Matthew 25:31-46

Every year since 2010, Sarasota, USA, has hosted the 'Chalk Festival', where it celebrates the world's most talented pavement artists. Today's 3D optical illusion is made just with coloured chalks on a street. Pavement artists use the road surface as a canvas to develop oversized works of art. We have all seen them in cities around us. There are quite a few really good artists at work here in Rome, mainly working along the busy tourist streets. In fact, this art form is thought to have originated in Italy already during the 16th century, but little is known of its origins. What makes pavement art unique compared with other art, is that there is no permanence. These works are created for one moment, admired, spoken of, and then disappear because of rain, traffic, pedestrians, etc… I have always been a great admirer of artists who don't create works only for commercial reasons, but who create these beautiful works for the joy of making them to be admired by others. They are a free gift from the artists to us. So it is nice to give them something as token of support and appreciation.

Our artist today (creating this work in 2013 for the Sarasota Chalk Festival) came up with an intricate idea that makes the images of refugees on a raft appear to rise above the pavement, from the particular vantage point that the photo was taken from. In today's reading Christ says 'I was naked and you clothed me'. These words are especially appropriate for all the refugees in the world escaping horrendous wars and trying to improve their lives elsewhere. With many of them risking their lives crossing the Mediterranean or the Channel, our image of today is especially relevant. At this very moment when you read this, still hundred of migrants are chancing a hazardous crossing somewhere in the world.

To see this image drawn on the streets, where unfortunately many of our refugee brothers and sister will end up, makes this artwork all the more poignant...