Grace

An Advent Magnificat

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Jim Janknegt, Joyful Mystery 1

 

Neither the Bible nor history tell us the precise details about the Annunciation to Mary, such as on what day the Angel appeared, or when Jesus was later born. The Angel’s wondrous appearance could have happened on a drab winter’s day. Yet, by virtue of the Angel’s message, it was also like spring. Our Church calendar and holy tradition reckon that the Annunciation was in March. If it was in the spring, the average high temperature in northern Israel would have been in the 60’s. So it could easily have been a season colored by the appearance of emerging flowers and foliage.

Faithful to the pattern of Scripture, Jim Janknegt seeks to portray something beyond literal circumstances. He has more than flowering plants, trees, and shrubs in mind. The decorated edge of the painting is a border of roses, which evoke the mysteries named in the Rosary, of which this scene is only the first. Inside that border are more flowers, and these also play a symbolic role. For we find lilies on Mary’s dress, suggestive of a later-to-be-revealed Easter, and calla lilies in a vase on the table, traditionally associated with the Annunciation to Mary.

Even more dramatically, flowers cover a large part of the angel, which suggest something transcendent and other-worldly. The Angel has come to speak the Word: the Word of Life, which is also a Word of blessing (look at the Angel’s hand-gesture!). Central in the painting, but depicted in a very subtle background way, is a great tree. Surely, it is the Tree of Life, from Genesis and Revelation, the first and last books of the Bible. Surely, the tree also prefigures that toward which everything in this moment is heading ~ the dead wood of the Cross, which paradoxically became a life-giving tree. Yes, it is springtime! But, this is springtime in salvation history.

So this is what we begin to see in Jim Jangknegt’s painting: his portrayal of the Angel’s Annunciation to Mary is not so much about springtime in the world. Instead, it is about springtime for the world.

 

Jim Janknegt’s painting, featured here, is used by permission of the artist. The text of this post is based on my homily for Sunday, Advent IV, of this year, which may be accessed by clicking here.

Reconciliation is Always Possible

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A recent LA Times article was titled, “Hello Simon, my old friend…” Those of us who can remember the late 1960’s surely have clear memories of hearing tunes from Simon and Garfunkel’s milestone album, Bookends, and especially of the way their music was featured in the December, 1967, release of the movie, The Graduate. Even those born years later may have in their minds an inescapable link between the names of the two artists, whose cooperative work remains so memorable. Despite their ‘Oh, so beautiful’ recordings, the two broke up their musical partnership in January of 1970, shortly before the release of their best-selling and perhaps providentially titled album, Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Simon and Garfunkel performing in the earlier days of their musical partnership

Many of us who remember hearing their music when it was first released, or who have come to love and appreciate it since those years, don’t realize the extent of their difficult creative relationship as artists. All too soon, they drifted apart, speaking only occasionally with one another, though in subsequent years they did perform together on a few occasions, including at Jazz Fest in New Orleans in the spring of 2010. To his later regret, Art Garfunkel made some unwise and unguarded comments during an interview in 2016, that were hurtful to Paul Simon.

At Jazz Fest, New Orleans, 2010, with Garfunkel singing with a damaged voice adding to the strain in their relationship

Art Garfunkel has now spoken to the press about his regret concerning those prior comments, and shared what he had said to Paul Simon at a recent lunch together: “First time we’d been together in many years. I looked at Paul and said, ‘What happened? Why haven’t we seen each other?’” Garfunkel then shared this: “I cried when he told me how much I had hurt him.” “Looking back,” with obvious regret, he reflected that he had perhaps “wanted to shake up that nice guy image of Simon & Garfunkel.”

An early photo of the duo which may suggest some of the tensions in their partnership

Their reconciliation came at that long overdue lunch, which Garfunkel said, “…was about wanting to make amends before it’s too late.” Having acted upon his desire to reconnect with Simon, Garfunkel offered that “it felt like we were back in a wonderful place. As I think about it now, tears are rolling down my cheeks. I can still feel his hug.”

This recent reconciliation between Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel is heartwarming and a beautiful thing. It can be a source of hope for all of us regardless of who we are, or our place in this often confused and fast-paced world.

Simon and Garfunkel at a reunion concert in Central Park, NYC, in 1981

Reconciliation, especially following upon things we have done to hurt and impair a relationship with another person, is perhaps one of the most difficult things for us to contemplate doing, and then to try and enact. Surely, we can all acknowledge this based on personal experience. Especially when we are aware that this reality has the potential to be a shadow presence at some Thanksgiving gatherings this week, whether among family members or groups of friends.

Achieving reconciliation with another person in this life is never assured, no matter how much we may desire it. And what such a desired result may require is an openness to that hoped-for resolve happening between us, even if the circumstances surrounding that possibility seem remote and uncertain. Yet, though this kind of openness is necessary, it is not in itself sufficient for the desired result. Forgiveness by one or both parties plays a key role in the process. And forgiveness usually requires an acknowledgement rather than a dismissal of what may have happened to cause the breach in the relationship.

This is how and why memories, even of hurts, injury, and injustice, have the potential to be holy, and why forgetting (especially willful forgetting) may limit the extent to which we experience reconciliation. To forgive is an act of will, whether or not feelings of forgiveness arise within us or abide. And once forgiveness is willed, and then expressed, the reconciliation that follows upon openness might -and even may – in time happen.

There are grounds for hope, at least with regard to Simon and Garfunkel. They appear to be planning a series of reunion concerts in 2025. We can look forward to enjoying once again the fruit of this most creative musical collaboration.