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Click to enlarge
This icon crucifix is in what artists call
the Umbro-Byzantine style. It was painted by an unknown artist probably
in the 11th century; the time when the little church of San Damiano
was built. It was already a time-honoured object of veneration when
Francis was struggling to find the Lord. This is an icon which tells
the whole story of salvation. It starts before creation, with the hand
of the Father - and its story will only end with the ending of time
and space.
Prayer is love, and this is a picture to pray before.
Learn its story and then live its prayer with Saint Francis and Saint
Clare.
In the Beginning
At the very top of the crucifix is the hand of God in the divine circle
in the act of creating all things - and down beside Christ's right leg
is our scarcely discernible human origin, Adam. Adam's head alone is
shown with the apple gripped between his teeth. Above Adam is the cockerel,
not only as the symbol of Peter's denial (and Adam's) but as the herald
of the New Day, the third day of Christ's Resurrection.
The Water and the Blood
Running round the entire picture from the hand of the Father at the
top to the Patriarchs in Sheol at the foot, are parallel red and blue
lines; for Christ came not by water only but by water and blood, the
warp and woof of all creation. The blood of sacrifice and the water
of cleansing. Baptism and the Eucharist.
In the very centre, Christ stands as one both crucified and risen. His
loin cloth has become the priestly vesture of the Old Covenant, but
it is cinctured by the three knots of the evangelical counsels, poverty,
chastity and obedience; it may have been this which suggested to Francis
the knotted cord of the Franciscan habit.
The Outsiders
In the central section are the two figures, who, after Adam, are most
remote in scale from Christ. On the left is Longinus, his slender spear
piercing the side of Christ, and on the right is Mockery personified
by Pilate, dressed in royal blue, his lips pursed to spit.
The Friends of Christ
The Centurion, bearded and with a cloak, stands above Pilate, directly
under Christ's left arm. He is looking up at Jesus and exclaiming: "Surely
this man was the Son of God!" Next to him are Mary Cleopas and Mary
Magdalen. Their faces are serene, Magdalen is even smiling, for they
are not only standing under the Cross, they are coming in the early
morning to the empty tomb.
The New Covenant
Mary and John stand under the right arm of Jesus, they are the Church
under the Cross. John, who is nearest to the breast of Jesus, gestures
towards the blood coming from the wound in the right side of Jesus,
but he turns towards Mary, for he hears the words addressed to us all:
"Behold your Mother". Mary is, in St Francis' words, the "Virgin made
Church."
The Third Day
You might, at first, take the black box behind Jesus' outstretched arms
to be the cross beam, but it is in fact the tomb. Traditional icons
show the tomb, not as a cave alone, but as a long stone box. At either
end of the tomb are Peter and John suspended in the act of running to
Calvary on Easter morning. They look in at either end and see that the
tomb is empty. Two angels greet them on either side. The red draped
angels are the tomb angels, their hands point to Jesus, and they look
towards the holy women who are simultaneously under the cross and in
the garden, saying: "He has risen, he is not here."
King of Kings
The two green draped angels, one hand up, one down, are the angels of
the Ascension. They say: "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up?"
For above them is Jesus, robed and carrying the victorious cross, in
a circle of vermilion (the red circle is the traditional iconographic
representation of Elijah's fiery chariot - the Old Testament type of
the Ascension.) He is entering heaven where he is greeted by angels.
These are the ten angels of the Covenant. The Covenant that Christ fulfilled
in his Paschal mysteries. That is why two of the angels are in white
- they represent the two commandments of the Old Law which are directed
to God alone. The others wear red drapes because they represent the
commandments that govern the covenant between a person and his neighbour,
which can only be fulfilled by participation in the Passion.
The
Stone that the Builders Rejected
Christ's feet rest against the symbolic rock that stands for Daniel's
vision, which, in classical icons is shown under the feet of Christ,
and of Mary, and of the Trinity, when they sit enthroned. Christ
is the foundation stone, the corner stone which, being torn from
the mountain of God has destroyed the old and is the foundation
of the new.
The New Anastasis
Beneath the stone, kissed away by the devotion of ages, should be
the traditional iconographic representation of the Anastasis, the
harrowing of hell. But here it is Christ's blood from his wounded
feet which descends into a Sheol, occupied not only by the Fathers
of the Old Testament, but by all of us, washed and redeemed by his
precious blood and armed with anticipatory halos.
The Pillar of Cloud
The whole Cross is surrounded by what, on the original, is a separate
piece of wood, decorated with a rippling shell pattern - the Romanesque
artistic shorthand for clouds. For this is the cross of the Exodus,
and Christ is not only the new Elijah at his ascension. He is the
new Moses, striking water from the rock and sprinkling the people
with the blood of his sacrifice. So, by implication, this stupendous
image is not only the Crucifixion - and the Resurrection - and the
Ascension, it is also the Transfiguration, cloaked in the cloud
of the Divine presence. Yet, like the disciples, we look up and
see only Jesus, we look up and see in his face love, forgiveness,
peace, suffering, consummation.
Where am I?
Like Francis and Clare, I kneel at the feet of this icon and look
up at Jesus who is looking up at the Father. Unconsciously I notice
that there is one figure, indeed a whole queue of them, peering
shyly over the Centurion's shoulder, looking upwards, dressed in
brown. This is Everyman, All-Person, not much bigger than Adam but
having thrown in his (or her) lot with the saints.
St Clare of Assisi
Clare spent her life, most literally, looking at this image. She
defined prayer as the process of allowing oneself to be "transformed
into the icon of God."
In this prayer, from a letter she wrote to another Poor Clare, Ermentrude
of Bruges, she invites us to become what we have seen.
"Look up to Heaven,
dear one,
and take up your Cross and follow Christ
who walks ahead of us,
for through Him
we shall enter into His glory."
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