Beauty and hope amidst suffering
This is a title that might apply at nearly any moment in history. It is something that I have lost sight of until now: that all people face times of suffering, and many profound suffering, and yet are capable of producing beauty.
In the midst of much fear and anxiety, I tend to turn to those places which have given me comfort over my life. One of those is the music of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, the sublime 16th century composer of sacred polyphony. His music transports me and calls to mind some of the great beauty not only of my faith, but also of medieval and early Renaissance European culture. Have a listen while you read on.
So here’s the thing: Palestrina was no stranger to grief. He managed to compose music even having lived through many tragedies — the death of his mother at a young age, then the loss of his brother, two of his sons, and his wife in three separate outbreaks of the plague (1572, 1575, and 1580, respectively).
Read that again: he lived in constant fear of losing the people he loved to the plague over a period of eight years.
Still, he composed some of the most beautiful and ethereal music one will ever be blessed to hear. That’s the paradox, isn’t it? That beauty and the hope that it gives rise to can coexist with great suffering?
The prophet Isaiah described the Messiah as someone who was “acquainted with grief” (53:3), someone sent by the Lord to bear the suffering of a sinful people. God does not exempt his servant from suffering, but rather sends him to take it upon himself in solidarity with those who suffer. It is thus no surprise that some of the most ancient Israelite literature falls into the category of lament.
Consider the words that Jesus utters on the cross as he is about to die a torturous death: “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus enters fully into his suffering, and quotes a line from Psalm 22. Matthew and Mark’s gospels describe Jesus’ death according to the words of the psalm, as if to say to readers: “here is your God, the one who has entered into your suffering with you! Be not afraid!”
The coexistence of beauty and suffering is captured nowhere better than a crucifix from the 13th century to be found in the chapel at the castle of Javier, in Navarre (Navarra), Spain. This was the home of Saint Francis Xavier, the great apostle to Asia. The small chapel has two striking images: first, dancing skeletons, in the center of which is a memorable image of Christ crucified.
This is not an agonizing Christ, but a smiling one, as if he has just uttered not Matthew and Mark’s lament, but rather John’s confident “it is finished.” He smiles, awakening the joy of the dead who have now been set free.
Christian faith has never ignored suffering or death. Rather, it has transformed them, making them experiences we need no longer fear. For that reason, Saint Paul could write to early Christian communities “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:55)
Through faith, many have gone before us through baths of suffering, holding on to hope that gives rise to great beauty. While doing some research today, I came across a story in the New York Times about nuns in Philadelphia who performed heroically in the wake of the influenza epidemic that ravaged the city in 1918. The mayor at the time thanked them:
“I have never seen a greater demonstration of real charity or self-sacrifice than has been given by the sisters in their nursing of the sick,” he said, “irrespective of the creed or color of the victims, wherever the nuns were sent.”
These nuns — like so many others — perceived that they themselves might be sources of beauty for a hurting world. May we all have the courage to do the same.
