The Flight to Egypt

by André Gonçalves

André Gonçalves (1685 – 1754), was a Portuguese painter. He was one of the first artists in his country to adopt French and Italian styles of painting, as opposed to the prevailing Spanish styles. Some sources give his years of birth and death as 1692 and 1762, respectively. He began to establish his personal style in the 1720s with work done at the convent of “Our Lady of the Conception of Cardais”. At this time, he also appears to have painted the screens in the chapel of “Our Lady Jesuit Church” in Horta on Faial Island, representing the Death of the Virgin and the Apostles at Mary’s tomb. Many of his works were destroyed or severely damaged in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755.

Reflection on the Painting

In André Gonçalves’ The Flight to Egypt, we find a surprising icon for our dispersed existence as Cistercians in the world. The Holy Family is not in the serene cloister of a monastery, but on a precarious journey through a darkened world. This is our reality: we live as Cistercian hearts outside the physical enclosure, called to contemplation in the very midst of a world that has, as the psalmist might say, “lifted up its eyes to lofty things.”

The painting’s tension between the enveloping night and the gentle light emanating from the Virgin and Child mirrors the paradox of our vocation. The world, with its neon veneer and worldly delights, offers a false stability, a fleeting security that lulls the soul to sleep. It is the darkness of the background, obscuring the path and full of unseen perils.

Our call, however, is to fully inhabit this broken reality, not to flee from it, but to hold it in prayer. We are, like Joseph, actively practicing a Conversion of Heart. Joseph leads the donkey away from the dangers of Herod’s court, the epitome of worldly power, vice, and temptation. Joseph’s posture is one of quiet, determined movement, turning from the false light of the world to follow the path God has illumined.

At the centre of this journey is Our Lady, the embodiment of our call to Stability. Seated serenely on the horse, she is not shaken by the journey or the darkness. Mary’s stability is not of stone and mortar, but of a heart utterly fixed on God. She is our model. Our stability is no longer found within the walls of a single abbey, but in this Marian posture, a heart so anchored in Christ that it can remain at peace and fully present to God, even while navigating the diaspora of modern life. From this stable heart flows our sustenance.

The Christ Child, suckling at her breast, seems to be gazing heavenward, his eyes drawn to the Father, while also directing our eyes to the journey ahead. In his dependent, trusting rest, we see the essence of our call to Obedience. This is not a mere external conformity, but a total resting in the will of the God, being nourished and sustained by him on our journey through the world. We, seeking to become more like Christ, are called to this same spiritual suckling. Through a life of contemplation and prayer, we draw our life from the Church, our Mother, allowing the grace of God to nourish and form us into the likeness of Jesus.

We see in Gonçalves’ painting a beautiful expression of our vocation: to be a Cistercian family in exodus, holding fast to Marian Stability, practicing the continual Conversion of Joseph, and resting in the obedient dependence of the Christ Child. As a dispersed order, we journey through the world’s darkness, not as those who belong to it, but as those who carry within them the quiet, unyielding light of a peace that  has “set our souls in silence and peace, like a weaned child on its mother’s breast”. Our cloister is this trusting heart, a luminous cell in a darkened world.

PSALM (131) 1372

O Lord, my heart is not proud

nor haughty my eyes.

I have not gone after things too great

nor marvels beyond me.

Truly, I have set my soul

in silence and peace.

A weaned child on its mother’s breast,

even so is my soul.

O Israel, hope in the Lord

both now and for ever.

The Grail Translation, an Inclusive Language Version