The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, the most famous painting in the Sistine Chapel  (Photo courtesy of the Vatican Museums)

The Sistine Chapel prepared for the Conclave of 2005 in which Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope (Galazka photo)

Benedict XVI leads a prayer service in the Sistine Chapel marking the 500th anniversary of a prayer service led by Pope Julius II in 1512 to celebrate Michelangelo’s completion of the ceiling paintings.

Standing in the Sistine Chapel under Michelangelo’s famous ceiling frescoes, people are reminded that the world was created by God in a supreme act of love, Pope Benedict XVI said in a ceremony October 31 in the chapel.

“With a unique expressive intensity,” the Pope said, Mich­elangelo depicted the power and majesty of God the Creator in a way that proclaimed “the world is not the product of darkness, chaos or absurdity, but derives from intelligence, freedom, a supreme act of love.”

Pope Benedict made his remarks during an evening prayer service marking the 500th anniversary of the prayer service led by Pope Julius II in 1512 to celebrate Mich­elangelo’s completion of the ceiling paintings.

Up to 20,000 people visit the Sistine Chapel each day as part of their tour of the Vatican Museums, but, “the chapel contemplated in prayer is even more beautiful, more authentic; it reveals all its richness,” the Pope said. With a small group of cardinals, Vatican employees and guests joining him for the prayer service, the Pope asked them to try to imagine what it must have been like 500 years ago to look up and see those famous paintings for the first time.

The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, the most famous painting in the Sistine Chapel  (Photo courtesy of the Vatican Museums)

The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, the most famous painting in the Sistine Chapel
(Photo courtesy of the Vatican Museums)

Benedict XVI gives a blessing after leading a prayer service in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican October 31 (CNS photo)

Benedict XVI gives a blessing after leading a prayer service in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican October 31 (CNS photo)

The ceiling, measuring 134 feet by 43 feet, has nine principal illustrations of events recounted in the Book of Genesis, including the various stages of creation and the great flood. The most famous of all the scenes is God creating Adam and transmitting life to him through an outstretched finger.

All of the chapel’s paintings recount stages in the history of salvation, the Pope said, but “in that encounter of the finger of God and the finger of man, we perceive a contact between heaven and earth. In Adam, God entered into a new relationship with his creation,” a relationship in which a creature is created in God’s image and called into a direct relationship with God.

Pope Benedict noted that, 20 years after Michelangelo finished the ceiling, he concluded work on the massive wall fresco, the Last Judgment.

Illustrating humanity’s origin on the ceiling and its ultimate destiny in the Last Judgment, Michelangelo painted “the great parable of the journey of humanity,” which leads to “the definitive encounter with Christ, the judge of the living and the dead,” the Pope said.

“Praying this evening in the Sistine Chapel — surrounded by the story of God’s journey with humanity, marvelously represented in the frescoes above us and around us — is an invitation to praise,” he said.

 

Click Here to read an interview with Dr. Antonio Paolucci, head of the Vatican Museums

 

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