The famous painting, the Mona Lisa, hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Painted by the Italian artist Leonardo Da Vinci, the Mona Lisa is one of the most valuable paintings in the world. It holds the Guiness World Record for the highest known painting insurance valuation in history at US$100 million in 1962, equivalent to $1 billion today.
The painting was stolen in 1911 and was missing for two years.
During that time more people went to steer at the blank space in the museum where it had hung, than had gone to look at the masterpiece in the twelve previous years it had hung there unmolested.
This may tell us something about ourselves and about our human condition.
It highlights our all too human tendency to fail to take adequate note of precious things while we have them.
Yet, let one of them be taken from us, and we become painfully aware of the ‘blank space’ in our lives, and our attention is sharply focused on that blank space.
What is constantly granted is easily taken for granted.
Is it any wonder the father ran? “But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him”. (Lk 15: 20)