Monthly Masterpiece - November
Sacred art can help us to contemplate the mysteries of our faith.
Every month we will look at a different image and the mystery it represents.
Every month we will look at a different image and the mystery it represents.
The Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the temple.
By Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), 1539
Oil on canvas
Academy Gallery, Venice.
By Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), 1539
Oil on canvas
Academy Gallery, Venice.
Originating in Jerusalem and much celebrated in the East, the Feast of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple was not introduced in the Roman calendar until the sixteenth century. In 1650, Fr Olier (founder of the Sulpicians) chose this day to renew clerical vows, a tradition taken up for renewing evangelical counsels. Detaching it from its apocryphal source - the Proto-gospel of James - Vatican II maintained the feast as a Memoria, affirming that Mary "devoted herself totally as a handmaid of the Lord to the person and work of her Son, under Him and with Him, by the grace of almighty God, serving the mystery of the Redemption" (Lumen Gentium 56).
The moment is solemn, full of dramatic intensity: she is only a little girl, three years old; she is alone, suffused with light, climbing without turning the fifteen steps of the grand staircase. Fifteen is the number of the Songs of Ascent (Psalms 120-134) sung by pilgrims as they joyfully glimpsed the Holy City. She climbs determinedly, fully aware of the definitive nature of her action. The High Priest, dressed in the ephod, and attended by his acolytes, has gone down three steps, ready to take her in his arms. Mary, the living temple of the Lord, enters the temple built by human hands. "Did you not know that you are the temple of God?" (1 Cor 3:16).
Around her parents Anne and Joachim, who remained at the foot of the steps, presses a crowd of onlookers commenting on the event: the common people and the nobility, among whom the painter and his wife are shown, leaning from an upper window, as well as their daughter with her two hands on the steps. The peaks of the Dolomites - their region of origin - stand out in the distance. On the right, the headless statue evokes the pagan age; the old woman with the basket of eggs in the foreground represents the Old Law, surpassed by the era of grace inaugurated by Our Lady's consecration with view to the Incarnation.
Today the Virgin is led into the House of the Lord; she who is the most pure temple of the Saviour, a precious and virginal palace, brings with her the grace of the divine Spirit. God's angels sing to her: "You are the celestial dwelling-place!"
(From the Kondakion of the Orthodox Liturgy.)
Originating in Jerusalem and much celebrated in the East, the Feast of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple was not introduced in the Roman calendar until the sixteenth century. In 1650, Fr Olier (founder of the Sulpicians) chose this day to renew clerical vows, a tradition taken up for renewing evangelical counsels. Detaching it from its apocryphal source - the Proto-gospel of James - Vatican II maintained the feast as a Memoria, affirming that Mary "devoted herself totally as a handmaid of the Lord to the person and work of her Son, under Him and with Him, by the grace of almighty God, serving the mystery of the Redemption" (Lumen Gentium 56).
The moment is solemn, full of dramatic intensity: she is only a little girl, three years old; she is alone, suffused with light, climbing without turning the fifteen steps of the grand staircase. Fifteen is the number of the Songs of Ascent (Psalms 120-134) sung by pilgrims as they joyfully glimpsed the Holy City. She climbs determinedly, fully aware of the definitive nature of her action. The High Priest, dressed in the ephod, and attended by his acolytes, has gone down three steps, ready to take her in his arms. Mary, the living temple of the Lord, enters the temple built by human hands. "Did you not know that you are the temple of God?" (1 Cor 3:16).
Around her parents Anne and Joachim, who remained at the foot of the steps, presses a crowd of onlookers commenting on the event: the common people and the nobility, among whom the painter and his wife are shown, leaning from an upper window, as well as their daughter with her two hands on the steps. The peaks of the Dolomites - their region of origin - stand out in the distance. On the right, the headless statue evokes the pagan age; the old woman with the basket of eggs in the foreground represents the Old Law, surpassed by the era of grace inaugurated by Our Lady's consecration with view to the Incarnation.
Today the Virgin is led into the House of the Lord; she who is the most pure temple of the Saviour, a precious and virginal palace, brings with her the grace of the divine Spirit. God's angels sing to her: "You are the celestial dwelling-place!"
(From the Kondakion of the Orthodox Liturgy.)