Wednesday, November 28, 2018

About Those Offended By Depicting Jesus As A Blonde European

There are people who say they have a problem with depictions of Christ being blonde, saying He is "too European" and that such images are not "inclusive." 

Their problem is that they are too worldly and not sincerely seeking God in the privacy of their own hearts, with all mind, heart and soul. They are insincere people.

I'm not a blonde European with blue eyes, and I am not offended by such a depiction of Him.

They say they want inclusiveness, but they're being bullies, they want to put themselves above other people by their self-righteousness.

Jesus is God, and man is made in the image and likeness of God. I've seen Jesus and Mary endearingly depicted as Irish, Russian, Chinese, African, Japanese, British, Indian, various Native American ethnicities: because He is God, and humans are made in His image and likeness. Therefore He can be depicted as any race of human, because they are all made in His image. 

These ethnic depictions are not offensive to the Church, nor to me, and likely the people complaining about European depictions of Jesus wouldn't complain about how Mary so gloriously depicted herself as a mestiza in the miraculous Our Lady of Guadelupe image. So the people complaining are, perhaps inadvertently, racists themselves, which is inherently not an "inclusive" group.

Nor a group that sincerely loves God, but rather one caught up in the mindset of the world.

It seems like some of them would only be happy if He were painted grey. As grey as a dead man...

"If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin; but as it is, they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me also hates my Father. If I had not done works among them that no one else ever did, they would not have sin; but as it is, they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But in order that the word written in their law might be fulfilled, 'They hated me without cause.'" John 15:22-5

I'm not even "offended" by the group of racists offended by blonde, blue-eyed Jesus, although by justice and logic I would have the right to be. 

In reality, they need God in their lives, and only they can help themselves with that through prayer, holy reading, and time with Jesus in the Eucharist, so they can learn that pleasing God is more important than idolatry to the passing and unwise opinions of the world. 

As likely they will not seek God sincerely or with fervor, this makes them very sad and pitiable. They are in much need of prayer...

Despite that God can be depicted in any ethnicity, He had an ethnicity because He was born a human. 

If you look at the Vilnius Divine Mercy Image, which was painted under the approval of Saint Faustina, who saw Jesus, and then you look at instagrams of Israeli people, you see that her depiction of Him is one of a very beautiful Jewish man with Semitic features. Jews can have all different colored eyes and hair and even skin. That sort of unique and strange gold-ish colored hair and golden skin in the Vilnius picture, which I think is very beautiful (and certainly doesn't "offend" me), is highly plausible.

The Vilnius Divine Mercy Image is a holy image, one that God said He would answer our prayers if we ask Him through that image; it is an image that we adore God through, just as God the Son took on the form of a man that we might have an image of God by Him to adore.

Identity politics is a Marxist ploy to separate us from God and divide us among each other. Mary repeatedly warned about Communists (socialists are the same thing) at her apparitions at Fatima, because many many people would be separated from God and be plunged into Hell because of their works and propaganda. Therefore, the propagation of Marxist lies has no place among the people of God, who need to first sincerely seek God themselves so that, through their prayers, they can lead other souls to salvation.

If you pray the rosary daily until you die "for the purpose of knowing the truth and receiving contrition and pardon for your sins," God will de-program you, de-brainwash you, take away the sting and significance of the propaganda and persecution of the world, and lead you to His Glory and Truth, lead you to sincerely love Him — and the souls of all people, who are made in His Image and likeness. You will become a channel of His grace and mercy in the world, and through your prayers, you will save other souls from eternal death.

If you don't pray to know the truth and receive contrition and pardon for your sins, it won't happen.

"Now there was a man full of leprosy in one of the towns where he was; and when he saw Jesus, he fell prostrate, pleaded with Him, and said 'Lord, if You wish, You can make me clean.' Jesus stretched out His Hand, touched him, and said, 'I do will it. Be made clean.' And immediately the leprosy left him." Luke 5:12-3.

God can heal our souls of spiritual leprosy (the lies of the world and idolatry to it) and we can spiritually rejoin His mystical body — if we pray sincerelyto know the truth and receive contrition and pardon for our sins, until the day we die.

It's ridiculously easy, you just have to actually do it, and not stop. 

Cling to prayer, cling to God through prayer, like your eternal salvation and the souls of many others depend on it: because they do.

God is Beauty Itself. However He is painted, if with sincere and pure devotion in the heart of the artist and with litergical accuracy, can't be anything but beautiful. It's not possible. 

Even under a veil of Blood, with His Face swollen and beaten and bruised, and thorns ripping His Head, He is still Beauty itself.

It's the heart of the viewer that may need some converting before they can see that.

Painting by Joey Velasco 


(I've read before that His nose is damaged, and his abdomen distended from fluid built up from the Cross.)