Third Reflection on the Painting of Jesus with the Apostles

“I the Lord search the mind
and try the heart,
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his doings.”

Jeremiah 17:10

Alongside each of the scenes from the life of Christ found in the Basilica of the Assumption, Giuseppe Calì also placed a prophetic figure together with a passage from Scripture that seems to foreshadow what would later be accomplished in Christ. Beside the scene of Jesus surrounded by the Twelve, Calì portrays the Prophet Jeremiah, his gaze almost stern, his hands clasped and raised in an attitude of lament—a prophet who knew all too well the cost of being the Lord’s messenger. The verse from Jeremiah paired with this scene reads:

“‘Behold, I am sending for many fishers, says the Lord, and they shall catch them; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.’”

Jeremiah 16:16

Although the intention was most likely to establish a connection with the mission of the Twelve to become fishers of men and to seek the lost sheep—as St Ambrose and St Augustine themselves observe in their writings—Jeremiah’s words belong to a prophecy of judgement, in which the Lord reminds his people that their wickedness is not hidden from his sight.

In the account of the rich young man, when Peter asks what reward awaits those who have left everything to follow him, Jesus replies: “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matthew 19:28).

Although “God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17), the very presence of Christ and, consequently, the presence of those whom he sends, inevitably brings about judgement because it bears witness to the truth. As you allow the Lord’s word to challenge and shape you into the fullness of the person you are called to be, pray that your own presence in the world may become a living sign of God’s righteousness, so that the judgement of his word may touch ever more lives.