New life all around us: A time of resurrection

		Grand Mom  Audrey  Mettel Fixmer

Yesterday was cloudy and gloomy and too cold for April. Added to that was the reminder that I faced another deadline for this column, and I didn't have a clue about a worthwhile subject.

I used to panic at such a thought, but I learned long ago that I could say a prayer to the Holy Spirit and let Him worry about it while I got a good night's sleep. (He's up all night anyway!)

This morning He gently awakened me an hour later than usual, and proceeded to lambaste me with one idea after another. That's the way He works.

Being set free

First I turned on the TV for a quick glance at the war news. The news was good for a change. It seemed our troops had finally succeeded in liberating some of the Iraqis, who were celebrating in the streets by tearing down posters of Saddam Husein. There was the distinct image of the Iraqi people being set free from their oppression. Were our aggressive acts really working according to plan?

Then I went to Mass, where the gospel of John dealt with Jesus telling the Jews, "If you will remain in my word you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." The Jews questioned this, stating that they were the sons of Abraham and had never been enslaved in the first place, so how could he say that? (This is an example of John's use of irony, I'm told, since the Jews historically have been enslaved almost continuously).

Then Fr. Bill gave a little homily and explained how following Christ's teachings does set us free from the sins that bind us.

I thought about that. A good example in my own life was how I gave up smoking nearly 30 years ago. I had been so enslaved to the evil tobacco that it took offering daily Mass for five months, praying for strength to quit, before I was set free of that bondage.

I thought about all of the people enslaved by alcohol or drugs, and how they are urged through AA programs to turn to prayer in order to find their strength to live one day at a time. Weren't they too following Christ to find the truth to set them free?

Receive Christ's grace

I thought about Christian people I have known in my life whose strong faith helped them endure horrible suffering, or the loss of a loved one, without bitterness. When bitterness grips a person's spirit, it surely precludes any hope of happiness, but when we enjoy a deep faith we believe in the eternal life and Christ's redeeming grace.

I was getting the message loud and clear. I was supposed to write about the truth that sets us free from our bondage. It seemed that everywhere I looked I found evidence to support this promise.

Last Sunday's gospel told the story of Christ bringing Lazarus from the dead. He was told to shed the cloth bindings that were his burial shroud. How clever of Christ to use this concrete image to show us how we are all resurrected from the dead into our new eternal life.

New life abounds

Easter Sunday brings with it images of new life abounding: the chicken emerging from the egg, flowers and leaves bursting from their tight little buds, the sun shining, snow melting, and the promise of spring in the air. And most important, of course, the glory of the Resurrection.

I had my subject. Now all I had to do was sit down at my computer and write it. But first, I had to run into K-Mart to buy a seed starter kit. I couldn't wait for the warm days of May to start my garden. All these thoughts of new life made me bursting with the excitement of watching that miracle of springtime take place first in my own home, then finally in my garden.

I will try to remember as I handle each tiny seed lovingly, the miracle of life in this little speck I hold on my finger. With the proper nurturing from soil, sunshine, and life-giving water, it can grow into a beautiful flower or a lush vine of rich tomatoes.

God speaks to us more clearly in the garden than anywhere else, except perhaps, church. All we have to do is "Be still and listen and know that I am God."

Hooray, spring!

"Grandmom" likes hearing from other senior citizens who enjoy aging at P.O. Box 216, Fort Atkinson, WI 53538.

Pope and genius: Michelangelo's enduring legacy

		The Catholic  Difference  George Weigel

In his new poem, "Roman Triptych," Pope John Paul II makes extensive references to the Sistine Chapel, which has a special hold on his mind, heart, and soul.

Karol Wojtyla is a man of the drama; in the Sistine Chapel, he lived through the most dramatic moment of his dramatic life, his 1978 election as Successor of Peter.

In 1994, a decade after having taken the daring and controversial decision to have Michelangelo's Sistine frescoes cleaned, the Pope referred to the restored Sistine Chapel as the "sanctuary of the theology of the body" - a theology that will likely be John Paul's most enduring contribution to the heritage of human thought.

Now, in "Roman Triptych," the Pope calls the Sistine Chapel a "presacrament" in which "the invisible becomes visible." Most suggestively, and with reference to the cardinals who will elect a pope "after my death," John Paul writes that Michelangelo's vision of the creation and the last judgment "must speak to them" and "teach them" the meaning of what the princes of the Church do during a conclave.

"The world's greatest sculptor was also one of the world's most accomplished painters, and arguably the greatest master of fresco ever."

Michelangelo's genius

All of which raises many interesting questions for Catholics. Here's one it raises for everyone: was Michelangelo Buonarroti the greatest genius in history?

It's an impossible question to answer, of course. How would one measure Michelangelo's genius and accomplishment against that of Plato or Aristotle, Augustine or Thomas Aquinas, Leonardo da Vinci or William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein, Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart? Still, Michelangelo's claim is a strong one.

He was, in the first place, a man of marble - the greatest sculptor in history, as witness the Pietà (now in St. Peter's), the David (in his native Florence), and the Moses (in the Church of St. Peter in Chains in Rome).

Unable to draw a circle accurately, I am amazed by all the plastic arts. But while I can imagine painting - in the sense that I can imagine learning the trick of making the two-dimensional seem three-dimensional through the techniques of perspective - I simply cannot imagine how anyone can look at a block of Carrara marble, "see" the descent from the cross, the young David, or the elderly Moses in it, and then lift that figure out of stone with chisels and hammer.

Yet that is what Michelangelo did, giving humanity three unforgettable, even archetypical, images: the tenderness of the Pietà, the heroic biblical humanism of the David, and the awesome power of the Moses, in which we sense what happens to a man who talks with God "face to face" (Exodus, 33:11).

Sistine Chapel

The world's greatest sculptor was also one of the world's most accomplished painters, and arguably the greatest master of fresco ever.

Michelangelo hated being forced to paint the Sistine ceiling and the Last Judgment. But having accepted papal commissions to do so, he poured onto wet plaster a stunning vision of the beginning and end of humanity's story on earth - and that story's origins and destiny in the time beyond time.

Renaissance artists said that no man who lacked courage should ever attempt fresco: steady nerves and speedy hands were indispensable, as the painting had to be done in a few hours before the freshly-applied plaster dried.

To do this lying on a scaffolding on one's back, often in freezing cold, and to produce in the process some of the most extraordinary art ever created - that is the epic accomplishment of Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling.

Renaissance man

Then there was Michelangelo the architect. Asked to assume responsibility for overseeing the construction of the "new" St. Peter's in 1546, when he was 71, Michelangelo rescued Bramante's original Greek-cross design from the unhappy revisions proposed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and completed it with the most magnificent dome in the world.

Sculptor, painter, and architect, Michelangelo was also an accomplished engineer, a skilled planner of fortifications, and a decent poet. He had a difficult personality; he was constantly involved in artistic, political, and financial controversies; he was unlucky in love.

The world remembers him as a great Renaissance genius. The Church should also should remember him as a man of intense, even volatile, faith: the man who created the "presacrament" of one of the privileged spaces in the Christian world.

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.