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Show THE PICTURE OF OUR SAVIOR. What did Jesus Christ the man look like? This was the question asked by j the New York Herald of leaders in various va-rious religious denominations. The Catholic representative was Rev. J. F. X. O'Connor, S. J., and his reply to the question was as follows: When we attempt to place before our minds the picture of Christ our Lord, the most beautiful of the children of men, we know that the utmost power of our imagination will fail to reach the beauty of the divine original. He is the infinite God, perfect in beauty, in majesty. In power and glors. in holiness holi-ness and gentleness, in sweetness and in goodness, in all that could claim the love of the human heart. To paint a true picture of Christ the artist must study Him in the pictures given by the prophets, the gospels, history his-tory and tradition. No other will be a true picture. One may draw on his imagination of how Christ might appear ap-pear to him, but the true picture will give the characteristics, the features of Christ, drawn from authentic -sources, which alone can represent J Him. I From prophecy, scripture, history and tradition the artists of all ages and 1 nations have drawn types of the Redeemer. Re-deemer. From Giotto, in the fourteenth century, to Sehaeffer, Ittenbach, Bou-gucrau, Bou-gucrau, in the nineteenth, in full paintings, paint-ings, as in outline, from the days of the catacombs to the thirteenth cen-turs. cen-turs. in Rome and in London, in Munich Mu-nich and in New York, painters of the Italian, German, Spanish, French and English schools of art have placed before be-fore us portraits of Christ. Vv'e shall take the Old Testament as a prophetic history, symbolic and figurative, fig-urative, giving the elements of His character. The New Testament is one long record of His miracles. The history his-tory of the church is an unassailable witness of the power of Christ through all ages, and profane history a reliable, although reluctant, witness of the truth of the history of the church. Each gives its portion of His divine history. During centuries Christ the Messiah hart l(n nnvfoinslv Innkert for. and at the coming of the appointed time there was a general movement of expectation among the Jews and among the enlightened en-lightened intellects of progression. It ia said that a painter among the Jews, wishing to make a picture of Christ, had stood in the multitude to watch His features. But so great was the supernatural beauty of that divine countenance, so holy the supernatural light which beamed from that sweetest sweet-est of all faces of the most beautiful of the children of men, that his heart was lifted in rapture and his eyes drank in the glorious vision,- but he forgot the work he designed to do and his hand remained motionless and dared not trace the outlines lest one moment of that vision would be lost. Such was the divine grace of Jesus Christ, says one writer, that none but a divine hand should paint it, and if we look in prophecy for what Christ should be we read there tonly what Christ reallj was at the time He lived among men. The Jewish historian Josephus says: "Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it is lawful to call Him a man, for He was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive re-ceive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to Him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, but when Pilate, at the sug-1 sug-1 gestion of the principal men among us, had condemned Him to the cross, those that loved Him at the first did not forsake for-sake Him, for He appeared to them alive again on the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and 10,000 other wonderful things concerning concern-ing Him. And the tribe of Christians, so named for Him, are not extinct at this daj." This gives us the historical fact of the life, death and resurrection of Christ. The testimony is from one whose interest it was to deny the existence ex-istence of Christ. Next to this picture in history we look at the picture of Christ in the gospels. gos-pels. WThen Caesar Augustus wished to enroll the Roman conquered world the mother of Christ journeyed to Bethlehem, and He was bom In a stable sta-ble and laid in a manger. This is the sign given by angels to the shepherds, who, rising in haste, adored Him. When the hour came to preach to the world we learn the sublime beauty of His life. His birth in the stable, His hidden life of thirty years, was a disappointment dis-appointment to the world. No great king would enter on his reign in such fashion. And we look in wonder and admiration at that beautiful figure in the past, the center of the world's hope and the world's joy. Wherever His steps bore Him He brought joy and deed3 of gladness, and health, to the sick and suffering, and peace to the stricken sinner, and His passing was like the passing of gladness, for He left after Him the brightness of gladdened glad-dened hearts. And as we go down the tide of ages we find the name and the memory and the spirit and the love of Christ the foremost object in the world's history. Who is the Christ foretold in prophecy, pro-phecy, recorded in history? This Christ Is the Man God, the Son of God made man for us. The mystery of the incarnation in-carnation by which the second person of the Blessed Trinity united to Himself Him-self our human nature is so wonderful an act of God's love that it could never have entered into man's mind to imagine im-agine it. Christ is true God and true man, having hav-ing a human body and a humanisoul. He has two natures, the divine and the human nature, which the one person of Christ so united in Himself that the divinity can never be divided from the humanity nor the humanity from the divinity. Wherefore Christ is perfect God and perfect man, in unity of one person, and although there are two naturea in Christ, there are not two persons, but one. In the two natures of Christ are the three substances the word, the soul and the body. Christ, the perfect man, has the soul and body ot man, and this perfect human nature is united to the word eternal. This is Catholic teaching. |