Reflection • This essay uses Emmanuel Garibay’s Emmaus (2012) as a starting point to consider how expectation can blind us to grace, answered prayer, and God’s unexpected work. Through Scripture, it asks how disappointment becomes offense when God’s promises arrive differently than imagined.
Originally published in Words of Grace, Grace Church Cathedral, (Charleston, South Carolina), May 2026.
Reflection • James Tissot’s watercolor imagines the crucifixion from Christ’s perspective, illuminating Psalm 22 as Jesus’ prayer from the cross. What begins in anguish moves toward trust, resurrection, and triumph. The article invites readers to hear “My God, my God” not as despair alone, but as a cry filled with hope.
Originally published in Words of Grace, Grace Church Cathedral, (Charleston, South Carolina), April 2026.
Reflection • Pascal Fessler’s Return of Judas imagines Judas returning after betraying Jesus and asks whether forgiveness is possible. Placing viewers among the disciples, the painting challenges us to confront Christ’s command to love and forgive—even when it feels impossible.
Originally published in Words of Grace, Grace Church Cathedral (Charleston, South Carolina), March 2026.
Reflection • Interprets Damar Hamlin’s “Eternal Saint” jacket as a remix of devotional imagery, hip-hop iconography, and public testimony. Shows why the same image can read as reverence or offense—and what “recognition” asks of viewers.
Originally published in Words of Grace, Grace Church Cathedral (Charleston, South Carolina), February 2026.
Reflection • Reads Simone Martini’s depiction of Jesus in the Temple through Luke’s story of misunderstanding, anxiety, and return. Explores how art visualizes tenderness and tension in holy family life without flattening the mystery of Jesus.
Originally published in Words of Grace, Grace Church Cathedral (Charleston, South Carolina), January 2026.
Image Search Game • Find the Biblical References
Originally published in Words of Grace, Grace Church Cathedral (Charleston, South Carolina), February 2026.
Reflection • Interprets Banksy’s “Forgive us our trespassing” as a layered meditation on sin, boundary-crossing, and social critique.
Links the street art posture of “ask forgiveness, not permission” to confession, community, and the church’s call to welcome.
Originally published in Words of Grace, Grace Church Cathedral (Charleston, South Carolina), October 2025.
Reflection • Compares Dalí’s crucifixion to St. John of the Cross’s sketch to ask what it means to picture forgiveness. Argues that the absent nails and crown reframe sin as “remembered no more”—mercy made visible.
Originally published in Words of Grace, Grace Church Cathedral (Charleston, South Carolina), September 2025.
Reflection • Traces the icon of Peter and Paul embracing as a visual theology of disagreement held in communion. Uses Acts and Paul’s rebuke of Peter to ask whether our debates include neighbors—or push them from Christ’s love.
Originally published in Words of Grace, Grace Church Cathedral (Charleston, South Carolina), July 2025.
Reflection• Shows how apocryphal storytelling shaped centuries of Joseph’s depiction. Later, devotion reframed him as strong, present, and capable as demonstrated in Annigoni’s St. Joseph the Worker.
Originally published in Words of Grace, Grace Church Cathedral (Charleston, South Carolina), June 2025.
Gayle L. Goudy