The Gospel in Art by the Peasants of Solentiname

"It is horrible that there are dead and wounded. Some day, instead, there will be an abundance of schools, hospitals, and clinics for everyone, food adequate for everyone, art and entertainment. But most important, there will be love among all." - from 'A Letter to the People of Nicaragua' written by the Reverend Father Ernesto Cardenal in December 1977, two months after his Roman Catholic Parish and contemplative community upon the archipelago of Solentiname in Lake Nicaragua had been destroyed, raped, burned and massacred by the US-backed Somozan National Guard. Two years later the Sandinista Front of National Liberation came to power, and the Reverend Father Ernesto Cardenal became the new Minister of Culture, fulfilling much of this prophecy, including as his brother, the Jesuit Father Fernando Cardenal initiated the national literacy campaign, and the new government built and staffed new health clinics and schools throughout the nation, before the terrorist invasion by Reagan's illegal army, the contra. The Reverend Father Ernesto Cardenal studied prayer in contemplative community in Gethsemane under the Reverend Father Thomas Merton, then Novice Master, who wrote poetry and prayed with Father Ernesto and then advised him to return to his people, who were suffering under a dynastic and brutal US-supported military dictatorship. Father Merton advised Father Cardenal to found a contemplative community there among the poor and most illiterate. In 1966 therefore Father Ernesto Cardenal founded the famous Catholic contemplative community in Solentiname, engaging with the poor fishers and farmers and families there in Biblical study and discussions of the Gospels. Recordings of these discussions were published in four volumes in several languages, including in English The Gospel In Solentiname - published by the Maryknoll Catholic Foreign Mission Society through its publishing house the respected, the cherished Orbis Books. Here in this present volume we find snatches of these evangelical conversations matched with the beautiful artwork painted by the same unlettered yet profoundly talented, wise and expressive people of Solentiname. Beginning with the Annunciation and completing with the Resurrection, visiting nearly every scene in the Gospels in between, each pair of pages presents a Biblical verse, a page of the conversation regarding that verse in prayer, hermeneutic, meditation and exploration of its relevance to what His Holiness Pope Paul VI called "the sign of the times." The facing page contains a painting of the parable or the Life of Christ under consideration. Highly recommended for all Catholics, children and for adults at every level of progress in the Faith. Important to reflect upon in this our election year, and at this point in our Liturgical Calendar, particularly the reflections and representations of the arrest, passion, death and Resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.