In His Precious Face

Christ with Crown of Thorns, Cranach,
c. 1520

Today with Julian, May 14th -
The Eighth Showing

Christ showed a portion of His Passion near to His death.
I saw His sweet face, as it was,
dry and bloodless with a deathly pallor;
and then more pale yet, deathly, languishing;
then turning an even more deathly blue,
then more brown-blue, as the flesh turned more deathly yet.
Thus His Passion was shown to me most vividly in His precious face,
and especially in His lips.
There I saw the appearance of these four colors,
though at first they were lively, ruddy, and pleasant to my sight.
It was a sorrowful change, to see this deep dying.

(Mother Julian, Chapter XVI)

As though it were an example of her rapid alternation between well and woe, the vision of great hope we talked about yesterday suddenly becomes the most vivid vision of Christ’s Passion, the moments near to His death.  It is as if the highest transports of joy have opened Julian’s awareness to the depths of Christ’s suffering.  She will have much more to say about that in this chapter.  But, for now, I would like to concentrate upon this one phrase:

“Thus His passion was shown to me most vividly in His precious face.”

A smile, a frown, eyes wide and bright or dimmed by tears; the face is the portrait of the person, the seat of personality.  What we show to others in our own precious face!  What others offer to us of their joys and fears in the faces we see every day!  But how many faces to you walk past each day without paying attention, without seeing?  How often do you hide your own face, from a stranger or from a loved one?

It is in the faces of His creatures that we first see God.

~ Will, ObJN