Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

After the marriage at Cana in Galilee, which may be regarded as the commencement of the miraculous mission of our Lord, we do not hear anything of his Mother, the Virgin, till the time approached when he was to close his ministry by his death. She is not once referred to by name in the […]

Ital. La Nozze di Cana. Fr. Les Noces de Cana. Ger. Die Hochzeit zu Cana. After his temptation and baptism, the first manifestation of the divine mission and miraculous power of Jesus was at the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee ; and those who had devoted themselves to the especial glorification of the Virgin-mother […]

Ital. La Morte di San Giuseppe. Fr. La Mort de St. Joseph. Ger. Josef’s Tod. Between the journey to Jerusalem and the public appearance of Jesus, chronologers place the death of Joseph, but the exact date is not ascertained; some place it in the eighteenth year of the life of our Saviour, and others in […]

THERE are representations of the Virgin, and among them some of the earliest in existence, which place her before us as an object of religious veneration, but in which the predominant idea is not that of her maternity. No doubt it was as the mother of the Saviour Christ that she was originally venerated ; […]

Ital. La Disputa nel Tempio. Fr. Jésus au milieu des Docteurs. The subject which we call the dispute in the Temple, or ” Christ among the Doctors,” is a scene of great importance in the life of the Redeemer. (Luke ii. 41-52.) His appearance in the midst of the doctors, at twelve years old, when […]

As if to render the circle of maternal duties, and thereby the maternal example, more complete, there are prints of Mary leading her Son to school. I have seen one in which he carries his horn-book in his hand. Such representations, though popular, were condemned by the highest church authorities as nothing less than heretical. […]

It is distinctly related, that Joseph brought up his foster Son as a carpenter, and that Jesus exercised the craft of his reputed father. In the Church pictures we do not often meet with this touching and familiar aspect of the life of our Saviour. But in the small decorative pictures painted for the rich […]

In a composition by Parmigiano, Christ is standing at his mother’s knee ; Elizabeth presents St. John the Baptist; the other little St. John kneels on a cushion. Behind the Virgin are St. Joachim and St. Anna ; and behind Elizabeth, Zebedee and Mary Salome, the parents of St. John the Evangelist. In the centre, […]

The addition of Joseph, as a fifth figure, completes the domestic group. The introduction of the aged Zacharias renders, however, yet more full and complete, the circle of human life and human affection. We have, then, infancy, youth, maturity, and age, — difference of sex and various degrees of relationship, combined into one harmonious whole […]

In a Holy Family of four figures, we have frequently the Virgin, the Child, and the Infant St. John, with St. Joseph standing by. Raphael’s Madonna del Passeggio is an example. In a picture by Palma Vecchio, St. John presents a lamb, while St. Joseph kneels before the Infant Christ, who, seated on his mother’s […]