“Let the Children of Divorce Come To Me”
To our knowledge and research, this painting entitled "Let the Children of Divorce Come to Me" painted by the artist Michael Corsini, commissioned by and in consultation with us, Life-Giving Wounds ministry, is the first-ever Christian sacred art meant specifically for the healing of children from divorced, separated, or broken families.
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Each detail of the painting has been briefly described to assist you in your contemplation of the work and its details for your own personal healing. Allow the Lord to speak to your heart as you read on.
Jesus sees us and our pain. We are not alone. He loves us.
Light. Comfort. Trust. Openness. The beginning of forgiveness and mercy. Life-giving wounds.
The resurrected, wounded Christ weeps for us and our parents. His head is burdened by the crown of thorns, which symbolizes the redemptive suffering of the Cross and for us depicts the necessary work of healing our memories.
The light from Christ gently touches the parents and extends to all of the viewers while in the foreground there is a broken toy horse and a smoothed out chord with a single knot. The latter items depict lost childhood and a reference to Mary, Undoer of Knots.
The divorced or separated parents. Their faces say so much.
Christ walks on the water to meet us while the child himself makes an act of faith with his feet.
The disciples remain in the boat. Are we the disciples? Are we scared like them to walk on the water fearful of coming storms? Do we respond to the wounds of others like Christ? Do we seek the lost sheep like a good shepherd?
A fallen rose. Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows. St. Therese of Lisieux. The difficulties of love and so much more.
A heavy outer garment cast aside. What is it that burdens you that you need to cast aside for your freedom and peace?
“Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
(Matthew 19:14)
Our new painting is a dialogue with modern art and in particular Picasso's masterpiece The Tragedy, which profoundly and deeply captures brokenness in family life. One interpretation of Picasso's painting could be that the family is suffering the hardship of alienation, separation, or divorce within family life. However, Picasso never revealed what the particular tragedy is. Regardless, note how vividly Picasso captures the pain and loneliness of the child caught between his parents. Neither parent is looking at him and he wraps himself tightly in a heavy garment as if to comfort himself in this place of desolation. He is unseen and forgotten. There is much grief and the painting calls out to the darkness for a sign of hope.
Picasso’s Tragedy, currently on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Michael Corsini’s Let the Children of Divorce Come to Me, commissioned and copyrighted by Life-Giving Wounds. Currently looking for a permanent home to be viewed publicly.
In our new painting “Let the Children of Divorce Come to Me,” the parents are now not even facing in each other's direction, as in Picasso's painting, depicting a certain finality of their broken relationship through divorce. Yet the new painting does not just depict the pain, which still remains, but also hope for the children and the family.
In our new painting, it depicts Christ on the same beach as Picasso's Tragedy, yet Christ walks on the ocean water, stepping towards the child, who also takes a step toward him. Christ lovingly receives the child and gently lifts the child's head to meet his eyes. Without saying a word, Christ's gaze says to the child all that is needed for him to hear in his heart as a warm, gentle light is cast from Christ's wounded hand into the hand of the child, and then to his parents and beyond. The child's open hand is a gesture full of rich symbolism; one meaning can be that of openness, forgiveness, and love towards his parents. Likewise, the parents' expressions are full of various, diverse meanings; one of which can be that they are interested in what is happening with the child and are subtly drawn, almost mysteriously, into this healing and compassion between the child and Christ.
This art was born from many conversations over the years we have had with adult children of divorce processing and grieving their pain and experiencing their joy of healing together side-by-side in our ministry. We have learned through this ministry that we need tangible reminders of God's invisible love for us and we hope this art is one of those tangible means for all of us children of divorce. We pray this art makes children of divorce feel less invisible and more seen, and ultimately inspired, comforted, and healed in many ways we can't even anticipate through this artwork.