You wouldn’t be wrong if you observed that it’s becoming increasingly uncomfortable to be a professing Christian in our culture. The good news is, being comfortable or safe has never been part of the job description for a follower of Christ (I’ll bet you’re feeling better already). In fact, Jesus Himself is very emphatic on this point; this passage from the Gospel of John is just one example::
They will put you out of the synagogues; indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you of them. (John 16: 2-4)
We can see that persecution, even in times and places that claim to be Christian, has been more the rule than the exception throughout the history of the Church. Just take a look at the Saints for today (September 10th) at Catholic.org. There are 59 separate entries for today, most of them martyrs. While many of them are from the same persecution in Japan in 1622, a random sampling finds Saints suffering for the Faith throughout the history of the Church. Let’s take a look and see how, as they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same:
St. Nemesian, Felix, and Companions
A group of Nicomedian martyrs condemned to labor in the marble quarries of Sigum. They all died in this arduous servitude. The group was comprised of nine bishops from Numidia, along with other clergy and laity. The bishops include Lucius, Litteus, Polyanus, Victor, Jader, Dativus, and a second Felix. St. Cyprian wrote to them from his place of exile. (c. 250?)
We are all familiar with the first three centuries of the Church as a time of persecution. The Romans took particular care to target the leaders of the Christian movement, the bishops. There are places today (Syria and Iraq come to mind) where Christians are persecuted with a ferocity equal to, or even greater than, that under the Romans.
St. Theodard of Maastricht
Bishop and martyr. A disciple of St. Remaclus in the Benedictine abbey of Malniely. Stavelot, Belgium, he succeeded him as abbot in 635, receiving appointment as bishop of Maastricht, Netherlands, in 662. He was murdered by a band of robbers in the forest of Bienwald, near Speyer, Germany, while on his way to defend the rights of the Church against the harsh confiscatory policies of King Childeric II (r. 662-675) of Austrasia. (670)
Imagine needing to “defend the rights of the Church against . . . harsh confiscatory policies”. We can’t think of anywhere today where the state is encroaching on the Church, can we? In any case, here’s a Saint and who didn’t hesitate to stand up for Christ’s Church in the public square.
St. Cosmas of Aphrodisia
A bishop and martyr, born in Palermo, on Sicily. He was named bishop of Aphrodisia, ordained by Pope Eugene III. When the Saracens captured his see, Cosmas was seized and died as a result of harsh abuse. His cult was approved by Pope Leo XIII. (1160)
Speaking of Syria and Iraq, here we see a Catholic Bishop murdered by the Muslim jihadists of the day. While not always as virulent as it is under ISIS, Al Qaeda, and similar groups, persecution of Christians is endemic throughout the Islamic world.
St. Joseph of St. Hyacinth
Dominican martyr of Japan. He was born in Villareal, Spain. The provincial vicar of the Dominicans in Japan, he spoke perfect Japanese. Joseph was burned alive at Nagasaki. He was beatified in 1867. (1622)
Bl. Lucy de Freitas
Martyr of Japan. A native Japanese, she was the widow of Philip de Freitas. Lucy, a Franciscan tertiary, was arrested for sheltering Blessed Richard of St. Anne, a Franciscan priest. Although advanced in age, Lucy defended the faith before the authorities and was burned to death for it at Nagasaki, Japan, on September 10. She was beatified in 1867. (1622)
St. Joseph and Blessed Lucy are just two of a large number of Christians martyred at Nagasaki in 1622; there is no part of the world that has not been baptized with the blood of Christian martyrs.
“Resist him, steadfast in faith”
As noted above, Jesus is not at all hesitant about reminding his followers that discipleship is not a warm and fuzzy business. On the contrary, he says: “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” (Matthew 5:11) It’s going to happen. Sometimes it’s as ugly and brutal as it was for the Saints above, or as it is for many Christians in the Middle East today; sometimes it’s a much milder variety of uttering “all kinds of evil against you falsely”, as is becoming more common in the United States and other Western countries.
Nonetheless our own sufferings for the name of Christ, even when they don’t rise to the level of serious persecution, are still hardships and injustices. As St. Peter wrote:
Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in faith, knowing that your fellow believers throughout the world undergo the same sufferings. (1Peter 5:8-11)
St. Peter’s warning is as timely for us as it was for his correspondents back in the first century. We are all subject to the temptation to take the easy way out, a way that seeems easier than picking up our cross and following Christ (see Matthew 16:24). The sufferings of the Saints of the past, and of our fellow Christians throughout the world today, remind us that we are not alone, that they suffer with us just as Christ suffered for us. We can, and should, pray for persecuted Christians around the world just as we ask the Saints of the past to pray for us. Together we can stand firm, steadfast in our faith.
Today it seems fitting to talk about not one Saint, but a trio. I’ll begin with the first two: St. Augustine whose feast is today (28 August), and St. Monica, whose feast was yesterday. St. Augustine, of course, is one of the greatest theologians, a bishop, Doctor of the Church, and subject of one of the best-known conversion stories in the history of Christianity. The story of St. Monica is also well-known, how she “stormed Heaven” with her fervent prayer over many years on behalf of her wayward son in his less-than-saintly days, and how after he had at last returned to Christ and His Church she died in great contentment.
Storming Heaven: “St. Augustine and St. Monica” by Gioacchino Assereto, early 17th century.
St. Monica has long been an inspiration to parents worried about the spiritual welfare of their offspring, and she is a powerful intercessor on their behalf. We need to bear in mind, however, that as essential as her prayers were, they were not enough. She softened Augustine’s heart, and prepared the ground to receive the seeds of his conversion, but she herself was not able to plant those seeds: she could not convince her son to change his life.
On the Lips of a Stranger
Although Augustine was unwilling to be swayed by his mother’s entreaties, it seems that her prayers brought someone into his life to whom he was willing to listen: St. Ambrose, our third Saint. St. Monica’s efforts in the realm of the spirit combined with Ambrose’s eloquence and intellectual brilliance were too much for Augustine’s will to resist. Together they brought him back to communion with the Body of Christ.
“St. Ambrose Baptizes St. Augustine” by The Umbrian Master, c. 1510
It often perplexes and saddens those of us who are parents that however hard we try, sometimes our children simply can’t, or won’t, hear what we have to say. What’s even more maddening, they often treat those same things as the height of wisdom when they encounter them on the lips of a stranger. It’s a hard reality. That’s why when we are Storming Heaven for the sake of our children, whatever else we pray for, we would do well to ask the Lord to send a St. Ambrose.
Image top of page: “St. Augustine and St. Monica in a Sermon by St. Ambrose” by Jaume Huguet, 1470-1486
Spiritual Warfare has been a theme in a number of my posts recently, and for good reason: while the struggle “against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12) is always with us, it has been causing more than a few ruffles on the surface of the visible world of late. We can see this eternal struggle reflected not only in the increasing intensity of the Culture War in the secular sphere but, sadly, within the Church as well.
Joseph Haydn by Thomas Hardy, 1791
What better Music Monday piece, then, than Haydn’s Mass in Time of War (Missa in Tempore Belli)? And what better selection than the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God, whom we see in the Book of Revelation as the Victor in the final battle of the Cosmic War.
It was indeed a time of war when Haydn composed the Missa in Tempore Belli in 1796. His homeland Austria (at the time part of the Holy Roman Empire) had been at war with revolutionary France, and had been losing. A French invasion seemed imminent. We can hear the turbulence and uncertainty of the times reflected in Haydn’s music. This mass is also called the Paukenmesse (the “Kettle Drum Mass”) because it features a much more extensive use of percussion than was customary at the time. In addition to military-sounding drumming, the horns in the Agnus Dei call to mind battle trumpets.
Franz Joseph Haydn himself was a supremely talented and prolific composer, a gifted teacher (he numbered both Mozart and Beethoven among his pupils, the former also becoming a close friend), a great guy to hang out with, and a joyfully devout Catholic. This 2014 article in Catholic World Report about the undeserved neglect of this magnificent Man of Music is a great brief introduction to Haydn’s work and life.
In the video below I pair a recording by the Bavarian Broadcasting Choir and Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Leonard Bernstein) with a representation of the Book of Revelation’s Lamb of God painted on the ceiling of the Union Church in Idstein, Germany.
Haydn: Missa in tempore belli “Paukenmesse” – Agnus Dei · Judith Blegen · Brigitte Fassbaender · Claes-Håkon Ahnsjö · Hans Sotin · Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks · Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks · Leonard Bernstein
Haydn: Mass in C “Missa in Tempore Belli”
℗ 1985 Universal International Music B.V.
Released on: 1986-06-03
Composer: Franz Joseph Haydn
Ceiling painting from the Unionskirche, Idstein, Book of Revelation,”Worthy is the Lamb”, showing the Lamb, God the Father, an angel, the four Evangelists as symbolic animals, a row of angels with harps, ca. 1670.
Those of us in the West who have heard of the Italian composer Giuseppe Sarti most likely know about him through the tribute paid by another composer: in Mozart’s Don Giovanni Don Juan listens to an air from Sarti’s opera Fra i due litiganti il terzo gode as the old rake enjoys his final dinner before being dragged off to Hell. Many of our Orthodox brethren know Sarti more directly: in 1785, the year before his music was show-cased in Mozart’s opera, Sarti took up residence in Russia at the invitation of the Empress Catherine the Great. There he composed not only operas, but also some magnificent sacred music for use in the Russian Orthodox Church. In the video below the Chamber Choir Ireland performs one of his best known sacred works, the breath-taking “Now The Powers of Heaven”.
The featured image is an icon of the Holy Trinity (in the form of the Three Visitors to Abraham in Genesis chapter 18), painted by the Russian Artist Andrei Rublev c. 1411.
Picture Sunday Mass in a typical parish. A mother comes up for communion holding a small child in her arms. As she approaches the priest, she awkwardly holds on to her infant with one arm in order to free up the other to take the Eucharistic host and quickly pop it into her mouth before she drops it, or her squirming child, to the floor. I’ve witnessed this scene on numerous occasions over the years, and I always wonder why the harried parent doesn’t avail herself of a simple and effective method of protecting both the safety of her son or daughter and the dignity of all the parties involved (very much including Christ present in the Eucharist): hold her child securely in both arms, extend her tongue, and receive the Body of Christ in the same manner as her ancestors did for centuries before her: the manner that is still, officially, the norm for the entire Church.
But let’s set aside, for the moment, the issue of Church norms. Why should the young mother holding her baby receiving communion, or any of us for that matter, care what our ancestors did? That is to say, what is the point of tradition?
“Les Premières Communiantes” by Blanchard, Musée de la Civilisation, Québec
The question of the value of tradition has been given a certain currency by Pope Francis’ recent motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, which seeks to restrict the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM). G.K. Chesterton called tradition “the democracy of the dead” because it gives our forebears a “vote” in how we conduct ourselves here and now. This is something unique to humanity. It makes no difference to a cat, or a bat, or a moray eel that it is doing what it’s ancestors did; Animals are biologically programmed to behave exactly as previous generations have done. A dog doesn’t give the least thought to whether or not he should leave his mark on a given fire hydrant, he simply does it and moves on.
We humans are different. We are, again, unique among the world’s creatures. We’re not governed by instinct, we alone can make free choices about how we act. We have been endowed by our Creator with awareness of self, with the ability to make distinctions, to think abstractly:
[W]hat is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou dost care for him? Yet thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor. Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea. O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth!(Psalm 8:4-9)
The second sentence above is sometimes translated “Thou hast made him little less than the angels.” Like the angels we have been endowed by God with great gifts. Like the angels we can forget the divine source of those gifts, and succumb to pride . . . and therefore fall.
“The Fall of the Rebel Angels” by Edward Dayes, 1798
Tradition, if we pay attention to it, steers us away from that fall. For one thing, the experience of our ancestors and their choices, good and bad, guides us in sound decision-making: “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it,” as George Santayana famously said. More than that, the realization that what we know and what we can do is only made possible by centuries of trial, error, and reflection (“We stand on the shoulders of giants”) helps us understand that we can claim little credit for our achievements, and warns against the temptation of that pride which leadeth to the fall (see Proverbs 16:18).
Sacred tradition, tradition as preserved by the Church in scripture, doctrine, liturgy, and sacraments does even more than that, much more. It reveals to us the involvement of God in every part of the human story, and directly connects us to the life of God Himself. The highest expression of sacred tradition is the Eucharist as the True Body and Blood of Christ himself, and the Church as His Mystical Body.
Before I go further, let’s note the distinction between Sacred Tradition, sometimes called Tradition with a capital T, and lowercase sacred traditions. Sacred Tradition with a capital T refers to essential elements of Catholic belief and practice that have existed from the beginning and cannot change, such as doctrinal definitions. Lowercase traditions are things that are beneficial, even holy, but are not essential, such as devotional practices. These can be changed or abrogated if they are no longer helpful. The Mass contains both kinds of tradition. There are essential, unchangeable elements such as a validly consecrated priest, an altar, a victim, and a sacrifice; there are also changeable factors, such as (despite my fondness for Latin) the language in which the Mass is conducted, or the posture we assume in receiving communion.
Just because sacred traditions (as opposed to Sacred Tradition) can be changed, however, it doesn’t follow that they do not fill an important role in the spiritual lives of believers, or that setting them aside without good reason would do no harm. We can clearly see why this is so when we look at ordinary, non sacred traditions. Consider the policy of totalitarian revolutionaries from time immemorial: one of the first things they do is to destroy established tradition. They try to undermine the traditional family by separating children from their parents and husband from wife (that’s why communists have often been champions of so-called “free love”); they abolish religion and secular associations that exist outside of their control. Totalitarians seek to erase any pre-existing sense of identity so that they can forge a new identity, and form people according to their own designs.
Guess what this is: Sacred Heart Church, Altruras, CA, 1883
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that something similar has been happening in the Church for most of the past century, going back even before the Second Vatican Council. Consider church architecture. Despite sometimes significant changes over time, any church built from the time Christians emerged from catacombs in the 4th century up until the mid twentieth century, from the humblest parish church to the grandest basilica, would be immediately recognizable for what it was, and in fact as of a kind with all the other churches. Moreover, sacred architecture has always used the elements of the building itself to evangelize, using a balanced and hierarchical arrangement to represent the order of God’s universe, with all things drawing the eye ultimately to the altar and the tabernacle at the center.
Somewhere during the twentieth century church architecture makes a sudden turn in a radically different direction, and we see church buildings that look like spaceships, or half-capsized boats, or mere angular jumbles of seemingly random chunks of concrete. The altar is an unremarkable table, and good luck finding the tabernacle. Instead of being “sermons in stone” the new churches spoke of nothing so much as the disorder in the mind of the human architects who designed them or of the confused churchmen who commissioned them.
Something similar happened in liturgy. The “new” Mass that emerged in 1970 was significantly different from the reforms envisioned by the Second Council, and the actual implementation of the reformed liturgy took things even beyond the changes specified in the new Mass itself. I’m not saying that the current liturgy is invalid; I am arguing that the radical changes there, as in architecture and other features in the life of the Church, have rashly and unnecessarily done violence to things that help draw Catholic believers closer to God and to each other.
“What the . . . ?” Church of Sainte-Bernadette du Banlay, Nevers, France, 1966
I’d like to return briefly to the image I started out with, the mother or father juggling a squirming baby in one hand and the Sacred Body and Blood of Christ in the other. I noted that simply receiving on the tongue would be much more comfortable, efficient, and dignified, not to mention safer for the baby. Those advantages, however, are not the point: they are simply a happy consequence of what we ought to be doing anyway.
I’m not simply stating my personal opinion: communion on the tongue is the established rule. The Church’s official stance was clearly stated in 1969 by the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship in its instruction Memoriale Domini. This is the document which grants permission for distribution of communion in the hand. We should note that this permission is granted only after a two-thirds vote of the regional bishops’ conference and confirmation by the Holy See. Significantly, the greater part of the instruction is given to emphasizing why communion on the tongue is greatly to be preferred to receiving in the hand, and why the traditional practice remains the rule (my bold):
. . . with a deepening understanding of the truth of the Eucharistic Mystery, of its power and of the presence of Christ in it, there came a greater feeling of reverence towards this sacrament and a deeper humility was felt to be demanded when receiving it. Thus the custom was established of the minister placing a particle of consecrated bread on the tongue of the communicant.
This method of distributing holy communion must be retained, taking the present situation of the Church in the entire world into account, not merely because it has many centuries of tradition behind it, but especially because it expresses the faithful’s reverence for the Eucharist . . .
The Apostolic See therefore emphatically urges bishops, priests and laity to obey carefully the law which is still valid and which has again been confirmed.
The reason for the rule is to show, and to help the recipient feel, the deepest reverence for the presence of Christ in the Sacrament.
I was working on a lengthy post on this topic last month in response to a reader’s comment. I was derailed by the publication of Traditionis Custodes (among other things). I may return to explore the topic in greater length at some point; today I’m simply using it as an example. In any case, my point is this: even if we don’t privilege one form of reception of the Eucharist over the other, why is there such resistance to the more traditional way, even to the point of risking injury to one’s own child? For that matter, why are most children taught the reluctantly granted exception, but not the actual norm? Why is there so much hostility to the traditional form?
“Hostility” is no exaggeration (and again, this is just one example of a much wider trend). Memoriale Domini says in defense of the traditional practice:
The custom [i.e., reception on the tongue] does not detract in any way from the personal dignity of those who approach this great sacrament: it is part of that preparation that is needed for the most fruitful reception of the Body of the Lord.
If you that doubt promoters of the new practice object precisely to the gestures of humility inherent in the old, consider the following excerpt from “progessive” Catholic commentator Peter Steinfels’ 2003 book A People Adrift. Steinfels dismissively describes the traditional communicant as “kneeling, eyes closed and tongue outstretched like a baby bird being fed” as opposed to a communicant who “stood eye-to-eye with the priest or Eucharistic minister, touching objects previously handled by the priest alone.” The overriding concern here is not the reverence due to the Lord of the Universe; in fact, it seems to be altogether forgotten in the power struggle with His human priest. The focus here is the assertion of the Autonomous Human Self. So much for standing on the shoulders of giants.
This refusal to submit ourselves to the wisdom of tradition (and, by extension, to the Divine Inspiration for those traditions) seems to be the motivating factor in much of the change that has happened in the Church over the past century. We can see this refusal manifested in the architectural innovations mentioned above (along with the wanton destruction of the beautiful interiors of so many churches), the avoidance of any discussion of sin, and the replacement of an emphasis on the holy and transcendent with a focus on the material and earthly (social justice, Liberation Theology). We are abandoning the things that point us to God in favor of the merely human. Are we surprised that more and more people are deciding that they simply don’t need the Church at all?
It should also come as no surprise that areas of growth in the Church are those places that embrace tradition: religious orders that emphasize wearing a habit and adhering to Church teaching, dioceses and parishes that embrace Church teaching and the traditional elements in the new Mass, and, of course, the Traditional Latin Mass. What concerns me most about Traditionis Custodes is that, instead of seeing that growth as a positive thing that brings more people closer to Christ, and therefore as something we should work to inculcate more widely in the Church, this pontificate has embraced the same hostility that took sledgehammers to beautiful, inspiring marble altars and communion rails. We risk dropping the baby on the floor.
Featured image top of page: “Communion Midnight Mass” (Evans/Getty Images)
In the teaching world we have a saying: “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”. In other words, when we meet the parents, we often understand why our students are the way they are (my lovely bride often quotes this back to me when one of our children does something particularly egregious – I’m not quite sure what she’s getting at). Today I mean it in a good way: last week we heard Alessandro Scarlatti’s magnificent Exsultante Deo, today an equally inspiring Te Deum from his son, Domenico Scarlatti (1685 – 1757). This apple didn’t far fall at all.
To learn more about the Te Deum, see below.
To learn more about the featured image above, Raphael’s The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament, look here.
The Te Deum is an ancient Christian prayer. Its title comes from its first line in Latin: Te Deum Laudamus, “We praise you, God.” For many centuries Christians would sing the Te Deum as a song of celebration and thanks to God. This was true not only after events of clearly religious significance, such as the Christian victory over the Muslim Turks in the Battle of Lepanto in 1572, but on the occasion of more worldly triumphs as well, in recognition that all good things are a gift from God. For instance, the English King Henry V is reputed to have ordered his army to sing the hymn after their victory over the French at Agincourt in 1415, an event William Shakespeare includes in his play Henry V.
While nowhere near as old as the psalms, the Te Deum is still a very ancient prayer, having been composed in the 3rd or 4th century. Its authorship is unknown, but has been attributed to St. Ambrose and/or St. Augustine, St. Nicetas of Remesiana, or St. Hillary of Poitiers. It has been set to music many times over the centuries.
Te Deum
Te Deum laudámus: te Dominum confitémur. Te ætérnum Patrem omnis terra venerátur. Tibi omnes Angeli; tibi cæli et univérsae potestátes. Tibi Chérubim et Séraphim incessábili voce proclámant: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dóminus Deus Sábaoth. Pleni sunt cæli et terra majestátis glóriæ tuæ. Te gloriósus Apostolórum chorus; Te Prophetárum laudábilis númerus; Te Mártyrum candidátus laudat exércitus. Te per orbem terrárum sancta confitétur Ecclésia: Patrem imménsæ majestátis; Venerándum tuum verum et únicum Fílium; Sanctum quoque Paráclitum Spíritum. Tu Rex glóriæ, Christe. Tu Patris sempitérnus es Fílius. Tu ad liberándum susceptúrus hóminem, non horruísti Vírginis úterum. Tu, devícto mortis acúleo, aperuísti credéntibus regna cælórum. Tu ad déxteram Dei sedes, in glória Patris. Judex créderis esse ventúrus. Te ergo quǽsumus, tuis fámulis súbveni, quos pretióso sánguine redemísti. Ætérna fac cum sanctis tuis in glória numerári. Salvum fac pópulum tuum, Dómine, et bénedic hæreditáti tuæ. Et rege eos, et extólle illos usque in ætérnum. Per síngulos dies benedícimus te. Et laudámus nomen tuum in sǽculum, et in sǽculum sǽculi. Dignáre, Dómine, die isto sine peccáto nos custodíre. Miserére nostri, Dómine, miserére nostri. Fiat misericórdia tua, Dómine, super nos, quemádmodum sperávimus in te. In te, Dómine, sperávi: non confúndar in ætérnum.
You are God: we praise you; You are the Lord: we acclaim you; You are the eternal Father: All creation worships you. To you all angels, all the powers of heaven, Cherubim and Seraphim, sing in endless praise: Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.The glorious company of apostles praise you. The noble fellowship of prophets praise you. The white-robed army of martyrs praise you. Throughout the world the holy Church acclaims you: Father, of majesty unbounded,your true and only Son, worthy of all worship, and the Holy Spirit, advocate and guide. You, Christ, are the King of glory, the eternal Son of the Father. When you became man to set us free you did not spurn the Virgin’s womb. You overcame the sting of death, and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. You are seated at God’s right hand in glory. We believe that you will come, and be our judge. Come then, Lord, and help your people, bought with the price of your own blood, and bring us with your saints to glory everlasting. Save your people, Lord, and bless your inheritance.— Govern and uphold them now and always. Day by day we bless you. — We praise your name for ever. Keep us today, Lord, from all sin. — Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy. Lord, show us your love and mercy, — for we have put our trust in you.In you, Lord, is our hope: — And we shall never hope in vain.
It’s only natural that the children of a loving Father should try to please and honor him. And so for the past two thousand years, Christians have put untold effort, ingenuity and love into creating a magnificent store of inspiring art of all sorts to glorify God, including a treasury of sacred music unmatched for its depth, breadth, and sheer beauty.
Alessandro Scarlatti
Sometimes it seems we’re throwing it all away. All too often, it seems, we keep the best china and good silver locked away and receive the Lord of Creation with the equivalent of paper plates and plastic forks at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.
It doesn’t need to be that way. We all can and should advocate for liturgical music worthy of Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. And if it’s any comfort, long after nobody remembers that there was any such thing as “Anthem” or “Lord of the Dance”, Alessandro Scarlatti’s “Exultate Domine” will still be there, and still sound like music fit for The King.
Scarlatti lived from 1660 to 1725 and was a prolific composer of both sacred and secular music. His joyful “Exultate Deo” is a musical setting for Psalm 81, which begins Exultate Deo adjutori nostro, “Sing joyfully to God our help.” The Ensemble of the Bellevue Presbyterian Church performs Scarlatti’s composition in the clip below.
Scarlatti was composing 300 years ago, but not all inspiring Christian art is a product of an earlier era. The beautiful featured image at the top of the page, “Jesus Christ the Returning King”, was created just a few years ago, in 2005, by artist Janusz Antosz. Below the music clip you can find the artist’s explanation of the meaning of this wonderful work of art (excerpted from a longer article accompanied by a video interview of the artist at https://directionforourtimes.com/image-of-jesus-christ-the-returning-king-2/)
The artist of this painting, Janusz Antosz explains that before he began this painting he experienced a long period of pain and suffering. From beginning to end it took him over a year to complete the painting. Janusz stated clearly that this painting is the pearl of his entire body of work. He explained that it is a painting from a technical standpoint, but has many aspects of an icon. The painting blends the Western European painting style with the style of icons from the East. He wanted the painting to have the look of both, so as to include all of the Catholic Church (Eastern and Latin) as well as other Christian Orthodox. It is a merging of styles that represents a hope for Christian unity. According to Janusz, it shows our Lord’s longing “that they may be one, as We are one” (John 17:22). As a whole, the painting is meant to reflect the glory of heaven.
He explains how at the bottom of the painting the two individuals represent the Eastern and Western saints. The Eastern saint is the hooded individual and the other, a Western saint. In the painting they both adore the Lord which represents that all believers, from East to West, will adore the Lord. The flowers along the arch at the top of the painting, which are bell shaped, symbolize the good news of a beginning, or in other words, an announcement of a coming. For example, at the beginning of Mass, the bells are rung and the priest enters the sanctuary. In this case, it is the High priest entering. Further, the gold area directly below the arch represents the glory and reality of heaven.
In regards to Our Lord’s vestments and the color of the vestments, this is important. Our Lord is dressed as a bishop/priest and the colors are those traditionally used to portray sacrifice as well as glory and praise. The pattern on the vestments is consistent with patterns found in icons, while the color of the alb is blue. The Lord’s face is modeled after the Shroud of Turin, while his hand is the gesture of a blessing and also means “I love you” in sign language. Additionally the scepter with the cross at the top represents that through the power of the cross, all power rests with the Lord “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me” (Matt 28:18) This also confirms His kingship – “The King of kings and the Lord of lords.” (1 Tim 6:15) Which is reflected by the crown on His head.
Around his halo are symbols: the letter N is Greek for “I am.” These words are taken from the book of Exodus 3:14, when Moses asks God for His name. According to an expert on icons, O and N are symbols of the presence of God and the mystery of the incarnation – the divine presence becomes visible in the New Covenant when, after having received a body by being born of the Virgin Mary, He appears to us so that we may adore Him as God, who is love. Janusz describes his inspiration for Jesus’s throne is in a style from the 17th century Baroque period. The light, bright colors represent Christ the King’s purity, beauty and holiness.
On the top of the throne, Janusz goes on to explain that these are lily flowers closest to Our Lord and represent His purity. As well, the angels are Seraphim angels- the angels present at God’s throne who constantly praise Him (Isaiah 6:1-7). Around the neck of Jesus is a medal with a cross on it, this cross is directly over Our Lord’s Sacred Heart. It is meant to show that by dying on the cross, He shows the love He has for each one of us. You will also see on the painting the flowers directly to the left and right of Jesus; they are wide open and facing the Lord, meaning they are praising and giving great glory to the Lord. Near there are the grapes and the wheat which represent the Holy Eucharist. You will also notice an open area between the two groups of flowers. Janusz said that he wanted to convey that by prayer and meditation we will have no obstruction on the journey to Christ. We will all have a direct path or an open road to the Lord and we will gain a more intimate relationship and closer union with Him.
The last thing to mention is that on the top of the painting there are gold leaves. These leaves are leaves of a vine, indicating that Jesus is the vine (John 15:1). The leaves are open and giving glory to Our Lord. They are also positioned to showcase Our Lord.
My, but things have been interesting lately, haven’t they? Not that interesting is good. The dust has not yet begun to settle from the Pope’s assault on the Traditional Latin Mass in his motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, which was published last week. A large number of the most committed Catholics (and not just those who prefer the TLM) have been left feeling not just unappreciated, but positively unloved by their Papa in Rome. This comes only a year after the episcopate around the world folded without a word of complaint and shut down churches during the holiest season of the year at the behest of grasping secular politicians who considered the Eucharist a “nonessential” service, even while they lauded rioters pillaging their cities. And speaking of grasping politicians, I need not go into how easily they exploited the Covid panic to indulge their authoritarian impulses (so much for checks and balances). I won’t even mention the disheartening circumstances surrounding last fall’s election in the United States and its aftermath.
The point is, in times like these we feel powerless. It seems like even when we do everything right, we don’t get anywhere. We fail like failures.
“The Blind Leading the Blind” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1568
This isn’t a new situation. Let’s go back to the 14th century. Due to a combination of Roman violence and corruption, mixed with French finagling, the popes left the Eternal City in the first decade of the century for a stay of almost seventy years in the city of Avignon, in what is now southern France. There, 400 miles from their episcopal see, the Bishops of Rome and Pontiffs of the Universal Church lived like vassals of the French king in increasingly secular splendor. On top of the spiritual illness plaguing Europe, the continent was hit mid-century by the bubonic plague, the “Black Death” that would in short order kill fully one third of all Europeans.
Today’s saint, St. Bridget (or Birgitta) of Sweden, lived in the midst of that distressing century. Bridget was born to a prominent Swedish family in 1303, six years before Pope Clement V abandoned Rome to Avignon, and died in 1373, three years before Pope Gregory XI returned the papacy to its proper home. The failure and futility of the age found echoes in the saint’s life.
Bridget’s life started happily enough. She was married in her early teens (as was common at the time) and had eight children, one of whom would go on to become St. Catherine of Sweden. She enjoyed a deeply committed and loving relationship with her husband, and at the same time acquired a reputation for personal piety and charity. Her virtuous conduct attracted favorable notice from many people, including learned clerics and even the King of Sweden. When Bridget was in her early forties, however, her life changed abruptly when her beloved husband died. In her changed circumstances she devoted herself completely to the practice of religion and Christian virtues. Also, as the Catholic Encyclopedia [link] puts it:
By Albrecht Dürer , from Revelations of St. Bridget, 1502
The visions which she believed herself to have had from her early childhood now became more frequent and definite. She believed that Christ Himself appeared to her, and she wrote down the revelations she then received, which were in great repute during the Middle Ages. They were translated into Latin by Matthias Magister and Peter Prior.
Influenced by these visions, she laid the foundations for a new religious order (the Brigittines), and set out for Rome, both to seek Papal approval for her order (which was finally granted twenty years later, in 1370), and also to urge the Pope to return to Rome from Avignon (a task later taken up by St. Catherine of Siena).
Having been first a mother of a large family and then a consecrated religious woman who founded an order of nuns, both in extremely trying times, St. Bridget of Sweden is truly a versatile saint. She is a patroness both of mothers and families and also for those in religious communities; she is also an exemplar of charity, piety, and determination for all of us. One of the most interesting things about St. Bridget, the common thread that connects all of her other experiences, is summed up in this passage from the article about her [link] at Catholic Online:
Although she had longed to become a nun, she never even saw the monastery in Vadstena. In fact, nothing she set out to do was ever realized. She had never had the pope return to Rome permanently, she never managed to make peace between France and England, she never saw any nun in the habit that Christ had shown her, and she never returned to Sweden but died, [a] worn out old lady far from home in July 1373. She can be called the Patroness of Failures.
The article goes on to call her a “successful failure”, citing her canonization in 1391.
“The LORD sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)
St. Bridget from altarpiece in Salem Church, Södermanland, Sweden (restored digitally)
St. Bridget of Sweden might well have looked like a failure at the end of her life . . . in the eyes of the World. The eyes of the World, however, are not God’s eyes:
“the LORD sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”(1 Samuel 16:7)
St. Paul underscores this same truth when he tells the Corinthians that “the wisdom of this world is folly with God.” (1 Corinthians 3:19) St. Bridget is in fact an excellent example of the quote attributed to St. Theresa of Calcutta: “God hasn’t called me to be successful, he has called me to be faithful”.
Whether or not Mother Theresa actually said it, it’s a marvelous statement of what it is to be a Saint, and a perfect description of why we honor St. Bridget of Sweden today. As it happens, her efforts did in fact bear fruit, even though she didn’t live to see it: the pope did return to Rome, and the order she founded continues to this day . . . but that’s not why she’s a saint. Our “success” as Christians, and St. Bridget’s success, consists in fidelity to Christ, and in nothing else.
Featured image top of page: “Christ and St. Brigida” from Santa Maria Della Catena, Palermo
It’s hard to overstate how much beautiful, excellent music has been created over the centuries, and how much of it is rarely heard by the vast majority of people. Last week I published a clip of a “Kyrie” composed by Johann Baptist Wanhal. Wanhal was an important and influential composer of the late 18th and early 19th centuries who was admired by contemporary composers such as Haydn and Mozart. For a variety of reasons, even people who know little about classical music know the names of these last two, but have never heard of Wanhal . . .
. . . which is unfortunate, because his music is very much worth hearing. One of my goals in setting up this blog was to share more widely some of the treasures from our storehouse of sacred music. Last week’s election was from Wanhal’s Missa Pastoralis; today I’m sharing the magnificent “Gloria” from his Missa Solemnis:
Video:
Missa Solemnis: Gloria · Colin Ainsworth
Vanhal: Missa Pastoralis – Missa Solemnis
℗ 2001 Naxos
Released on: 2001-06-13
Ensemble: Aradia Ensemble Artist: Colin Ainsworth Artist: Mary Enid Haines Artist: Nina Scott Stoddart Artist: Steven Pitkanen Choir: TOWER Voices New Zealand Conductor: Uwe Grodd Composer: Johann Baptist Vanhal Artwork: Joseph Kastner “Angels in Heaven” from the Carmelite Monastery Church, Döbling, Austria (1906-19100
One of the wonderful things about having a centuries-deep treasury of sacred music is that there’s always more to discover. I was listening to a classical radio station the other day when I was in the car with one of my sons, when a beautiful but unfamiliar composition was playing. “There’s a lot going on in this music,” my son observed (approvingly). I suggested that it sounded like it could be Mozart, or Haydn, but neither of us could identify it. When the piece finished, and the radio announcer (do we call them “disk jockeys” on classical radio stations?) attributed it to a composer named Vanhal, we assumed that he was probably a late 18th century imitator of Mozart and Haydn.
Johann Baptist Wanhal
As it happens, the influence is as likely, or even more likely, to have gone the other way. Johann Baptist Wanhal (in recent years his name is sometimes given its Czech form, Jan Křtitel Vaňhal) was a slightly older contemporary of Mozart who lived from 1739-1813, whose work was greatly admired by Mozart and other Viennese composers of the time. He composed an impressive number of symphonies, masses, and other works. Curiously, in spite of the high regard of his contemporaries, Wanhal’s music was mostly forgotten after his death in 1813. According to the website of the Johann Baptist Wanhal Association:
Most of Wanhal’s church music (at least 250 works including 48 masses) remains unstudied and unpublished, and little is known about it other than the names of the churches and monasteries that appear on the title pages. However, after he examined two of Wanhal’s late masses, Rochlitz (a well-known German specialist of Bach, Haydn, and Mozart) endorsed their high quality.
Thanks to the work of the Wanhal Association and others, Wanhal’s beautiful work, both sacred and secular, is slowly making its way back into public view. The Aradia Ensemble recorded two of Wanhal’s masses twenty years ago, a Missa Pastoralis in G Major and a Missa Solemnis in C Major. I’m making some videos from this recording which I’ll post here and on Vimeo. Today’s selection is the beautiful “Kyrie” from the Missa Pastoralis.
Featured image top of page: “Haydn Playing with Mozart, Dittersdorf, and Wanhal”, c. 1790, attributed to Schmid
