In order to see the form of the Redeemer, therefore, a turning is necessary: a turning away from one’s own image and a turning to the image of God. And here lies the whole problem of the representation of Jesus in images, particularly of his suffering. The turning or ‘con-version’ is the prerequisite, not only for ‘being able’ to endure this image and look at it, but the prerequisite for being able to see at all what it expresses objectively. Such conversion can take place only in the individual; only individuals can see crucifixes on walls or at street corners. Consequently, the question can at least be raised whether the crucifix can be, so to speak, the ‘official’ image of Christ for the whole community, or whether the latter, as a corporate body, should not have as its symbolic image, rather, the glorified Kyrios, as was the case in the ancient Church. The coming to prominence of the image of the suffering Christ in the Gothic Age is closely connected with the privatization of devotion, the need for interiority and the striving for contemplation that followed an age of external representation which, in part, abused the image of glorification in order to achieve an earthly anticipation of the eschatological Kingdom. Nevertheless, the problem of the image of the suffering Christ, which shows forth the hiddenness of God and the sinner’s ruinous condition and exhorts to conversion, has its limits in the essence of the community’s worship, which is directly oriented to the memorial of Christ’s suffering. It is in this anamesis [remembrance] (1 Cor 11.24), this memoria passionis, that the Church achieves her own true self. This occurs, naturally, to the extent that the Church consists of nothing but sinners who gather together and celebrate the memorial Meal in common, becoming a ‘church’ only through communion in this memorial. The Church exists in no other form. Thus, we here stand beyong the tension between individual and community. The Church is always a personal reality, and it is this persona Ecclesiae which contemplates God’s image of hiddenness—and must contemplate it, since the Church is the adequate subject for whose sake this image was designed in the first place. The Church is the sinful woman who has undergone conversion once and for all and who, nevertheless, must still be converted anew every day. As such, the Church has not only to ‘believe’ the image of hiddenness, but to contemplate it. To persevere in contemplation before this image is for her ‘the one thing necessary’ (Lk 10.41), because the spiritual power of the image will then ‘transform [her] into the same image’ (2 Cor 3.18). Precisely here, where God conceals himself, contemplation becomes an essential dimension of the Christian faith. (pp. 522-24)