Why is the Novel Setting of the Christus Consolator Statue Used?

A DEEPER LOOK: PURSUED: TEN KNIGHTS ON THE BARROOM FLOOR (from the notes of Mel R. Jones)

The fictional protagonist, forensic pathologist Dr. Emerson Stanek, experiences the worst emotional injustice of his life (which paradoxically also holds the possibility of the best) at the feet of the ten foot Carrara marble statue of the Christus Consolator in the rotunda of the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

In Jones’s novel we learn that through the years young Hopkins doctors have rubbed the toes of the monumental statue for good luck. And patients often pray before the statue where the words, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” (Matthew 11:28) are visible on the pedestal. Two prayer books on stands at the side of the rotunda invite visitors to write down prayers and concerns if they wish.

But our protagonist’s first view of the statue after being away from Johns Hopkins for eight years brings back long repressed memories. As he walks by the statue with the Hopkins dons who will vote on a possible grant for his cancer research, Stanek will not rub the toes of the statue as his peers do. The symbol of compassion and forgiveness but rekindles the memory of the burning experience of the violent injustice suffered in his heart, mind and body at the site intended to inspire comfort, courage and hope to all who enter into the hospital.

The sensation of awe in silent admiration of the impressive Christus Consolator statue that an American textbook writer in 1896 described as “the most perfect statue of Christ in the world” with its welcoming gesture of open arms and downward gaze that can invoke in a viewer the awareness and emotion of the very presence of the Christ, but is lost on our main character as the novel opens. What’s more the statue’s pedestal that has been set low so that visitors may come close but reminds him of the ultimate betrayal, rejection and pain of his young life that he experienced there.

The breathtaking magnificence of the statue is splendidly placed in the center of the open rotunda under the interior dome of the Hopkins Hospital’s Administration Building. The statue’s series of approaches impact the viewer from any angle, and the ascending balconies surrounding the statues in the rotunda lift one’s view upward. The open arms of the statue await our hero’s choice of peace or conflict in his life journey.

Other eyes can enjoy the exact copy of Danish neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorwald’s Christus Consolator, the original first executed for Copenhagen’s Vor Frue Kirke, or Church of our Lady, in Denmark. So impressive is the statue that many other copies of it exist around the world.

We might wonder why a non-sectarian hospital acquired this religious symbol. In fact, the hospital’s first president of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and University, David Coit Gilman, at the opening ceremonies of the hospital in 1889, expressed the wish that a copy of the Christus Consolator, the Great Healer, be placed in the rotunda of the hospital, tying medical research into the furthering of Christian charity and relief of suffering. Seven years later a Scottish immigrant and one of the wealthiest businessmen in Baltimore, William Wallace Spence donated a copy of the massive statue to Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1896.

The statue was pulled from the wharf on a wooden sled drawn by four horses all the way up Broadway to the hospital’s north entrance, then slid down the corridor to its place in the rotunda. “Jesus came in the north door,” said William Thomas, the hospital’s first doorman, perhaps remembering the Bible quotation, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened to you. (Matthew 7:7)

Others wondered if the statue was sought to offset criticism from the more conservative element in late 19th century Baltimore that the hospital had no religious affiliation. The Christus Consolator statue’s impression has a universal and non-sectarian appeal that emphasizes Christ as the Divine Healer and minister to the sick at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

But would the “sickness” in the heart of character Emerson Stanek find healing through his experiences in the novel? Will he hold onto his painful suffering experienced at the feet of the Christ statue, or will he choose the peace offered by the welcoming, outstretched arms of the Christus Consolator? It is a choice each of us must make over and over again as we journey through life. Will we, or won’t we, listen to the words of Christ, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest?”

[avatar]Marian[/avatar]