Having just had hip surgery, I simply cannot believe that she and David made the trip all the way from D.C. to Italy! The MAIN FOCUS for me was to experience Good Friday together. Aunt Swanee and Dave arrived a couple days before Good Friday and we had a very solemn celebration throughout the day and evening, culminating in the liturgy.
Aunt Swanee describes herself as a "Good Friday Christian" and, as a talented musician, composed a profound orchestral piece called the Witness Cantata that is a musical reflection on Good Friday. She examines the 7 Last Words of Christ and experiments with moving musical expression on the Passion of Christ. We experienced a private performance of it here in Rome (with the recording--one day I hope to arrange a live performance here). William Blake, Elie Wiesel, A. Akhmatova, T. Roethke, and others are featured in a powerful look at the Holocaust, human degradation, and how and whether God is in its midst.
Our family had a time of questions and answers with her, reflecting and sharing our experience of having listened to it. I wept and expressed my experience, which is that it reflects a high Christology. If the man who died on Calvary is not God, then it is not worth recounting with such emphasis and attention (unless each person's death warrants such a reflection, and in a certain sense that is true too).
Furthermore, there is a poignant line taken from E. Wiesel in which people in a concentration camp watch a boy being hung to death. The vocals go like this:
"Behind me, I heard the same man asking, 'Where is God now?' And I heard a voice within me answer him: 'Here he is--handing here on this gallows."
In my view, it would be meaningless to see God in a boy hanging in the gallows if Christ did not enter into our death. The cross is how God entered into human death. God is Life, Eternal Life. By definition God is immortal-all religions agree. Only by a radical act of mercy and loving choice would Life Itself enter into death. And that, in my view, is precisely what the cross is. All human beings are touched by this possibility only if God did assume death--which is almost incomprehensible but is the living touchstone of Christian faith. If God appropriated death, then death will forever be changed. Some would call it "redemption"--but why use technical terms? Let's just call it "transformation," such that God takes it up and makes it something different, something better than it was, something of value (hence the word "redemption" if we want a glimpse into that term after all)--even a way to encounter God. If God is hanging on the gallows, then, to my mind, God must have entered death in some remarkable fashion. Elie Wiesel was, in my opinion, making a faint but real expression of faith, and a Christian would unpack it by saying that Christ's death on Good Friday is an indication that Christ was God.
Did Aunt Swanee and I discuss this theme? Boy, did we. We averaged 4 hours a day in deep conversation about God, the cross, Good Friday and practically everything that stems from this sacred theme. Aunt Swanee is a capable philosopher, theologian, artist, musician, humanitarian and ethicist. What a delight to see all that come out in one visit.
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