The Temptation of Christ (c. 1500/1504) by Juan de Flandes (15th–16th century)
Photo: Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.
United in the mystery
As the season of Lent begins this month, the Church invites us to be united to the mystery of Jesus in the desert (CCC 540). The concrete time and place of the forty days when the Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert (Mk 1:12) are far away, yet the event remains relevant, timely, and concrete for the faithful today and in every age and place. This small painting from the early 16th century, The Temptation of Christ, testifies to that. A work commissioned centuries ago by the pious Queen Isabella the Catholic of Spain, it now hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Even in its current setting, and reproduced in these pages, it continues to offer a meditation on this episode in the life of Christ, bringing the faithful closer to the reality of the event and its meaning.
In this pictorial version of the story, we do …More