Spiritual Sunday
In 1904 the great mystical poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote “The Last Supper” after seeing Leonardo da Vinci’s painting. I like how he helps me see the picture anew: Rilke contrasts the grounded Jesus (“like a sage resolved to his end”) with the worried disciples (“they flutter anxious”) but also notes how alone he feels.
The disciples are understandably concerned about the news he brings them. In Rilke’s analogy, he has delivered a shotgun blast into their midst and they, like frightened birds, flutter anxiously around as they “try to find a way out.”
But there is no way out. Jesus is “everywhere like a twilight-hour” with night coming on inexorably. Fortunately, after night, the dawn.
The Last Supper
By Rainer Maria Rilke
They are gathered, astounded and disturbed
round him who, like a sage resolved to his end,
takes himself away from those he belonged to,
and who alien past them flows.
The only loneliness comes over him
that reared him to the doing of his deep acts;
now again will he wander through the olive grove,
and those who love him will take flight before him.
He has summoned them to the last supper
and (as a shot scatter birds out of the sheaves)
he scatters their hands from among the loaves
with his word: they fly across to him;
they flutter anxious through the table’s round
and try to find a way out. But he
is everywhere like a twilight-hour.
