Rembrandt and a Young Filipina

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 Young Jew as Christ, Rembrandt 

Rembrandt and a Young Filipina

Article by Fr Seán Coyle

The author is a member of the Missionary Society of St Columban who spent most of his life as a priest in the Philippines and now lives in Ireland. He blogs at Bangor to Bobbio [https://bangortobobbio.blogspot.com/ ]

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Fifteen or so years ago Letty (not her real name) came to Holy Family Home for Girls, Bacolod City, when she was around 14. She was from a remote mountainous area in the large island of Negros in the central Philippines. She had been referred there by the social worker in her municipality because she had been sexually abused. Holy Family Home is run by a wonderful group of religious sisters, the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family, whose main mission is to girls and young women in troubled situations. Most of those in the home in Bacolod, which houses between 30 and 40, have experienced abuse, nearly always from someone they knew. Most come from a background of poverty. Some are there simply because of that. The girls attend the local public elementary and high schools, within walking distance. There is a house in the city proper for girls taking third-level or vocational courses. All girls are given professional care.

I became involved with Holy Family Home when I was invited to celebrate Mass there on the feast of the Holy Family after Christmas 2002, a few months after I had returned to the Philippines from a two-year stint in Britain. I felt rather nervous because of what had come to light in Western countries about the abuse of minors by priests and religious. However, I got a very warm welcome from the girls and from the Sisters and professional staff.

I gradually became more and more involved and eventually began to celebrate Mass at the Home on Sundays and on feast days. One Sunday I brought with me a very poor black and white copy of Rembrandt’s Young Jew as Christ. During my homily I had it passed around, as it was related to the gospel of the day. After Mass Letty came to me and asked if she could keep the copy. Of course, I gave it to her.

Later I decided to give Letty a proper copy of the painting and had one made during the week. I also bought an inexpensive wooden frame and brought the framed picture with me the following Sunday. When I gave it to Letty I asked her what had drawn her to it. He looks so human, she answered.

A note on the website of Web Gallery of Art, where I found the painting, says, The sitter of the painting is a young Jew evicted from Spain and settled in Amsterdam in the neighbourhood of Rembrandt.

I doubt that Letty had ever heard of Rembrandt and Rembrandt, whose father was Protestant and his mother Catholic, would have known very little about the Philippines. But his portrait of a young Jew expelled from Spain made Jesus so human for a young girl on the margins of society in the Philippines nearly 400 years later.

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