Happy All Saints Day!

This print of Disputation about the Eucharist by (Raffaello Sanzio 1509) hangs on my office wall. I thought it was an appropriate display for All Saints Day.

In looking on the internet for some information on this painting, I found that an image of this fresco was in the background during the synod in Rome on the Eucharist in 2005. Fr. Timothy Verdon (a leading specialist in sacred art worldwide-who was invited to the synod by Pope Benedict) comments on this painting here. His commentary opens thus:

What did this image centered upon the Eucharist communicate to the people of its day? The dynamic assembly painted by Raphael in 1509, with the glorified Christ displaying his wounds in the center, was above all an iconographic reminder of the universal judgment: the day on which Christ will come "amid the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him. All the peoples of the earth will lament him" (Revelation 1:7).

For the sensibility of that time, the immediate impact, the primary message of the fresco, was of an eschatological character. It clearly showed the relationship between the Church militant upon the earth and the Church triumphant in heaven.

These are the themes we should be contemplating in November-along with praying for the Church Suffering in Purgatory. As in the fresco, we need to remember that devotion and reception of the Holy Eucharist needs to be at the center of our spiritual life.


Happy All Saints Day!

Our Lady of Joyful Hope-pray for us! ... Oremus pro invicem!