by Don Lorenzo Cappelleti
Continuing to illustrate the frescoes by Silvio Consadori in the chapel of the Sacred Heart of the Basilica of San Giuseppe al Trionfale, in this issue of The Holy Crusade we will focus on the two panels that face each other on the highest level of the chapel walls, which respectively depict Jesus' meeting with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well (see John 4:1-42) and the delivery of the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven to Peter (see Matthew 16:13-20).
Anyone familiar with the two Gospel texts will immediately notice that the two scenes were constructed with great respect not so much for the letter as for the spirit of them. In fact, some details deviate from the text. For example, the desert (which in fact does not exist around Samaria) is symbolic of the need for water and not realistic; just as Jesus' standing is symbolic of him giving living water, and not natural water, contrary to John 4:6, where we read that "wearied from his journey, he sat down at the well". There is another detail that is not a Gospel quote and to which we would like to draw attention, this time in the "Delivery of the Keys": it is the figure of a woman, of modern style, who closes the group of disciples behind Jesus. This woman, in fact, sitting with a child in her arms and protected by her husband who lovingly places his hand on her right shoulder, is clearly a free addition by the painter, whoHe wanted to include a contemporary family among the disciples of the Lord over whom Peter's authority extends. We think that this is not so much a reference to the question of divorce, raised in Mt 19:3-9, but rather of a reference by Consadori (linked to Saint Paul VI – let us not forget – by personal bonds of proximity and devotion) to theHumanae vitae (1968), the encyclical promulgated a few years before the frescoes were painted (1971) which caused (and still causes) so much noise.
If we move from the details to the construction of the two scenes (what Vasari would have called “the invention”), we see, as we were saying, how much it conforms to the spirit of the evangelical stories: the scene of the meeting with the Samaritan woman is rightly played out entirely on just two characters: Jesus and the woman, to express their conversation where the hearts of both of them open up, strangers to each other until that moment, as we read in the Gospel of John. And equally in line with the Gospel of Matthew is the “invention” of the “Delivery of the Keys”: although it also places two figures at the center, Jesus and Simon Peter, it is above all a solemn and choral scene, with those eight characters lined up in the foreground as recipients of the authority conferred on Peter by Jesus.
If we also pay attention to the gestures of the main characters in the two scenes, we notice another significant distinction between them. Jesus and the woman, in fact, are shown giving and receiving at the same time (Saint Augustine has perhaps illustrated better than anyone else the “game” of giving and receiving, on two different levels, between Jesus and the Samaritan woman), while, in the scene of the “Delivery”, Peter, who stands erect like Jesus and looks him straight in the eye because he bears his authority, is however simply in the act of receiving: “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church” (Mt 16:18). The Church is his, the Lord’s: “Ecclesiam suam”, one might say, quoting the expression that Saint Paul VI wanted to put at the head, exactly sixty years ago (August 1964), of another encyclical, the first of his pontificate.
