THE MEDJUGORJE WITNESS

For some time, I’ve been studying the iconography in a famous painting attributed to Andrea del Verrocchio and his workshop pupil at the time, Leonardo da Vinci. It depicts the Baptism of Jesus and is housed at the Uffizi in Florence, not that I’ve ever viewed the picture in situ, only copies available on the internet.

 

It’s a painting I keep going back to as there seems to be always something new to discover. I suppose it’s akin to reading the witness of John the Baptist in John’s gospel (1 :19-34). Read it once and you get the general picture; read it again and you are given a new understanding. Read the chapter in three months time, or have it read to you, and your heart is likely to hear or be blessed with a new understanding. “The word of God is something alive and active” (Hebrews 4 : 12).

 

Recently I found myself staring hard at the painting, almost in a manner as John described the Baptist staring hard at Jesus as he passed him and said “Look there is the Lamb of God” (John 1 : 36).

 

I sensed a familiarity about the painting, a kind of recognition, as if this wasn’t the first time I had come across the image before I began my study. And then I recalled the first of the Rosary stations celebrating the Mysteries of Light at Medjugorje, those beautiful mosaics on the path that leads to the bronze figure of the Risen Christ.

 

The mosaics were produced by Anto Mamuša, an artist from Travnik in Bosnia Hercegovina, and completed in 2006. The first station, the Baptism of Christ, can be likened to the Verrocchio / da Vinci version. Okay, so the figures have been transposed but notice the kneeling couple, especially the mother bearing her child as if she is presenting it for baptism. Liken this group to the two kneeling “angels” in Verrocchio’s version. 

 

The foremost angel was painted by Leonardo, and said to represent him. He appears to be ready to present a garment to cover Jesus after his baptism, just as baptismal candidates today wear a white garment as a sign of being clothed in Christ. And so the desire of the mother in the mosaic version wanting her child to be clothed in Christ.

 

But notice the shape of the garment the angel is holding. It’s the form of a wing.  So, too, is the white garment wrapped around the infant’s head in the mosaic image. ​

 

Notice also the white mosaic pieces covering the breast area of Christ, shaped to represent the head of a lamb – the Body of Christ as the Lamb of God..

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There are several other biblical features disguised in the mosaic intended to reference similar parts of Verrocchio’s painting.

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A special thanks to Hervé Reynaud, Miljenko Musa, Laurence Lovrić and June Klins for their help with this presentation.​​