mortal sin, because not one of us is guaranteed another breath.
Jesus warned us to be vigilant in how we live. “‘And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’” (Luke 12:19-20). You should learn to fear sin above all else because of its effects and its punishments.
If you have a question or comment you can reach out to me through the “Ask Joe” page of JoeSixpackAnswers.com, or you can email me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.
Hey, how would you like to see things like this article every week in your parish bulletin as an insert? You or your pastor can learn more about how to do that by emailing me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.
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