Galatina
Galatina is a small town in Puglia, Italy. With a population under 28,000, you wouldn’t expect to see much. But you’d be surprised. In the basilica, absolutely unremarkable on the outside, you will find incredible frescos similar to those of Giotto. They portray various biblical stories and themes. Here are a few. See if you can identify the picture-story represented. Notice the mixture of myth and legend. Imagine what is would have been like to attend this church as an illiterate parishioner. What would you think of Scripture? Such is the history of the Christian religion.
This is an amazing and awe-inspiring (perhaps even, an awe-inspired attempt) to graphically transpose both the events/happenings and the writings of Scripture into a theological statement for the sake of the understanding the people of the church at Galatina. This is, and has always been, the work of theology.
As such, it bears a great deal of similarity to the Apostle John’s vision of the One Who is “the First and the Last,” who commanded John to “write to the messengers (angels)” of the seven churches of Asia Minor. Such is the inherent nature of spirit that transposing the existence and coherence proclamations of the spirit (found in the events and the writings of the Bible) to theological statement is possible only by the mediation of spirit… specifically, by that mediation of the holy Spirit sent from above by the risen Christ at Shavuot (Pentecost).
Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
Wow! After 30 years in the Hebraic world coupled with not being catholic, I would have to be instructed in the legend part to recognize much of this. I can’t imagine feeling more alienated from Christianity than I do right now.