Alliance for Catholic Education
Dear Friends,
Beginning today, and continuing each Sunday through Easter, the Institute for Educational Initiatives and the Alliance for Catholic Education invite you into a space of reflective repentance, conversion, and renewal on our Lenten journey.
This year, we are honored to partner with our friends at the newly opened Raclin Murphy Museum of Art here on the Notre Dame campus, where inspiring artistic images from the Museum are paired with prayerful reflections from members of our community.
We hope that this cross-campus partnership offers us all a welcomed space to practice Visio Divina, or sacred seeing, and through the lens of art consider this Lenten season anew. We highly recommend taking time to visit the Museum in person to encounter and connect to the art in a deeply meaningful way.
May God continue to bless you, your communities, and your families in this holy season of Lent.
The Institute for Educational Initiatives and the Alliance for Catholic Education
Gazing Through the Veil of Prayer
Reflection offered by Abby Giroux, Associate Director of the Program for Inclusive Education
Before I knew the background of this piece, I was trying to decide the context for the hazy recreation of such a well-known image.
At first glance, I wondered if the artist was depicting da Vinci's Last Supper as a shadow or a memory, fading from view, being covered or forgotten as time passes. Then, my mind switched to the concrete feel of the piece and wondered if the artist was instead emphasizing that our understanding of this event is still being revealed, like a partially finished sculpture emerging from a piece of marble.
When I learned that the piece was painted with ash, I settled on the idea of a thin veil and embraced that the perspective could be either or both. A veil can be used to hide and protect. It can also be used to adorn and reveal.
In Lent, we often veil the holy statues and images in our Churches, waiting for the glorious reveal of the fullness of our faith on Easter. On Good Friday, we read that the "veil of the sanctuary was torn in two..." when Jesus died (Matt 27:51). Lent is also a season of the Church when incense is incorporated more frequently than other times in the liturgical year, often leaving our sanctuaries hazy.
I am glad for the inspiration from this piece to use this Lent to reflect on how I might have forgotten the importance of the Last Supper or even simply the presence of Christ in my life. As I offer up my own prayers, like the burning of incense rising to heaven, I also hope for new insights from the sacrifice of the Last Supper and a rekindled awareness of the presence of Christ in my faith.