Consolation and Healing from a Wartime Pietà

A dramatic pietà becomes Connie Anderson’s meaningful meditation for dark times. 

One of my most vivid childhood memories is the Pietà in my family’s parish Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Painted during the United States’ entry into WWII (1941-1942) by Dutch Benedictine monk Dom Gregory de Wit, the triptych’s striking center panel features Our Lady holding Jesus’ dead Body against a hellish background of dark red brambles. 

Elements of the triptych

The left panel shows a uniformed American soldier kneeling before them and presenting his rifle. 

The right panel shows his haggard wife guiding their two children in fervent prayer while holding their baby peacefully on her breast. Although they are separated by war, the center panel shows Mary reuniting their family around her Divine Son. 

Despite her apparent sorrow, Mary displays Jesus’ Sacred Body like a monstrance displays the Sacred Host. His Sacred Heart, miraculously nestled in His right hand, radiates love and mercy, while a half-eaten apple symbolizing Adam and Eve’s sin, the root cause of all wars, lies discarded at His feet. 

De Wit, influenced by Western and Eastern art, took no pay for his work. He dedicated his paintings to “The Glory of God.” Recognizing WWII’s extraordinary evil, he portrayed Our Lady and the crucified Christ as the parish’s refuge of hope. It was their way to see the mercy of God shining in the darkness through the compassion of Jesus’ Mother, who was now their Mother too. 

Although WWII officially ended in 1945, the world was still not at peace. The Iron Curtain fell, dividing predominantly Christian democracies in Western Europe and North America from Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. 

Violent and bloody takeovers of former European colonies in Africa and Asia crushed newly-formed governments. In eastern, southern, and southeast Asia, Communist China lowered the Bamboo Curtain, furthering worldwide division. Similar ideological revolts took place throughout Latin and South America. Accelerating global tensions, the United States, the USSR, Great Britain, and France began stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, making conflict resolution harder to obtain. 

A reminder to pray for peace

As a little girl, I was blissfully unaware of serious global threats. I did not grasp what my family, country, and world were going through until I saw the Pietà in the fall of 1955 when my first-grade class exited our church after our school’s opening-day Mass. For the next eight years, I identified my dad and all the dads I knew who fought in WWII with the Pietà’s kneeling soldier. 

The Pietà became my constant reminder to pray for peace. During my eighth-grade year, the Second Vatican Council’s opening and Cuban Missile Crisis ending gave fresh significance to de Wit’s dramatic scene and the power of prayer. As an entering freshman in Fall 1963, my classmates and I attended the new and popular guitar Masses in our high school’s gymnasium. While I loved the joyful singing, I no longer regularly saw de Wit’s Pietà, and I no longer prayed the simple Rosaries or attended the quiet Holy Hours that gave my faith deep, personal meaning. 

Many years later, Saint John Paul II’s exciting global appearances, tempered by stories of his struggles with Communism, made me realize how superficial my faith had become. Encouraged by Venerable Patrick Peyton’s exhortation, “The family that prays together stays together,” I rediscovered the Rosary and Father Peyton’s deeply insightful reflections, found in his Rosary Prayer Book. I also rediscovered Dom de Wit’s Pietà. 

Pope Benedict XVI helps us understand why the Pietà is so dear to Christians in his book, Mary: The Church at the Source:

In the compassionate Mother, sufferers of all ages have found the purest reflection of the divine compassion that is the only true consolation. For, looked at in its deepest essence, all pain and all suffering are solitude, loss of love, and the wrecked happiness of the rejected. Only the “com”, the “with”, can heal pain. 

Sadly, the Cold War, which climaxed with Saint John Paul II’s papacy, has returned, this time with more ominous threats. Nevertheless, Our Lord has not left us orphans. The timely National Eucharistic Revival, supplemented with the Rosary, helps us know God’s mysterious presence hidden in the Eucharist. Dom de Wit’s Pietà helps us see Our Lady’s consolation, revealing Our Lord’s healing and strength hidden even in the darkest night of our souls. 

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Copyright 2024 Connie Anderson
Images: copyright CF Anderson, QH Productions photographed the Pieta images; all rights reserved.