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<\/a><\/p>\nOn the walls of a museum, we come face-to-face with two views of life. Both have the power to shake us to our roots. Both look like madness. And both are roadmaps of the human journey. But only one is true, and you can tell it by the tears.<\/p>\n
Pilgrimage 2012, Day 6: Madrid<\/strong><\/p>\n [A note to the patient pilgrims: After wrestling with jetlag and some personal baggage\u2014not the kind subject to customs inspections, but carried with me on the pilgrimage no less, and seriously over the weight limit\u2014I\u2019m back on the virtual road. Thank you for not wandering away when we left you by the highway<\/strong><\/a> so long ago!]<\/em><\/p>\n Our stay in Madrid was meant to be a bit of a break in the pilgrimage routine, with an emphasis more on exploring the culture of Spain than on visiting shrines to cultivate the culture of our souls. It worked that way for many of us, those who took advantage of the rare free time to shop for souvenirs (and, in one case, to replace the blister-y dress shoes\u2014the sandals forgotten at home\u2014with more comfortable walking shoes of Spanish leather), to stroll in the park of El Retiro or sit on a bench in the sun in the botanical gardens, to seek out a tapas bar or attend a flamenco performance. We did run into interference from the real world: some folks riding a city bus to the Plaza Mayor were turned back because of threatened demonstrations against economic cuts. The demonstrations didn\u2019t amount to much until last week, when we were back home, and the Spanish MSM news ignored them completely. (I know, because I watched the news after catching NCIS<\/em> in Spanish.)<\/p>\n We did encounter Mary under another miraculous title, when we celebrated Mass at the cathedral. Only recently completed, the cathedral is named for an image of Mary that, according to legend, dates back to the 8th century or earlier. When the Moors conquered Madrid in the early 700s, an image of Mary then known as Santa Maria Mayor<\/em> (St Mary Major) was hidden in the city wall. Three hundred years later, when Madrid was returned to Christian rule, the besieging army dreamed that Mary led them into the city. They awoke to find the city wall had crumbled in one place, revealing the image and allowing the armies a way in. After driving the Moors from the city, the bishop set up the image in what had been the central mosque. When the palace of the Spanish kings was built next door, the shrine of the image became the chapel royal. Today, the cathedral stands here, named Santa Maria la Real de la Almudena<\/em>\u2014St Mary the Royal of the Almudena<\/em> (from the Arabic for \u201cthe citadel,\u201d because she was pulled from the fortified walls). One more story of the interplay of faith and power on the Iberian peninsula, and the role in it the devout have assigned to Mary.<\/p>\n After Mass, we were guided on the cultural portion of our pilgrimage\u2014visits to El Prado<\/em>, the enormous and dizzyingly rich art museum of the Spanish kings, and to the royal palace. We had precisely an hour in the Prado, which is stuffed with a lifetime\u2019s worth of religious masterpieces alone, not to mention the other works of the world\u2019s greatest painters. I knew that our local guides, given the brevity of our visit, would focus on the pride of Spain, the museum\u2019s vast collections of Velasquez, El Greco, Murillo, and Goya. And I love these. But I also knew that the Prado holds my favorite painting in the world\u2014and it\u2019s not Spanish. The thought of being in the same house as Rogier van der Weyden\u2019s Deposition of Christ<\/em> altarpiece and not seeing it had me in fits. My friend Michael, however, arranged that the group we were in (one of three into which our large pilgrimage was divided) was led first to the Flemish wing, and straight to the Deposition<\/em>.<\/p>\n I started crying the minute we entered the room. I\u2019ve written and taught about this marvelous painting for decades, and in its presence all I could do was weep silently and allow it to teach me.<\/p>\n I begged off from the group, and kept Mary\u2019s station at the cross with her for another 30 minutes. Then, walking back to where I was to meet the group, I picked up a map of the museum and learned that the Flemish wing contained at least 5 or 6 other favorites. So I literally ran from room to room, genuflecting in front of a Fra Angelico Annunciation<\/em><\/a><\/strong> (with the Joyful Mysteries picked out in exquisite miniature beneath, and a woeful Adam and Eve leaving Paradise on the left), the Mantegna Dormition of the Virgin<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (tinier than I had imagined, but perfect), the chaos of Bosch\u2019s Garden of Earthly Delights<\/em><\/strong><\/a> and his wonderful table depicting the Seven Deadly Sins<\/em><\/strong><\/a> that Philip II commissioned for his bedchamber and used as a nightstand or a To-Do list, the wonderful sweeping drama of Correggio\u2019s Noli mi tangere<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, and an entire roomful of nursing Madonnas<\/strong><\/a>, each proffering a chaste and egg-white breast from bodices of intricately-woven Flemish tapestry. And I cried the whole time.<\/p>\n Both the Deposition<\/em> and Saturn<\/em> present us with the notion of a divine Father sacrificing his child. In the myth of Saturn (also known as Cronus, or Time) the father of the gods is told that he will be supplanted by one of his children. In a jealous rage, he devours each child as it is born; only Jupiter (Zeus) escapes, and does in the end destroy his father and seize power. That is the picture of life the world gives us: that Time devours all things, that true power can only be achieved by killing and supplanting those who hold it. I can feel pity for Goya in his darkness, but the painting\u2014and the worldview it enshrines\u2014engenders only terror and disgust.<\/p>\n The Deposition<\/em> shows us another way. This Father has sacrificed his Son not out of selfishness but out of bountiful generosity. For us, for us! Time only appears to devour our lives\u2014the curve of Mary\u2019s swooning body, echoing that of her lifeless Son, the tears on the faces of Mary\u2019s sisters and of the weeping Magdalene, John\u2019s red eyes and the wince of pain on Nicodemus\u2019s brow all testify to the pain that illusion brings, even to those of deepest faith\u2014but we know the story ends with Eternity victorious. And true power lies\u2014like the graceful body of the Crucified One\u2014in the arc of surrender to God\u2019s will. This one is the true picture of our lives. You can tell, because of the tears it depicts and the tears it engenders.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>I found out later that my fellow pilgrims had also, many of them, been stricken to the quick by a painting\u2014Goya\u2019s Saturn Devouring His Children<\/em>. (Several were so disturbed by the subject matter and the treatment that they insisted it was called Satan Devouring Sinners<\/em>.) This nightmarish vision, one of the so-called Black Paintings that Goya painted directly on the walls of his house in his last years of madness and despair, may not refer to the classical myth at all, as the paintings were all named by art historians after Goya\u2019s death. But I couldn\u2019t help but think what a terrific diptych of contrast the Prado had provided us with.<\/p>\n<\/a>