If I Were...

 Meditating on Jesus carrying the cross, I can feel different emotions.  If I were with His Mother, Mary, I would just keep my arm around her to pull her close to me.  I would not be able to find any words to say to her, just hug her close.

If I were alone, depending upon the crowd surrounding me I might react differently.  Alone, I would be beside myself with compassion.  I'd be a mess.  My heart would be broken open.

If I were with fellow followers, we would all be weeping together. Our prayers would be audible.

If I were in with a crowd of "haters".  I would just be silent and dying inside, so incredibly sad.  Would I be ashamed because my hero was demoted to this horrendous spectacle?  I don't think so.  I believe He is Who He says He is.  I might be confused, but my tremendous sorrow would be so overwhelming that I'd be traumatized into debilitating shock.

An Artist's Prayer

The Crucified Christ by Fra Angelico circa 1395-1455

While perusing my news feed on Facebook, I came across a post by a brother Lay Dominican, Robert Curtis.  (My brother, by a different mother, but still my brother.)  He posted a poem he found in National Review, December 2014.  It's about another brother.  (See above parenthetical explanation.)  The poem is about Fra Angelico.  Fra Angelico was born Guido di Pietro. When he entered the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) he was given the religious name Brother John of Fiesole.  He was an artist.  He painted like an angel, hence the nickname Fra Angelico.  His painting was his prayer to God.  His work preached the Word.

Angelico’s Crucifixion
By Lee Oser

Tempura and gold on wood, circa 1445
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue

Here is faith’s erotic life.
Prayer’s unfallen touch, whose brushstrokes hold
Strange virtues even now to halt
And hush our steps beneath the Cross of Love:

Magdelen staggers at the foot,
Her hair and dress a flame, her back to us; 
In rapt obedience in her mantle’s
Quiet blue, Mary seems small for her fate;

By hours the painter would have prayed
Like Dominic, as if his knees were stone, 
Low as the earth His blood does stain,
Adoring heaven’s patience without pride;

Knowing that truth becomes a book,
Augustine reads, his mother simply sees; 
The Lord’s beloved disciple sways
As one whose heart for joy or sorrow broke;

Francis, Thomas, Elizabeth
Perfect the number of this hallowed guild,
Who light a place where loss is gold,
So bent by love we hesitate to breathe---

Or else might feel perversely pressed
To scatter those proud saints like little birds
And batter down those brutal boards
And glide away with head bowed like a priest.

·         Found in National Review, December 2014.

Archangels are Formidable

This morning I picked up a Christmas present.  The nuns had left Sister Miriam Pollard's book of poetry out for the taking, as gifts.  I've been enjoying reading it.

The first one I read was San Marco.  I chose that because I have a son named Mark.  The title, however, is not about St. Mark, the person, but the Dominican friary, San Marco, in Florence, Italy.  The artist, Fra Angelico resided there and painted murals on the wall.  Nowadays, however, I think the priory with the paintings is a little museum.  The friars have moved on.

The imagery in the poem made me smile and even left me with an audible chuckle.  Sister Miriam is quite adept in her descriptive verse.  I lived the experience through Sister's verse.  She is writing about this painting of the angel Gabriel announcing that she has been chosen to be the Mother of God.

San Marco by Sister Miriam Pollard, ocso

Customarily,
the friar studies at his table.
He also prays there.

His cell is small.
The other room, the painted room,
is not real.

He is accustomed to it:
The angel, looking like a feathered rainbow,
bows to a woman still as glass.
How gracefully she has returned the bow,
bending her body to the exigencies
of a redemptive invitation.

There, in the structured courtliness of Luke,
a pastel narrative
invites of the cell's inhabitant
a consonant response.

The friar isn't sure.
He asks himself
what is the question here?
Who is the answer?

He reads his book,
uncomfortable with Nazareth at his elbow.

 But Nazareth, after all,
is eaten every night by darkness.

He isn't sure what happens then.  Some nights--
well, through some nights he sleeps.
That is all,
all one would expect of night.

But sometimes, he thinks,
darkness has a way of disengaging from his wall
that bright-winged threat.

And as they slowly circle one another--
he and this other--in a formless solitude,
he feels his own throat harrowed
by indeterminate and soundless cries.

He leaps to wrestle then with--
with what, he does not know.

Dawn is not quite a resolution.
Blessings are often obscure.
Light again repaints
a softly garmented angelic presence on the wall.

The friar is not fooled.
He spits a feather from his mouth,
sloughs off a sweaty tunic, takes a dry one,
and limps a little to the door.

The Best Contemplation

An interesting definition, if not description,  of contemplation, is found in The Secular Journal of Thomas Merton, Farrar, Straus, & Cudahy, New York, 1959.

Merton is looking at the picture above.  This is Fra Angelico's "Temptation of St. Anthony."  This subject, St. Anthony of the Desert's temptation is a common theme, among artists, probably because it's so open to each person's interpretation of "temptation."  In Fra Angelico's, it's the world.  That's a lump of gold, in the lower right side.  I tend to think the temptation was everything (like all of us). However, since he was a consecrated hermit, the temptation was probably theological doubt.

When Merton looks at St. Anthony he notes the background.  The saint is in the middle of dry gullies, yet in the background are trees.  He's in a desert, yet we see a city.  Are you getting the idea?  Anyway, St. Anthony is surprised, look at the way his cape is draped.  His arms are in the "infant startle position."

In the back is a church on a hill.  (Go Anthony, go!)

"Just as prayer leads to stillness, and timelessness in contemplation, so the action of this picture leads to contemplation on an esthetic level.  Therefore looking at a picture demands penetration, understanding, meditation.  If people looked at good pictures more, they would learn more about meditation, and if they meditated more they would learn more about looking at pictures."

Merton goes on about that startle movement of St. Anthony's.  "By realizing what constitutes the action in a good picture, we can get some sort of analogical grasp of what the joys of the blessed are in heaven."  That's because of the joy we receive by looking at good art, listening to good music, reading good books, enjoying the company of good friends, and contemplating the good God.

Where are you?

Study group tonight discussed the Passion, Triduum, and Easter.  This picture by Fra Angelico looking inside the empty tomb, pictorially depicted how I feel.  There are some unresolved issues in my life, that cause sadness.  But since I'm Christian, I have hope that God knows best and will resolve those issues for the good.

I don't think anybody in the group chose the Passion.  Although some do have physical ailments, but like myself, they trust in God.

Most felt the Resurrection in their life.  Praise God!  They saw God "risen," all around them.  This is how Christians should feel.  And I know I will feel that way, too.  We are Easter people.