Friday, June 12, 2020
Francesco del Cairo: Judith with the Head of Holofernes
Judith 12:16 – Holofernes’ Banquet
As we continue our series of reflections on the nature of schemers and their plots, how to avoid them and how to rebuke those who lie on couches to conspire, we return to the story of Judith.
Holofernes is a man accustomed to using power and he also knows how to bide his time, lay traps, and bring others into his schemes. What he has never encountered in his powerful life is a woman who is as beautiful, God-centered, and determined as Judith. And Holofernes’ lust is no match for Judith’s constant, prayerful attendance on God. This story is worth reading from beginning to end but if there is time for only one verse, it is 12:16 for it teaches us how to deal with schemers, seducers and plot-builders.
“The story of Judith is full of unexpected turns. The first and most obvious . . . was that a woman – and not a man – saved Judah in its time of severe distress. Judith is more faithful and resourceful than any of the men of Bethulia. She is more eloquent than the king and more courageous than any of the leading citizens of the city, yet Judith is a very unlikely heroine”. (Senior RG 213)
The story of Judith is full of the detail which we might overlook if we rush through the reading; and it is the kind of detail that a good writer uses to describe the depth of one’s personality, the reason for one’s perversion, the cause of one’s sociopathy. It is the kind of writing which brings us up sharply when we experience the shuddering reality that human beings often spend more time trying to lure others into a personal agenda than they do honestly working at the task God assigned to them. The image of this man “burning with desire . . . yet biding his time” is one that haunts me. I cannot shake it. And it returns in the written word on a day like most others . . . packed with activity . . . with so little time for reflection about what is real and not real.
This story tells of how God delivers the faithful through a crushing crisis . . . and how God does this through a woman. The Reader’s Guide of the CATHOLIC STUDY BIBLE tells us that Judith destroys the enemy not through might but by “her beguiling charm and disarming beauty. The Bible sometimes portrays a woman’s beauty negatively as a snare, but here it is the means of deliverance”. (Senior RG 213)
And so we hear this story which has been retold so many times through history and in so many ways. It is a story that teaches us how to combat the lavish allure of the banquets staged by those who plot against innocents and of a woman who answers God’s call with the only tools left to her. It is a story rife with irony and inversion. It is a story of how God moves in our lives if we but allow God to enter.
May we all take a lesson from Judith.
To see and study more paintings of Judith and Holofernes, visit: https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/best-judith-head-holofernes-paintings/
To read more Noontimes reflections on Judith, enter her name in the blog search bar, seek . . . and find.
Senior, Donald, ed. THE CATHOLIC STUDY BIBLE. New York, Oxford University Press, 1990.RG 213. Print.
A Favorite from October 3, 2007.
The Noontimes 