"The Well-Stocked Kitchen" (1566), Joachim Beuckelaer (c. 1534–1576)

 

 "The Well-Stocked Kitchen" (1566), Joachim Beuckelaer (c. 1534–1576)

Magnificat July 2026

 

 What would you like for dinner tonight? In this vivid scene by the Flemish painter Joachim Beuckelaer, there are plenty of options. Fowls in various stages of defeathering, listless rabbits, and succulent slabs of meat await the hands of a pair of kitchen maids busily skewering and plucking the corpses under their care. Vegetarians may even be catered for, given the range of verdant vegetables and rich, juicy fruits. Fine, choice wines seem to be on offer, as a contented-looking man by the fire seems to be ensuring that the vintage is still good. Amid the bustle of the well-stocked kitchen, several other figures are enjoying the commotion, perhaps hoping to serve as impromptu taste testers for the feast.

In the background of this rather active still-life, another scene unfolds. Framed within a classical arch and partially covered with a flowing canopy, a man with outstretched arms speaks to a group of women who listen attentively at his feet. Another woman has come upon the group, and seems to make a modest protest. Several men observe the scene with interest. In contrast to the vivid colors of the foreground fowl and fauna, these figures are painted in muted tones, their blue and green cloaks contrasting with the vivid reds that frame the kitchen scene.

In these juxtaposed scenes, Beuckelaer draws on an artistic tradition of monumental genre scenes developed by his teacher Pieter Aertsen (c. 1507–1575). In a 1552 painting now in Vienna, Aertsen contrasts a foreground still-life of a table full of luscious food with a depiction of Jesus talking with two women. An inscription on the mantlepiece makes the occasion clear: Mary has chosen the better part (Luke 10:42). Aertsen juxtaposes the kitchen of earthly delights with the biblical story of Mary and Martha recounted in Luke 10:38-42 and proclaimed in the liturgy on the feast of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus (July 29):

Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

Following in the brush strokes of his master, Beuckelaer’s "Well-Stocked Kitchen" juxtaposes the outward goods of earthly food and drink and the inward mystery of Christ’s comforting and challenging words. In Beuckelaer’s depiction, the outstretched arms of Christ seem to distinguish between the outward cares of Martha and the inward concern of Mary while encircling both women in his magnanimous embrace.

In the view of some art historians, Aertsen’s and Beuckelaer’s paintings are meant to contrast the self-love of those who follow worldly desires and the divine love of those who strive for the Kingdom of Heaven. While there is certainly truth to this perspective, there is also an element of synthesis between the outward and the inward in these paintings. Christ has truly come into this world to live among us. From the wedding feast at Cana onwards, Jesus truly dwelt among his people, dining and drinking with them. Jesus does not come to destroy our human nature, but to restore and elevate it.

Jesus does not deny the need for outward things—in his Incarnation, the invisible Son of the Father has truly taken on a human body, like us in all things but sin, that needs to be nourished—but he insists on the right ordering of the external and the internal. He has taken on our flesh not only to dwell among us, but to give us the chance of dwelling with him. Through his visible form, he lifts us up to the love of things invisible: “For in the mystery of the Word made flesh a new light of your glory has shone upon the eyes of our mind, so that, as we recognize in him God made visible, we may be caught up through him in love of things invisible” (Preface I of the Nativity of the Lord).

Jesus knows that we need to eat and drink, but invites us to rightly order these earthly needs: Do not worry and say, “What are we to eat?” or “What are we to drink?” or “What are we to wear?” All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom [of God] and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides (Matthew 6:31-33).

Even in the liturgy, we need to seek a right ordering of the external and the internal. As Cardinal Ratzinger once preached, “In the Liturgy we should also give the service of Martha: offering a sacred space to the Lord, offering him our preparations, well-planned ceremonies, and the chant, offering him the gifts of the earth, the bread and the wine. All of this is very necessary, and it is equally necessary to do it well. Yet nonetheless, if the ‘Marian’ dimension is not also present in the liturgy—the contemplative dimension in which we simply sit at the Lord’s feet—the most essential thing has gone missing.”

In the sacred banquet of the Eucharist, Jesus unites the outward nourishing of bodily food with the inward nourishing of the soul. He offers not merely the bounties of a well-stocked kitchen, but something far more satisfying: Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day (John 6:54). The same Jesus who visited the home of Martha and Mary wants to enter our homes as well: Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, [then] I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me (Revelation 3:20).

 

Father Innocent Smith, O.P.

Dominican friar of the Province of Saint Joseph and professor at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Bible Missals and the Medieval Dominican Liturgy.

 
The Well-Stocked Kitchen (1566), Joachim Beuckelaer (c. 1534–1576), Rijskmuseum, Amsterdam. Photo : Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

 

The Sower (c. 1865), Jean-François Millet (1814–1875)

 

 

 "Blessed Are the Arable Hearts"

Magnificat July 2026 

A sower went out to sow. Thus begins the world, thus begins the Gospel (Luke 8:5) , thus begins this painting…

The arm is flung forward, the hand opens, the seeds take flight to fall like a rain that makes the earth fruitful. And in this gesture lies the entire parable—the good soil and the harvest.

As far as the eye can see, the arable land unfolds. The earth is open, the land that the hand of man has freed from the stones, purged of brambles, torn from the curse like a promise about to be fulfilled. As far as the eye can see, here is the prepared land. Not the stony ground where the seeds burn, not the brambles where the young shoot is strangled, but that vast fertile field like a womb waiting to be made fruitful.

As far as the eye can see, Lord, here is this fallow land, the fruit of men’s labor. Land shaped by sweat, sanctified by it, land where every plowing is an act of faith, where every furrow opened is an act of hope, where the preparation of soil is an act of charity.

Now, Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) has placed us, the beholders of his work, in a position to become its actors: we are set so low, almost at ground level, that we ourselves become one of the furrows. Before this painting, we are part of the good soil that is about to be fertilized by the august gesture of the Sower. For this land, the fruit of human labor, is our heart. Our heart turned, broken, plowed, opened, offered: freed from the hardness of the stones, released from the grip of the brambles. Blessed are the arable hearts…

Millet painted a peasant sowing. He shows him to us from below: we look up to him, and this raises and exalts him. His silhouette is outlined by the light of the setting sun piercing through the clouds, a technique used in ancient bas-reliefs to designate men of providence. His gesture is broad, theatrical, arm outstretched: a movement that belongs more to the monuments raised in our public squares to honor great men than to simple narrative painting.  

The mystery of mysteries   

This monumentality bestowed by Millet upon his pictorial expression is not in vain: here the peasant sows as Abel the righteous sowed at the dawn of the world, and as Jesus of Nazareth sowed his word when the fullness of time had come.  Millet painted what he himself confessed: “The peasant at his work is like a priest at his Mass.” Then everything becomes clear: the step is a procession, the hand is a blessing, the land is an altar.  For to sow is to begin to accomplish the mystery wherein the grain, fallen into the earth, dies in order to live, is lost in order to multiply, disappears in order to rise again. Mystery of mysteries where God explains nothing, yet in the end accomplishes everything in us, for us.

Van Gogh considered Millet “the sower of modern art.” And indeed he was, for he showed that art needs neither gold nor marble nor grand style to be an expression of the sacred, but only a peasant advancing, an arm opening, a grain falling into the earth. He looked upon the humble man and in him discerned a man raised to the rank of the divine; he looked upon the earth and there discerned the table of the Last Supper; he looked upon labor and discerned a liturgy. He contemplated the earth and the work of men, and from plowing to harvest he discerned the history of salvation. And since then, every artist who seeks truth rather than appearance—a presence that speaks to the soul, rather than affectation that speaks to pride—sows in the furrow opened by Jean-François Millet, shepherd in his childhood, plowman in his adolescence, who before his easel became an expert in parables.

 

Pierre-Marie Dumont

 
The Sower (c. 1865), Jean-François Millet (1814–1875), The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts. © 2011 Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute / photo Michael Agee 

"The Delivery of the Keys to Saint Peter" 🗝️ ⛪ 🇻🇦 (1481–1482), Pietro Vannucci, called Perugino (1448–1523)

 

"The Delivery of the Keys to Saint Peter" (1481–1482), Pietro Vannucci, called Perugino (1448–1523)

From June 2026 Magnificat

We can all see in our head the images of the cardinals’ entrance into the conclave on May 7, 2025, a little more than a year ago, to elect the new pope. In this way they perpetuated a centuries-old tradition: since the 1400s, this assembly has been held in the Sistine Chapel. One of the frescoes that watched over the election is particularly significant, since it depicts the appointment of Peter as the head of the nascent Church.

Michelangelo outshone Pope Sixtus IV (1471–1484), who had commissioned the construction of the papal chapel that bears his name, as well as the other painters who decorated it. Perugino, Botticelli, and Ghirlandaio, among others, never­theless labored on the middle tier. Producing ­parallel scenes from the lives of Moses and Jesus, they manifested the continuity of salvation, which was offered first to the chosen people, then to the whole world. For example, opposite The Delivery of the Keys to Saint Peter by Perugino, Botticelli painted The Punishment of the Rebels, in which a revolt against Moses is chastised by God (Numbers 16). On the one hand the refusal to obey the man sent by the Lord, on the other the institution of Peter as head of the Church: this iconographic program is at the service of a message that is spiritual, but also unambiguously political. The two Roman arches flanking the square on which the Gospel scene unfolds are copies of the Arch of Constantine; they recall the power of Rome, whereas the sumptuous central building gives preeminence to the Temple in Jerusalem. This background, an idealized cityscape, enhanced with gold like all the frescoes of this series, and so peaceful with its vast pavement and its blue and green countryside, forms a triumphal framework for the Church.

Two keys

As far as we know, Jesus never gave literal keys to Peter. The expression is an image found in the Gospel of Matthew: I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Mt 16:18-19). A frail basis for such a great edifice as the Roman Catholic Church—frail but decisive, buttressed as it is on the threefold confession of Peter in John 21. “The power of the keys,” according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “designates authority to govern the house of God, which is the Church” (553). The official insignia of the Holy See and the papal coat of arms bear these two keys, which are clearly visible at the center of Perugino’s composition: one gold key, one silver key. The first, turned upward, opens heaven, while the other symbolizes authority over souls during their sojourn on earth. The fresco solemnly depicts the moment this responsibility was handed over to Peter, separating Jesus from the rest of the group and concentrating the action on his interplay of glances with Peter. Everything about Peter expresses serious astonishment at being chosen: “Me, Lord?” he seems to exclaim. Mercy is written all over Christ’s face, and it is beautiful that the artist shows us indirectly here that the power to bind and loose is conferred on the one to whom much will be forgiven.

A master and Lord

Perugino was Raphael’s master, and we sense their stylistic kinship in the softness of the features, the delicacy of the light, and the gracefulness of the contours. He depicts the disciples around Jesus at this “key” moment, so to speak, in which Peter, having proclaimed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God (Mt 16:16), sees the future Church entrusted to him. There are six on either side, with their heads at the same level (isocephaly), while their cloaks and tunics form a shimmering frieze. Standing beside Peter, we recognize John, his left hand holding a roll of parchment and his right hand on his heart, with all his weight on one leg in the contrapposto attitude so valued by Renaissance artists. Perugino allegorizes the scene by showing real keys, by opting for an idealized setting, and by juxtaposing the twelve apostles with 15th-century men, without haloes, in costumes of that era. Two of them, carrying a pair of compasses and a carpenter’s square, are no doubt the architect and the master builder of the chapel, recalling also the theme of edification, another metaphor signifying the Church. These spectators, who strike different poses, like those of the apostles, show the continuity of the Petrine ministry over time.

The general harmony, however, is gained at the price of Christ’s death: this is recalled first by the presence of Judas—on the left, with a curious halo, and thrusting one hand into his purse—but also by what unfolds on the square. These are not, as one might think at first, figures meant to animate the scene, but rather Gospel episodes in which Jesus shows that his freedom as the Son of God will continue up to his Passion. To the left, he seems to be taken aside by some soldiers: others demand of him the Temple tax, the sum of which Peter will find in the mouth of a fish (Mt 17:24-27, right after the second announcement of the Passion). To the right, Jesus, once again without an apostle, escapes from an attempted stoning. Above the fresco, the Latin inscription Conturbatio Jesu Christi Legislatoris, “trouble because of (or around) Jesus Christ the Lawgiver,” insists on the forces in opposition to the sovereignty of Jesus. We know all too well that we, though members of the Church, do not always accept the Master’s loving authority. The grateful humility of this Saint Peter by Perugino shows us the way to do so.

Delphine Mouquin

Holds a PhD in literature. She is a frequent contributor to the French edition of Magnificat.

The Delivery of the Keys to Saint Peter (1481–1482), Pietro Vannucci, called Perugino (1448–1523),

Sistine Chapel, Vatican City.

The altarpiece of San Zeno, Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431–1506), Basilica of San Zeno Maggiore, Verona, Italy.

 

"The Two Columns of the Church "

from June 2026 Magnificat

The San Zeno Altarpiece is a monumental triptych painted by Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431–1506) between 1457 and 1460 for the high altar of the Basilica of San Zeno Maggiore in Verona. The work consists of a central panel showing the Virgin and Child in majesty, surrounded by angel musicians, and two side panels: on the left, the apostolic pillars (Peter, Paul, John, and Zeno, a 4th-century bishop and saint, apostle of Christian Verona); on the right, the city’s patron saints (Benedict, Lawrence, Gregory the Great, and John the Baptist). The painted architecture that structures the composition is inspired by antiquity; it unifies the panels into a single coherent space, like a loggia opening onto a garden.

The illustration on the cover of this month’s Magnificat is a detail from the left panel. It depicts Saints Peter and Paul. The silent dialogue between the two, as Mantegna presents it, is a distillation of his genius: sculptural rigor, psychological depth, and a keen sense of monumentality. Saint Peter looks out of the painting at a figure who is clearly speaking to him. This could very well be Jesus himself, whom he encounters on the Appian Way just outside Rome, as he flees persecution in the year 64. Peter has just called out to him, “Quo vadis, Domine?” and Jesus replies, “I am going to Rome to be crucified again.” (1)

Peter commands respect. The Church has been built upon him; he is the supreme shepherd. Yet his expression reveals his awareness of his weaknesses: he is solid as a rock because he has been lifted up and transformed by mercy. The heavy keys he holds in his right hand are not displayed as a sign of power, but carried as a burden of responsibility and service.

Paul holds his sword like the two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart. No creature is concealed from him, but everything is naked and exposed to [God’s] eyes (Heb 4:12-13a). And indeed, the chief of the apostles seems to be under the gaze of Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. It is a look full of deference and even submission, yet also one of benevolent compassion, as if Mantegna wished to suggest in Paul’s eyes a tender recollection of what he said to the Galatians: And when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he clearly was wrong (Gal 2:11).

By staging this silent dialogue between the two pillars of the Church—a dialogue where, despite the absence of sound, their postures, gestures, and expressions speak for themselves—Mantegna highlights their complementarity and seeks to convey the internal dynamics of the early Church. In essence, Mantegna does not oppose them; he unites them, for the tension he suggests between them is profoundly fruitful. Without Paul, the Church would have risked becoming rigid and petrified; without Peter, the Church would have risked dispersing and fragmenting.

By staging this silent dialogue between the two pillars of the Church—a dialogue where, despite the absence of sound, their postures, gestures, and expressions speak for themselves—Mantegna highlights their complementarity and seeks to convey the internal dynamics of the early Church. In essence, Mantegna does not oppose them; he unites them, for the tension he suggests between them is profoundly fruitful. Without Paul, the Church would have risked becoming rigid and petrified; without Peter, the Church would have risked dispersing and fragmenting.

These two pillars of the Church present a stony visage. Their faces, angular and tense, seem carved in stone. The drapery looks as if it were chiseled with a gradine. The light, harsh and frontal, accentuates the figures and gives the scene an almost architectural density. Mantegna treats the apostles like living statues, as if they had escaped from the Roman statuary he so passionately admired. This approach is not merely stylistic: it situates the apostles within the continuity of the antiquity in which they lived, as if Christian truth, in some measure, came to fulfill ancient wisdom. That ancient wisdom, moreover, was praised by Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 265–339) with the beautiful title Praeparatio Evangelica (“Preparation for the Gospel”).

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1 The Polish writer Henryk Sienkiewicz based his novel Quo Vadis, which earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1905, on this episode recounted in the Acts of Peter (traditionally dated to late antiquity). The film adaptation directed in 1951 by Mervyn LeRoy is a masterpiece that was nominated for eight Academy Awards.

Pierre-Marie Dumont

Saints Peter and Paul (1457–1459), detail of the left side of the altarpiece of San Zeno, Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431–1506), Basilica of San Zeno Maggiore, Verona, Italy

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The altarpiece of San Zeno, Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431–1506), Basilica of San Zeno Maggiore, Verona, Italy.

Saint Joseph and the Christ Child (1666), Claudio Coello (c. 1642–1693)

 

"Saint Joseph and the Christ Child" from May 2026 "Magnificat"

To those accustomed to images of an aged Saint Joseph, bent and wizened by the burden of his responsibilities, this painting by Claudio Coello may come as a surprise. Here, the ­foster-father of Jesus appears youthful, commanding, and manly, almost upstaging the Blessed Virgin as he strides towards us, the infant Christ in his arms.

This painting exemplifies the seismic shift that took place in artistic depictions of Saint Joseph during the 17th century. Earlier representations favored an elderly sedentary figure, an awkward attempt to reinforce the teaching of Mary’s perpetual virginity by visually dismissing Joseph as a debilitated geriatric, essentially harmless to women. Ever gallant, Saint Joseph lent himself to this humiliating guise, but centuries of spiritual reflection would inspire artists to decorate him with a coat of many colors—protector of husbands, workers, fathers, the papacy, the dying, and eventually, in 1870, the Universal Church.

A new look for a new era

Saint Joseph’s most radical artistic reimagining, however, took place after the Protestant Reformation. His white hair turned to raven locks, his bent back straightened into a proud bearing, and his worried mien gave way to calm confidence. The architects of the new, improved Joseph were some of the greatest figures of Spanish Baroque spirituality, Jerónimo Gracián and Saint John of the Cross, incidentally both spiritual directors to Saint Teresa of Ávila. Teresa would place seven of her convents under Joseph’s protection, inviting the world to “go to Joseph.” Together with the treatises and homilies of Gracián and Saint John of the Cross, Teresa‘s writings on Joseph, an intercessor powerful enough to deliver her from “danger…both of body and of soul,” inspired artists to take a fresh look at an old saint.

The shape of Coello’s six-foot painting clearly denotes its function as an altarpiece. The Spanish painter, artistic heir to Velázquez and Murillo, depicts the saint towering above the altar. Despite his formidable stature, Joseph embodies gentleness, effortlessly cradling the charmingly chubby Christ Child. Joseph’s gaze is both loving and authoritative as he points towards the crib in the lower left of the canvas. The tools on the right suggest that Joseph crafted the bed himself. A closer look at the cradle reveals his elegant carpentry.

Joseph wears a long cassock-like robe, tinged with a hint of purple. This royal color alludes to Joseph’s kingly lineage as a descendant of David. His mantle radiates with a golden glow, but the richness of these colors is muted by the liberal addition of brown. Instead of regal arrayment, Joseph conceals his splendor under a cloak of humility. From the Latin word humus, meaning “earth” or “soil,” humility describes this image perfectly. Mary sews quietly in the background (though she might appear to be sweetly “waving” for the camera) while Joseph puts the baby to bed. This is an image of humble domesticity, the simple tasks proper to men and women of the age. They don’t seek glory but quietly serve the one who has yet to be glorified.

In our age, which coined the unfortunate term "toxic masculinity," Saint Joseph, with his quiet virility, provides us with a robust image of real manliness, the vir in virtue. Joseph’s staff rises beside him, the bourgeoning bouquet at its summit a symbol of his purity and self-mastery. A loving father, a solicitous spouse, and a hard worker, Joseph kept company with shepherds, Magi, and Egyptians, and despite his scriptural silence, he was a man of action as well as contemplation. In art, Joseph was transformed from awkward appendage to universal role model, visual support for Saint Teresa’s claim that there was no one who was “truly devoted to him…who has not advanced more in virtue.”

A familiar face

Joseph’s face in this altarpiece would have looked familiar to the faithful, for it bears a striking resemblance to images of the adult Jesus. Here, Coello, deeply imbued with Spanish Counter-Reformation spirituality, visually interpreted Gracián’s remark that Joseph was like Christ in “countenance, speech, complexion, habits…and way of life.” Angels frolic below and above the saint; they serve the Christ Child, yet they are also a reminder that Joseph communicated with angels on no fewer than four occasions, an extraordinary link to the divine.

The scarlet drapery rises like a theater curtain, drawing our eyes to this charismatic figure who is meant to be emulated, admired, and invoked, yet in his discreet manner Joseph directs our attention to his luminous son. He gestures towards the crib, which resembles a coffin, while the bright white linens call to mind the shroud.

Coello’s marvelous altarpiece pays homage to Saint Joseph and provides us today with an inspiring example of the Holy Family in a charming scene. But before its exile to the sterile walls of a museum, its true power would have been felt during the Mass, when the priest, lifting the Host above the altar, would have complemented Joseph’s motion of lowering the Child to the crib, drawing together heaven and earth in the real presence of Christ’s Body upon the altar.

Elizabeth Lev

Writer and professor of art history in Rome.

Saint Joseph and the Christ Child (1666), Claudio Coello (c. 1642–1693), Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio.

"The Holy Family in Joseph’s Workshop", Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682)

 

"The Earthly Trinity" from May 2026 "Magnificat"

Here is a charming work by Murillo (1617–1682); it is little known because it belongs to a private collection. The Holy Family is depicted in a room that bears the features both of a domestic interior and of a makeshift carpenter’s workshop. This is because we are not in Nazareth but in Egypt, where the Holy Family took refuge for three or four years. Quite naturally, Murillo imagined that during that time Saint Joseph the Worker had provided for his family by practicing his trade as a carpenter. Thus, at the threshold of the painting, we are welcomed by a cat that sleeps, but his heart waketh. Its presence confirms that we are in Egypt, where the cat was a sacred figure, protector of the household.

As always, Murillo’s work invites us to enter into contemplation as if embarking on a spiritual exercise. Not a combat exercise, in the manner of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, but rather the kind of exercise practiced by Teresa of Ávila, or even more (who cares about the anachronism?) by Thérèse of Lisieux: an exercise that invites us to contemplate, to be moved, to understand, and finally to give thanks in prayer: an exercise to make communion in love visible, desirable, practicable.

Contemplating

The focal point of the painting is Mary’s open hand, at the geometric center of the painting. What does it express? How does the Mother’s gaze upon her Son and her God—how does her entire posture—enter into the dynamic of this hand gesture and give it a sublime, artistic eloquence? Also, what does her right hand signify, resting on a large white cloth she has just embroidered, like a shroud? And here stands Joseph, a righteous man, a young, handsome husband, an attentive father whose eyes express all his affection, but more deeply the mystical question that sets his heart in communion with the Mystery of mysteries: “But who is this adorable son, of whom I am the father?”

Being moved

Yes, who is this charming blond baby who stretches out his little hands toward his Mother? What do his delightful smile and his gaze express, as they bathe his Mother in a soft light woven of love and joy? Who is this disarming Child, innocence itself, behind whom just enough wood beams have been prepared to make a cross?

Understanding

This scene helps us to understand that the Incarnation is not merely God bending down toward humanity; the Incarnation transfigures humanity in what it is, and divinizes it for what it is meant to be. To be a woman, to be a man, to be a child, the family, the sanctifying prose of everyday life, maternal love, paternal love, filial love, education, occupation, vocation, all of human life, and even death—all this can become a place of expression for divine life.

Murillo called the communion in love of Jesus-Mary-Joseph “the earthly trinity.” And he popularized images of this communion as a work of evangelization. Indeed, he believed there was no better news to proclaim everywhere than this: since Jesus Christ—true God and true man—returned to his Father, our Father, and sent us the Holy Spirit, all human communion in love—in the image and likeness of the Holy Family—is already communion in God who is Love. 

Pierre-Marie Dumont

The Holy Family in Joseph’s Workshop, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682), private collection

Painting by Murillo entitled The Two Trinities, found in the National Gallery in London, which admirably expresses Murillo’s trinitarian mysticism. 

"Blessed the Man" (Ps 1), Stuttgart Psalter. Anonymous (c. 830), Württermbergische Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart, Germany.

 Blessed the Man (Ps 1), Stuttgart Psalter. Anonymous (c. 830), Württermbergische Landesbibliothek,

Stuttgart, Germany. 

Blessed the Man

Pilate’s words, Behold, the man! (Jn 19:5) are cruel mockery as he displays the whipped and bloodied prisoner to the screaming crowd. The words mean: look at what you call a man. Look at how weak he is. How defenseless. How beaten down. And the words have menace: this is who you are in the hands of Roman justice, and any one of you could be next.

But the unknown artist of the early-9th-­century Stuttgart Psalter noticed that, through the mockery and the menace of Pilate’s words, an echo of another voice can be heard: Blessed the man (Ps 1:1). The man to whom the Psalter first directs our gaze is also the man on Pilate’s balcony and the man on the cross. To gaze on that man, the artist proposes, is to discover the One who reveals the true nature of every man and every woman.

A model of blessing

In the hands of the Stuttgart illuminator, the first letter of the first word of the Psalter expresses a whole theological universe in miniature. The “b” in “blessed” (beatus) is composed of the upright form of King David and a growing, curling vine. At one level, then, David himself is the “blessed man” Psalm 1 calls us to behold, whose vibrant life with God causes new growth to spring up like verdure covering once-barren earth. Since the whole Psalter was traditionally thought to have been composed by David, every word in the book is both an effect of David’s blessing and a means by which the one who prays the psalms enters into David’s gifts.

But how exactly is David blessed? The artist suggests an answer by depicting David as a power­ful, youthful warrior, clad in armor and a royal cloak, who wields a spear in his right hand and a cruciform scepter in his left. The portrayal evokes David’s first victory over Goliath as a boy, as well as the series of victorious conquests that marked David’s whole life, first as military commander for Saul and then as king himself. But battles, victory, and power are not the point of the story. The blood on David’s hands prevents him from building the temple; God’s dwelling place on earth will only be built by the man of peace (1 Chr 22:8-9). Over the head of David the Warrior rises a new sign: the sign of the cross.

New David, new blessing

Directly below the martial figure, the New David appears: the beardless, youthful Christ, stripped of all royal trappings, hands bearing nothing but the nails that pierce them. Jesus, son of David, reveals the true nature of kingship and victory. The perfect king of Israel, the eternal King of heaven and earth, does not conquer with the sword or terrify people into subjection. He reigns from a tree, crowned with thorns and clothed only in derision. His radical humility upends the cynical conviction that might makes right. Love, not power, is the true force that governs reality.

Because Jesus is the New David and the heir to God’s promises to David’s line, all David’s blessings are transformed and expanded in Jesus Christ. Read in the light of the cross, the whole Psalter becomes a revelation of Christ’s face, the perfectly “blessed man” who moves the human heart to seek him. The artist of the Stuttgart Psalter places Jesus Christ on the opening page of his work because he is convinced that the book of Psalms is really about Jesus Christ, and that by praying with it, we share ever more deeply in the blessings he poured out on the cross.

Of David’s line

But how exactly do the blessings promised to David and fulfilled in the New David come down to us, who are neither of David’s line nor contemporaries of Jesus’ earthly life? The remaining two figures in the scene point the way. A figure clad in a green cloak walks off Mount Cavalry and towards another mountain, where an orange-robed figure sits teaching. These figures express the only way the Church grows and moves through time: not by the sword, nor even by the ties of family, but by teaching and receiving the sacred mysteries that come from the cross. The graces that Christ pours out from his pierced side come to you and me from priests who enact Christ’s words in the sacraments, and from the countless men and women who teach us by word and deed who Jesus Christ is. This mystery is the Church, which the artist visualizes as a river of grace that receives the promises made to David and the people of Israel, bursts into waves of glory on the cross, and flows out into human history.

Blessed are the merciful

Taken together, the figures on the first page of the Stuttgart Psalter give insights into why Easter Sunday and Divine Mercy Sunday bookend a single eight-day celebration—the Easter Octave. We cannot bootstrap ourselves to the graces of the cross. We cannot teach ourselves the saving truths of the Incarnation. We cannot impress God with our great deeds. To enter into the resurrected life of the Blessed Man, Jesus Christ, we need to be washed in his blood, receive forgiveness, and learn the Truth who overcomes the lies we tell ourselves. In other words, we need mercy—which is the life of the Church. Blessed the man whom we behold scourged and bloody. Blessed the man who offered his life to give us mercy. Blessed are we when we long to see his face.

Father Gabriel Torretta, O.P.

Scholar of medieval Christianity who teaches theology at Providence College in Rhode Island.

"Risen Christ embracing the cross" (1594), Giovanni Battista Tinti (1558–1617)

Risen Christ embracing the cross (1594), Giovanni Battista Tinti (1558–1617), National Gallery, Parma, Italy.

His Death Freed Us from Death

Giovanni Battista Tinti (1558–1617) was an Italian mannerist painter who settled in Parma. He was one of the artists who best understood and translated into their works the essential message of the Council of Trent (concluded in 1563).

The work that adorns the cover of this issue of Magnificat was not painted on canvas, nor on a wood panel, nor as a fresco, but rather on a panel of leather. It is in fact a banner produced by Tinti for the processions of the Confraternity of the Five Wounds. This confraternity undertook as its charitable task to help the poor facing death by assuring them of a decent burial, but also by coming to the aid of the survivors, who often, at the death of a father or a mother, or a husband, were in danger of sinking from poverty into destitution. This confraternity continued to flourish into the 20th century but was dissolved by military force in 1911 by an anticlerical Italian government.

The work is treated as a trompe-l’œil to show that Christ bursts forth from the dark hole of death that swallowed him up, so as to return to the light of life. The gilded frame whose threshold the Risen One is crossing concretizes the door that opens from death onto life. And this is true not only for Jesus himself, but for all mankind. This mystery of the deliverance of the human race is indicated on the uprights of the frame by the depiction of the Archangel Michael: on (the viewer’s) left, guarding the entrance to the earthly paradise; on the right, embracing (in the initial sense: enfolding in his arms) the Tree of Life so as to bar access to it. And the title of the work is precisely this: The Risen Christ Embracing the Cross. The cross is indeed the Tree of Life, which the Son of God embraced to restore free access to it.

Alleluia, Jesus is truly risen!

Alleluia, Jesus is truly risen! Once again all of his human brothers and sisters are allowed to stretch out their hand, to take the fruit of the tree of life, to eat of it and to live forever (see Gn 3:22-24). The juxtaposition of these biblical images enables the artist to show us something inexpressible: the cross/tree of life embraced by Jesus brings about a total reversal of human destiny: what was once a terrifying sign of suffering, torture, and death becomes a sign of the triumph over suffering and death which opens onto eternal happiness in the next life. This is the meaning of the maxim that is featured at the top of the frame: Vulneris de vulnere salus, roughly, “the wound freed us from the wound.” Meditation on this will sustain our contemplation of the work.

This mortal wound that saves us from our original wound, which is also mortal, is presented here for us to contemplate, not only insofar as it is accomplished once for all in its historical coming, but also in its sacramental actualization in our lives: from the wound, from the Savior’s side, the Eucharistic Blood flows unceasingly until the end of time—here it is collected in a chalice by an angel. This divine wine enables us to communicate truly, really, in the offering that Jesus made of his life for our salvation, to the point of making us able, as active members of his body which embraces the cross, to love one another truly, really, as Jesus loved us.

Vulneris de vulnere salus: this maxim therefore confers a programmatic dimension on the banner, a dimension explained by the inscription that figures at the bottom of the frame: Hunc socii sentite in vobis, “Brethren, experience this within yourselves,” in other words: “Brethren, be not content to meditate on this great mystery, but by your devoted life grant that it may be fulfilled in you.”

Pierre-Marie Dumont