Art/ Heritage

PICTURING THE PASSION: ‘The Disembowelment of Judas’ by Giacom/ Giovanni Canavesio (1491)

The Archdiocesan Heritage Museum, Mumbai brings to you the fifth article in the series titled ‘Picturing the Passion’

Judas Iscariot! It is the most hated name in history that instinctively recalls curse, criticism and condemnation.  People fear of being designated ‘a Judas’, the most heinous of all traitors. Dante, in his celebrated Divine Comedy, considers him the worst sinner and places him in the center of hell, in the mouth of Lucifer himself. An accursed villain in the Passion of Christ, Judas is regarded synonymous to the devil and to evil. Thanks to his well played antihero role, he is also one of the most recalled apostles, damned for his betrayal.

He betrayed Christ at two specific moments: the first was while devising the plan with the Pharisees over the agreement of the 30 pieces of silver and the second was during the execution of the said plan in the Garden of Gethsemane. As he hands his Master over to the murders, he steps closer to his own death, a self-murder.

The versions to this narrative are varied. While the Gospel of Matthew states, ‘When Judas, the traitor, realised that Jesus had been condemned, he was filled with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priest and the elders, saying ‘I have sinned by betraying innocent blood’ They answered, ‘What does it matter to us? That is your concern.’ So throwing the money into the Temple, he went away and hanged himself.’

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Faith

Seven or seventy seven?  Is there a magical number?-Tuesday,3rd Week of Lent – Matthew 18: 21-35

 Poor impetuous Peter, he did it again! It’s almost like he must say something at every occasion. But then again it sounds like a lot of people we know.  It would be hard to doubt the intentions of this good man who often shot his mouth. On this occasion, he sought to push himself to a new limit of giving, perhaps in the hope of winning the Lords approval. It bombed again.

Rabbinical Judaism recommended that forgiveness be offered just thrice.  Peter, who by now is quite accustomed to the Lord’s call to love more and give more, now more than doubles the Rabbis recommendations to forgive. Peter offers a perfect number, one more than the recommended double. Besides seven was a perfect number for the Jews. Seven sounded like heaven; So how could the Lord not appreciate this magnanimous figure that outdid the Rabbis in the forgiveness of one’s brother?  He surely had this one right? errrrr….wrong again

Jesus outdoes ‘Petrine generosity’, hitting it out of the stadium to seventy seven times. This sounds very nice as a thought but practically the thought of keeping such a count of forgiveness would be tedious, to say the least. So why does Jesus set this rather insane figure? Is there some magic in the number seventy times seven?

Jesus parables and teachings are filled with ‘extremes’. He is always asking the disciple for more. That is the heart of Christian discipleship; the teaching that St Ignatius held close to him, ‘let’s give the Lord more (Magis in Latin). So the call of Jesus to his disciples is to love more, give more and forgive more.  This is encapsulated in the parable that Jesus proceeds to tell to make clear his point; a parable of ‘exaggerated’ forgiveness.

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Do we want a miracle or the Messiah? Monday, 3rd week of Lent – Luke 4:24-30

Jesus is in Nazareth; He has triumphed over the devil in the desert and is now in the synagogue of His hometown. He has begun His public ministry and delivered His inaugural address in His own home town when ironically He seems to pick a fight with the congregation. The question is, did they throw the first punch when they called Him, “Joseph’s son,” as if to say our familiarity of you and your family leads us to diminish your teaching and work. Did familiarity breed contempt?

Jesus was not the son of Joseph, He was the Son of God (Luke 3:38) but while the reader of the Gospel passage already knows this, the people of Jesus’ hometown perhaps had no clue. For them this was “our boy”. There must have been a demand from the people of His hometown to replicate the miracles He had performed in Capernaum. Was there some rivalry between the two towns as some have suggested? That we will never know. What we do know is that Jesus did not see His ministry as merely being limited to His hometown, His people or only to Israel.

To make His point clear He alludes to two famous prophets; Elijah and Elisha. Of all the stories about these two famous prophets, He picks the ones about prophetic ministry to people who were not part of the people of Israel; ministry done on behalf of those who are not part of the hometown crowd.

When presenting Jesus in His Gospel, Luke is clear that Jesus’ ministry is available to all. In Luke’s Gospel there is an emphasis on salvation for both the Jew and the Gentile (e.g., Luke 2:31-32; 3:6). And here in Jesus’ initial proclamation of Good News; He makes it clear that He will not be a prophet who serves only the special interests of his hometown but rather a messenger of Good News for the whole world and especially the vulnerable.

The reaction of the crowd is one of rejection. They would rather have a miracle than a Messiah. They had “itchy ears” and had got used to preachers that gave them the truths from tales rather than a trail of truth. The truth that Jesus gave the people of Nazareth was the evidence from scripture and that was that God’s preferential love was for all and especially the underprivileged; people like the widow of Zerepahath or Naaman the Syrian.

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Art/ Heritage

TEMPLE TANTRUMS: ‘Christ cleansing the Temple’ by an unknown Netherlandish artist (1563 – 69); Kadriorg Art Museum, Tallinn

 We are in the Dutch provinces of the 1500’s. The Dutch Revolt (1568 – 1648) and the Reformation (1517 – 1648) brought a strain to the role of the artist. The Protestant insurgency and iconoclasm claimed violence all over the provinces. Churches were sacked, stained glasses crushed and images destroyed. As a result Dutch art witnessed a sharp shift from the sacred to the secular.

Artist like Jhernoimus Bosch, Lucas Van Leyden, Jan Sanders van Hemessen and Bruegel along with a host of other painters and printmakers started picturing pedlars, peasants, beggars, courting couples, money changers and other local figures in their art works. This gave rise to the ‘genre’ movement that led to the development of Dutch painting in the Golden Age. The humorous portrayal of the ‘uncivilised man’ in art was a call to reflect on human virtues and vices.

The essence of this genre is experienced through today’s painting in consideration. The subject is that of ‘Christ cleansing the Temple.’ The theme of the painting itself is revolutionary. Promoted by the Council of Trent, it symbolized the purification of the Catholic Church post the Protestant Reformation. The work is executed by an unknown Netherlandish artist who imitates the nuances set by the famous painters Jhernoimus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

The painting beams with stories, scary characters, mysterious symbols, amusement, proverbs, word plays, moral philosophy and the psychology of 16th century Antwerp. A huge temple structure in a mystical style dominates the foreground of the painting. An apocalyptic clock with a hand shaped dial on the left wall of the Temple strikes 12 and thus announces the arrival of the hour of judgement.   

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Faith

 

Seeking the Lord of the Temple- 3rd Sunday in Lent- John 2: 13-25

This episode of cleansing of the temple is placed right at the beginning of John’s Gospel immediately after the wedding feast of Cana. This is quite different from the synoptic Gospel writers (Matthew, Mark and Luke) who place the incident at the end of Jesus’ ministry and as one of the inevitable consequences of Jesus’ death.

John also adds many more details to the incident. He will write about “sheep and oxen” along with the doves. He has Jesus make a whip out of chord and then turns to address the dove sellers separately as he overturns theirs tables too. In John’s Gospel, it will be the raising of Lazarus that sets in motion the last nail of hatred in the intention of the Jews to put Jesus to death. So why does this evangelist narrate this incident so differently from the other three?

John wants to make a point. We are told that the occasion for Jesus presence in the temple is the Passover. It is but natural that the activities of commerce will go hand in hand with the activity of religion. The Jews of the diaspora and the Jews in the area were not allowed to bring in any graven image into the temple and the coinage at that time had the head of Caesar on it. Thus the official currency had to be exchanged for the Jewish shekel and a fee was involved. This explained the presence of the money changers.

Much has also been said about the presence of the sellers of sheep, oxen or doves that were used for the sacrifice. These birds and animals had to be without blemish and it is held that many of the priests were in connivance with the sellers to sanction only the purchase of sacrificial animals from within the temple, as fit for sacrifice.

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