THE LIGHT OF THE FUTURE AGE

When his eyes of dawn
looked upon my eyes,
all the stars of my night vanished.

Gibran

On Good Friday, April 6, 1520, Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520) died in Rome, defined by the critic Federico Zeri as the supreme result of the Italian Renaissance. He was born in Urbino, and learned the first rudiments of painting from his father, Giuseppe Santi, a painter from the circle of Melozzo da Forlì. Initially, Raphael looked to Perugino and Piero della Francesca. From the former he learned the classicist language, from the latter the rationality of space. Later, from Leonardo he inherited the feeling of nature, while from Michelangelo, the moral feeling. All this will find in him a perfect and never-before-achieved synthesis. But if we want to understand Raphael’s genius well, we must go to the Transfiguration (1518-1520), the second panel that we propose in our Lenten itinerary. In this summit of art, the form is determined by nothing less than the incidence of light, foreshadowing Caravaggio and Rembrandt. The event of the Transfiguration of Christ is reinterpreted in an original way and therefore alongside the traditional iconography. Raphael was the only one to narrate the Transfiguration by adding new elements. On Thabor, not only is Jesus manifesting his glory, but we also find freed a young possessed man and a forgiven adulterous woman. He who conquered death, and resurrected, has freed man from all physical, psychological and moral alienation. With this good evangelical news, the master, Raphael, bids farewell to the world that loved him so much. The Transfiguration will watch over his body for a long time, which will then be buried in the Pantheon, a place anciently reserved for the gods. Such was he considered by his contemporaries. Thabor is an event of light, and this light does not cease to radiate from Christ. This is particularly witnessed by Simeon, the New Theologian (949-1022), who in front of his spiritual father who asked him what he had seen while praying replied: “A light, my father, a sweet, sweet light; my mind does not know how to describe it”. To which the elder replied: “My son, it is He!”. But the Thabor light bursts forth from the passion-death of Jesus, that is, from the exodus, as Luke clearly highlights, which the master would have accomplished in Jerusalem. To enter the light of the future city, of the Jerusalem above, it is however necessary to cross the dark valley (great mystery!), that is, the passage of death. But only through this diminution can God penetrate to the very fibres of our being and capture us forever in Him.

Commentary by b. Sandro Carotta, osb
Abbazia di Praglia (Italy)

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves,
Prinknash Abbey