The tulip

Here in front of us Giuseppe Borrello’s picture, painting on the occasion of the Canonization of Don Giovanni Calabria: the emergent figure in fact it is really him, the Saint Priest veronese, surrounded by little boys.

The original oil on canvas, 100 x 150, is in the Auditorium of the mother House of don Calabria, Monte Street , 23 – San Zeno, Verona.
We close our eyes and we contemplate it! Don’t you see a tulip? Is a Tulip with lots of petals (the back of people) and stamens with their filament (the trunk of the people) on which there is the anther (the people's heads). Therefore: a tulip, a beautiful colorful Tulip, which is clearly visible in the integration of two "kinds" of painting: painting of Borrello, unmistakably his ... and, in the figure of don Calabria, a different genre and stamp says Franco Patruno (cfr. F. Patruno, the image of San Giovanni Calabria between popular culture and art, Opera don Calabria, April 18, 1999, Verona, p. 56). The face of don Calabria, according to one that it means painting, Franco Patruno, "is among the most successful of the iconography of the Saint, and the fluidity of brush and the incisiveness of the definition of the eyes" (cf. o.c.). It is useless to tell you that I am in love! And more I looket at it, more it speaks to me and it makes me think.

Atmosphere of encouragement and consolation

This face, with that look so deep, intense, worried and suffering ... but even with that particular collection seeded here to reduce the effect of distressed look and appear at the same time, serene, amiable, full of tenderness ... This face .. alive, I have "enjoyed" many times, and in the most important years of my life, in years in which strongly affects training, model and ... let the stamp.

Recalling a meeting with him, Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolar Movement, speaks of an atmosphere created in this meeting, and says that "the soul, to contact with that atmosphere found the encouragement and consolation that cannot be found elsewhere."

"Encouragement and consolation." Really this way. That face, that look, regenerated you. And it is really this atmosphere that Borrello has succeeded "to create" in his tulip. Notice, in the few lines of the face of the little boys, the attraction and the cheerfulness that boys show in to feel "embraced" from the love of father Don Calabria! Each of us, when we had the fortune to cross him with that look, we believe the favorite, the adored one and we felt him as wound by his love and his tenderness.

Madonna, 2002 - Mixed technique on canvas - cm 150x150 - Church Sacred Heart, Verona

Note also another detail: some faces have turned to him, his father, almost all received by him; others, however, they look at each other as if that atmosphere they took by themselves. It was this climate that don Calabria could create around himself.

It’s also beautiful that Borrello has painted Mr. Calabria vitally united to the tulip and not detached by it! He is also in fact petal (the colors of the summit of the shoulders let him glimpse) and stamen of this splendid flower. His figure, also emerging, and it had to be so, however it is not separated, detached by the other figures, from the other petals,
and the stamens. And, even if it looks far, it is not absent, rather it seems lace the little boys in a great embrace, load of tenderness. And, if you observe well, everything is felt and enjoyed by the little boys that are him as in "breast."

Why does Don Calabria look far? And because it has the suffering face?

Don Calabria looks far. But because?

Mons. Garofalo, one of the 9 theologians censors chosen by the Congregation of the Saints to give a judgment of the whole life of Mr. Calabria, give the key of interpretation of it when it says that "Don Calabria had the heart of Christ, especially for his eviscerated love for the Church; and, afar to polarize him on the affairs of his Congregations, he has lived deeply for the Church of Jesus, for the purification in its members, for the united one of the Christians, for the missions, in a gasp of universal charity literally."

"Had the heart of Christ!", of that Christ , after having said, with great affliction: "I feel compassion of this crowd", he added: "I have other sheep that is not of this sheepfold! ... ".

"Don Calabria - the Cardinal comments. Martin - you had an universal opening in the charity, for all necessities, and with his ecumenical appointment he is also pushed over the confinements of the Church." That's why Don Calabria looks far!

If I had to give a title to the picture I would choose really Jesus' moan: "I feel compassion of this crowd!". And then he also explains the suffering on the face of Don Calabria. Perhaps that Jesus could laugh to say: "I feel compassion of this crowd?" Don Calabria "it had the heart of Christ." Well did Borrello to put in the eyes the windows of the heart - that veil of suffering.

In this icon Borrello expressed very well the fundamental attitude of all life of Don Calabria. It was his charisma: lift the weight of the cross, loading him on his shoulders, how many resorted to him, broken hearted anguish and pain. But under the cross don Calabria certainly could not laugh!

The only identifiable face, in this painting of Borrello, it is really don Calabria. All the boys are around him... they have not almost turned. Also this detail enriches the painting of a jewel biblical-theological meaning. In the suffering of the humanity here represented with more weak and defenseless, what the little boys are, Don Calabria sees "the disfigured face" of the "the Lord's Servant", of the "suffering Christ" that, to be him loaded of the pains of the humanity, the aspect of man even it lost (cfr. Is 52, 14, 53 4).

Don Calabria looks far.

A Tear, 1996 - Mixed technique on canvas - cm 70x100 - European Med Clinic Fürt, Norimberga

But is it really true that looks away? Look at him well. He looks at you. Anywhere you put: to the left in particular to the left, but also in front of you, or to the right, he looks at you, follows you everywhere, with his face suffused with suffering, but also tenderness. And if beside you there is another that looks to him, even he feels watched by don Calabria as the one before him. All and each one feel watched, loved, with heart and eye of predilection.

It happens just like when, in life, that look is laid upon you. Oh, so. . you were feeling like wrapped in a special atmosphere. That look you created into new energies or, perhaps, you only by hearsay. You experimented a great inner joy, a large safety, certainty that we did you achieve that goal so sublime, so high that him, the Father – so they called him - it was indicating you.

Then you felt the joy and strength to "climb" and "come to the top to see - as ensured him -even on the other side".

“The city of God doesn't need the light of the sun"

And the light? What do you say of the light? Have you noticed that you cannot be perceived from where the light comes?

There is so much light in this picture. Emerges from all angles, even from the folds of the robe black of Don Calabria. But it is not coming, by Don Calabria – also him in fact is illuminated, nor from the face of those who are around: they are also illuminated.
The building that stands behind the Tulip-"the House" Don Calabria-called it and it is in the light too, but it is not clear from where receive it.
The Patruno, previously mentioned in his comment, brightness speaks of "primary colors", but I don't have that-painter-venture another interpretation, maybe less, but ... I feel strongly in the heart and I interpret it as I can: it is the atmosphere that was created by Don Calabria around whether his "take care", with his "load weight of others" ... is the fact that he made visible, palpable, the love of God for man. ..., is all this that has become as a powerful electric light turning the "earthly city" in "city of God". For this Card. Schuster called Don Calabria "lumen Of Ecclesiae" (light of Church of God). There are no clouds above this bright scenery. There is only one clear heaven.
And those horizontal blue tears in the sky? They are like so many cracks through which "the Holy City, the heavenly Jerusalem" communicates and merges with "the city of God" on Earth. And it is a communion of light. Even the sky can not resist the power of light that creates a "champion of Evangelical love"!

Contemplating the "tulip" not to forget to ask you to the Celestial Father that also transforms your life - as it has turned the life of Mr. Calabria into a theophany, in a demonstration of the love of God.