I was watching a movie set in WWII a while back. An American soldier, after arriving in Berlin broke into a German home, unknowing to him, of a Nazi officer who was off serving in the war. The GI picked up off a nearby table a photograph of the Nazi officer in his uniform. The GI gazed at it for a moment then threw it on the floor breaking the glass and the frame. Behind the GI, in the shadow, looking on was the wife of the Nazi officer who only knows the officer as loving husband whom she hasn’t seen and may never see again looks down at the shattered photograph of her husband with extreme sadness and longing. It was the middle of the night and she was in her gown perhaps dreaming in her sleep of the love and joy of their life together. Not knowing the atrocities being committed by men like her husband only knowing the man in the photograph as perhaps gentile, fun, caring and loving. I wondered how many times she picked up that photograph, held it, reflected, spoke to it, prayed or cried. To the GI this was a photograph of the enemy it meant nothing to him beyond that, to the woman it was the very essence of her husband in who he is to her. Though he is away, off in another place, he is always there with her in that remembrance of their love affair manifested in that simple photograph.
In my mind it was a very moving scene and spoke volumes to me of the value of a photograph. A photograph is simply a light reflected image on paper, accurate to what is reflected of the object photographed unlike a painted portrait which is an artists representation and interpretation of likeness.
My thoughts immediately were upon the Eucharist. To those who have a deep and intimate relationship with Christ the Eucharist is that photograph of our Lord who is physically away, yet at the same time spiritually very present. As we hold the bread which He said, “is My body” and the cup which He said, “is my Blood” we are in fact holding Jesus Himself as He declared it. We reflect and communicate in deep adoration of our Love whom we hold in this photograph being reminded of His life, His passion, His resurrection and His imminent return.
To those who only see the symbol and consider just the commemoration of His passion is like looking at a portrait which is not of reflected light but rather an interpretation of His actual likeness. It is faulty in that we only see what the artist allows us to see, imperfect as any painted portrait is, but sufficient only as a symbol. Not worthy of the adoring image in which the photograph is.
When we come to the Lord’s Table to partake and we hold in our hands the bread and the cup lets us be mindful of the difference between a painted portrait and photograph. May His reflected light lead us further and into deeper communion with Himself.
