Comfort Ye My People

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Marc Chagall, Memorial Window, All Saints Church, Tudeley, Tonbridge, UK

 

As a priest and from recent personal experience, I know how these weeks are a tender time for many of us. Especially for those who have lost loved ones at this time of year. Finding consolation and hope after losing the tangible nearness of a beloved family member or friend is hard at any time. Faced with such a loss or its memory around Christmas, how do we find comfort and reassurance in this season? Are “the hopes and fears of all the years” really met in Him, even now?

I find help with questions like these in what may seem an unlikely place: a beautiful window by an artist whose upbringing was shaped by Hasidic Judaism, placed over the altar of an Anglican church (shown above). It was designed by Marc Chagall for All Saints Church, Tudeley, in England.

Chagall was commissioned by a grieving couple to design this window as a memorial for their adult daughter who drowned in the sea. She is portrayed below the waves in the lower portion of the window, with what appears to be her grieving mother near her feet. We find here an unexpected coupling of images that frequently appear in Chagall’s work. Seeing his depiction of a crucified man juxtaposed with that of a mother and child surprises many Christians when they learn of Chagall’s Judaism.

The imagery in Chagall’s window may seem like an unusual choice for this holiday time. Yet, it fits. Though he often painted crucifixion images in his work, the artist had in mind the suffering of Jews through the centuries, and especially in his own time. In a similar way, he thought the portrayal of a mother and child, so familiar in Christian iconography, was a universal image within human experience. Chagall believed that the Christian conscience could be touched by familiar images from the Gospels, but which were also deeply resonant for Jews based on Hebrew Bible antecedents.

This is why I think that Chagall’s art might speak to us in this season. After all, the one whose birth we celebrate at this troubled time in the world awakens hope in us, hope for new life through the renewal of our shared humanity. Our Christmas hymns touch upon this theme. And, of course, the child born to Mary and Joseph was destined – as was prophesied – for the fall and rise of many (Luke 2:33-35).

Christian artists through the centuries have been captivated by many aspects of our Lord’s Nativity. Countless examples of their work have sought to express our impression of the circumstances of Jesus’ birth, and its significance for the world, not just for his immediate family. It is noteworthy how often depictions of the Annunciation, and of the Nativity contain noticeable hints of his later saving death, and resurrection. The inclusion of discernible palm fronds, passion flowers and of lilies in these works provide common examples of these visual hints of a veiled significance yet to be revealed.

Sadao Watanabe, Nativity Christmas card, with palms, lilies, and passion flowers

Both literally and conceptually, what we celebrate at Christmas is easier to ‘grasp’ than what we celebrate at Easter. We are more prepared for the presence of the Word made flesh in a manger than we are for the absence of the Word, said to be risen and ascended from an empty tomb. The comforting appeal of the Virgin Mary holding her newborn son in a stable contrasts with the mystery of another Mary later reaching out to try and hold the risen Jesus in a garden.

This Holy Child brought us the possibility of new life by overcoming the power of death. We celebrate his birth precisely because his death and resurrection provide the pathway to our own new birth. He was born and died as one of us. And so, in him, we die and rise again to the new life he shares with the world.

Mild he lays his glory by,
born that we no more may die,
born to raise us from the earth,
born to give us second birth.
Risen with healing in his wings,
Light and life to all he brings,
hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
hail, the heaven-born Prince of Peace!

Hark! the herald angels sing,
glory to the newborn King!

 

The hymn text is by Charles Wesley (Hark! the herald angels sing, verse 3).

Advent Annunciations: Elijah

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Marc Chagall, Elijah Touched by an Angel

 

Surely God’s annunciation to Elijah would have come early in his ministry, or before he embarked upon his calling. To our surprise, God’s personal self-revealing to Elijah happens after – rather than before – a series of dramatic events at which Elijah acted powerfully in the Lord’s name.

The presence of the Lord within the prophet’s words and action had already made a powerful impression upon others. After meeting a personal representative sent out by the wicked Ahab to find him, Elijah confronted the king himself. Then followed Elijah’s contest with the prophets of Baal on Mt Carmel, when God mightily came down in fire upon the sacrifice Elijah had prepared.

Marc Chagall, Elijah on Mt. Carmel

It is only after these things, and after Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, threatened to kill Elijah within 24 hours, that he reacts with notable fear and doubt! He flees into the wilderness where he asks the Lord that he might die. Elijah is twice visited by an angel, who bids him to eat and drink what has been provided. Strengthened, Elijah proceeds – apparently on his own initiative – to “Horeb, the mount of God” (called Sinai in Exodus). He travels 40 days and nights to encounter God personally.

Retreating to the safety of a cave, Elijah is confronted by God in a way that prompts him to face his own fears. God says to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” The question contains an ambiguity regarding the words doing and here. For why is Elijah not doing what God has already commissioned him to do, which is prophetically to tell the truth in God’s name? And why is Elijah here, in this remote place after a flight of forty days?

James Tissot, Elijah in the Wilderness at Mt Horeb

Elijah answers God, saying, “I have been very jealous for the Lord… For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life…” All to which he has devoted himself, all for which he had worked, appears to have been for nought. What would be the point of going any further on his vocational path, or of continuing to live?

God answers his forlorn prophet in a remarkable way. God says to him ,“Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.”

And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

Marc Chagall, Elijah’s Vision

God has spoken in a low whisper. Not in the hurricane with which God has just terrified the prophet. Nor in the calamity of a seismic disturbance. And not in a raging wildfire. God has revealed himself to Elijah in stillness and silence. Only then does God send him on to his mission.

To a people whose lives are troubled by extraordinary events and personal crises – us – God often chooses to reveal self in a similar fashion. Unlike Elijah, we have been given assurance that God is not only abidingly with us. As baptized people, God is in us, always. With so much drama around us, why should we expect God to reveal self, and God’s hopes for us, in some dramatic way? But to hear God as God often prefers to speak to us, we may need to find moments and places of quiet amidst all the noise in our lives. Advent helps us prepare to hear the gentle and quiet whisper of God’s voice.

How silently, how silently,
the wondrous gift is giv’n!
So God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of His heav’n.
No ear may hear His coming,
but in this world of sin,
where meek souls will receive Him still,
the dear Christ enters in.

 

Elijah (later seen as forerunner of the Messiah) and his cycle of stories can be found in 1 Kings 17:1 — 2 Kings 2:12. The episode on Mt. Horeb is found in 1 Kings 19. The hymn, O little town of Bethlehem (verse 3), is by Phillips Brooks.

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Advent Annunciations: Anne, Mother of Mary

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Giotto, The Annunciation to St. Anne, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua

 

Without seeing the title of this fresco at the stunningly beautiful Scrovegni Chapel, in Padua, Italy, we might assume that it portrays the angel’s annunciation to the Virgin Mary. The parallels with traditional Annunciation iconography are readily evident. Yet Giotto also executed a series of panels there devoted to the life of St. Anne, Mary’s mother, who is shown in the fresco, above.

As with so many Marian annunciations, the scene is domestic, with Anne here suggested as having been occupied at home with her maid, preparing thread for stitching. Just as familiar paintings of Mary often show her at prayer, Giotto portrays Anne upon her knees with her hands clasped. But unlike familiar Marian parallels we do not see a devotional book open next to Anne. Just as later happens to her daughter, we see this grandmother-to-be of Jesus met by an angelic visitor who discloses an unexpected new role for her. Unlike her daughter Mary’s experience, Anne’s encounter with God’s Word to her is not recorded in canonical Scripture.

Interior of the Scrovegni Chapel

The frescos in the Scrovegni Chapel contain an interesting mix of images, with some portraying events in their presumed original historical context (such as the Nativity scenes), and others (like the annunciation to Anne) in buildings and settings more characteristic of Giotto’s own time and place, including the architecture of the chapel housing them. While he paints them this way, Giotto’s choices regarding imagery suggest that he seeks to be faithful to the supposition that Mary’s family came from an ordinary background. After all, Mary’s parents, named Anne and Joachim according to tradition, later allowed her to marry Joseph, a local builder; she was not betrothed to nobility. The painter, therefore, shows some restraint in his rendering of the context of Anne’s visitation. This simplicity in approach may also be due as much to Giotto’s early place in the historical development of European painting as it does his personal temperament.

In this remarkably large series of Scrovegni frescos, we can see that Giotto has discovered and effectively employs the technical skill of linear perspective. With some care, he depicts the stonework of Anne’s home and that of many other buildings as sculpturally ornamented. But rather than display undue deference to the known wealth and social position of his patron, he allows the particularity of the angel’s visitation to be what sets Anne apart from her contemporaries rather than the finery of her home’s appointments. An emerging humanism in painting is evident in Giotto’s artistic style, and he presents Anne as a distinctly recognizable person rather than as a merely symbolic religious figure. Though she appears to be a woman of some means, she is depicted as someone who could have been the neighbor or relative of many people of his community.

Here is one theme we find in Giotto’s fresco of Anne’s annunciation. All it takes to play a part in God’s unfolding plan of redemption for the world is an open heart and a spirit of willingness to say yes. What part we are to play, and its significance to and for others is, in the end, up to God – and probably not something to which we should give much thought. At least not in the way that we hope or imagine our personal skills and accomplishments might be thought of by others. Saving the whole world, even small parts of it, is God’s work and not our own.

And so, the key is what God might decide to do in and through us (while inviting our help), rather than what we might decide to do for God (while perhaps asking for divine help).

The mystery of this season of Advent centers upon how we are drawn into what God ‘has been up to’ for a very long time. In a season of growing astronomical darkness we are invited to seek the most significant source of light, the light of Christ. And at a time when the world around us seems more colored by signs of decay and dissolution, He in whom all things hold together comes anew to embrace us, and ever hold us fast. It may not be through an angel, but surely the One born among us calls all of us to share His love for the world.

 

Advent Annunciations: Joseph

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James Tissot, The Anxiety of Saint Joseph

 

I often turn to Annunciation scenes during Advent. This may seem curious since we celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25, nine months before Christmas Day. Yet, the season of Advent marks the beginning of a new church year, which may signal a time for other new beginnings.

The Annunciation to Mary was of course unique. Yet, it is also symbolic of God’s self-disclosure and God’s loving communication of hopes and wishes to every one of us. God becomes present to us, and in us, so that we might begin a new life, and begin it again. “Always, we begin again” is a saying oft-attributed to St. Benedict. It can become true for every mindful believer.

For obvious reasons, the Annunciation to Mary has received an overwhelming amount of attention in the history of art. Less frequently explored for its artistic potential is God’s self-disclosure through an Angel to Joseph, in a dream, even though it is with this Joseph story that Matthew launches his extended narrative. Mary gave birth to Jesus, whereas Joseph is remembered for having had a less prominent role in the circumstances of our Lord’s arrival. Joseph then largely disappears from the Gospel narrative. Perhaps because God’s revelation came to him in a dream while asleep as compared with Mary’s conscious, apparently daytime reception of the angelic visitation, Joseph’s receipt of an annunciation has been easier to overlook.

Yet, Joseph must have played a more-than-passing role in the coming of the Messiah. He did this by his willing marriage to Mary, and by initially providing a safe deliverance for his family from the wicked Herod, to and from Egypt. Undoubtedly, he gave Jesus significant mentoring, though Scripture leaves any details about that for us to imagine. Communities certainly have a part in the formation and education of children and youth, often in unrecognized and unrewarded ways. But why do we so easily overlook what was surely Joseph’s pivotal role in helping the young Jesus learn so much about Scripture, and in acquainting the youth with the material for so many of his later parables?

If these things may be inferred from the Gospels regarding Joseph’s significant role in the circumstances of the birth and early life of Jesus, we should reflect on what may have accompanied Joseph’s readiness to act upon the angel’s annunciation to him. As he positively responded to the angel’s words, he is likely to have considered what heeding those words might entail.

James Tissot’s painting, titled The Anxiety of Joseph, suggests that Joseph’s acceptance of his calling may have involved thoughtful deliberation. Indeed, Joseph may have sincerely weighed in his mind the degree of hazard that might arise from acting in accord with God’s revealed will, especially when such action might defy religious and social convention. That he, like Mary, in effect said yes to his angelic instructions, and followed through affirmatively, does not necessarily mean he did so without hesitation.

Most of us are called by God to accept unheralded and easy-to-overlook roles in God’s still unfolding plan of redemption for the world. Inspiration regarding our calling might even come to us in a dream, making us more prone to discount its potential significance, or too quickly assess its likely merit and value in a misguided and worldly way. After all, who are we to think that we could have an impact upon the world in relation to God’s sovereign purposes?

It is often said that Mary is the ‘mother’ of the Church. Perhaps Joseph, in a similar way, can be said to be the ‘father’ of all believers, especially those like you and me.

 

The Beauty of John’s Revelation

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Christ Pantocrator ceiling mosaic from the Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

 

Advent beckons! Or does it? Isn’t something profoundly new lying just around the corner? Or shall we simply drift into another season of the old and familiar that might or might not live up to our expectations?

This calendar year, with a full week between Thanksgiving weekend and Advent Sunday, we have an ample opportunity to ponder questions like these. If such have recently occurred to you – or seem relevant now – I have a suggestion. It is prompted by a question recently put to me. What book or devotional might I recommend for Advent? My suggestion for Advent reading is John’s Revelation! It is the last book of the Bible, but arguably the first book for a new era, as we begin a new church year. And Revelation makes for unexpectedly good reading during these days of increasing darkness, at least as daylight hours are typically reckoned.

The best way that I know for begining to appreciate John’s Revelation, and read it for personal enrichment, is to engage it guided by Eugene Peterson, translator of The Message version of the Bible. Peterson helps us by making the texts of Scripture accessible and familiar-sounding. He is especially helpful in steering us around or away from what is ironically a rather modern and limited way of reading the biblical text. With him, we can avoid a literalism overlaid by misguided assumptions regarding prophecy and history. For Revelation does not contain a code to be deciphered but a message of love to be received, however strange John’s language and imagery may strike us at first.

John’s Revelation is metaphorical poetry that speaks truth, rather than something like a roadmap conveying predicted facts about what lies ahead. And so, it is not about how or when ‘the End’ will come, as if John’s book was and is about the terminus or stopping point of history and of all that we know. Instead, and in a rather more profound way, we might with John begin to see something new: how the end or point of fulfillment for all of history and of God’s purposes have in some sense already arrived!

In these weeks of shortened daylight hours and increasing chill, the prospect of reading Revelation may seem antithetical to a hopeful anticipation of Christmas. Cheerful music, warm lighting on dark and cold evenings, and holiday treats on the table, are all attractive and good things for us to enjoy at this time of the year.

But if we have any sense that there is something wrong with the present state of our world, whether with things near or far away, ignoring or being in denial about such are not our only alternatives when it comes to how we might approach each new day. A new phase in salvation history has dawned, and does not simply lie ahead in an undefinable future that is beyond our grasp. Yet begining to see this new phase in God’s ongoing work of Redemption may take the work of imagination, a praying imagination as Peterson puts it, in order to see the real beauty that now surrounds us, and which can be found within.

The beauty of the face of ‘the coming One’ is already here to be seen. We don’t have to travel back in history to a stable in Bethlehem, nor do we need to try and peer ahead to some kind of future cosmic crisis to see his arrival. For he is here with everyone. And he can be seen in the faces of those who through their Baptism bear the intimacy of his beautiful presence.

 

Eugene Peterson’s book on John’s Revelation, Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John & the Praying Imagination, is in print and available from book sellers. I am pleased that Amazon has announced the future release of a Kindle (ebook) as well as an audio version from Audible.

 

 

 

 

Thankful for a Holy Place

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One of my joys in retirement is once again to live near and be able to serve occasionally at Grace Church in St. Francisville, Louisiana. For many years it has been a ‘home away from home,’ not least because our three sons and their families live not far from it, and because many dear friends are members of the congregation and in the community.

Like so many, we are gathering this week with family as we celebrate Thanksgiving. High on our list of things for which we give thanks is having five of our granddaughters living within about a ten minute walk from our house, and our sixth granddaughter and her brother just a couple of hours away in New Orleans.

Among our grandchildren is one whose remains lie under one of the stones in our beautiful and historic cemetery. It is an especially meaningful place for us to stop and linger in the quiet, especially at holiday times like this. When in late 2007 I was called away to serve elsewhere, the blessed folks of Grace provided us with a burial plot in the rector’s portion of the cemetery. We give thanks for it as one of the most touching gifts we have ever received.

Some may have a hard time imagining how a cemetery, a place associated with death, could be replete with signs of life. And yet, it is. These evident signs of life transcend the presence of the church building and its related Christian symbols, like the crosses and inscriptions found on the monuments. I marvel at the live oaks with their long draping limbs, and how they stay green year-long, often supporting gangly strands of gray-green Spanish moss. More subtle are the fuzzy growths on the upper surfaces of those limbs, which appear to be a blend of moss and ivy. Their common name is resurrection fern, which in dry spells has an ochre color, but which then miraculously transforms into a deep green after an overnight rain.

My former church office looks out upon the cemetery ground in which are buried the remains of dear Lucy, a deacon our parish sponsored for ordination. Every time I walk the paths between alternating old and newer stones, I am mindful of her resting place and those of other friends and acquaintances, with whom we share in the communion of saints. Now, we also go there to visit ‘one of our own,’ in that most personal sense of the phrase. Some day, under one of these magnificent oaks, my remains, as well as Martha’s, will lie next to those of our granddaughter.

To muse upon these things during Thanksgiving week may strike some as dark and sad. Yet, a walk among the remembrance stones of this holy place reminds me of the life-giving texts we encounter every year on All Saints, and in our Eastertide lectionary readings. For, in one way or another, we are all called to visit that rocky ‘garden’ tomb, to find it empty and ponder its significance. There is undeniable beauty in the stories about what then became a holy place.

The beauty of the good news concerning that empty tomb is so much more than a wonder-story about a lucky man whose experience might inspire us. A man who, despite the worst that this world can do to a ‘good’ person, somehow managed to escape into something better. The Gospel story is also the ground for our hope, our hope for ourselves and our loved ones. Can that empty tomb then help us recognize how, in similar places reminiscent of death, we can find signs of new life? Yes. For our cemeteries are places where we seek to remember and honor our loved ones, with whom – in Christ – we are still connected. Here, in these places of burial, we can give thanks that through God’s love we are destined for more than we can now see or imagine.

 

The photo above depicts the cemetery of Grace Episcopal Church in St. Francisville, Louisiana. The church was founded in 1827, and the present building was completed by 1860. Three years later it was damaged by cannon fire from Union gunboats on the nearby Mississippi River, whose sailors were using our church tower to target the Courthouse across the street. (photo by Stephen Holmgren)

Why Beauty?

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For some time I have had a copy of Elaine Scarry’s insightful little book based on two lectures she gave at Yale. I am drawn to the images chosen by the cover designer, which align with my proclivity to find in nature beauty in both pattern and variation of form and color. Also appealing is the compact scope of the work in relation to the immensity of the topic, which is addressed in just over a hundred pages. No overly weighty tome here that might contradict a principle I recently quoted in relation to a Japanese garden – beauty not explained allows the viewer to remain in a state of wonder.

And yet, it is precisely wonder inspired by beauty – by the beauty manifest in beautiful things – that has over the course of my life caught my attention. Thoughtful reflection about such wonder has led me on a journey from absorption with beauty itself, toward grappling with questions like, “why beauty?,” and “what about the time and attention I am giving to it?”

Asking such questions led me to consider what goodness might be all about, especially in relation to beauty, an area of reflection I still cannot let go of. Pursuing these inquiries then suggested a possible third dimension in my consideration of seemingly interrelated ideas, in which I began to ask intentionally about truth. Religious conversion from the agnosticism of my art student days followed not long after. Yet, all this started with sustained reflection on my ongoing encounter with beauty.

My exploration of these primary categorical ideas of beauty, goodness and truth, the so-called transcendentals, has yielded an abiding insight. These ideas have to do with what is there, there in the sense of something that you and I apprehend through our experience, but whose origin is not reducible to our experience.

In other words, beauty, goodness, and truth, aren’t just ‘in here,’ as I might say to myself, pointing to my head. Beauty, goodness, and truth, are not simply a product of our thoughts or imagination, even though they have a notable effect upon our thinking and conscious experience. No, they have this effect upon us because they are there for you and for me to encounter in the world around us. And so, they are not attributable solely to the processes and generative power of our conscious awareness.

At some point we come to perceive that beauty has a reality that is independent of us. Beauty is a real property of some or even of many objects of our experiential perception. Beauty is therefore not dismissible as being only a feature of our subjective apprehension of those objects, nor is it a projection of ourselves upon them. Because beauty is there, in the world, the beauty we encounter summons a response from within us.

This principle underlies Elaine Scarry’s first main point in her reflections on beauty. As she puts it, “beauty brings copies of itself into being… beauty prompts a copy of itself.” This is true not only in the more obvious sense in how a painter or a poet seeks to render sensual experience and perception in pigments or in words. It also happens when we return again and again in our minds to images and sensations prompted by what we have seen, heard, and felt. Repetitively we return to what we have encountered, to the thing or things we want to continue to be present to us and within our ongoing experience.

 

I will reflect on Elaine Scarry’s book again in a future post. The cover design for it, shown above, is by Tracy Baldwin, based on an illustration from J. Gilbert Pearson’s Birds in America, Vol. 2, from a drawing by Henry Turston.

A Building That Evokes Awe and Wonder

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This is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, and astonishingly it has survived twenty centuries since its construction during the great age of Rome, around 120 A.D. Replacing two earlier buildings lost to fire, this third one was built for the ages. After two thousand years, its coffered ceiling remains the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world, and it continues to evoke awe and wonder among architects. The building is, of course, the Pantheon, whose formal Christian name is the Basilica of St. Mary and the Martyrs.

Unlike some buildings of equal stature and antiquity, the Pantheon has survived because it was consecrated as a church that has since been in continuous use. First built as a temple whose practices were anchored in pagan religious cults, its original Greek name suggests that the building was dedicated to a multitude of Roman God’s. Indeed, many modern visitors know the building only by its classical name rather than by its later Christian one, even though the transition from its original purpose for pagan worship to its current one occurred fourteen-hundred years ago!

Think about that for a moment. A pagan temple, apparently dedicated to a panoply of Roman deities, was then consecrated as a church, and renamed to commemorate Christian saints. The building’s earlier purpose and meaning was not seen as inimical to its later use for holy Christian worship.

For some of us, that is unimaginable! It seems more likely that the building would have been razed, and its materials reused to build an entirely new building for Christ-inspired liturgies. That such a removal and replacement did not happen represents courage, the courage of holy imagination turned loose to see what is good, positive, and hopeful, even amidst the remains of a decaying or already dead civilization.

The origin of the great feast of All Saints, that we celebrate on November 1 or the following Sunday, is identified by some historians with the re-dedication of the Pantheon for Christian worship, in the spring of the year 609 or 610. In its subsequent role, the building commemorates both Mary and remembered Christian witnesses to the Faith. Its new name may reinforce a misleading idea that saints like Mary, as well as the martyrs, are unique and special persons, marked out for attention because they are so different from us.

In the century after the Pantheon was consecrated as a church, the community of those honored on All Saints came to be seen as including all those who have ‘washed their robes in the blood of the lamb,’ to quote an All Saints lectionary reading from John’s Revelation. This fits well with the more expansive biblical understanding of saints. Because, in the New Testament, ‘saints’ are all the baptized; in other words, they are everyday members of the Church.

For example, at the opening of his letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes “to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus.” Paul is referring not just to a select elite within that community; he is referring to all of them, who are – through Baptism – in Christ. Therefore, on All Saints, we commemorate not only saints who are remembered on particular feasts, but we celebrate all the baptized, including my granddaughter, Charlotte Mary, ‘Christened’ this past Sunday as she “put on Christ” and became a “child of God through faith (Gal 3:26-27).”

Here, among the tourists admiring beautiful ancient Roman architecture, and especially that great curved ceiling with its oculus or skylight, there are surely many saints to be found. We can hope they pause to pray in the midst of their visit and remember the ‘light of the world.’ Jesus, in John, refers to himself by these words. Perhaps to our surprise, Matthew quotes Jesus as saying that – after their call – his disciples share this remarkable identity and vocation with him.

What can we learn from the Mosque-Cathedral?

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Interior view of the Mosque-Cathedral

 

In my prior post on the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, Spain, I reflected on the shaping effect of both Christianity and Islam on this building over the centuries, and how – side by side – the influence of both religious traditions are still evident today. In this second post, I offer further reflection on the way we might think about the points of contact between these two traditions as we find them in this place of significance to adherents of each.

In the well cared-for beauty of this Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, we discern interwoven architectural forms that reflect overlapping historical periods, which were shaped by differing cultures and faiths. I think inspiration can be found here as we – like so many others – face a challenge. This is the challenge of seeking to retain an appropriate confidence and peace about our own faith and traditions while genuinely respecting and appreciating those of others. Obviously, what this building first represents to the people of at least two traditions is prayer. Sensitive to that fact, we may be moved by the beauty of this place to pray that a greater openness to what is positive and of enduring significance in the world-views of other peoples and cultures – wherever we and they live – might be more evident across nations today.

Though relying on communication with the divine presence may appear passive to some, it is no small thing to entrust such prayers to God’s Providence. But we can also act toward this end in other ways. If circumstances permit, we can try to engage with one another in conversation. We could do this, perhaps most successfully, based on things that may be universal rather than upon what might be particular to individuals and their communities. Among things generally considered as universal are the three primary so-called “transcendentals:” beauty, goodness, and truth. For even as we have divergent notions about what constitutes compelling examples of them, in principle we can still agree about the value that these three abstract but also foundational concepts have for all people.

Of course, achieving in practice a consensus regarding truth (religious or otherwise) may be impossible, and agreement regarding goodness nearly as difficult. In seeking a greater harmony between differing viewpoints, we might therefore explore with one another what we find to be beautiful, in nature, in the arts, and in each others’ cultures and traditions.

Conversation based on the realm of beauty is more likely to be open-ended and less likely to be personally judgmental. Such conversations might even help us see glimpses of this transcendental within one another, if only briefly. For we have all been made in the image and likeness of the Creator, who has made of one blood all the peoples of the earth.

For Jews and Christians, Genesis 1:26-28 provides us with the source of our concept of the imago dei, our theological understanding that all human beings are made in the image of God. Christians go further in believing that God made all things through Christ, in their original state of goodness (John 1 & Colossians 1). These beliefs undergird our confident faith statement that God has made of one blood all people regardless of how much or how little we seem to have in common. These beliefs also provide the ground for what can become a shared source of hope.

 

 

A Mosque-Cathedral?

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Interior view of the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, Spain

 

In order to appreciate this UNESCO World Heritage Site in Cordoba, Spain, which has a history of having served as both a church and as a mosque, it is helpful first to consider the better-known example of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. Its architecture and interior are widely appreciated, as is its history of once having been the largest Christian church in the world (built ca 537). Through the Ottoman period, from 1453 until 1931, it served as a mosque during which time Christian symbols and imagery were either removed or hidden. In 1935, under the official secular government of Turkey, the building was converted into a museum. Recently, the Hagia Sophia was officially re-established as a mosque for Islamic prayer.

Less familiar to many is another building created for prayer and worship with a similarly varied history, known officially as the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in Cordoba, Spain. Its origin as a Christian basilica also dates back to the 6th century, and its subsequent long history of having been a place for Muslims to pray helps explain the hyphenated descriptive label of ‘mosque-cathedral’ that is commonly applied to it.

Only portions of the foundation of the original Christian building remain, which are visible on the site below the present structure. Most evident to contemporary pilgrims and visitors are the architectural elements related to its 500 year history as a mosque. These are associated with the Spanish Islamic period and its successive caliphates that dominated the Iberian Peninsula from the 8th century until the 15th. History remembers this part of the Islamic world for being a cultural center and a significant place of exchange between Muslims and Christians involving advances in fields such as agronomy, astronomy, mathematics, and pharmacology.

In 1236, Christian worship was restored to Cordoba, and to this building that had been markedly expanded for use as a mosque over many hundreds of years. Yet, the overall character of the structure did not receive substantial alteration until the 15th and 16th centuries, when architectural elements more readily associated with Christian churches were added.

This time gap of several centuries represents a remarkable fact. Religious stewards of the building resisted an impulse evident in certain strands of Christian missionary theology, an impulse that – for example – sometimes has had the tragic effect of providing hospitality to antisemitism. This impulse rests on the view that the introduction of the Christian faith to the spiritual lives of people and to pagan places of worship necessarily involves a thorough process of eradication and replacement rather than an openness to seeing aspects of what came before as being compatible with the new. The originally pagan Pantheon in Rome, now known as the church of St. Mary and the Martyrs, provides what may be the best known example of this type of openness.

Like its sister structure of the Hagia Sophia in previous times, the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba serves as compelling place for pilgrims from within many traditions, Christian, Islamic, and others, to visit with an appreciation for history and the arts, and to find time for prayer and an opportunity for fellowship.

Entrance to the ‘mihrab‘ within the Mosque-Cathedral building, situated so as to indicate the direction of Mecca, and previously used by the imam in Islamic worship

The ceilings of the Renaissance nave and transept of the same building, completed in 1607

The theme of potential compatibility between differing religious and cultural traditions, introduced in this post, will be developed in the following one.