Episode Transcript  

One

A Hideous Soul

During our school years, many of us read the famous novel by Oscar Wilde, The Portrait of Dorian Gray. It’s about a very handsome young man who stays very young-looking and good-looking, no matter how old he gets. But there’s a catch: up in his attic, there’s a painting, a portrait of himself, and the more he sins, the more vicious his character becomes, the uglier and uglier his portrait gets. When he looks at the painting, he just can’t stand it, even though no one else knows how hideous his soul is, he sees it, and it drives him crazy.

So, what do you think a portrait of your soul would look like?

Two

Calvary: A Portrait of Your Soul

On Good Friday, part of what we do is remember that Christ’s disfigurement at Calvary is a portrait of your soul and mine. He’s covered in spit. He’s got thorns sticking out of His head. You can see the ribs coming out of his side where the lash went too deep. His fingers are twitching from the shattered nerves in his wrists. And His Body is twisted around and convulsing as he contorts Himself to try to breathe.

We did that to Jesus. That’s the look of our sins. That’s what sin does to our souls. We don’t need a portrait of what sin does like Dorian Gray had in his attic. We have paintings of the crucifixion, like the one Matthias Grunewald did in the sixteenth century. It’s ugly. It’s brutal. And it’s the truth about what our sins secretly do to us.

 And if we’re not careful, one day there will be a very particular, ugly portrait of our souls. And it’ll be us. And it’ll last forever.

Three

Nobody Wants to Stay Disfigured

Some people have very sad, very tragic disfigurements, burn victims, trauma victims, and people who have had cancer on their faces. All of them, if they had the chance, would do anything they could to have their appearance restored to normal. Thank God for plastic surgeons, who can heal a lot of people. But just think, right now, you and I are crafting our souls, which will one day determine what we look like forever.

Until the conclusion of the book, Dorian Gray’s true character only appears in the painting, but at the end of the book, Dorian Gray’s whole appearance takes on the deformed, decrepit look of his soul. That’s exactly what will happen to us if we don’t repent and reform. All the hidden vices will rise to the surface, and we will be cast in the horrifying portrait that our souls have secretly been painting.

Now, if we had some physical disfigurement, and there were any possible way our appearance could be fixed, we’d do everything we could to get that fix. And our physical appearance doesn’t last that long anyway.

So why, when what’s at stake is eternal disfigurement, don’t we find the way to be healed from that? Because there is a way. There is a restorative therapy that will make our souls beautiful now, and our bodies glorious forever. And that way Christ showed us in His Resurrection.

Four

Christ Risen and Glorious

If Christ Crucified is the portrait of the ugliness of our sins, then Christ Risen is the portrait of what we can be spiritually by His grace. The broken, mutilated body of Jesus was restored, and more than restored, elevated, to a glory not ever seen among the sons of men. And what He was able to do for His own body, He is able to do for our souls.

Imagine if Dorian Gray, instead of seeing the portrait of his soul get more and more hideous every day, imagine if he was able to see a portrait of his soul constantly growing in beauty, in integrity, in strength, and in peace. And then, at the end of his life, instead of turning into the monstrous old man he had painted with his sins, Dorian Gray turned into a being of splendor and grace, whose physical beauty reflected the interior goodness and joy of his soul.

That could be what awaits us if we give ourselves to the Resurrected Lord.

Five

Christ’s Power to Raise Us Up

So many of us care so much about our external appearances, but not about our souls. Christ, on the other hand, allowed His appearance to be marred to the point that the prophet said of Him, “he had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2).

And then, putting the spiritual first, He rose again with a glorified body.

So stop and think: if you had a portrait of your soul in the attic, what would it look like? What spiritual ugliness, what sins do you have that nobody sees behind the presentable front you put up? One day, that picture in your attic will be you forever, for all to see. So beg God for the power, the power Jesus’ resurrection proves He has, to make your soul clean and pure and good. 

Conversion and growth in virtue come from receiving Jesus frequently in the Eucharist, daily meditation and a resolution, daily examination of conscience, and confession at least once a month.

Suggested Resolutions:

Choose one resolution for today to help you grow closer to God, or create your own. Here are some ideas to inspire you.

• Every day, sit and imagine the portrait of your soul. Help yourself to see the consequences of your sin by imagining them painted into your portrait, immortalized. Then, remember that the paint is not yet dry and you still have time to alter the painting.

• By creating the routine of a daily examination of conscience and frequent confession, we can change the trajectory of our soul. Take the next step by setting aside time for both.

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