Spirtituality

The Beauty of Witness
Memorial sculpture commemorating the Martyrs of Memphis

This week, on September 9, we observed a significant date on our personal calendar by celebrating the birthday of one of our sons. September 9 was already a notable date for us beginning some years before his birth, after our move to Memphis in the summer of 1983. During those years, the date became associated with an addition to the Episcopal Church Calendar that has readings appointed for it in our Lectionary. September 9 is designated as the feast of The Martyrs of Memphis: Constance, Thecla, Ruth, Frances, Charles Parsons, and Louis Schuyler.

To those unfamiliar with its history, the official title for this feast day may suggest dramatic images of early Christian saints contending with ferocious animals and or human adversaries in the name of the Faith. Which then raises questions about whether, perhaps, the Memphis in question was the one in ancient Egypt. Yet, the name designation for this day can be instructive for all of us because it may remind us of something we once learned – that the etymological root of the word martyr lies in the ancient Greek word meaning ‘witness.’ Hence, those persons we commemorate on the Church’s Calendar because of their examples of Faith are remembered for being especially compelling witnesses to God’s redemptive mission in Christ, regardless of whether they faced circumstances that might have led to a heroic death.

The Martyrs of Memphis provides an occasion for us to remember the men and women who remained in Memphis to minister to those with whom they faced together the ravages of a severe Yellow Fever epidemic, from which they could have fled to safer places elsewhere. Unknown to them was the fact that this horrible plague was a mosquito-borne infectious virus, and not something arising from ‘swamp vapors’ or bad city air. Among the faithful persons who succumbed to the fever, and who are remembered on the feast day of September 9, are the four women named in the feast’s title who were community members of the Sisters of St. Mary, Father Charles Parsons, the last remaining Episcopal priest in the city, and Father Louis Schuyler, who came as a volunteer from New Jersey to take Parsons’ place and join the Sisters in ministry.

Monument by Harris Sorrelle, in the Memphis Martyrs Park, overlooking the Mississippi River

Words from the collect (or principal prayer) for the feast day of the Martyrs of Memphis capture well why these particular individuals are named among so many others – known and unknown – who shared their faith as well as fate: “We give you thanks and praise, O God of compassion, for the heroic witness of the Martyrs of Memphis, who, in a time of plague and pestilence, were steadfast in their care for the sick and dying, and loved not their own lives, even unto death…”

The generic character of the title for this significant feast day was chosen to help us also remember that the number of those who died in the epidemic, not only in Memphis, but up and down the Mississippi River and beyond, numbered in the thousands. Memphis’s historic Elmwood Cemetery, its oldest, has a particularly moving monument that complements the contemporary riverside sculptural composition by Harris Sorrelle (displayed above). At Elmwood, instead of having an impact upon the use of anonymous and aptly dark-colored figurative silhouettes, as Sorrelle’s sculpture does, the cemetery monument provides just paragraphs of words, stating in plain but moving terms the reality that lies below where cemetery visitors walk (as the following image attests). As the Elmwood monument notes, at least 1,400 Yellow Fever victims are buried in nearby unmarked mass graves.

Martyrs monument in Elmwood Cemetery (clicking the photo will provide an expanded view of it)

The faithful witness of those who died ministering to and with others among the Yellow Fever victims in Memphis in the 1870’s can have the effect of prompting us to reflect on the very different circumstances in which we live, with our advances in medicine, healthcare, and social services. Nevertheless, the COVID crisis of 2020, and its lingering legacy, can also remind us of our mortality, our higher calling to seek godly life in its fulness, and to be faithful companions with and to those less fortunate than ourselves.

A state-provided historical marker that includes use of the word ‘martyr’

Additional note: a tragic-comic aspect of the Yellow Fever’s impact upon Memphis was another pre-scientific belief (in addition to the ‘swamp vapors’ theory regarding its origin) amongst those who remained in the city. It is said that those who seemed to have the lowest mortality rate were corpulent men who smoked cigars, the smoke from which may have warded off the mosquitos responsible for the plague’s transmission.

The Beauty of Hospice Care
Faith Hospice at Trillium Woods

Having worked in a variety of church-related contexts for over four decades, I have become familiar with the importance of having a clear vision of one’s mission. In my experience, people are motivated by inspiring mission statements, and especially when they are enacted with cheerful efficacy. As advocates of Appreciative Inquiry maintain, a focus on what is working well builds energy and promotes a sense of well-being among participants.

As I reflect on the most compelling examples of institutions, facilities, or programs that I have encountered, the hospice movement in healthcare stands out. Whereas medical practice has increasingly become directed towards problem-solving and the alleviation of various conditions, along with our growing interest in future-oriented health maintenance, hospice care tends to be focused on a wholistic approach to the present well-being of a person. And I have found that hospice advocates and caregivers to be among the most positively mission-focused people I have met.

Aside from occasional background reading and some videos on the topic of hospice care, my experience over the years with this life-enhancing approach to being with other people was relatively brief. But then, it was unexpectedly transformed by a full and meaningful month of time spent with my dad, beginning with the discovery of his having a malignant brain tumor and ending with his peaceful death. He died surrounded by his four sons, in a remarkable facility dedicated solely to hospice care.

Arial view of the Trillium Woods location

I am particularly grateful for my dad’s opportunity to have been admitted to the Faith Hospice inpatient care facility at Trillium Woods in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Through my parish ministry, I knew about hospice care being provided at home and in other settings, but I had not had any personal experience with a residential facility built and maintained solely for hospice care. My dad’s move to Trillium Woods happened four days after his admission to hospital ER, on a cold, mid-December day. The hospice became his new temporary home, and we soon discovered how it was an unanticipated but blessed answer to prayer for him as well as for our family.

December is a tender time for families caring for or mourning loved ones, and we found that Faith Hospice staff members were especially sensitive to our emotions as the Christmas holiday season came into its fullness. We were impressed by the generously sized and attractively decorated room they were able to provide for my dad and the other patients, which included a comfortable sitting area, a bed area, and large windows and a door leading onto a beautiful terrace. Equally impressive was the rest of the facility, which had large lounge areas, a dining room and adjacent kitchen, and a well-designed chapel. Being able to have our family Christmas dinner there at the hospice (as well as other meals) was a comfort, and allowed us to focus on my dad and his care, and to be less absorbed with our own daily concerns.

A hospice patient’s room like the one my dad was in

Most significant to us was the dedicated staff, who were sensitive and attentive to each subtle stage in the process of my dad reckoning with and moving toward his impending death. Like them, my dad showed himself to be strong in faith, and fully at peace with seeing his final illness as a facet of God’s merciful Providence. Thankfully, he showed no signs of being in denial about what was happening to him. I attribute this to his decades of ministry as an ordained pastoral counselor, and as one who lived his faith while commending it to others.

The Chapel at Trillium Woods

During the process of my dad’s dying, I marveled at the ministry of Faith Hospice at Trillium Woods, and wondered about how many other such facilities exist around the country and elsewhere. I continue to wonder about this, and imagine that such a place is more often desired than found, being the kind of facility that everyone would want to have available should they need it.

The phrase, “the end of life,” is often used to refer to what hospice care is focused upon. Taken simply and literally, these words refer to the termination point we come to in the course of our physical embodiment. Yet, as I like to remember, our English word ‘end’ does not simply connote a terminus but also a point of fulfillment and the realization of purpose. In my experience of the hospice care that was offered to my dad and our family at Trillium Woods, I encountered a culture of ministry oriented toward lifting our eyes to a broader horizon of meaning for daily life. In this, I found the facility was aptly named as Faith Hospice, for clearly a grounded Christian Faith lay at the heart of the mission enacted on a daily basis at Trillium Woods.

Note: I have no official connection with Faith Hospice at Trillium Woods but only my personal experience of holy care from the folks there. With them, we journeyed through our final month with a family member amidst a loving community. More about this ministry and facility can be found by clicking here.

God’s Handiwork Inspires Ours
Stones found on a northern Lake Michigan beach

Labor Day is around the corner and some of us may receive and enjoy a day off from work. What we call retirement, a stage in life I am presently enjoying, tends to represent leaving work behind. Yet these and related ideas rest upon a common assumption, that work is different from, and in some ways inimical to, enjoying fulfillment in life.

I find a biblically based theological insight helpful when thinking about work. As with many matters that can be looked at from the perspective of Christian moral theology, our view of work can be enhanced by making reference to four specific reference points. These are, first, what we have learned about God’s purposes in Creation for this or that aspect of our lives; then, what impact sin associated with our Fall has had upon what we are thinking about; third, how God’s ongoing work of Redemption has restored and or transformed the matter presently under consideration; and fourth, to ask what future – if any – does this aspect of our lives have in Christ. 

Work provides a wonderful topic for engaging in this fourfold inquiry. Based on our common way of thinking about work, it may be hard for us to consider the meaning of work from any other vantage point than of attributing its role in our lives to the Fall and to the ongoing effects of human sin. Yet, we can also learn from many who have come before us who have distinguished work from toil. This can help us see how forms of labor, and pejorative associations the word may have for us, are surely due to our proclivity to link such activity with burdensome unpleasant duties.

For what we may overlook is the biblical view of how God has shared stewardship responsibility for aspects of Creation with us, as beings created in God’s image and likeness. This was symbolized by the way that our mythic forebears (Adam and Eve) were given their ‘work’ of naming the animals as a path toward fulfillment. It was not until their expulsion from the Garden that the first human beings are described as prone to acts characteristic of sin. Thereupon, in biblical theology, our heavenly ‘work’ of praise, and of divinely-invited participation in God’s Creation stewardship, ceased to be pleasingly ready pathways toward human fulfillment, and became energy draining and spirit-diminishing activities – such as we tend to find them to be now.

A growing segment of the wider Christian community shows signs of acknowledging how God’s work of Redemption is ongoing, quite aside from its ‘once and for all time’ episodic saving events. The pattern and purpose remains the same – nothing fundamentally new is added, nothing old of lasting value taken away. Preeminent remains God’s abiding purpose for us to become and be God-like in God-intended ways. For, as Athanasius taught us, the Son of God became the Son of Man, so that the children of men and women could become the children of God. Work – not toil nor burdensome labor but creative and fulfilling work – remains a vital part of our holy path toward wholeness.

And to remind us of this abiding truth, the loving Creator has spread around us an uncountable abundance. These are the signs of outpoured and participatory grace, some of them very small, like stepped-upon seashore pebbles and tiny blossoms among hurried-by roadside weeds.

Too quickly we dismiss the significance of our our small acts of selfless giving, not to be counted by us, but adding up to so much more than we imagine in the life-growth of others. This is our holy ‘work,’ overlooked but important stepping stones on our path toward living into the godly fullness with which Christ fills us.

If on our daily course our mind

Be set, to hallow all we find,

New treasures still, of countless price,

God will provide for sacrifice.

Old friends, old scenes, will lovelier be,

As more of heaven in each we see:

Some softening gleam of love and prayer

Shall dawn on every cross and care.

[John Keble, “Morning,” from The Christian Year]

What Distinguishing Religion, Science, Magic, and Technology, Might Teach Us About Beauty
A book of essays by Peter Kreeft

Peter Kreeft has written an illuminating essay on the use of indirect communication by CS Lewis and Walker Percy. In it, and in a humorous recording of its content, he explores how both Lewis and Percy present the predicament of the modern person. We live as upside-down persons. And we are not among the first people in history to suspect this. (See St. Augustine, d. 430 AD)

As a way into the heart of his theme, Kreeft invites us to consider a hypothetical challenge posed to a child: take four common objects and sort them into two boxes. The four items are a baseball, a basketball, a baseball bat, and a basketball net. The two most obvious solutions to this challenge, based on the categories of being and doing, nicely set up a thought experiment that Kreeft intends for his audience to engage. He invites us to sort the following four things into two (undefined) categories: Religion, Science, Magic, and Technology. Try it. 

In taking up this simple quiz question, we discover one way that our contemporary thinking habits depart from those of our ancient forebears. Our common assumption that science and technology are sister fields, reliably distinguished by their empirical methodology from both religion and magic, reflects a misunderstanding. For what we may overlook in this supposition of an affinity between science and technology, as well as between the second pair of terms, is how our categorization of these four terms demonstates our understanding of what we consider to be real. And the key variable governing our typical way of sorting these four conceptual categories centers less on what is ‘real,’ and more on the significance of how we conceptualize our encounter with ‘reality.’

A theme that has surfaced from time time in this space, and which plays a large role in structuring my understanding of Beauty, rests upon my appreciation for the distinction between the meaning of the words ‘objective’ and ‘subjective.’ I credit my graduate research in ethics and moral theology for raising my awareness of what these terms can and do mean. With regard to Beauty, and more broadly about what is real versus what is presently actual in our awareness of things, ‘objective’ best refers to the objects of perception, and ‘subjective’ in a corollary way best refers to the subject of perception (I.e., to me, the observer, the knower).

CS Lewis in his Oxford study

Kreeft makes the case that both CS Lewis and Walker Percy shared a conceptual understanding with many philosophers and writers from the pre-modern era. In making the point, Kreeft quotes what he says are the three most illuminating sentences he has ever read about our civilization:

“There is something which unites magic and applied science [i.e., technology] while separating both from the “wisdom” of earlier ages. For the wise men of old, the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike, the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique.”

And if we have not guessed where Kreeft is headed with all this, he puts the matter succinctly: “Technology is more like magic than like science.” It follows that he commends thinking of religion as being like science by also involving a search for what is real and true, even if differing in its methodology and content.  

Walker Percy at home in Covington, LA

A challenge related to Kreeft’s theme, regarding how we approach beauty, faces us as modern people. It stems from how – through the influence of our culture – we are inclined to think of art and architecture as being more akin to magic and technology, than to science and religion. For we tend to assume that artists and architects manipulate materials and space to stimulate certain responses from those who interact with their work. And, of course, they do. But is this all that these crafters of beautiful things accomplish? Are they not also among those who seek and make available to others instantiations of what is real, and more particularly of the beauty that is there for us also to perceive and come to know? I believe that they are. 

Artists and architects approach the world in a way that has an affinity with those who work in religion and science, while what they do may seem to be like the work of those who ‘practice’ technology or magic. For like all genuine seekers of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, scientists (especially theoretical physicists) as well as religionists include dedicated persons who want to know these real aspects of the world that may be apprehended by those who look for them.

I continue to learn by reflecting on these themes.

Note: Kreeft develops at greater length than I have scope here to address the significance of these and related distinctions. He does this in his essay, “Walker Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos: The Abolition of Man in Late Night Comedy Format.” I commend an entertaining recording of Kreeft’s presentation of the essay’s content, which can be found on his website (by clicking this link).

Our Doorway Into God’s Trinitarian Being
William Holman Hunt, The Shadow of Death (1870-73)

When we as Christians pray, we don’t simply pray to God. With faithful assurance, we pray with and through God! As Paul tells us, “When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit…” This is because, when we pray “to the Father,” we also pray with and through the Son. We are enabled to pray with and through the Son following our Baptism. For after Baptism, we are assured that we pray in the Holy Spirit. We therefore pray to God not ‘from the outside,’ but ‘from the inside’ of God’s own being and nature!

Well, how can this be? As we can easily discover, every Eucharistic Prayer in The Book of Common Prayer has a common shape. For all of our Eucharistic Prayers are prayed to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. This is not an accident. Jesus modeled this in his own life, and particularly at the Last Supper.

When we repeat Jesus’ pattern, offered at that supper, we stand with him around the same table. And by his graceful invitation, we join his prayer to the One he called, ‘Our Father.’ Our prayer with him, to the Father, is in the power of the Spirit, the same Spirit he spoke about at that table. He modeled at that supper what grace means in practice.

Through the grace of the Holy Spirit, Jesus shares with us his own particular intimacy with the Father. Inviting us to stand with him as he prays, he offers the whole world back to the Father-Creator. By this, Jesus – and us with him – fulfills the divinely intended-but-failed stewardship vocation of the mythical Adam and Eve. And so, this is also our vocation, to offer up to our Father all that truly belongs to the Creator. Sharing with Jesus the grace of the Holy Spirit allows us to join him, the Son, in his ongoing Eucharistic vocation.

A good way we can live into the saving implications of God’s Trinitarian nature, is to engage in some creative imagining. Imagine that, in this moment, Jesus reaches out his hands to us. In reaching out his hands, he does not simply extend his greeting. Extending his embrace, he invites us to join him by standing with him, closely at his side. By his invitation, and our acceptance of it, he shares with us his own intimate and particular relationship with our Father.

And with this invitation, he gives us the power of the Spirit, making it a reality in our lives. Because the invitation comes from him, the power of the Spirit he shares with us is God’s grace-filled power. Jesus makes all this actual and true, whether we feel it or not.

This Trinitarian shape of prayer is different from how we usually imagine prayer. Commonly, we think of prayer as our communication to God. When we feel aware of God and close to God, we speak to God of what is good and well and of that for which we feel thankful. And we often ask for help. But, when there seems to be a veil between us and God, we speak to God with lament or we complain, sometimes in anger. This concept and experience of prayer is ‘subjective,’ and therefore narrow. That is, it is a concept of prayer based primarily upon our personal, interior, experience. It reflects our experience of being the subjects of perception and action. Yet, as the Prayer Book Catechism teaches us, prayer is first of all responding to God.

As we learn from Jesus, and by the Holy Spirit, true prayer is not something we do, which we somehow manage to achieve through our faithfulness, devotion, or energy. True prayer is something we allow God to do within us. True prayer is the kind of praying that we find God already making real within us through the indwelling Grace of the Holy Spirit. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are constantly engaged with one another, in what the Eastern Christian tradition calls ‘a dance,’ a perichoresis. Prayer involves being drawn into this dance. Prayer is sharing in the Trinitarian relational being of God. Prayer is participation in the community of fellowship that exists within God’s own being.

The Trinitarian pattern of our lives rests upon the Trinitarian shape of our prayers. We can accept Jesus’ invitation to stand with him. We then experience his own fellowship with the Father, in the grace-filled power of the Holy Spirit. This enables us to live truly. To live truly, is to live to the Father. It is to live with and through the Son. And true prayer is to live in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so, we seek to live in the way that we pray: to the Father, with and through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.

Note: This post is based on the Western Church’s observance of Trinity Sunday, on June 15, 2025. My title is based on a well-known metaphor found in John’s Gospel. The text here is based on my homily for that occasion, which may be accessed by clicking here.

My goal is to commend the assurance of hope that lies within the Gospel. And while being aware of concerns about the so-called ’scandal of particularity’ associated with Christianity and Judaism, we should be aware that God is free to offer a similarly positive spiritual experience to those of other religious traditions, or of no particular tradition with which they may identify. I hope to address Hunt’s evocative painting, featured above, in a subsequent post.

Beauty & “The God of Wes Anderson”

This is a reprint of a review article by Germẚn Saucedo, titled “The God of Wes Anderson.” It is reprinted here with permission from the author, and from the publisher of the journal, First Things, where it first appeared.

A scene from Wes Anderson’s new film, The Phoenician Scheme

The God of Francis Thompson is a stubborn God. In his seminal poem “The Hound of Heaven,” a soul is on the run from God: “I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; / I fled Him, down the arches of the years.” The “hound” is persistent, however, and is always pursuing with “unhurrying chase, / And unperturbèd pace, / Deliberate speed, majestic instancy.” Who is this God whose love for us is so passionate and resolute, who will forgive even the gravest of sins and chase us to the ends of the world?

The God of Francis Thompson is the God that operates in Wes Anderson’s latest feature, The Phoenician Scheme. The film follows Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda (Benicio del Toro), an industrialist and morally bankrupt magnate in the style of J. Paul Getty or Aristotle Onassis who, after surviving yet another mysterious assassination attempt, decides to call upon his estranged daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton), a novice “sister of the cloth.” He intends not only to bequeath his vast fortune to her, but also to enlist her in completing the “most important project of [his] lifetime,” the “Korda Land and Sea Phoenician Infrastructure Scheme.”

Many films have been accused of being “God-haunted,” hinting at the presence of God through the subtleties of the plot or the visuals. The Phoenician Scheme is more than “God-haunted”; he is very much present in the film. He is, in fact, played by Bill Murray. After a plane crash at the beginning of the movie, Korda briefly finds himself in heaven. There, he runs into his grandmother, who fails to recognize the man he has become. Time and time again, as assassins seek to end his life, Korda finds himself at the pearly gates. Each time, he is found lacking.

In the Confessions, St. Augustine famously recounts his youthful desire for the Lord to “Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.” While amusing, this sentiment is spiritually disordered. Many of us live lives apart from God, hoping we can outmaneuver him at the last second, “lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.” Similarly, Korda realizes that he has delayed repentance and conversion until the last minute.

The “hound” is never far away, however. He manifests himself through Liesl who, despite practically being abandoned by Korda, has managed to become a pious nun. While reluctant to enter her father’s world of opulence and luxury, she nevertheless decides to play the role Korda has set for her, seeing potential spiritual fruits from the venture, and quickly begins the work of saving Korda’s soul. She easily forgives his past injustices toward her, brings love to the lives of Korda’s nine neglected sons, and attempts to humanize his enterprise. Liesl also attempts to evangelize the children’s tutor and her father’s new administrative assistant, Bjørn.

Korda’s journey to save his infrastructure project brings him ever closer to God. Liesl’s influence and example, as well as a confrontation with his past (and some amount of self-interest), leads him—along with his nine sons—to be baptized into the Catholic Church. In a defining act of selflessness, Korda gives up his fortune to cover the funding deficit of his major project and save it.

Wes Anderson’s films are often dismissed as mere aesthetic exercises, lacking narrative substance. His protagonists are usually “bourgeois with bourgeois problems,” while his visuals are frequently labeled as “twee” and “quirky.” Unlike the realism of directors like Ermanno Olmi, whose slow and contemplative style focused on the material reality of the lower classes, Anderson’s work is often seen as overly stylized and detached from reality.

But this surface-level reading could not be further from the truth. For Anderson, it seems, beauty is reality. To borrow Keats’s famous verse, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”; and it is through beauty that God makes himself known to us. When Liesl attempts to exit her father’s opulent world and take her vows as a nun, her mother superior declines, pointing to her love of lavishness—including a bejeweled pipe and diamond-encrusted rosary gifted by Korda, which Anderson commissioned from Dunhill and Cartier—as evidence of her lack of religious vocation. But she does not scold her for loving beautiful things. In fact, she comforts Liesl by saying that God glorifies himself with the lavish and palatial, as not everyone was meant to live in poverty.

In a Q&A at a New York screening of the film, Wes Anderson reflected briefly on the ability of rich magnates to do good, especially in today’s world. The artist has a similar potential. In Thompson’s poem, the “hound” claims that “[N]one but I makes much of naught.” While our riches and our art may amount to nothing, once offered up to God, they can become instruments of his love and mercy. God will never stop his pursuit of us in part because he, unlike the world, knows our full potential. Korda—like us—is thrown lifeline after lifeline, which can only be taken on God’s terms, not ours.

Unlike Korda, we should not wait for brushes with death and brief visits to the pearly gates to turn around and deliver the “hound” from his incessant chase. Every moment is an opportunity to do so. The curious and wonderful thing about the God of Francis Thompson, the God of Wes Anderson, is that he’s real, and he is always seeking us.

A promotional poster for Anderson’s new film

Note: Germẚn Saucedo serves as a Junior Fellow at First Things. I requested permission to reprint his review article because it seems so fitting to the material I explore on this website. I am grateful for this fine piece. I particularly appreciate Saucedo’s statement, based on a quote from Keats: “For Anderson, it seems, beauty is reality… and it is through beauty that God makes himself known to us.”

The Challenge Posed by Eric Gill

If reading this by email, please tap the title at the top to open your browser for the best experience. Then, clicking individual pictures will reveal higher resolution images.

Eric Gill, Christ Crowned

 

To my mind, some of the most beautiful work in the area of graphic art was created by the British artist and craftsman, Eric Gill. The intractable problem posed by Eric Gill is not a legacy of his artistic output, but of his personal life. Largely unknown to those outside his family until about 50 years after his death, Eric Gill – by admission in his own unpublished writings – had engaged in personal behavior of a kind that most people would find not only abhorrent but, increasingly, as also criminal.

This is related to the larger problem posed by the work of artists, musicians, and architects whose work is seen as having been collaborative with tyrannical regimes (eg., the Third Reich, the Soviet Union). How do we view beauty in art that either depicts or is simply associated in some way with sin or with evil? (This is a matter I have previously tried to understand in relation to Picasso’s great painting, Guernica.)

To cite Scripture to the effect that “all have sinned,” may help us begin to locate the terrain upon which we need to address the problems stemming from Eric Gill’s biography, but it is not in any way to excuse his conduct. Though all sin is bad, and equally problematic in the eyes of God, not all sin is equal in its damaging effect upon others, and upon ourselves. The traditional distinction in moral theology between mortal and venial sins provides one way to try to parse some of these differences, while not excusing any forms or examples of sin, whether in ourselves or among others.

My purpose here is to invite reflection upon how we might appreciate Eric Gill’s religious art, as many did for several generations, without having our view of the merit of his work diminished by our moral evaluation of troubling ethical choices he made, and the lapses from good moral judgment they represent. In other words, and as an amateur student of the arts while also being a retired parish priest and former professor of moral theology, I wish to present some examples of Eric Gill’s art, letting his work speak for itself apart from ethical consideration of his personal life, and without ignoring the problems associated with the latter.

Perhaps my theme here can be summed up in this way: I invite you to benefit from the beauty of what Eric Gill created without asking you to overlook what we have learned about his private life. And I offer this invitation aware that some will not find it possible to accept.

A sculpted carving by Eric Gill above the altar of the Chapel of St George and the English Martyrs, Westminster Cathedral, London
Eric Gill, Crucifixion
Eric Gill, sculpted relief panel from a series of the Stations of the Cross, Westminster Cathedral, London

As we consider some of his art, we should not overlook Eric Gill’s impact, at least indirectly, upon much of the daily life of the population of Great Britain (and elsewhere), in the form of three type faces he created. The most well-known is Gill Sans, named after its designer, and evident at almost every Tube stop in London. An effort to erase his work from the public eye, and replace it with alternatives, would require removing virtually every train station sign in Britain. It could be done. Should it?

Three fonts designed by Eric Gill

To put the problem I have raised here most bluntly, how can we appreciate the beauty in the holy art created by someone who behaved in a way most people would describe as sinful? I do not have a ready answer to this question. Note that, in what I have written above about Gill’s behavior, I have not gone into detail. Would that make a difference? If so, in what way?

And even if we refuse to give any amount of attention to Eric Gill’s artwork, we must still grapple with a timeless question: are there any unforgivable sins? Is anyone, because of his or her behavior, beyond the power of God’s redeeming love? Is it not likely that someone having Gill’s religious inclination also possesses a glimmer of moral awareness such that he or she might be open to repentance when – at the end of life – the person faces the awesome and undiminished light of God’s truth-seeking love?

Here is one thing that we can do: pray for the repose of the soul of Eric Gill, and for God’s Providential mercy.

In beginning to approach the questions I have raised here, I would start with some of the distinctions I shared above. I do not think we can deny this reality – that we, as people who are created in the image and likeness of God, and who have lost that likeness through the Fall and human sin, still bear God’s image however marred it may be by the corruption resulting from our sins. And, that we are still capable while in this life of acts and works of uplifting beauty.

Leo XIV: The Beauty of Possibility

If reading this by email, please tap the title at the top to open your browser for the best experience. Then, clicking individual pictures will reveal higher resolution images.

Pope Leo XIV, upon his election

As an Anglican, I join other non-Roman Catholics in hoping and praying that the new Bishop of Rome will live fully into the beautiful opportunity he has been given. His new office brings with it a symbolic role for all Christians, to be a principled unifier and peacemaker. In this era, that will surely be a challenge.

People of good will seek truth where it is to be found. We want all persons to live in harmony with one another, and with the beautiful world in which we find ourselves. We see this spirit of inquiry and discernment exemplified in many Christian leaders, as well as in non-Christian leaders like the Dalai Lama.

At heart, we seek and desire to serve what Christians and Jews hold to be true regarding all human beings. For we believe that all persons were and are created in the image of God, and that despite the woeful effects of our sin, we all still bear that image, however much we may have lost likeness with God. This was the central insight that some Roman Catholic Christian thinkers, along with fellow spiritual travelers from other traditions, brought to the creation of the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

Principal documents from the Second Vatican Council display this theme in abundance. These texts continue to inform and guide wise souls who are genuinely concerned about the numerous lingering and emerging problems within the worldwide Church, and in the many societies and cultures where Christians seek to serve Christ in all persons, and respect the dignity of every human being.

Pope Leo has in large measure the same opportunity that we all have. May he have grace to live and serve well, and may we remember the importance of our own often overlooked roles in seeking to do the same. Every day brings new opportunities to seek and serve what is true, especially as we come to know the source of all Beauty, Goodness, and Truth, in Christ.

As St. Richard, the 13th century pre-Reformation Bishop of Chichester (England), taught us to pray: “Dear Lord, of thee three things [we] pray: to see thee more clearly, to love thee more dearly, and to follow thee more nearly, day by day.” (text from The Hymnal 1982, yet familiar to many from the musical, Godspell)

We find the same words as part of a prayer found in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church:

MOST merciful Redeemer,
who gavest to thy Bishop Richard a love of learning,
a zeal for souls, and a devotion to the poor:
grant that, encouraged by his example,
and aided by his prayers,
we may know thee more clearly,
love thee more dearly,
and follow thee more nearly,
day by day;
who livest and reignest with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God,
world without end. Amen.

A stained glass window commemorating St. Richard of Chichester, found in the church of St. Saviour, Eastbourne, East Sussex, England

Entering The Easter Joy of Our Lord

If reading this by email, please tap the title at the top to open your browser for the best experience. Then, clicking individual pictures will reveal higher resolution images.

Peter Farago, The Resurrection

 

A prayer appointed for the closing moments of the Good Friday liturgy provides words with which we commit ourselves to God, and pray for the grace of a holy life. We pray this prayer “with all who have departed this world and have died in the peace of Christ.” The liturgy provides this prayer so that, having made our commitment, and request for grace, “we may be accounted worthy to enter into the fullness of the joy of our Lord.”

Through Baptism, through dying and rising again in Christ, we have already entered into the joy of our Lord. This is the joy that our Lord so freely shares with all who are open to receiving it. A notable aspect of the first disciples’ response to encountering the Risen Lord, was joy. He brought joy to those who had despaired, or doubted, or even had given up hope. He brought joy to Peter who had denied him three times. He brings the same joy to us.

To experience the joy of the Lord, we don’t need to wait until we pass beyond this life, through the veil, into what lies before us. What we await is the fullness of joy when, finally, we behold him, unburdened from the cares and allure of this world as these occupy our attention now. In Jesus’ Resurrection, and through our participation in his Risen Life, we see further dimensions of the New Creation that already is.

Through Grace, joy is now ours. Rightly, and by faith, we anticipate entering the fullness of the joy of the Lord. As a Robert Lentz icon of Thomas Aquinas reminds us, joy is more than a feeling; for “joy is the noblest human act.”

 

Easter Sunday 2025

If reading this by email, please tap the title at the top to open your browser for the best experience. Then, clicking individual pictures will reveal higher resolution images.

Peter Koenig, Christ as Second Moses (The Rainbow Resurrection)

 

Having six granddaughters, aged twelve down to two years, I’m very familiar with unicorns and rainbows. There is something about little girls and pastel colors that seems universal. So, when I go into the stores these days, and see all the Easter decorations, I think of our granddaughters. Because everything I see on display seems to be a rainbow of pastels, colors, and patterns, which our little girls love.

Well, as we know, our culture has tamed and domesticated Easter. Good Friday with its silence and its dark remembering is a challenge for us. For we seem to have enough darkness and bad news everyday as it is. And Easter Sunday morning provides the antidote we long for. For a few hours, and even for a few days, we can get a lift, a happy bounce, in a way that we hope for.

But deep down, we know that we want more than a brief lift in our mood, a brief enhancement of our sense of well-being. Our hearts truly long for a lasting joy. For we hope that though happiness may be fleeting, blessedness is abiding. And it was blessedness that Jesus was announcing and commending in his Sermon on the Mount. So here is our question this morning: How does the Gospel Good News about the discovery of an empty tomb help us find a sense of blessedness, and, in a way that might be lasting.

This morning I share with you three images by the English painter, Peter Koenig, images which I think can help us on our spiritual journey this Eastertide. This is our Easter journey toward discovering and experiencing a lasting sense of blessedness. For we discover the kind of blessedness that does not overlook the darkness, or pain, or sadness, that may be a real part of our lives. What we celebrate at Easter is not the simple replacement of what has come before, with something new that wipes away the past. We are not celebrating the spiritual equivalent of a vacation from daily life. For then, in a few days or weeks, we would have a sense that ‘we must now return to reality.’ The reality we celebrate today and throughout Eastertide is the reality of Resurrection transformation.

Now, how do we know this? We know this first from the reports of the Disciples – both the women and the men – who saw the Risen Lord. And who recognized him when they saw his healed scars – not absent scars, but healed scars! They were the first witnesses to the transformation that God brings to us in Resurrection Life. And Resurrection Life is God’s great culminating chapter of what we call Salvation History.

So let’s set our spiritual awareness within the sweep of biblical Salvation History. Here, I offer you a simple phrase with which to help identify and to remember the heart of this mystery. “Through the waters of death into a new covenant life with God.”

Left side panel for Christ as Second Moses

I invite you to look at Peter Koenig’s painting, Jesus as a Second Moses (or, The Rainbow Resurrection), along with its two glorious side panels. Here we notice several details, at least one of which will direct our thoughts toward Easter. We readily notice the rainbow, along with the pastel colors at the top and bottom of the central panel. These – of course – suggest the pastel colors we associate with Easter cards and Easter eggs, and other holiday decorations.

But let’s remind ourselves of what that rainbow first represented. In Salvation History, a rainbow came after a forty day period of massive death and destruction. Most of what we would consider to have been ‘life on earth’ was destroyed and lost, most people, and almost all animals and plants. Noah and his family, and the animals on the ark, traveled through the waters of death into a new covenant life with God. That death, however extensive, however gruesome and abhorrent, was and never would be the last word. God’s Word is – and always has been – a word of promise, a word of covenant. Where we aim for good, things often seem to go bad. Yet, God always aims for good, and achieves good.

Next, we should think of Israel, walking between and through the waters of death at the Red Sea. This brought them to Mt. Sinai, and to the great new Covenant between God and Israel, where blood was sprinkled upon the altar of God, and also upon God’s people. They were then led on a forty year journey through the wilderness to the threshold of their Land of Promise.

This was the moment when Joshua and God’s people crossed the Jordan. This water crossing echoed and recalled our forebears’ two prior journeys through the waters of death into a renewed covenant relation with God. Israel’s renewed covenant relation with God upon the west bank of the Jordan, within the Promised Land, signaled their desire to be faithful to God, and to God’s ways, no matter what.

Right side panel for Christ as Second Moses

And yet, the next most significant event embodying this pattern was the baptismal practice of John at the same river Jordan, centuries later, and Jesus’ own Baptism, by John. Of those who came out to John, many if not most of them were Jews by birth and also upbringing. To them, baptism was foreign. For baptism was what Gentile converts did, not Jews! And so, for them to submit to, and receive, John’s Baptism, was a genuine act of living into God’s holy covenants with their ancestors. Yet it was also a submersion into the waters of death ~ death to old ways and old ideas, as well as death to certain prior social and family relations. For John pointed to the renunciation of sin, and a return to God’s ways. It was also the path into a re-newed covenant life with God.

Jesus’ own acceptance of Baptism at the hands of his cousin, John, symbolized something other than a personal need of his. Scripture instead suggests that Jesus, himself, chose to live into this moment. He did so out of his deep identification with all of us, in what would become his world-wide family. Through John’s ministry, and in Jesus’ acceptance of it, Jordan waters once again became a symbol ~ a symbol of going through the waters of death to sin, and acceptance of a renewed or new covenant life with God.

And so, when each of us was or is baptized into Christ, we join all of these faithful people who came before us. In Baptism, with them we cross through the waters of death, into a new covenant life with God.

This may prepare us to acknowledge how we are portrayed in Peter Koenig’s painting. For we are represented by those depicted as standing in the purple shadows, behind the ‘Christ-as-Moses’ figure. We are people who live and walk in darkness until we meet the true light, the Light that comes into the world to enlighten everyone. On what, then do we base our hope? Surely, it is on the hope represented by the fruit of Jesus’ death and Resurrection.

The Son of God embraced the human body, and he became one with it. His body has become the Body we have embraced, and with which we have become one. The Body of his transformation has become the Body of our own transformation. His death and Resurrection was and is our doorway into a new life. This is what this day and our liturgy are all about.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

 

Additional note: here I offer my Easter homily, shared this morning at Grace Church, St. Francisville, LA.