To My Boys: September 30, 2020
Good morning!
I promise today will be the last installment of our tour through the little round chapel at the heart of our school. Actually, I decided to leave the centerpiece for last. The reason is I wanted to make sure that if you remember anything, you remember this.
When you walk into our chapel the first thing that grabs your attention is the large painting of the Blessed Mother that hangs behind the altar. For years, when the altar was on the other side, she hung in the back of the chapel where the congregation would have their backs to her. At times, when the priest invited the students to pray the Hail Mary, he would ask them to turn around to face her.
The image is a replica of a piece by the famous Spanish artist Bartolomé Murillo (1617-1682). It is titled “The Immaculate Conception” and the original hangs in the museum of El Prado in Madrid. Actually, Murillo painted various versions of the Immaculate Conception. It is because of our copy of the painting and its prominent location behind the altar that we named our chapel the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception.
The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the theological truth that asserts Mary was conceived without original sin in her mother’s womb, was officially declared by Pope Pius IX in 1854. It is significant because it is only one of two times in the history of the Catholic Church a pope has exercised papal infallibility. It is also significant because the declaration took place the same year of another important event: the founding of Belen in Cuba.
As for the image, it is a testament to not only Murillo’s artistic genius but also his understanding of theology. Even though the painting is titled the Immaculate Conception, it is actually a scene of the Assumption of Mary. Murillo, way before the two Marian truths were declared officially by the Church, understood that the one truth could not exist without the other. In other words, because Mary was conceived without sin and lived her life that way, she was gifted with her assumption into heaven both body and soul.
But what about this copy that adorns our chapel? Painted by Victor Zucchi in 1933, it hung for many years in a side chapel in the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, New Jersey. When Archbishop Thomas Aloysius Boland decided to remodel certain parts of the cathedral, he took down this painting and gave it as a gift to a friend of his. That friend was none other than sculptor and Belen alumnus Manuel Carbonell ’38. Carbonell, in turn, gifted it to his alma mater so it could hang in the chapel he worked hard to adorn.
So, there you have it. There are actually a few other things about the chapel that would be great to know. Things like the Jesuit relics framed and hung in the back of the chapel, the little statue of St. Ignatius of Loyola found between them that was decapitated and repaired many years ago, and the holy water fonts next to the doors that were originally located at the entrance of an ancient Roman villa. But all that can be the focus of another write-up. For now, I encourage you to take a stroll into the chapel, genuflect, admire, and say a prayer.
Auspice Maria
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the School property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit sits on a 30-acre site in western Dade County, only minutes away from downtown Miami.