Teach me to accept other people

with love, as you do.

Help me to take other people

as they are

and never be cruel or unkind

- whatever they look like.

Amen

Wendy Beckett

In A Child’s Book of Prayer in Art, Sr Wendy Beckett teamed her prayer above with this late 15th-century painting by Ghirlandaio.  It’s a portrait of an old man and his nipote, the Italian word probably translating here as ‘grandson’. Despite the carbuncles around his grandfather’s nose, which might repel another child, this one comes close. He places his hand trustingly on the old man’s chest and looks into the disfigured face long and lovingly. He sees beyond the blemishes.

There’s a vulnerability about the grandfather but, sensing this unconditional acceptance, he does not turn away in embarrassment. He looks down gently and gratefully. The two feel safe with each other. It’s a healing moment, a moment which teaches us about God’s unconditional acceptance of us, disfigured as we are in so many different ways. And Sr Wendy’s prayer invites us to mirror this divine way of loving by accepting others, warts and all. 

The aria below from Handel’s Messiah sets words from Isaiah 53: He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (3a). The biblical text continues by describing this figure as ‘one from whom others hide their faces’ (3b). Since the crucifixion, Christians have seen in Isaiah’s words something of Jesus’ own ‘Passion of Disfigurement’. We are now just days away from re-living it, days away from the ‘smiting’, ‘spitting’ and ‘shame’ (Isaiah 50.6) of the aria’s central section.