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Spiritual Richness
in the Common Life of the People
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
The National Museum of Ancient Art in Portugal
preserves, among other valuable works, the nativity scene
from the church of St. Vincent de Fora sculpted by Joaquim
Machado de Castro in the eighteenth century. In our photograph
we present one detail from this nativity scene: the shepherds
coming to adore the Infant Jesus.
Even though the intention of the sculptor
was to present people from the hills of Judea at the time
of the birth of Our Lord, rugged and tattered as the shepherds
in the East often were, the human types, contenances, gestures
and ways of being that he imagined in this work better resemble
the people in the ambiance surrounding the artist, that is,
the good country people of eighteenth-century Portugal.
At first glance, this scene may give some
observers a sensation of disorder. We are accustomed to the
disciplined and soulless masses of today's great modern cities,which
we see silently filling the movie theaters or frowning and
hurriedly crossing at the street corners when the policeman's
whistle or traffic light stops the flow of vehicles so that
they can pass. These multitudes shout and applaud in large
collective manifestations as if they were only one immense
being in which the individuals had been dissolved like drops
of water in the sea.
From this perspective, this cluster of
people causes surprise. All, having heard the angelic message,
are rushing to the manger. Even the dog, in the foreground,
is hurrying. The personal note of each figure is so distinct
that the group when considered as a whole emits something
of a feeling of effervescence and chaos.
And, in fact, each face and each way of
walking or running expresses a completely personal reaction
in relation to the Good News. The two young lads in front
seem simply moved by curiosity. It is that true nonchalance,
often times excessive, that belongs to their age. A more
mature shepherd, his eyes shining and dilated with happiness,
his expression intelligent, seems to sense with greater
discernment the scope of the grand event. Behind him, an
old man with a hat with a large upturned brim cries out
and weeps from emotion. In the background, a hooded and
white-bearded man, hastening even while he meditates, shows
himself to be deeply affected.
Each soul in this group of lucid unlettered
men is like an interior world from which pours forth the expression
of a powerful personality.
Ignorant, illiterate, they were not subjected
to the terrible processes of standardization of the twentieth-century
mechanical civilization. Their thinking was not imposed
upon them by the same newspapers, their sensibilities modeled
by the same movies, their attention held all day by the
magnetic attraction of radio and television.
And this makes us think of that admirable
excerpt-never sufficiently cited-of Pius XII about "the
people and the masses":
"The people, and a shapeless multitude
(or, as it is called, `the masses') are two distinct concepts.
"The people lives and moves by its
own life energy; the masses are inert of themselves and
can only be moved from outside. The people live by the fulness
of life in the men that compose it, each of whom-at his
proper place and in his own way-is a person conscious of
his own responsibility and of his own views.
"The masses, on the contrary, wait
for the impulse from outside, an easy plaything in the hands
of anyone who exploits their instincts and impressions;
ready to follow in turn, today this flag, tomorrow another.
"From the exuberant life of a true
people, an abundant rich life is diffused in the state and
all its organs, instilling into them, with a vigor that
is always renewing itself, the consciousness of their own
responsibility, the true instinct for the common good"
(1944 Christmas radio message).
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