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| Painted portrait |
Finis vitae sed non amoris. [1]
I do not mean to sound melancholy, but as the years pass, I find myself ever more often pondering both the life I have lived and the death that awaits me. This truth, so often ignored by the world, presses upon me—suddenly and unbidden—when I least expect it. Recently, it was an old oil painting of me as a small child, clutching a harmonica, that drew me into this meditation.
From what I was told, my father commissioned a local artist to paint it as a gift for my mother. The portrait cost him fifty dollars, which was a great sacrifice at the time. My mother, expecting my younger brother, received it with joy, though she worried that the new child would feel forgotten. So, a year or so later, my father sought out the artist and had a companion portrait made of him.
These two portraits adorned my parents’ wall until their deaths. Then, as was fitting, my brother and I inherited our respective canvases.
His painting will almost certainly pass on to his children. Mine, having no heirs, will likely be discarded, its ornate frame perhaps salvaged. Now and then, I joke to myself that it deserves a place in a Museum of Counter-Revolutionary Heroes, though of course no such museum exists, and I would hardly merit a place in it even if it did.
But the worth of the portrait lies not in me, nor even in the skill of the unknown artist. I love it because my parents once loved it. It recalls the years when their life together was full of hope, when they still looked toward the future with the serene confidence of youth. It is, in a way, a relic of their devotion, a visible testimony of the hidden sacrifices that sustain a family.
When I gaze upon it now, I am confronted not only with memories but with judgment. It whispers of my many failings, of the ways I may have disappointed those who gave me life. Yet this sorrow becomes, through grace, a spur toward repentance. For in honoring our fathers and mothers, we fulfill God’s commandment. Even after their deaths, we owe them fidelity, gratitude, and the striving to live rightly, lest their sacrifices be in vain.
Thus, the portrait becomes a Memento mori (remember you must die). It teaches me that my life is not my own possession, but a link in a chain of faith and love that stretches back to my ancestors and forward, God willing, into eternity. It reminds me that death is not the end, but a passage. And above all, it urges me to live in such a way that when I, too, am painted before the Throne of God, the likeness may not be one of failure, but of a son who, however weak, sought always to be faithful.
~ By Giovanni di Napoli, September 16th, Feast of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian
[1] The end of life, but not of love.
From what I was told, my father commissioned a local artist to paint it as a gift for my mother. The portrait cost him fifty dollars, which was a great sacrifice at the time. My mother, expecting my younger brother, received it with joy, though she worried that the new child would feel forgotten. So, a year or so later, my father sought out the artist and had a companion portrait made of him.
These two portraits adorned my parents’ wall until their deaths. Then, as was fitting, my brother and I inherited our respective canvases.
His painting will almost certainly pass on to his children. Mine, having no heirs, will likely be discarded, its ornate frame perhaps salvaged. Now and then, I joke to myself that it deserves a place in a Museum of Counter-Revolutionary Heroes, though of course no such museum exists, and I would hardly merit a place in it even if it did.
But the worth of the portrait lies not in me, nor even in the skill of the unknown artist. I love it because my parents once loved it. It recalls the years when their life together was full of hope, when they still looked toward the future with the serene confidence of youth. It is, in a way, a relic of their devotion, a visible testimony of the hidden sacrifices that sustain a family.
When I gaze upon it now, I am confronted not only with memories but with judgment. It whispers of my many failings, of the ways I may have disappointed those who gave me life. Yet this sorrow becomes, through grace, a spur toward repentance. For in honoring our fathers and mothers, we fulfill God’s commandment. Even after their deaths, we owe them fidelity, gratitude, and the striving to live rightly, lest their sacrifices be in vain.
Thus, the portrait becomes a Memento mori (remember you must die). It teaches me that my life is not my own possession, but a link in a chain of faith and love that stretches back to my ancestors and forward, God willing, into eternity. It reminds me that death is not the end, but a passage. And above all, it urges me to live in such a way that when I, too, am painted before the Throne of God, the likeness may not be one of failure, but of a son who, however weak, sought always to be faithful.
~ By Giovanni di Napoli, September 16th, Feast of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian
[1] The end of life, but not of love.
