Art Reflecting History: "The Mystery of the Crucifixion and the Eucharist" by Isabel Piczek

        “The history of the cosmos (and within it the history of the Church) is nothing less – or more at that – than the unfolding of the Divine Love for creation through Jesus Christ, through Whom, in Whom and for Whom
that creation was made. That is actually what the windows of the Sacred Heart Chapel are about.”[1]

    So begins the commentary of sacred artist Isabel Piczek on her stained glass window, “The Mystery of the Crucifixion and the Eucharist,” one of seven windows in the Sacred Heart Chapel at the Heart of Jesus Retreat Center, Santa Ana, California.  In her commentary concerning the Chapel as a whole, Piczek asserts: “History points to Jesus as its absolute center, not Jesus to history.  History can be understood only through Him, and it belongs to Him internally.”[2]

    That the Paschal Mystery is the central event in human history, there can be no doubt.  In this portrayal of the Last Supper and Crucifixion, Piczek highlights several aspects of this mystery and the ways they formed the early Church and Christianity as a whole. We can see several parallels between the writings of the Church Fathers and the theology that Piczek portrays in her art.

           The table of the Last Supper shows Christ in the center with the Eucharistic bread and chalice, surrounded by the eleven faithful apostles.  Piczek has divided the apostles into three sections within this work, representing the structure of the Church.   The Hierarchical Church is represented by the four apostles in the center, the two just to the left of the head of Christ (James the Less and Simon the Zealot), the one just above his head (Andrew), and Peter whose face is almost touching the feet of the Good Thief, his head raised just above the dividing line of the window.  Piczek describes Peter as standing “at the top of this composition.  He is the Church which realizes its mission and its destiny, puzzled somewhat by the grandeur and magnitude of it all.”[3]  The Pastoral Church is depicted to our right and is represented by the three apostles (James the Greater, Nathaniel and John).  In these apostles, Piczek strives to depict the qualities of “deep piety, obedience and action.”[4] 

The figure closest to the foreground, leaning on the table in rose colored garb depicts John the Beloved and also represents the contemplative Church hidden “within the Pastoral Church,” which gives “strength and substance to the Pastoral Church,” through a “secret life of prayer, meditation and self-sacrifice.”[5]  Finally, she also depicts the Teaching Church, signified by the apostles that we see to the left of Christ.  From the top, they are Matthew, Thaddeus, Philip and Thomas.  In these figures, Piczek represents the reception of the teachings of the Church, which were received with the clarifying presence of the Holy Spirit, and were “carefully maintained, … debated and precisely defined by theology…and [then] defended through the great courage of martyrdom.”[6]

            The witness of the Apostles centers on the figure of Christ, holding the Eucharistic Bread.  Here, an ancient Eucharistic Hymn composed by the Eastern Father, Ephraem the Syrian, who has been called the “lyre of the Holy Spirit,” [7] brings us to gaze more deeply into the reality portrayed in this window.

The flames of his love burst forth
and Jesus rose
from the place where he was reclining
and began to fulfill the mysteries
and celebrate the true Passover….

On the night of that paschal feast
he laid this law on his Church:
it was to call to mind the Lamb,
the Son of God,
who before he was killed for us,
gave us his body and blood….

O light-filled night
in which the mysteries were revealed,
the seal set to the covenant
made long before,
the Church of the Gentiles
enriched.
Blessed the night, blessed the hour
when the supper was hallowed.[8]

            Above the altar, our eyes are drawn to the Cross.  Piczek describes the connection in this way: “The event of the Last Supper and that of the Crucifixion are seen as one, living in each other.  The cross is built into and grows out of the chalice, bread and Eucharistic Christ.”[9]

            Here, the attention is on the contrasting responses of the two thieves to Christ.  Even the colors chosen for the bodies of the thieves and Christ depict the darkness into which the “Bad Thief” is mired.  The artist describes him as “forever tied himself to his cross with the many ropes of self interests, [with] his face…full of hate and terror.”[10] 

            In contrast, the posture and position of the “Good Thief,” later known through tradition as Saint Dismas, portray the invisible spiritual reality of his last hour conversion.  Piczek writes:

“The ‘Good Thief’ is not nailed or tied to the cross.  He was freed by Christ.  His arms are in a gesture of embrace around Jesus; his head is almost touching His sacred chest.  He looks up to Christ with hunger, with thirst…with dependence and deep affection.  The two heads, Divine and human, lean toward each other.”[11]

            Again, the Fathers of the Church give deep insight into the gift of this interaction with Christ.  Ambrose describes the Good Thief in this way:

“A most remarkable example is here given of seeking after conversion, seeing that pardon is so speedily granted to the thief. The Lord quickly pardons, because the thief is quickly converted. And grace is more abundant than prayer; for the Lord ever gives more than He is asked for. The thief asked that He should remember him, but our Lord answers, ‘Verily I say to you, this day shall you be with me in Paradise.’ To be with Christ is life, and where Christ is, there is His kingdom.”[12]

Ambrose’s contemporary, John Chrysostom addresses the thief himself with the words:

 “You behold the Crucified, and you acknowledge Him to be your Lord. You see the form of a condemned criminal, and you proclaim the dignity of a king.”[13]

            Finally, the events of the window are connected to the Church through the ages up to the present day.  As Piczek describes, the “eternal Cross [is] anchored into the Altar of the Church.”[14]  Below the scene of the Last Supper, this altar also portrays “the great arches of a mysterious cathedral…[bringing] the Crucifixion and the Last Supper into the future, the life of the Church,”[15] and becomes a backdrop to a scene of a communicant receiving the Eucharist.  A large stole encircles the bases of the altar, the priest and the communicant.  In this way, we are each invited to enter in to the great mysteries portrayed here, to be embraced by the Church as the priest’s stole embraces and encircles the one whose hands are outstretched to receive the Eucharist.

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[1] Isabel Piczek, “Theological and Artistic Description of the Artwork of the Heart of Jesus Retreat Center: Stained Glass Windows, Eucharistic Side of the Chapel.” (unpublished manuscript, given to the Society Devoted to the Sacred Heart, 2002).
[2] Isabel Piczek, “The Splendor of the Cosmic Heart,” (unpublished manuscript, given to the Society Devoted to the Sacred Heart, 2002), 9.
[3] Isabel Piczek, “Theological and Artistic Description of the Artwork of the Heart of Jesus Retreat Center: The Mystery of the Crucifixion and the Eucharist.” (unpublished manuscript, given to the Society Devoted to the Sacred Heart, 2002).
[4] Piczek, “Mystery of the Crucifixion and the Eucharist.”
[5] Piczek, “Mystery of the Crucifixion and the Eucharist.”
[6] Piczek, “Mystery of the Crucifixion and the Eucharist.”
[7] A. Hamman (ed), Early Christian Prayers, trans. Walter Mitchell (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1961), 178.
[8] Hamman (ed), Early Christian Prayers, 204.
[9] Piczek, “Mystery of the Crucifixion and the Eucharist.”
[10] Piczek, “Mystery of the Crucifixion and the Eucharist.”
[11]  Piczek, “Mystery of the Crucifixion and the Eucharist.”
[12] quoted in Thomas Aquinas, Catena aurea on Luke, 23, 7 in The Golden Chain on Luke, at Aquinas Institute, https://aquinas.cc.
[13] quoted in Thomas Aquinas, Catena aurea on Luke, 23, 7.
[14] Piczek, “Eucharistic Side of the Chapel.”
[15] Piczek, “Mystery of the Crucifixion and the Eucharist.”