The author realizes that he understood his father’s love late—in fact, only after his dad’s death.
It was my first Mother’s Day while working as a chaplain in jail when we ran out of greeting cards. You see, inmates have many mothers: starting from their biological ones; to grandmothers who might have raised them; and ending in their ‘baby-mamas,” the ones who bore their children. That first Mother’s Day inmates asked between four and five greeting cards considering that they could have had various baby-mamas! So, when a month later, we were due to celebrate Father’s Day we did not want to run out of cards. We bought a lot more. Most probably, after fifteen years, half of those cards are still nicely stacked in some cupboard in the chaplain’s office. As the same prisoners would proudly say, “There is only one mother, but father, any son of a …..” A lot of them, in fact, had no idea who their father was. Either he disappeared as soon as he found out that his girl friend was pregnant; or he was never present because he was locked up; or he just couldn’t care less. I remember being shocked by an eighteen-year-old Miguel in Colombia’s prison telling me, “I was conceived inside this same prison.” Juan’s memories take him back as an eight-year-old scared little boy sitting in the car next to a dead man’s body while his father was driving around the streets of Los Angeles looking for an “appropriate” place to dump it. Juan’s father had just murdered the man! The longest time Deshawn lived with his father was a bit over a year when they were sharing the same cell inside the same prison.
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Interestingly enough, Father’s Day in secular Italy is still celebrated on 19 March — the feast of St. Joseph. And that brings me to one of my favourite paintings of St. Joseph painted by El Greco around 1599. Trust and protection emanate from the tower-like figure of Joseph who looks lovingly yet with a trace of sadness at the boy Jesus. Joseph wears a blue dress. Blue is not only considered a masculine colour but also it is associated with a calming, compassionate aura, thereby giving a sense of wisdom and stability. At the same time he is wearing a gold-coloured cape — a symbol of wealth, high status, reputation, and elegance. But the viewer’s attention is definitely drawn towards the dark red dress which Jesus is wearing — that’s what El Greco intended. El Greco did not want to deflect our attention from Joseph to Jesus, but he wanted us to focus our attention on this relationship between this “vulnerable” boy and his father.
A lot is being said in the three visible hands. It was the Indian painter M.F. Husain who went to Rome to study the hands in the paintings and sculptures of the great saints. He had discovered that more was depicted in the saints’ hands than in their faces. It might be the case in this great painting. Joseph’s right hand on the staff is at the same time indicating and leading the way, while his left hand gently pulls the boy towards him. There is almost something feminine in this left hand of Joseph embracing and protecting the young boy. It seems to be less muscular than the right one. Jesus’ left hand rests on Joseph’s hip exerting a slight pressure on Joseph’s clothing. The boy’s right hand, even though not visible, catches his father at the back. A storm seems to be lurking in the background. Is the boy scared? No, there is nothing to be scared of because the little boy is covered with the cape of his father. The whole painting gives a sense of peace and tranquility amidst turmoil and turbulence.
Bro Carmel Duca MC
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