Artist Statement: Wounded yet strong, his eyes open and gaze outward, Jesus looks at us from the cross. Christ suffering and Christ triumphant meet us face to face. The message is clear—None left out. All of us beloved. All of us reconciled.
It was while praying before a painted cross at the church of San Damiano that St. Francis was called by Christ in a vision to “Go and repair my house”—a commission that launched the Franciscan movement to work for renewal in the Church. This cross, commissioned for a Third Order Franciscan priest, suggests elements of the San Damiano cross, and is further inspired by a style of cross that became popular in Franciscan communities shortly after the death of St. Francis in 1226. It pulls us into vivid emotions. Mary and John grieve as witnesses to the Crucifixion. A Seraph stands guard even as the heavens marvel at this event. And St. Francis kneels in adoration of the healing wounds of Christ while the flowing blood symbolically cleanses the bones of Adam, whose burial site was said to be at the Place of the Skull.
Franciscan spirituality focuses on the person of Jesus and strives to imitate Jesus’ life and work. Francis’s devotion speaks to us with searing clarity across 800 years. May we, like St. Francis before the San Damiano cross, pray for God to “bring light to the darkness of our hearts”; and may we, too, be inflamed with love for Jesus and a desire to follow always in his way of humility and charity.
Bio: Zachary Roesemann is an iconographer in New York City.
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