eve of Eve of Christmas

December 23rd, 2008
Mary Haynes Kuhlman Theology Department Creighton University
Fourth Tuesday in Advent
Malachi 3:1-4, 23-24Psalm 25:4-5ab, 8-9, 10 and 14Luke 1:57-66

The eve before the Eve of Christmas this is an interesting reflection from this Blog. It is a relay of writers regularly.

Luke 1:57-66 Already in this first chapter, we have read of the Visitation, when, newly pregnant, Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth, whose somewhat earlier pregnancy is a sign of God’s power. Elizabeth and her unborn child recognize that Mary’s baby is the Lord. From these Gospel details Christians have liked to infer a friendship between the babies. Thus we have those many medieval and Renaissance paintings of the Madonna with two chubby little boys, with the child John reverencing the infant Jesus. Our Joslyn Art Museum here in Omaha has one particularly fine painting of this image. Its colors and composition are beautiful; the sweet-faced Mother is lovely, but the two children are, frankly, not handsome. While admiring the painting as a whole, my husband and I have amused ourselves by giving it our own title: “Baby Jesus and His Cousin John Prophesy that Neither Will Win the Prettiest Baby Prize.”

Lorenzo di Credi (1456/9-1537), Italian; Florentine Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John and Two Angels,
This panel exemplifies Florentine Renaissance painting with its brilliant colors and lively sense of human interaction. Characteristically, it contains a number of standard symbolic elements - the Madonna's blue cloak (alluding to her role as Queen of Heaven), St. John's staff, and a rich array of flowers. Daisies represent innocence, violets humility, white roses stand for purity, red roses for martyrdom. Embedded in a multitude of references to spiritual virtues, the figures are separated from the secular world, which is represented by a view of Florence in the far distance. (Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha)

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