The Expressiveness of hands

This Stations of the Cross book came in a stack of other old books no one had chosen yet from a free pile at a book sale long ago. Though I always wondered why and how someone could give it away.

I love the human hand, so I was quite taken when I opened it for the first time. It is beautiful and striking that all you see for each station is hands and sometimes feet. But they are enough to convey the passion he endured in “his members”. Each part of His physical body suffered and was offered to the Father much as the suffering members of His mystical Body are offered up in each of our own sufferings willingly accepted.

It is especially moving to see how the artist conveys his being taken lifeless from the cross. That quiet, lifeless hand that had done so much healing, held bread, stroked the head of Magdalene, called forth Lazarus in power, passed the cup of his blood to each disciple at the table in the upper room, washed their feet. That hand so “finished” all life completely given until He breathed forth his spirit. That one hand speaks a life poured out for us.

God reward John Andrews of Omaha, NE (wherever he may be now) who was inspired to draw them way back in 1952. I would like to have met him.