{Lent 2021 brings visits to various church sanctuaries through photographs I’ve taken and the reflections I share in daily writings. There’s no grand scheme here; just what occurs as I survey some sacred spaces from our journeys.}

The sign on this church reads “Santuario de San Pedro Claver.” The church is in Cartagena, Colombia.

Four hundred years ago Jesuits established a post in Cartagena and founded a school and a church its downtown. During the 17th century a priest called Pedro Claver (26 June 1580 – 8 September 1654) dedicated his life to the protection of the African slaves there, and was named a Saint three hundred years later, the first to be canonized in the New World. He is popularly known as the Patron Saint of slaves. (The edifice now bearing his name was built in 1602 in Spanish Colonial style.) 

While there is obviously a lot to gaze at in the impressive sanctuary, I was particularly struck by the statue of Father Claver. I had not heard of him prior to our encounter in the transcept of the church, assuming him to be a general representative of the Jesuit presence in Colombia. But I discovered that his compassionate servanthood toward the “least of these,” that is, African slaves, made him the Father Damien or Mother Teresa of his time and place. Such is the church’s reverence toward him, his robed remains are encased in the altar, partially viewable through glass windows. I have spared you the view.

I understand the more cynical view that his may be another case of the “great white savior” coming to the aid of the oppressed. Yet, according to all-knowing, sometimes on-the-money Wikipedia, “He is considered a heroic example of what should be the Christian praxis of love and of the exercise of human rights. The Congress of the Republic of Colombia declared September 9 as the Human Rights National Day in his honor.” I read elsewhere that he himself expressed the determination to be “a slave to the Blacks.” Like St. Francis (and in legend at least, Gautama Buddha) he was born into a fairly prosperous family, but his life and ministry took Jesus’ beatitude to heart: blessed are the poor. It is said that many black descendants of slaves make the pilgrimage to Cartagena to honor him.

How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? 1 John 3:17

Again, not knowing his story, I looked at that statue and saw the mission of the church, of every church, carved in stone (as it were). The loving embrace of the smallest child and the offering of bread to the one with an outstretched hand –there is the gospel in a graven image. (Though I wonder why the light skin on the children? Sigh.)

When I was a young teen, the word from suspicious Protestants my age was that those Catholics prayed to statues. I’m sure some kids had heard that from their parents (though my own parents were far more enlightened). We knew two things: the Catholic churches had lots of statuary; and we Presbyterians and Baptists and Lutherans didn’t. Therefore, the statues of Mary and Peter and all those saints we’d never heard of must be there to be prayed to. Look how people kneel there. We had our images too, but they were two-dimensional, and that was OK. Stained glass Jesus was one thing, but a statue of St. Francis was something else. From masterpiece paintings to flannelgraphs (you don’t know about flannel Jesus?!), visual illustrations were teaching aids in our churches. But never granite, marble, or some modern 3-D composite erected in the church worship space.

And yet. Though the memory is fading, I can still recall standing on a “moving sidewalk” at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, and just in time for my eyes to adjust to the subdued lighting, I viewed Michelangelo’s masterpiece “La Pieta.” I was in awe. Like his “David,” the sculptor’s work was God’s hands shaping the biblical story from, well, stone.

Similarly, a carpenter carves his/her art from trees. In Montreat, NC I saw a Presbyterian minister’s handiwork on view, with the life and ministry of Jesus himself, as well as characters from the parables, fashioned with carving tools with intricate detail. John Mack Walker certainly didn’t worry about whether we might bow down to his images, but no one would be surprised if someone uttered a prayer of gratitude for his story-telling in walnut and cherry.

Next week, Holy Week, I will share some images of the traditional “stations of the cross” created in three dimensions from blocks of steel. We found them in a sanctuary in England. We admired them, but didn’t pray to them (he typed with a gentle smile.) For now, just look again at the children in the Claver statuary. And then look beyond the sanctuary to the world’s children, afflicted by the pandemic, held at the U.S.-Mexico border, or asking for bread on your city street.

Be a saint to them all.

And think about these words from Arthur Schopenhauer, from his The Basis of Morality:

Boundless compassion for all living beings is the surest and most certain guarantee of pure moral conduct, and needs no casuistry. Whoever is filled with it will assuredly injure no one, do harm to no one, encroach on no [one’s] rights; he will rather have regard for everyone, forgive everyone, help everyone as far as he can, and all his actions will bear the stamp of justice and loving-kindness.