Magnificat March: THE COVER OF THE MONTH Moses, the Lawgiver Who Prefigures Christ Who Is to Come by Pierre-Marie Dumont This large-scale Byzantine icon (33” x 26”) is preserved at Saint Catherine …More
Magnificat March: THE COVER OF THE MONTH
Moses, the Lawgiver Who Prefigures Christ Who Is to Come by Pierre-Marie Dumont
This large-scale Byzantine icon (33” x 26”) is preserved at Saint Catherine Monastery on Mount Sinai, where it was probably painted in the early 13th century. It is composed around a dynamic diagonal that ascends from right to left. This diagonal is drawn by the figure of Moses at the summit of Mount Sinai, who advances and stretches out his arms to grasp the Tables of the Law that God offers him. However, the painter respects the biblical prohibition against depicting God: all that appears is a hand emerging from ink-black skies, a colour that signifies the impenetrable mystery of God, a mystery protected by a cloud which is suggested here by a pearl-gray band. The sleeve of the divine garment that can be glimpsed is made of gold. Gold is a precious substance, symbol of the divine: of God himself in the sleeve of the garment that can be glimpsed from the cloud, and of a sacred event taking place in the background of the icon, radiating divine power.
So as not to profane the holy ground that he walks on, symbolised by the colour green, Moses has removed his sandals, thus obeying the order that God had already given him from the Burning Bush (Ex 3:5). He is covered with a large shawl with which he covers his shoulders and hands, so as to receive the sacred Tables with dignity. Likewise the priests of the New Covenant cover themselves with the humeral veil (from the Latin humerus: “shoulder”) in order to carry the Blessed Sacrament. Beneath the shawl we discern a dark blue tunic: in the Old Testament the cloth of the Tent of the Covenant was of this colour, and so were the vestments of the high priest who was called to represent the people in God’s presence.
The striking thing about this icon is that it repeats none of the conventional ways of depicting Moses. In fact, what it intends to present for our contemplation is Moses inasmuch as he is a figure of Christ, the Lawgiver who is to come, in this case Jesus whom Saint Matthew in his Gospel presents as the New Moses who comes to accomplish the Law in its fullness. The Moses depicted here plainly is thirty-three years old, the age of Jesus at his death, and he is covered prophetically with a rose-coloured veil, signifying the Divine Sonship.
How did Jesus fulfil the Law of Moses?
Saint Matthew ceaselessly insists: the ultimate purpose of the Law—of the ten commandments—was to prepare the hearts of the members of the chosen people to recognise the Messiah who was to be born in their midst, whereas this Messiah would be nothing less than the Son of God incarnate. Revelatory in this regard is Jesus’ reply to the Pharisees who seek to trap him by putting him in a delicate situation with regard to Moses by the question: which is the greatest commandment of the Law? (Mt 22:36). Jesus does not fall for the trap but quotes the Shema (Dt 6:4-5). But then he immediately goes on to cite a second commandment in the Law, which no longer concerns God but our neighbour: You must love your neighbour as yourself (Lv 19:18). And he dares to say that this second commandment is like the first. Why? Because in him God has made himself their neighbour. Therefore keeping the second commandment of the Law is the only thing that can enable his interlocutors to recognise him as the Messiah and therefore in him, a true man, to love the true God in deed and in truth. Unfortunately the Pharisees will refuse to give in to the divine pedagogy. They boast of being faithful to the Law and of loving the Lord their God with their whole heart, with their whole soul, and with their whole mind, but they do not love their neighbour in the person of Jesus. That’s the whole point. They will end up condemning the Lord their God to death, in the name of the first and greatest commandment of the Law.
In assigning equal value to the first commandment of the Law and to the second, Jesus intended through the Law to prepare hearts to recognise the perfect fulfilment of the Law in him. For in the New and Eternal Covenant it will no longer be a question of the greatest commandment of the Law, because then there will be only one commandment, the new commandment. My commandment, Jesus will say, is this: love one another; just as I have loved you (Jn 13:34 etc.). In Jesus, to love God and to love one’s neighbour, to be loved by God and to be loved by one’s neighbour, it is all one.
The Prophet Moses receiving the tablets of the Law, early 13th-c. icon, Saint Catherine’s Monastery at Mt Sinai, Egypt. © 2024 by St Catherine’s Monastery at Mt Sinai.
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Holy Week Cover:
Letting the Child Jesus Lead Us, to Save the World
“If I could live my life over, I would like to be nothing but a very little child constantly giving my hand to the Child Jesus.” These were the last words of Bossuet (1627–1704) on his deathbed. Céline Martin (Sister Genevieve of the Holy Face) quoted these ultima verba of the Eagle of Meaux as the most beautiful formulation of the “little way” of her Sister Thérèse, the way of childhood and self-abandonment.
In this spirit, on the cover of this issue of Magnificat for Holy Week, a great painter and contemporary of Bossuet, Mathieu Le Nain (1607–1677), shows the point to which the Child Jesus could lead us by the hand, if only we consent to follow him.
Contemplating the arma Christi
The dusky atmosphere, reinforced by the funereal, dark purple curtain that unveils the scene, gives the picture a dramatic dimension. However, at the highest point of the dark sky, a porthole of golden light comes to illuminate a handsome child dressed in a white tunic that is too big for him, as though it were predestined to be the one belonging to the Transfigured, the Resurrected.
The Child has reached the age of reason, seven or eight years old; he has already begun to grow in wisdom, in stature, and in favour with God and men. His beautiful, discreetly haloed face is marked by seriousness. It reflects the depth of an interior life that is both humanly contemplative and divinely animated. On his knees, with his arms crossed and his right hand on his heart, the Child Jesus contemplates the instruments of his Passion: the cross, reduced to his present size; behind him the lantern of the guards who will come to arrest him and the ladder that will make it possible to take down his mortal remains; in front of him the pincers, the hammer; and also the basin, the pitcher, and the towel that will enable Pilate to wash his hands after sentencing God to death; then the lance, the dice with which the soldiers will gamble for the seamless garment, and the nails; further on the strange-shaped column to which the Man of Sorrows will be bound for the scourging; finally, a little further to the right, still planted in the ground, the branch of hyssop that will serve to lift up to the lips of the crucified man the sponge soaked in vinegar.
Our reason for being Christians
This masterpiece invites us first to consider that—just as much as during his Passion— Jesus was the Saviour of the world during the thirty years that he spent living in the world “like everybody else”, a child, an adolescent, an adult, in a family, in society, as a carpenter. And so, let us not doubt for a moment that in giving our hand to this Child, through the grace of the Eucharistic sacrament and of the New Commandment, each one of us can fully commune, in his everyday family, social, and professional life, with the salvific work of Jesus during what has come to be known as his “hidden life”. But of course, this picture of the Child Jesus contemplating the instruments of his Passion invites us still more explicitly to give our hand unceasingly to the Child Jesus, to the point of contemplating with him all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body, the Church.1
Over the course of this Holy Week, without ever letting go of the hand of the Child Jesus, we can be led to contemplate, so as to discern it better, the salvific dimension of our whole life, including our own passion and our own death when the hour arrives. For such is indeed our mission as Christians: to be unceasingly, in the historical place of our own vocation, an active member of the Son of God, the Saviour.
1 A reflection inspired by the bold statement of Saint Paul in Col 1:24, to indicate that it is up to each one of us to reenact in our own lives the perfect offering that Jesus made of his life to his Father.
Pierre-Marie Dumont
Jesus as a child in adoration of the cross, Mathieu Le Nain (17th c.)
Moses, the Lawgiver Who Prefigures Christ Who Is to Come by Pierre-Marie Dumont
This large-scale Byzantine icon (33” x 26”) is preserved at Saint Catherine Monastery on Mount Sinai, where it was probably painted in the early 13th century. It is composed around a dynamic diagonal that ascends from right to left. This diagonal is drawn by the figure of Moses at the summit of Mount Sinai, who advances and stretches out his arms to grasp the Tables of the Law that God offers him. However, the painter respects the biblical prohibition against depicting God: all that appears is a hand emerging from ink-black skies, a colour that signifies the impenetrable mystery of God, a mystery protected by a cloud which is suggested here by a pearl-gray band. The sleeve of the divine garment that can be glimpsed is made of gold. Gold is a precious substance, symbol of the divine: of God himself in the sleeve of the garment that can be glimpsed from the cloud, and of a sacred event taking place in the background of the icon, radiating divine power.
So as not to profane the holy ground that he walks on, symbolised by the colour green, Moses has removed his sandals, thus obeying the order that God had already given him from the Burning Bush (Ex 3:5). He is covered with a large shawl with which he covers his shoulders and hands, so as to receive the sacred Tables with dignity. Likewise the priests of the New Covenant cover themselves with the humeral veil (from the Latin humerus: “shoulder”) in order to carry the Blessed Sacrament. Beneath the shawl we discern a dark blue tunic: in the Old Testament the cloth of the Tent of the Covenant was of this colour, and so were the vestments of the high priest who was called to represent the people in God’s presence.
The striking thing about this icon is that it repeats none of the conventional ways of depicting Moses. In fact, what it intends to present for our contemplation is Moses inasmuch as he is a figure of Christ, the Lawgiver who is to come, in this case Jesus whom Saint Matthew in his Gospel presents as the New Moses who comes to accomplish the Law in its fullness. The Moses depicted here plainly is thirty-three years old, the age of Jesus at his death, and he is covered prophetically with a rose-coloured veil, signifying the Divine Sonship.
How did Jesus fulfil the Law of Moses?
Saint Matthew ceaselessly insists: the ultimate purpose of the Law—of the ten commandments—was to prepare the hearts of the members of the chosen people to recognise the Messiah who was to be born in their midst, whereas this Messiah would be nothing less than the Son of God incarnate. Revelatory in this regard is Jesus’ reply to the Pharisees who seek to trap him by putting him in a delicate situation with regard to Moses by the question: which is the greatest commandment of the Law? (Mt 22:36). Jesus does not fall for the trap but quotes the Shema (Dt 6:4-5). But then he immediately goes on to cite a second commandment in the Law, which no longer concerns God but our neighbour: You must love your neighbour as yourself (Lv 19:18). And he dares to say that this second commandment is like the first. Why? Because in him God has made himself their neighbour. Therefore keeping the second commandment of the Law is the only thing that can enable his interlocutors to recognise him as the Messiah and therefore in him, a true man, to love the true God in deed and in truth. Unfortunately the Pharisees will refuse to give in to the divine pedagogy. They boast of being faithful to the Law and of loving the Lord their God with their whole heart, with their whole soul, and with their whole mind, but they do not love their neighbour in the person of Jesus. That’s the whole point. They will end up condemning the Lord their God to death, in the name of the first and greatest commandment of the Law.
In assigning equal value to the first commandment of the Law and to the second, Jesus intended through the Law to prepare hearts to recognise the perfect fulfilment of the Law in him. For in the New and Eternal Covenant it will no longer be a question of the greatest commandment of the Law, because then there will be only one commandment, the new commandment. My commandment, Jesus will say, is this: love one another; just as I have loved you (Jn 13:34 etc.). In Jesus, to love God and to love one’s neighbour, to be loved by God and to be loved by one’s neighbour, it is all one.
The Prophet Moses receiving the tablets of the Law, early 13th-c. icon, Saint Catherine’s Monastery at Mt Sinai, Egypt. © 2024 by St Catherine’s Monastery at Mt Sinai.
_______________________________________________________
Holy Week Cover:
Letting the Child Jesus Lead Us, to Save the World
“If I could live my life over, I would like to be nothing but a very little child constantly giving my hand to the Child Jesus.” These were the last words of Bossuet (1627–1704) on his deathbed. Céline Martin (Sister Genevieve of the Holy Face) quoted these ultima verba of the Eagle of Meaux as the most beautiful formulation of the “little way” of her Sister Thérèse, the way of childhood and self-abandonment.
In this spirit, on the cover of this issue of Magnificat for Holy Week, a great painter and contemporary of Bossuet, Mathieu Le Nain (1607–1677), shows the point to which the Child Jesus could lead us by the hand, if only we consent to follow him.
Contemplating the arma Christi
The dusky atmosphere, reinforced by the funereal, dark purple curtain that unveils the scene, gives the picture a dramatic dimension. However, at the highest point of the dark sky, a porthole of golden light comes to illuminate a handsome child dressed in a white tunic that is too big for him, as though it were predestined to be the one belonging to the Transfigured, the Resurrected.
The Child has reached the age of reason, seven or eight years old; he has already begun to grow in wisdom, in stature, and in favour with God and men. His beautiful, discreetly haloed face is marked by seriousness. It reflects the depth of an interior life that is both humanly contemplative and divinely animated. On his knees, with his arms crossed and his right hand on his heart, the Child Jesus contemplates the instruments of his Passion: the cross, reduced to his present size; behind him the lantern of the guards who will come to arrest him and the ladder that will make it possible to take down his mortal remains; in front of him the pincers, the hammer; and also the basin, the pitcher, and the towel that will enable Pilate to wash his hands after sentencing God to death; then the lance, the dice with which the soldiers will gamble for the seamless garment, and the nails; further on the strange-shaped column to which the Man of Sorrows will be bound for the scourging; finally, a little further to the right, still planted in the ground, the branch of hyssop that will serve to lift up to the lips of the crucified man the sponge soaked in vinegar.
Our reason for being Christians
This masterpiece invites us first to consider that—just as much as during his Passion— Jesus was the Saviour of the world during the thirty years that he spent living in the world “like everybody else”, a child, an adolescent, an adult, in a family, in society, as a carpenter. And so, let us not doubt for a moment that in giving our hand to this Child, through the grace of the Eucharistic sacrament and of the New Commandment, each one of us can fully commune, in his everyday family, social, and professional life, with the salvific work of Jesus during what has come to be known as his “hidden life”. But of course, this picture of the Child Jesus contemplating the instruments of his Passion invites us still more explicitly to give our hand unceasingly to the Child Jesus, to the point of contemplating with him all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body, the Church.1
Over the course of this Holy Week, without ever letting go of the hand of the Child Jesus, we can be led to contemplate, so as to discern it better, the salvific dimension of our whole life, including our own passion and our own death when the hour arrives. For such is indeed our mission as Christians: to be unceasingly, in the historical place of our own vocation, an active member of the Son of God, the Saviour.
1 A reflection inspired by the bold statement of Saint Paul in Col 1:24, to indicate that it is up to each one of us to reenact in our own lives the perfect offering that Jesus made of his life to his Father.
Pierre-Marie Dumont
Jesus as a child in adoration of the cross, Mathieu Le Nain (17th c.)