The Basilica of the Rosary
Sanctuairie de Notre-Dame de Lourdes – 65108 Lourdes Cedex, Francia

Christ's Baptism
Christ sinks into the deepest recesses of human reality and He is submerged by it. In the iconographic tradition, Christ is clad in a loincloth, exactly as on the Cross: this highlights the Paschal dimension of baptism. He goes into the waters – St Cyril of Jerusalem writes – and He confers onto the waters all the ‘colours’ of the divinity, so that the waters may become holy and through water we can receive baptism, that is, be born again as adoptive children of God. When Christ walked into the river Jordan, water became what it should have been according to the Creator’s mind. In each and every sacrament, creation is freed from the slavery of sin, and reveals itself as the place of God’s manifestation, as well as the place where His redemption can be communicated to man.

The facade
The Basilica of the Rosary

Lourdes - France

December 2007

From Creation to the redemptive work of Christ, each subsequent stage of the Economy of Salvation strengthens the potentialities of matter to become an icon of the Kingdom. The waters are, from the first day of Creation, the bath of baptism. And they also show that cosmic realities such as bread, wine, oil and water, are all part of the liturgy neither by chance, nor because they convey meanings different from their essence; but because they reveal the true reason behind their creation, letting us see clearly their scope beyond the limited use we make of them everyday. In the sacrament, matter becomes transparent, and light can pass through it. A wholesome relationship between man and Creation originates from that. St John the Baptist is presented as an ascetic wholly consumed with his mission: to be the one pointing to the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world, pointing to the Son of God, man’s Saviour. Man’s knowledge of God is not abstract, or theoretical. St John’s Gospel shows that the Baptist set the scene for the appearance of the Messiah. The Baptist underlined men’s sins and called them to repent. When man acknowledges his truth, what he really is, his need for salvation rises in him as an existential and ontological question. Christ goes into the waters and takes upon Himself man’s situation, He takes upon Himself death as the wage of sin. He is alive, but He seems to be dead, submerged by the waters. In fact, He is infusing the waters with His life-giving power, He is granting them the power to generate the children of light. He, the Light, communicates the light, and St John the Baptist bears witness to light.

Christ's baptism
The Basilica of the Rosary

Lourdes - France

December 2007

The Wedding Feast at Cana
This gospel passage conveys a message which is of paramount importance in the present world. St John’s Gospel relates that the wedding feast at Cana took place on the ‘third day’. According to the ancient method for calculating time (today, tomorrow and the third day), this event took place two days after the four preceding days related in John 1:19, 29, 35, 43. That means that if we start counting the days from the beginning of St John’s Gospel, the ‘third day’ is in fact the sixth. Four and two is six. “The Wedding Feast at Cana took place on the third day starting from the fourth,” Origen comments, “that is, on the sixth day…” The sixth day is an allusion to John 19:31, that is, to Jesus’ death. The sixth day was also the day when God created man. Consequently, it is the day when the new man is born on the Cross. And when the gospel relates that the wedding feast took place on the third day, it highlights its link with the resurrection, which occurred exactly on the third day. The Paschal mystery, including Jesus’ death and resurrection, is the key to understand the Wedding Feast at Cana. That is the reason why Jesus is presented at the wedding feast with His pierced side, to highlight His Paschal and nuptial dimension. His pierced side on the Cross, from which blood and water came out, expresses the theological concept of the Church as Bride.

The Wedding Feast at Cana
The Basilica of the Rosary

Lourdes - France

December 2007

We should not forget also that in the Bible the bridegroom and the bride are the symbols of God’s relationship with humanity. If we interpret Mary’s words, “They have no wine”, in the light of the Book of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, they may mean: “They have no more love”. These words may therefore come to express the idea that love was lacking in religion, and that religion had become mere formalism, legalism, moralism and so on. The Church Fathers identified the stone jars with the sterility of a religion in which the law is no longer the guardian of man’s relationship with God, but has rather become a principle of legalism. A religion in which love has come to an end, can only become a sterile yoke, a yoke making people allergic to anything that has to do with religion. This is especially topical nowadays, not only in France. The bride and groom are often presented as sad and depressed as they lack love. In our culture, sadness is a very dramatic issue. But love and joy can come only from man’s relationship with God. Christ, the new Bridegroom, separates humanity from darkness and anguish, and unites it to God, thanks to a love relationship: we are to adhere to it in faith, and this love will surpass death. The words of the Mother of God, “Do whatever He tells you”, become then more significant and binding. As fulfilled in the person of Christ, as the Father’s love for mankind, the word of God becomes the setting for the New Covenant. The Virgin’s apparitions must be understood within that very setting.

Christ with the wound
The Basilica of the Rosary

Lourdes - France

December 2007

The proclamation of the Kingdom of God and the call to conversion
When pope John Paul II prayed for the first time the Mysteries of Light, he mentioned John 20:19-23 as the reference for the Mystery of the Proclamation of the Kingdom. This mystery of light is presented on two different panels. The first panel depicts Christ’s appearance to the disciples, gathered in a room with closed doors. He shows them His hands and His pierced side, and is breathing the Spirit on them and giving them the power to forgive sins. The radical novelty of the Kingdom of God is forgiveness of sins. The Eighth Day brings such a new mentality, power of reasoning and creativity which are utterly different from the mentality, power of reasoning and creativity of the seventh day. The Eighth Day is a day without setting, that is, beyond time, or, better, it is the measurement unit of time. Time is to be measured starting from the Eighth Day. In the Eighth Day everything is in harmony with everything else, everything is contemporary with everything else, everything is in communion with everything else. The causality and the consequential logic of the seventh day no longer exist, and everything exists at the same time. This is the reason why Christ is present among the apostles, and the doors are closed. But the apostles are not closed to His presence. They are similar to the wheat grains on an ear, as an ancient Eucharistic prayer suggests: “Even as this bread that is broken was scattered upon the mountains, and while being gathered together was made one, so let Your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Your Kingdom…” (The Didache, IX, 4)

The proclamation of the Kingdom of God and the call to conversion
The Basilica of the Rosary

Lourdes - France

December 2007

The second panel depicts the healing of the paralytic whose stretcher was lowered from an opening in the roof. Salvation comes from the forgiveness of sins; it has to do with our relationship with God. Christ heals the paralytic as a proof that his sins have been forgiven, because the man whose sins have been forgiven is also healed, that is, saved, given that he is no longer alone, condemned to death, but he is once again in communion with God, who is life. Christ healed the paralytic because the other characters present on the scene wanted to condemn Him who had dared to forgive sins. Healing the paralytic is easier than forgiving sins, but definitely less important. What does all this tell us? That we may be in God’s company, that we may be living in the Eighth Day, and still be physically ill. We have been saved in order to live a life without setting. In fact, quite the opposite may be true as well: we can be physically healthy and do not live up to salvation. Consequently, when the day comes for our health to fail, we will experience the full tragedy of our refusal of salvation; while the man who lives up to salvation, will not see illness and physical death as tragedies any longer. In the end, Christ heals the paralytic to prove that forgiveness is as real as getting up and walking.

The healing of the paralytic
The Basilica of the Rosary

Lourdes - France

December 2007

The Transfiguration
Christ is the true sun, and that is the reason why everything else is enveloped in darkness. According to the Church Fathers, the eyes of the disciples open up and see the light without setting on the face of the One who, later on, they will see as mocked and mortally wounded. The presence of Moses and Elijah, that is, of the Law and the Prophets, testifies that Christ’s Passover will finally reveal the meaning of their mission, as well as the meaning of each and every prophecy and law, in each and every time. The light of the Paschal mystery of Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of each and every prophecy as well as of law, because the Paschal mystery fulfils Christ’s love for each and every man. Love can be true only when it is fulfilled according to the Paschal mystery: thanks to His love, Christ is capable of taking upon Himself death, evil, suffering, failure. Love, and love only, can take upon itself all that, and transfigure it by its light. This is the sole path of transfiguration for all of creation, for all of history, so that everything may be given a face, within a personal dimension. Elijah is presented with a scroll in his hands, while Moses with the tablets of the Law. Their respective figures are bigger than the three apostles’, depicted below: this highlights the fact that, with no Old Testament, there would not be the New one either. The Old Testament contains a pre-figuration of the manifestation of light in the New Testament.

The Trasfiguration
The Basilica of the Rosary

Lourdes - France

December 2007

The institution of the Eucharist
This move from darkness to light is celebrated in the Eucharist. Thanks to Baptism, the Christians are truly grafted onto Christ, uprooted from darkness and planted in light. Thanks to the Eucharist, they truly partake in the very blood of Christ. Thanks to Baptism, God grants us life, makes of us the body of Christ; then, in the Eucharist, that truth is being fulfilled and we can be nourished by the very source of our identity.

The three apostles Peter, James and John receive the bread
The Basilica of the Rosary

Lourdes - France

December 2007

Christ gives Himself as a gift to anybody partaking of the Eucharist, so that we may share His Paschal mystery, when He consigned Himself to humanity and we could discover the goodness of the Lord, who trusts us and believes us to be worthy of His trust. The composition shows the three apostles Peter, James and John as receiving the bread, while the remaining nine are drinking from the chalice that Christ is offering as the cup of salvation. The apostles’ hands are covered by their cloaks: this very ancient gesture expresses a heart-felt feeling of religious respect and awe. In our view, it is very important nowadays to recall some ancient gestures that can heighten contemporary man’s awareness of the sacred, as well as reverse the current trend of dullness and banality. During the Last Supper, the apostles realized that something unique was happening. By covering their hands – this gestures evokes the hands of Adam and Eve, who picked up the forbidden fruit – the apostles express their upright attitude.

The apostles with their hands covered
The Basilica of the Rosary

Lourdes - France

December 2007

Only Judas’ hands are bare, and they hold a money pouch; he seems to be paralysed. He is the only one who is not in communion with the rest, and his face is partially hidden by his ruffled hair. Not to be in communion with the rest means to be isolated, and isolation leads to death. Life is guaranteed by communion, and communion only. Greed leads man to break communion and take flight

Judas
The Basilica of the Rosary

Lourdes - France

December 2007

It must be highlighted also that on the two side doors we have depicted two symbols steeped in tradition. On the left door, the sun: a red circle on a white background is one of the first attempts of man at representing light. What does it mean? When we enter the church, we enter light and become ‘children of light’, children of that light which is Christ, the Sun of justice. A Latin inscription commemorates pope John Paul II and his visit to Lourdes, during which he prayed the Mysteries of Light for the first time: “Mysteria lucis in memoriam Iohanni Pauli II”. On the right door, there is a date palm, a symbol of never-ending life. Dates can be eaten all year round, and that becomes a symbol of life eternal, when nothing will be lacking. Whoever is in light has life, because light is life for man. The middle arch is inscribed with two Latin passages from the Gospel: the words of the Virgin Mary, “Do whatever He tells you”; and the words of Jesus, “Do this in memory of me”.

The Basilica of the Rosary

Lourdes - France

December 2007

The Basilica of the Rosary

Lourdes - France

December 2007