Painted by Bartolome Esteban Murillo. Spanish painter; b. at Seville, 31 December, 1617; d. there 5 April, 1682. His family surname was Esteban; that of Murillo, which he assumed in accordance with an Andalusian custom, was his mother's.Murillo was a great painter of sentiment. Like Rembrandt, he understood that the true language of the Gospel was the language of the people. Like him, he especially delighted in the merciful and tender aspects of the Gospel. It is a remarkable fact that these pictures, which represent the most transcendently spiritual action, are the most thoroughly feminine paintings in Spain. Most religious paintings do not have many women, except for Mary. Here are women, true and vital, with the most thoroughly external charms of their sex. In them the impulse of love rises to ecstasy, and without Murillo Spanish painting would be deprived of its most beautiful love poems.
One of the important aspects of love is the commitment of two people becoming one required in marriage vows: dedication, faith and sometimes victory. This building is in the process in the painting. God, as we have discussed earlier, is an accuser, an excuser, a chooser, a blesser and a blessing. We have in this image: God accusing them of not finding the joy in the day, God excusing them the lack of joy because they have such hardship, God choosing them to love each other and the Son of God even during the hardship, God being the blesser to allow them each other during the hardship,
God gives us and gives the Holy Family the blessing of knowing the greatest love story of all time. Jesus. For God so loved the world, that He Gave.
We are also blessed the gospel is readily available to us. But this is not a Sunday School Lesson we repeat by rote. Jesus knew and loved his earthly parents. Luke 11:28 He replied, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it."
Matthew 2:13-15
13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
Matthew 2:19-23
19 But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, 20 saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead.” 21 And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. 23 And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: “He shall be called a Nazarene.”
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