When I learned that religious worship would be suspended due to the Coronavirus epidemic, I instantly realized that the traditional Holy Week services were never going to be an option at my local church in south Manchester.
A Holy Week Reflection
By Mark Dowd
When I learned that religious worship would be suspended due to the Coronavirus epidemic, I instantly realized that the traditional Holy Week services were never going to be an option at my local church in south Manchester.
My name is Mark Dowd, and for this special reflection for THINGS UNSEEN, to try and compensate for not being physically in a church, these last few days I've been dwelling on religious art and pondering on faces: the expressions of amazement among the apostles in Leonardo Da Vinci's amazing Last Supper; the haunting image in the sixth station of the cross in many churches in which Veronica of Jerusalem wipes the face of Jesus; and finally, Michelangelo's depiction of maternal angst as both Mary and the disciple, John, gaze up helplessly at the image of the crucified Jesus.
All these faces were on my mind when I heard the incredibly sad story of thirteen-year-old Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab from Brixton. At the time of his death, he was the UK's youngest victim of the Corona virus. In his final hours, because of the disease's highly infectious nature, Ismail died in isolation from his family. Now even Jesus was able to see and address his mother at the foot of his cross as he approached death, but many people in the nation's hospitals are being offered, in their last moments, perhaps only a fleeting image on a tablet or mobile phone of their loved ones before they say goodbye to them and the world.
Heroes and heroines
I don't know about you, but if that were me, I think this would only enhance the sense of physical separation. So much at the moment is falling to nurses and doctors to squeeze hands, whisper in ears: in effect to be the stand-in for the family. And yet even these latterday heroes and heroines of our NHS can barely show their faces as they strive to save lives. I can't be the only one who finds the daily images of those Hazmat suits accompanied by masks and visors deeply unsettling. The wearers' faces are largely hidden in scenes that look like some kind of dystopian movie. Except it's not: it's regrettably very real and happening probably somewhere at this moment not very far from you.
In her book Dead Man Walking the nun, Sister Helen Prejean accompanies Pat, a convicted killer, as the time of his stay on Death Row draws to an end and the day of his execution is named. She writes: "I say to him, if you die, I want to be with you". He says, "no, I don't want you to see it." I say, "I can't bear the thought that you would die without seeing one loving face. I will be the face of Christ for you. Just look at me". He says, "It's terrible to see. I don't want to put you through that. It could break you. It could scar you for life."
I know that it will terrify me. How could it not terrify me? But I feel strength and determination. I tell him it won't break me, that I have plenty of love and support in my life. "God will give me the grace," I tell him. He consents. He nods his head. It is decided. I will be there with him when he dies. Pat needed a face, to enflesh the face of the one who for our sake had his brief time on death row and was executed.
In the Bible there are more than seventy references to the "face of God." Many of these occur in the Psalms. "Do not hide your face away from me in the time of my distress" we hear in Psalm 102. And in the Book of Ezekiel we hear the plea: "Make your face to shine upon your servant Lord." Yet we also hear the voice of God saying, in the book of Exodus: "You cannot see my face, for no-one may see me and live." We need to dwell in the presence of God, but as God's creatures we are not His equals, such is His transcendent power.
Even if, in their final hours, the victims of this deadly virus are deprived of the solace of the faces of friends and family let us hope that, in the grand scheme of all things, this will be a fleeting moment. That in the fullness of time death will cease to have a hold. In the words of St Paul: "Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
A version of this reflection originally appeared in April on the spiritual website Things Unseen.