From Dust to Dust
Dr. Joseph Antenucci Becherer, Executive Director of the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art, reflects on Giovanni Martinelli’s Memento Mori: Death Comes to the Table for Ash Wednesday. On this day, many of us will attend Ash Wednesday services. A priest will dip his thumb into a small bowl containing the ashes of burnt consecrated palms from the previous year mixed with holy oil. He will then trace the sign of the cross on each person’s forehead. What a tangible reminder of our confidence in the Lord! As Christians, we do not turn and look over our shoulders at death with fear, but on the contrary, we walk straight toward it with faith, love, and joyful hope.
Contemplate the Artwork
Wednesday, February 14, 2024 12:00 pm
Dr. Joseph Antenucci Becherer, Executive Director of the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art, reflects on Giovanni Martinelli’s Memento Mori: Death Comes to the Table for Ash Wednesday. On this day, many of us will attend Ash Wednesday services. A priest will dip his thumb into a small bowl containing the ashes of burnt consecrated palms from the previous year mixed with holy oil. He will then trace the sign of the cross on each person’s forehead. What a tangible reminder of our confidence in the Lord! As Christians, we do not turn and look over our shoulders at death with fear, but on the contrary, we walk straight toward it with faith, love, and joyful hope.
This Lent, ThinkND invites you to join FaithND and the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art for a journey of Lenten discovery through some of the most significant liturgical paintings in the Raclin Murphy collection, challenging you to contemplate prayer, fasting, sinfulness, mercy, grace, and God’s infinite love from the perspectives of the artist’s gaze. To subscribe to the FaithND Daily Gospel Reflection visit faith.nd.edu/signup.
For closer viewing of this work through the digital collections of the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art, please click here.
View EventMeet the Faculty: Joseph Antenucci Becherer, Ph.D.
Joseph Antenucci Becherer is the director and curator of sculpture at the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame; concurrently, he is a professor of art history in the university’s department of Art, Art History and Design. Formerly, he was the chief curator and vice president of Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he directed the departments of Sculpture and Sculpture Exhibitions, Horticulture and Annual Exhibitions, Communications and Public Relations. Additionally, Becherer served as the Lena Meijer Professor in the History of Art at Aquinas College, where he taught courses in Renaissance, Baroque, and Contemporary Art.