How to look at a painting of Caravaggio according to the magisterial lesson of Pope Francis

In
The vocation of Matthew, one of the masterpieces of
Caravaggio, who of the men who make up the scene is the apostle who gives the title to the painting? For some, it's the one who looks into the eyes of the one who points the finger, but for Jorge Mario Bergoglio, that's the other young man, the one who, at the end of the table, keeps head down. Pope Francis explained this reading of the painting to the Spanish journalist Eva Fernández, an interpretation that is told in the book
The pope of tenderness, who just published Planet.

"Look carefully because, although it is an old discussion and many theories about it, Jesus' finger is really pointing to the kid who does not lend him much money." be careful, who does not even look at it and continue to collect the coins, "he suggested. Francisco to the reporter who surprised with a phone call in July of last year.

Fernandez said at that time: "we were both looking at the same thing". When he confirmed that it was the Holy Father himself who was on the other side of the line, he managed to tell him that he was in the process of Write about the relationship between him and
The vocation of Matthew, image that I had on the screen of your computer. "Francisco was amused and quickly asked me: Which of the characters do you think are Mateo?", Rebuilt Fernandez, and adds that Bergoglio then told him that he also had this picture very close because they gave him a copy. He was referring – adds the writer – to a painting made with the same techniques and colors as the original by a painting studio in Perugia.

"I replied without questioning that Mateo was the oldest man pointing at himself," says the author. He replied that "the old gentleman's finger really points to the kid, and the light that enters the room ends precisely in him". And she replied that she had always thought that Mateo was the other. "At that moment, he reminded me again that it was a theory, I think that deep inside him, in a gesture of delicacy, he let me a margin of freedom to interpret it according to what seemed best to me, "says the journalist. And he adds that he again observed Cravaggio's painting "to look at her with Francisco's eyes". He describes: "Mateo was engrossed in the counting of coins and it felt as if everyone felt he would respond to Master's call very soon, the power of a life-changing look, a look full of tenderness that heals wounds and generates hope.I realize that the hand I supposed to be Matthew is not directed at himself, but toward the young man with his head bowed. From now on, every time I look at this painting, it will be inevitable that I remember Pope Francis "

Fernández is a philologist and journalist, correspondent in Italy and Vatican of the Spanish network COPE for two decades. In the first chapter of his book, which is being presented these days in Italy and Spain and coming soon to Argentina as an e-book, Fernandez says that during the papal flight to Geneva for a meeting with the Ecumenical Council of Churches, In June of last year, he took heart again and handed Francisco's secretary a "simple missive". Among other things, he explained to her that "every day, with everything that did not fit into the chronicles," he would write a book about what she calls a "tenderness revolution" and what she calls a "love revolution". invited to write something of his writing. But he had already forgotten a few weeks later, when he had received the pope's appeal, he had offered to send him a letter that he could include in the book.

Regarding the work of Caravaggio, the journalist also recalls that whenever he was cardinal, Bergoglio went to Rome to make "stealth visits" to the church of San Luis de los Franceses, located in near the crowded Piazza Navona in Rome. a work that recreates the moment when Jesus enters a place where there are tax collectors, "one of the offices most hated by the people of Israel," says Fernandez, and invites Matthew to be his disciple. "I am impressed by the gesture of Matthew, he clings to his money as if to say:" No, not me, no, this money is mine! Bergoglio, who also badociates St. Matthew with his own priestly vocation, the day he decided to follow this path coincided with the date on which the Church celebrates this apostle.
The vocation of St. Matthew Bergoglio was also inspired by his papal motto:
Miserable attack by choosing, which could be translated by
by loving it, he chose it.

"Francisco, Mateo and Caravaggio united by the finger of God, gestures such as phone calls or the stories that I have compiled in these pages are examples of tenderness that constitute the portrait that best describes Francisco: a man who has could find God's mercy, his keystone for the renewal of the Church and the people ", writes the journalist in her book. She admits that while this telephone conversation was going on with the Pope, she did not let her be surprised. "Pope Francis had called me on the phone and was dedicating me to a master clbad on the Caravaggio board" and a "lesson of tenderness in the form of a phone call".

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