An Illuminating Portrait of the Young Jesus

The Catholic Thing

By Fr. Brian A. Graebe
"Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350" recently opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to glowing reviews. A collection of over 100 objects from around the world, the exhibition traces the emergence of Siena, a major stop along the Via Francigena connecting Rome to Canterbury, as a fulcrum of artistic innovation on the cusp of the Renaissance.
One of the most commented-upon works comes at the end of the exhibition: Simone Martini's "Christ Discovered in the Temple" (thirteen forty-two). The painting is striking for its subject matter - the young Christ is usually depicted "sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions" (Luke 2:46), where Mary and Joseph find him after three days.
Martini takes us to the scene afterward. Joseph seems to glower at his foster son, with one arm wrapped around him and the other pointing to his seated wife. Although the Gospel re cords only Mary's words, "Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously" (Luke 2:48), here Joseph speaks volumes.
He seems to be admonishing Jesus, showing the aggrieved relief that comes after much worry. The viewer can almost hear him saying, "How could you do this to your mother?" For her part, Mary sits stoically, her hand extended in what may be a gesture of reassurance or comfort. She holds an open book, surely a Scripture passage with which she "kept all these things in her heart." (Luke 2:51)
It is the adolescent Christ, however, who attracts the eye. He stands sullenly, slightly hunched, with his arms defiantly crossed, his eyes narrowed and his lips frowning. The scene has a certain charm for anyone familiar with adolescent moodiness, and it makes the Holy Family seem not all that different from every other family in this moment of misunderstanding, or of a reprimand poorly received.
While admiring the technical brilliance that Martini displays, I found the work theologically troubling. Holland Cotter, co-chief art critic for The New York Times, wrote in his review that "Jesus, Joseph and Mary come across as a dysfunctional modern family: pouting adolescent kid; exasperated Dad; mediating Mom."
But the Holy Family was not dysfunctional, and the Son of God did not pout. To affirm that is not to diminish Christ's humanity. Jesus is not more human by sharing in the flaws of our fallen nature. For example, when the Devil tempted Jesus in the desert, Jesus did not wrestle with those temptations the way you and I might. He did not find the temptations enticing and struggle to reject them. That fact makes Jesus more human, not less.
His freedom from concupiscence, or the inclination to sin, flows from the perfect human nature that he possessed and that, with grace, we strive to reclaim.
Of course, Jesus was capable of anger, as seen in the cleansing of the Temple. His anger, though, was righteous, the proper response to the sacrilege taking place. And Jesus was in complete control of that anger, directing it with his perfect reason and will. That emotional control was not a skill Jesus learned; he had it as part of his perfect humanity, even as a teenager.
So what to make of Martini's pouting Christ? It could simply be a well-intentioned but theologically flawed image, an attempt to make Jesus more relatable but that ends up diminishing his human nature. I am reminded of films and television shows that portray Mary experiencing labor pains at the birth of Christ.
While trying to underscore the humanity of both Mary and Jesus, the depiction errs by contradicting the doctrine that Mary preserved her virginal intactness even in the very act of parturition. Preserved from Original Sin, Mary did not, in the miraculous birth of her Son, suffer the labor pains that entered the human experience as a result of the Fall. (Genesis 3:16) Like Jesus's freedom in the desert, Mary's freedom from labor pains does not lessen her humanity or compromise her maternity.
Rather, it exalts ...