Calming the Storm

Jesus Calming the Storm

From a Book of Hours

French (Paris), c. 1430-1435

New York, Pierpont Morgan Library,

MS M 359, fol. 62r

"He got into a boat and his disciples followed him.

Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by waves; but he was asleep.

They came and woke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We are perishing!"

He said to them, "Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?"  Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm.

The men were amazed and said, "What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?"

(Matthew 8:23-27)

Gospel Reading for Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

 

Ironically but appropriately, the Gospel reading for Tuesday of the Thirteenth week of Ordinary Time in Cycle II happens to fall this year on a day on which the Caribbean and the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico are experiencing or preparing to experience the strongest hurricane to ever hit those waters this early in the hurricane season.  This Gospel excerpt depicts the events of a threatening storm on the Sea of Galilee that was calmed by a word from Jesus, an event so strange that the disciples asked themselves what kind of man they were associating with.

In Christian tradition there is another implication for this passage.  A long standing way of thinking about the Church (with a big C) is to use the metaphor of a ship.  In fact, the word which describes the central portion of a church building, nave, derives from the Latin for ship navis, the same word from which we get the words "navy" and "naval".  The Church moves through the troubled waters of this world, carrying its precious cargo of souls, as a ship carries the souls on board through the watery oceans and seas of the planet.  In both cases, Christ is the surest captain, calming the forces that can wound the immortal in us in the same way that he calmed the waters of the storm-ridden Sea of Galilee.

Consequently, the subject has been a popular one for artists, although not one of the most popular.  Yet it does have a long history.

Jesus Asleep and Jesus Awake

One of the most interesting elements of the Gospel text is the fact that, when the storm begins, Jesus is asleep.  The panicked disciples have to wake him up to plead for help.

In the medieval period, which is where the earliest images I was able to find so far come from, the artists desired to include all the details in the way in which they depicted the story.  So, in virtually all of the images from the tenth through the twelfth centuries, every picture includes Jesus in the two states:  asleep and awake.  Usually he is seen asleep at one end of the boat and awake at the opposite end.

The Storm on the Sea of Galilee
German, c. 980
Oberzell, Church of Saint George

If you enlarge this image and look closely you will see that the unique halo with the cross that surrounds the head of Jesus appears twice.  He can be seen asleep at the left side of the boat and awake at the front of the right side grouping.

Jesus Calming the Storm
From the Gospels of Otto III
German (Reichenau), c. 1000
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
MS Clm 4453, fol. 103v

Jesus Cures a Leper and Calms the Storm
From the Codex Aureus of Echternach
German (Reichenau), c. 1030
Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum
MS Hs. 156142, fol. 54r

Jesus Calming the Storm
From the Pictorial Bible of the Abbey of Saint Bertin
French (Saint-Omer), 1190-1200
The Hague, Koninklijk Bibliotheek
MS 76 F 5, fol. 14r

The Sleeping Jesus

From about the middle of the twelfth century, however, artists began to show only one depiction of Jesus per picture.  Consequently, they began to show him either asleep or awake.  Here are some sample of Jesus asleep.

Jesus Asleep in the Boat
From the Book of Pericopes of Saint Erentrud
Austrian (Salzburg), c. 1150
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
MS Clm 15903, fol. 25r

Jesus Asleep in the Boat
From the Munich Golden Psalter
English (Oxford), c. 1190-1210
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
MS Clm 835, fol. 72r

Jesus Asleep on the Sea of Galilee
From the Sermons of Maurice de Sully
Italian (Milan or Genoa), 1320-1330
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Francais 187, fol. 7r 

Jesus Asleep in the Boat
From a Speculum humanae salvationis
French (Paris), c. 1493-1494
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS VELINS-906, fol. 49v

This tradition of depicting a sleeping Jesus continued into the sixteenth-century and beyond.

Biagio Pupini, Christ Asleep in the Boat in Spite of the Storm
Italian, c. 1525-1530
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques

Mathis Gerung, Christ Asleep in the Boat
From the Ottheinrich Bible
German, c. 1530
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
MS Cgm 8010 (1), fol. 18r

Georg Pencz, Christ Asleep During the Storm
From The Story of Christ
German, c. 1534-1535
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Drawings and Prints

Jan Brueghel the Elder, Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee
Flemish, c. 1596
Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

The seventeenth and eighteenth century artists seemed to prefer to depict Jesus as awake and in command, so there is a noticeable time gap between  the image above and those below.  

Eugene Delacroix, Christ in the Tempest
French, 1853
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

James Tissot, Jesus Asleep in the Storm
French, c. 1888-1896
New York, The Brooklyn Museum

Giorgio Di Chirico, Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee,
Italian, 1914
Vatican City State, Collection of Modern Religious Art

Jesus Awake and In Command

The images of Jesus, awake and in command, span the entire period between the middle ages and the modern world.

Jesus Commands the Sea and Winds
From a Bible
Byzantine (Constantinople), Middle of the 13th Century
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Grec 54, fol. 124v

Claes Brouwer and Others, Jesus Commands the Storm
From a History Bible
Dutch (Utrecht), c. 1430
The Hague, Koninklijk Bibliotheek
MS KB 78 D 38 II, fol. 157r

Rembrandt, Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee
Dutch, 1633
Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The younger Tiepolo, Giandomenico, gave us two thoughts about how a composition of Jesus awake and in command should look.

Giandomenico Tiepolo, Christ on the Sea of Galilee
Italian, 1760
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques

Giandomenico Tiepolo, Christ on the Sea of Galilee
Italian, 1760
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques

Auguste Jugelet, Christ Commanding the Storm at Sea
French, 1845
Tarbes, Musée Massey

Admittedly this is a little hard to see, but if you enlarge the picture you can see Christ in the front of the boat commanding the waves to be still.

Raymond Balze, Jesus Commanding the Storm to Still
French, Second Half of 19th Century
Beauvais, MUDO, Musée de l'Oise

James Tissot, Jesus Calming the Storm
French, c. 1888-1896
New York, The Brooklyn Museum

James Ensor, Christ Calming the Waters
Flemish, 1891
Ostend, Mu.ZEE

I hope that the coincidence of this reading, which millions of Catholics will hear, read and pray about, with the advance of Hurricane Beryl will bring God's protection and a speedy recovery to the peoples of the Windward Islands, the Caribbean, Yucatan and the Gulf of Mexico, and to anyone else affected by the storm winds or waters in the Antilles or along the coast of South, Central and North America.  And also, that Christ continues to safeguard his Church as it sails through the troubled waters of the world we live in.

© M. Duffy, 2024

Excerpts from the Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States of America, second typical edition © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC. Used with permission. All rights reserved. No portion of this text may be reproduced by any means without permission in writing from the copyright owner.