The Ghent Altarpiece

“It’s a stroke.” A big one. I received the call in the afternoon while at a conference in Belgium. My grandmother, after years of suffering from dementia, was nearing the end of her life. I was in Leuven, thousands of miles away.

 

The next day, the conference attendees were all supposed to board a bus to a famous monastery. I couldn’t imagine taking up residence on a bus, engaging in the kind of chit chat about academic and liturgical politics that marked so many of these conferences, so I went my own way.

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By mid-morning, I boarded a train for the city of Ghent. I arrived with only the vaguest of plans to see Hubert and Jan van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece. I began my pilgrimage, my only marker the distant spire of St. Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent’s central square.

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Unlike other Belgian churches I had visited, St. Bavo’s was a place not only of tourism but devotion. Residents of the city had stopped in to light a candle before the Blessed Virgin Mary, to let their joys and sorrows be received by the Mother of God. After about thirty minutes in the church, I found the chapel where the altarpiece was reserved.

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I had arrived about ten minutes before the altarpiece would be opened to the best-known image from the polyptych, the Mystic Supper of the Lamb. I stood before the closed altarpiece, looking upon an image of the Annunciation. Such images are ubiquitous in late medieval and early modern altarpieces. Mary’s fiat provided a space for the Word to become flesh. And now in the celebration of the Mass, Mary’s son becomes present again among us as the resurrected Lord under the signs of bread and wine.

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Mary’s fiat provided a space for the Word to become flesh. And now in the celebration of the Mass, Mary’s son becomes present again among us as the resurrected Lord under the signs of bread and wine.

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In the Ghent altarpiece, Mary’s arms are folded in prayer. She does not look upon the angel Gabriel, who has come to announce the Good News. Her eyes are elevated in prayer, the Spirit dwelling above her. The pages of Scripture are moved by the wind of that very same Spirit, for something marvelous is about to happen. The space between the angel and Mary testifies that something marvelous is about to happen. The closed altarpiece is pregnant with the possibility of redemption.

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You wouldn’t have known it based on the ruckus raised by my fellow pilgrims and tourists (likely, mostly tourists). They had their travel guides out, ignoring the signs that asked for reverent silence before the image.

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Near 1:00 PM, two sacristans appeared from behind the altar. They approached the altarpiece, bowed their heads, and opened the van Eycks’ masterpiece to the central images. Silence filled the small chapel, the pilgrim tourists suddenly became as mute as Zechariah.

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The top central panel is Jesus Christ, flanked by John the Baptism and his Mother Mary. The angelic hosts sing on both signed, some of them almost painfully expressing their praise to God. In the bottom panel, you see the Mystic Supper of the Lamb. At the center of that famous panel is the Lamb once slain, adored by angels. There is a baptismal font, beckoning the viewer to enter the image. Just as there was space between Mary and Gabriel, the space of possibility, there’s also a space for you.

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The Eucharistic nature of the Mystic Supper is patent. Yes, the Eucharist is the true presence of Christ, who comes to feed his people. The central figures on top immerse you into the Roman Canon (what we call Eucharistic Prayer I) where Jesus Christ comes to offer the very same sacrifice of himself, flanked on either side by a list of saints starting with Mary, the Mother of God and ending with John the Baptist.

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But there are those glorious saints, drawn from every corner of the world. Some of them with grumpy faces. Others in sublime prayer. They’re all called to stand aright before the Supper of the Lamb, never leaving behind their distinctive particularities. Despite the violence of the central image, the Lamb’s blood pouring forth into a chalice, there is no violence in this Eucharistic city of God. The saints move toward the altar as if in a dance.

 

In the fifteen or so minutes before this image, I thought often of my grandmother. Soon, I knew, she would find herself in the position (God-willing) of one of these saints. She was a generous woman, a faithful spouse, mother, and grandmother, yet also stubborn and prone to gossip. She used to put quote marks over every other word in letters she sent me, a habit that made me jokingly wonder to my wife if she really “loved” me or “wanted” me to have a good semester.

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At once, I knew in this Eucharistic city, there was a place for her. A space for all those pilgrim tourists who stood before the image. A space for me.

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I knew in this Eucharistic city, there was a place for her. A space for all those pilgrim tourists who stood before the image. A space for me.

 

The Ghent Altarpiece captures what St. Thomas Aquinas describes as the res tantum or ultimate reality of the Eucharist: an increase in charity, the bonding together of the Church in the love that she has received, the love that is pure gift. Such love is never violent, forced upon the recipient. It is offered. Poured out. Broken and given.

 

It manifests a stunning fact that we Catholics dare to profess. Not only that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ (stunning, enough). But that all creation, through the Incarnation of the Word made flesh, is to become a world suffused with love. Creation itself is to become Eucharist. 

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Death and sorrow don’t have the last word.

 

Love does.

 

The love of the Lamb once slain.