Flight to Egypt

Artist

Sidney Matias

Description

"Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him” (Matthew 2:13-14). With these words from the Archangel Gabriel, Joseph set off for Egypt with the Blessed Mother and new-born Jesus, escaping from the hands of Herod. Herod, king of Judea, had been furious that the wise-men had betrayed him in not returning after being sent to search for the Messiah. In his anger, he ordered all the boys under the age of two to be slaughtered in the hopes of catching young Jesus in the process. However, Jesus was nowhere to be found, thanks to the angel, messenger of the Lord who warned Joseph in a dream. Thus, this image of the Flight to Egypt represents the beginning of the story of our Beloved Savior Jesus Christ. The Blessed Family would then hide in Egypt until King Herod died before returning to Bethlehem. The Flight to Egypt is depicted in devotions to the seven Sorrows of Mary.

Oleszkiewicz-Peralba, Małgorzata. The Black Madonna in Latin America and Europe: Tradition and Transformation. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007. Print.

Santoro, Nicholas J. Mary in Our Life: Atlas of the Names and Titles of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and Their Place in Marian Devotion. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2011. Print.

Researched by Luis F. Russe Gonzalez

All content is used with permission

of the Marian Library at the

University of Dayton.