The Depiction of Christ

"The figure of Christ has been painted — as I feel it — only by Delacroix and by Rembrandt........ "

Letter of Vincent Van Gogh to Emile Bernard. Arles, Tuesday, 26 June 1888.

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) the French Romantic artist was the leader of the French Romantic school.

Generations of Symbolists and Impressionists were inspired by Delacroix's work. The emphasis is on colour and movement rather than clarity of outline and carefully modelled form

It has often been noted that Delacroix lacked faith. However in his religious paintings there is a fervour. His religious works can not be readily dismissed.

He painted fourteen variations of Christ Asleep during the Tempest, a lesson in faith.

The incident is described in Matthew 8, verses 23-28

Christ is asleep at sea when a great tempest arose. His Disciples, frightened, woke him up. He responded: “‘What do you fear, ye of little faith!” He then commanded the winds and the sea to cease: and, so ceasing, the sea became calm. The men wondered, saying: “‘Who is this whom the wind and the sea obey?’”

His version in The Metropolitan Museum in New York is particularly famous. It depicts the revolt of Nature while Christ sleeps and the disciples panic. Nature appears to be on the point of overwhelming man and destroying him. (see below)

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)

Christ Asleep during the Tempestca. 1853

Oil on canvas

20 x 24 in. (50.8 x 61 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theo saw this painting at the beginning of June 1886 at the sale exhibition of John Saulnier’s collection at the Drouot auction house

Van Gogh referred to the painting on a number of occasions in his letters:

"When Paul Mantz saw Delacroix’s violent and exalted sketch, Christ’s boat, at the exhibition that we saw in the Champs-Elysées, he turned away from it and cried out in his article, ‘I did not know that one could be so terrifying with blue and green’ "

To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 8 September 1888.

"Ah — E. Delacroix’s beautiful painting — Christ’s boat on the sea of Gennesaret, he — with his pale lemon halo — sleeping, luminous — within the dramatic violet, dark blue, blood-red patch of the group of stunned disciples. On the terrifying emerald sea, rising, rising all the way up to the top of the frame. Ah — the brilliant sketch"

To Emile Bernard. Arles, Tuesday, 26 June 1888.

Another major religious work by Delacroix is Christ in the Garden of Olives. The work was commissioned from Delacroix for the Church of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis in Paris. It was exhibited at the Salon in 1827

Many artists have found inspiration in it for their own version of Christ in the Garden of Olives

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)

Le Christ au jardin des oliviers/ Christ in the Garden of Olives 1824 - 1827

Oil on canvas

294 x 362 cm

Eglise Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, Paris

We can see how Delacroix`s idea for the painting evolved through the following Study and Esquisse

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)

Study for the Le Christ au jardin des oliviers 1824

Aquarelle, Lead pencil

25.2 x 20.5 cm

Musée du Louvre, Paris

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)

Esquisse for Le Christ au Jardin des Oliviers 1826

Oil on canvas

32 x 40 cm

Musée National Eugène Delacroix, Paris

Van Gogh despite his religious sensibility only painted one picture of Christ which was a copy of Delacroix`s Pietà

However it would appear that for some reason Van Gogh could not or did not want to deal with the subject. For some reason the subject appears to be too painful.

In July 1888 he wrote to his brother telling that he had scraped a «large painted study, a garden with olive trees, with a figure of Christ...».

But the theme remained locked in his head and and in his heart.

In the month of November he painted five canvases of the olive groves that surrounded the clinic in Saint-Rémy. He said he was seeking for a correspondence with his own painful personal experience, precisely a year after his first crisis.

«The first tree is an enormous trunk but stricken by lightning and fallen», he wrote to Bernard in a letter of 20 November. «Nevertheless a side branch launches itself toward another and falls back in a cascade of dark green needles».

However in a letter to Theo the day after he wrote:

«This month I have been working among the olive groves, because Gauguin and Bernard have outraged me with their Christ in the garden of olives, where there was nothing real. Of course, I have no intention of doing anything drawn from the Bible – and I have also written to Bernard and Gauguin also that I believed it our task to think and not to dream».

But perhaps the problem was more fundamental and went to why his great hero Delacroix succeeded in religious art and in depicting Christ but Van Gogh did not.

Perhaps the issues were set out in an interview with the Jesuit artist Father Marko Ivan Rupnik (b.1954), Director of the Atelier of Spiritual Art of the Aletti Center in Rome published in 30 Days as "An art that stirs veneration"

"With that situation in mind, can you outline for us, on the basis of your experience at the Aletti Center, the ideal profile of an artist operating in the liturgical sphere? How should he behave, to what should he pay heed?

RUPNIK: Naturally there is no fixed rule. Undoubtedly there is always an attraction at work in the life of every artist. There is a beauty that attracts. The theologian Pavel Florenskij used to say: “Truth revealed is the Love and Love achieved is Beauty”. That’s it, the artist is attracted by Beauty, which is Love achieved, that is Easter. He can have by grace the humility to let the Mystery fertilise him. Those who work with this Mystery can’t do other than welcome it, give it space in their lives and let it go to work.

Other important features?

RUPNIK: First of all humility, but not understood in the psychological sense, that is as an attitude to adopt, as if it were the fruit of one’s own intelligence or diligence. Humility is the gift of the Holy Spirit, that bloweth where it listeth and may grip non-Christian artists also. It is a matter precisely of theological humility. The more mature the artist is in the knowledge of receiving this gift the more he will be dispossessed of his work and its production will not be the sphere of his self-affirmation, but of his humble service. Only in that way can the work be handed over to the many and the many will recognize themselves in it. With art it’s like with love: one demands humility and action. The more humble one is the more one is veined with love. The more one involves oneself personally the more one is universal.

And then?

RUPNIK: One needs to be very familiar with the Word of God – because, as Nicene II says, art is a translation of the Word of God – and with the memory of the Church: the Fathers, the saints, Christian art. One also needs to be inward with the debate of the century in which one lives, that is to be familiar with the contemporary artistic idiom, and to be inserted in the life of the Church. One must have a spiritual life, live the same difficulties as our contemporaries so as to be able to share with them the steps in the redemption bestowed to us. For us at the Aletti Center, working in chorus is fundamental. Working together, constantly engaging in mutual charity and fruitful dialogue. Out of the Church one creates for the Church. "

Towards the end of his life, Van Gogh attempted a Christ in the garden of olives. He got involved in a quarrel with Gauguin and Bernard over the notion of producing a series of works devoted to the Gospel subject.

Séraphine de Senlis

I have posted before about Séraphine de Senlis

The 2008 bio-pic about the French artist Séraphine Louis (called simply "Seraphine") brought her art to public attention. Her life was tragic. Her pictures have a dazzling intensity and power. She was motivated by a rather idiosyncratic religious fervour. She was a self-taught painter (beginning only in her forties) in the naïve style

Seraphine was a cleaner and maid from the town of Senlis, north of Paris.

In 1912, Wilhelm Uhde, the German art critic and dealer, spotted a small painting of a bunch of flowers by Seraphine. He befriended her and began a professional association

Sadly Seraphine was eventually confined to an asylum, where she died in 1942, buried in a common grave, forgotten.

A few years ago a plaque was placed nearby. It reads:

"Here Seraphine Louis Mallard (without rival) rests … while waiting for happy resurrection."

Séraphine Louis (1864-1942) (known as Séraphine de Senlis) in the 1920s

From LEXPRESS.fr

Séraphine Louis (1864-1942) (known as Séraphine de Senlis)

Bouquets de mimosas

Oil on canvas

1.45 m x 0.97m

Musée du Vieux Château, Laval

Séraphine Louis (1864-1942) (known as Séraphine de Senlis)

L'arbre du paradis

c.1929

Oil on canvas

1.95m x 1.3m

Musée d'Art et d'Archéologie, Senlis

Séraphine Louis (1864-1942) (known as Séraphine de Senlis)

Arbre rouge

1928

Oil on canvas

1.93m x 1.3m

Musée national d'Art moderne - Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Séraphine Louis (1864-1942) (known as Séraphine de Senlis)

Grenades sur fond vert 1927 -30

Oil on canvas

92 cm x 73 cm

Musée international d'Art Naïf Anatole Jakovsky, Nice

Séraphine Louis (1864-1942) (known as Séraphine de Senlis)

Arbre

1930

Oil on canvas

1.46m x 1.14m

Kunsthalle, Hamburg

The mystery of light par excellence

Master of St Severin from Mariawald, Germany, 1500-1549

The Transfiguration 1500-1549

Stained glass panel in red, blue, maroon, green and white, grisaille and yellow stain

28.25 in x 27.875 in

The Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The Transfiguration is one of the "Luminous Mysteries" of the Rosary

The Transfiguration is memoralised tomorrow not only in the Western Church but also the Eastern Church

In introducing the "Luminous Mysteries", Pope John Paul II said:

"[The Luminous Mysteries] may be called in a special way “mysteries of light”. Certainly the whole mystery of Christ is a mystery of light. He is the “light of the world” (Jn 8:12). Yet this truth emerges in a special way during the years of his public life, when he proclaims the Gospel of the Kingdom. ...

Each of these [Luminous] mysteries is a revelation of the Kingdom now present in the very person of Jesus ...

The mystery of light par excellence is the Transfiguration, traditionally believed to have taken place on Mount Tabor. The glory of the Godhead shines forth from the face of Christ as the Father commands the astonished Apostles to “listen to him” (cf. Lk 9:35 and parallels) and to prepare to experience with him the agony of the Passion, so as to come with him to the joy of the Resurrection and a life transfigured by the Holy Spirit."

(Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 16th October 2002)

The Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor is described in the Gospels of Matthew (17: 1-9), Mark (9:2-9) and Luke (9:27-36).

Christ appears in his divine form to his disciples Peter, John and James: "....his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elijah talking with him....and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son.... And when the disciples heard it, they prostrated themselves...."(Matt. 17:2-6).

WOMEN & SPIRIT: Catholic Sisters in America

Benedictine Sisters anticipate the completion of St Anthony’s Hospital in Bemidji, Minnesota in 1900. Before workers’ compensation was mandated by law most laborers went without coverage. The sisters made healthcare affordable by selling “Lumberjack Tickets” (from $1.00 - $9.00) and guaranteed medical care in Benedictine hospitals.

Six Sisters of Mary of the Presentation (pictured) took part in a great European migration, arriving from France to North Dakota in 1902, to offer aid to immigrants to the USA

In the United Kingdom it is difficult to appreciate the enormous contribution made by nuns to the America`s social and cultural landscape.

Since first arriving in America nearly 300 years ago, sisters built schools, colleges, hospitals, orphanages, homeless shelters, and many other enduring social institutions.

As nurses, teachers, and social workers, sisters entered professional ranks decades earlier than most other women and established landmark institutions that continue to serve millions of Americans from all walks of life

"Women and Spirit" is a fascinating exhibition on the massive contribution made by Nuns to Catholic America

Amongst the facts cited are:

The St. Joseph infant incubator was developed by Sr. Pulcheria Wuellner

The first medical license given to a woman in New Mexico was Sr. Mary de Sales Leheney.

In 2005, approximately one in six hospital patients in the U.S. were treated in a Catholic facility.

During the Civil War, the Sisters of the Holy Cross staffed the first U.S. Navy hospital ship, the USS Red Rover.

More than 600 sisters from twenty-one different religious communities nursed both Union and Confederate soldiers alike during the Civil War.

In the founding days of Alcoholics Anonymous, Sister Ignatia Gavin of the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine successfully advocated that alcoholism should be treated as a medical condition.

Catholic sisters established the nation’s largest private school system, educating millions of young Americans.

More than 110 U.S. colleges and universities were founded by Catholic sisters.

Since 1980, at least nine American sisters have been martyred while working for social justice and human rights overseas

Saint Mary Major

Tomorrow is the Memorial for the dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome

Check out the Virtual Reality Tour of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major

Today`s Memorials

Today is the memorial day of Saint Jean Marie Vianney (the Curé  d`Ars) who died this day in 1859. We recall his great work performed after great trials and tribulations.

However we do not commemorate and celebrate as we should the great work performed quietly and without fuss by the vast majority of priests now and in the past.

Today is also the anniversary of the day ninety six years ago in 1914 when France and Germany declared war on each other, and Britain declared war on Germany. The carnage continued unceasingly until 11th November 1918.

Among the priests whose actions and work has been now overlooked are those priests who served in the Armed Forces during the Great War.

In some ways, by doing so, they performed just as great a service (if not greater) to their faith as someone like Blessed Cardinal Newman.

It will be recalled that in the Nineteenth Century and before, Roman Catholics in Britain had always been subject to the charge that somehow they were not really "British": it was alleged that they served two masters.

The canard of having a "dual allegiance" hung about Roman Catholics.

See “How Dreadful This Perversion”: John Henry Newman responds to Gladstone   and  John Henry Newman and the Issue of Infallibility

Newman had taken up the cudgels against Gladstone over this issue in his Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Recent Expostulation (27 December 1874; published February 1875)

Gladstone had charged that " No one can become her [Rome's] convert without renouncing his moral and mental freedom and placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another."

Newman demolished him verbally, logically, theologically. But the whispers continued.

The actions of the British Catholic priests in the armed forces in the First World War played a substantial part in delivering the last rites for these canards and burying them.

And not only in Britain.

In the British Empire as it then was: Canada, Australia, and the other vast territories.

In France where the bravery of the French priests helped to turn the anti-Clericalist tide which had almost laid low the Church in France since 1905.

In Italy where an anti-clericalist regime and party had been in power since 1870 and had been daggers drawn with the Vatican.

As well of course as in the Opposite side: Germany (where Bismarck`s Kulturkampf was within living memory) and Austria-Hungary

These brave men did not fight but shared fully in the privations which their fellow soldiers suffered, ministering to their charges, dealing with their spiritual needs when Religion was still a serious matter, all at the risk of their own lives.

Most importantly through the Mass and the sacraments they brought and made manifest Christ to their fellow men trapped in a living Hell

In the battles nothing was sacrosanct. Towns, cultivated fields, churches and cathedrals were laid waste and became literally "wastelands" where men struggled to kill each other. Centuries of human civilisation and civilised behaviour were forgotten and overturned.

They fought on both sides of the various conflicts and battlegrounds we know as the First World War - a conflict which until then was without parallel in the history of mankind.

They had to serve in extraordinary situations which must have tested their own personal faith to the full

We do not know much about their experiences, their sufferings and deaths and what happened to the survivors after the end of the War.

Here is part of the lengthy account of one anonymous padre (probably non-Catholic) who was awarded the Military Cross and bar:

"The war treated me kindly. I was wounded, gassed, and had shell-shock, but they were all relatively slight. I received decorations which thousands earned quite as genuinely without recognition.

As a combatant private and a brigade chaplain, I was in almost every part of the line on the Western Front. I came through with a great pride in men and a bitter hatred of war.

Memories besiege my mind. I can only select. I remember vividly certain bonny lads of twelve or thirteen haunting our billets behind the line, touting for buyers of their sisters' bodies at 50 centimes. I remember also a mother offering her daughter of sixteen in a whisper as she handed out eggs and chips.

During one spell in the line a bantam battalion was on our right. They were sturdy fighters. One day a party of Prussians raided them and a huge German ran off with a bantam under his arm.

Our platoon sergeant during one period was an old Regular. He could carry drink well from long practice. Once when we were out of the line someone made a bet of 20 francs that he could not get drunk on French beer. He tried hard all one night. They carried him to his billet at closing time. He was very ill, but as sober as a judge.

There was no romance in the War for private soldiers. There were great days when there were comfortable latrines available and when the bread ration was four to a loaf. Such days were infrequent.

Life was unutterably boring. I was a company runner, but most men had an almost unchangeable routine.

We knew nothing about the meaning of our masterly inactivity. We received shells but saw no Germans save on occasional raids.

We felt that the War would outlast us all. Most men longed for a Blighty. When I became a chaplain I saw more actual fighting. I think of Arras. I was with the first brigade that lived in the catacombs under the town.

They were very deep below the ground and were lighted by electricity. They were huge, irregular caves out of which the stone of which the cathedral was built had been hewn. They were connected by passages with each other and with the sewers under Arras.

They were very silent, for men went out to work or fight and came back to sleep. We rested there before the Easter Battle of Arras, 1917.

In front of Arras I saw my first German booby traps. They had withdrawn quietly from their line, destroying most of their dug-outs as they went.

Our troops thrust out patrols to discover their new line. I visited a new company headquarters. In the corner of the dug-out there was a heap of dirt out of which a beautifully carved crucifix projected. I reached down to examine it.

"Good God! Don't touch it!" the company commander yelled. The bottom of it was attached to a bomb.

Battalion headquarters was in a huge German dug-out which had four entrances. Three had been destroyed and the fourth partially destroyed. In the main room there was a huge fire-place with a wide chimney.

In the chimney the brigade bombing officer found a large bomb and in other parts of the dug-out eight other bombs.

A fire would have exploded the lot. In my unit there was a superstition that it was dangerous to carry French cartridges.

I was going round with the C.O. during the later stages of the Easter show when we passed a dead soldier of our battalion. The C.O. examined his pockets and, curiously enough, found a clip of French cartridges.

We spent eight months in and out of shell-hole positions in front of Ypres. Often we came out less than half as strong as we went in. It was an animal and often beastly life. The wonder was that there was as much morality behind the lines after such an existence.

In this area I had my first experience of sportsmanship among Germans. The Menin road between Hooge Tunnel and Clapham Junction (a captured pillbox) was a raised road. Any working party setting foot on it was strafed by machine-gunners who had it under direct observation.

As a result, troops journeyed under the shelter of the right bank of the road. In one show for a number of hours I made journeys with wounded men down the road itself. Machine guns never opened on us. Round the entrance to the tunnel, however, we lost over seventy stretcher bearers by shell-fire.

One of the men we carried out was Private C. of a Cornish regiment. He was only twenty. Later I saw him at the advanced dressing station. He had one leg blown off, the other badly injured, and other wounds in the body and face.

The doctor said he could not live, but he did. I was with him as they dressed his wounds. Only seldom did he groan. Each time he looked up and said, "S-sorry , padre." He had a stutter. When they had almost finished he gave a twisted smile and said, "P-padre, the c-c-canary that k-kicked me had g-got hob nails in its b-boots." I saw him later in England. I wish I could see him again.

Early in I9I8 we took over from the French down south. It was a very quiet part of the line...."

On the British side, two Irish Jesuits stand out: Father Francis Patrick Browne MC  and  Bar, SJ (3 January 1880 – 7 July 1960) and Father William Doyle S J,  M C( 1873-1917 )

Father Francis Patrick Browne MC and Bar SJ

Father Browne was born in 1880 in Cork, Ireland, the youngest of the eight children

He was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on July 31, 1915, aged 35. He then joined the Irish Guards as a chaplain. He served with the Guards until the spring of 1920, including service at the Battle of the Somme and at Locre, Wytschaete, Messines Ridge, Paschendaele, Ypres, Amiens and Arras in Flanders. He was injured five times during the war, once severely in a gas attack, and was awarded the Military Cross and Bar for his valour in combat.

For more about this remarkable man who survived the war see:

Wikipedia: Francis Browne

Father Browne's Photographic collection

Father William Doyle SJ MC

Unfortunately Father William Doyle SJ MC, of the Royal Dublin Fusliers, 16th Irish Division, fell in the Battle of Langemarck in the Third Battle of Ypres, June 1917 - November 1917.

He was awarded the Military Cross in January, 1917 though many believed that he deserved the Victoria Cross

Here is an extract from Father Alfred O`Rahilly`s biography of Father Doyle (see below) which describes some of Father Doyle`s experiences on the Somme:

"The opening sentences of Fr. Doyle s next letter to his father (11th September, 1916) sufficiently indicate the terrible nature of the ordeal which we are about to recount.

`I have been through the most terrible experience of my whole life, in comparison with which all that I have witnessed or suffered since my arrival in France seems of little consequence ; a time of such awful horror that I believe if the good God had not helped me powerfully by His grace I could never have endured it. To sum up all in one word, for the past week I have been living literally in hell, amid sights and scenes and dangers enough to test the courage of the bravest ; but through it all my confidence and trust in our Blessed Lord s protection never wavered, for I felt that somehow, even if it needed a miracle, He would bring me safe through the furnace of tribulation.

I was hit three times, on the last occasion by a piece of shell big enough to have taken off half my leg, but wonderful to relate I did not receive a wound or scratch there is some advantage, you see, in having a good thick skin !

As you can imagine, I am pretty well worn out and exhausted, rather shaken by the terrific strain of those days and nights without any real sleep or repose, with nerves tingling, ever on the jump, like the rest of us ; but it is all over now ; we are well behind the firing line on our way at last for a good long rest, which report says will be enjoyed close to the sea.`

His previous letter had been written from Bray, near Albert, on the river Somme, where there was a huge concentration of French and British forces. Each morning Fr. Doyle said Mass in the open and gave Holy Communion to hundreds of the men.

`I wish you could have seen them,` he writes, `kneeling there before the whole camp, recollected and prayerful a grand profession surely of the faith that is in them. More than one non-Catholic was touched by it ; and it made many a one, I am sure, turn to God in the hour of need.`

On the evening of Sunday, 3rd September, just as they were sitting down to dinner, spread on a pile of empty shell boxes, urgent orders reached the 16th Division to march in ten minutes. `There was only time` says Fr. Doyle, `to grab a slice of bread and hack off a piece of meat before rushing to get one s kit.`

`As luck would have it,` he adds, `I had had nothing to eat since the morning and was famished, but there was nothing for it but to tighten one s belt and look happy`

There are occasions when even the world can appreciate Jesuit obedience ! After a couple of hours tramp a halt was called and an order came to stock all impedimenta kits, packs, blankets, etc., by the side of the road. Fr. Doyle, it is almost needless to say, held on to his Mass things, though to his great sorrow for five days he was unable to offer the Holy Sacrifice `the biggest privation of the whole campaign.` "

Quite a "cult" has now developed about this remarkable Jesuit, see

Alfred O`Rahilly, Father William Doyle S.J. (1922) ( London : Longmans, Green)

Father William Doyle

Remembering Fr William Doyle SJ

Transalpine Redemptorists at home: Trench Priest

Here are some contemporary photographs of these priests in action and the places in which they carried out their vocations;

Emile Camille Albert Le Play b.1875

Mass at the 43rd division of the 29th regiment of artillery between Oostduinkerke and Nieuport 1915

Photograph

4.4 x 10.6 cm

Musée de l'Armée, Paris

Paul Castelnau 1880 - 1944

Abbé Even, Almoner in the 51st division

10th September 1917

Photograph

Médiathèque de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine, Paris

Father Louis Lenoir (1882-1917) celebrating Mass at Gravena (Greek Macedonia)

March 1917

Photograph

6.7 x 4.5 cm

Musée de l'Armée, Paris

Henri Terrier 1887 - 1918

Sub-Lieutenant Pape (sic) saying Mass in the 2nd Line of the 262nd Infantry Regiment1915

Photograph

11.8 x 8.3 cm

Musée de l'Armée, Paris

A ration party of the Royal Irish Rifles in a communication trench during the Battle of the Somme. The date is believed to be 1 July 1916, the first day on the Somme, and the unit is possibly the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles (25th Brigade, 8th Division).

French troopers under General Gouraud, with their machine guns amongst the ruins of a cathedral near the Marne, driving back the Germans. 1918. Central News Photo Service. (War Dept.)

A shell bursting on an Italian entrenchment

Italian front: Alpine troops with supply mules towards the second Canton of Stelvio

Austrian troops in Spring 1916 under Punta d`Albiolo

A Rather Joyful Mystery

El Greco 1541-1614

The Annunciation 1596-1600

Oil on canvas

315 cm x 174 cm

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

In the Rosary, The Annunciation is of course the first of the Joyful Mysteries.

Unlike other depictions of The Annunciation, this work is filled with Joy and with celebration.

The work was the central panel of the main altarpiece at the church of the Colegio de Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación (the Church of the College of Mar). The Annunciation is of course the event of the Incarnation of Christ in Mary`s womb.

It was the largest altar piece which was commisioned from El Greco

There are two other versions of this painting: one in the Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao, and the other in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection in Madrid

This is unlike other depictions. This is no quiet scene. A plain humble room in a poor house in Roman occupied Palestine is invaded by Heaven. Mary has up till that point been diligently carrying out ordinary rather boring and tedious tasks.

The normal laws of time and space as understood by mankind are suspended. There is celebration, transformation and transfiguration. The humble are exalted.

The event is mysterious.

How can a virgin give birth ? As Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, seeing I am a virgin?"

How can a Human Being give birth to a Divine ? How can a human being cooperate in God`s plan of redemption ?

How can the consent of Mary be essential to the Redemption of humanity ?

How can there exist "the indissoluble and wedded union of the divine nature with human nature in the one Person of the Word" ?

Then there is the Mystery of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit acts to produce the result of how the Second Person of the Trinity becomes the son of Mary, the beginning of Jesus in His human nature.

The angel said: "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also the holy one who is born from you will be called the Son of God."

The Son proceeds from the Father; the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son.

The Angel supplies the answer: "For everything spoken by God is possible."

Pope John Paul II wrote on 22nd May 1988 in his Letter to All Consecrated Persons on the Occasion of the Marian Year:

"The words spoken to Mary at the Annunciation were certainly unusual.

A careful reading of Luke's text shows that the angel's words to her contain the truth about God, in a manner that already conforms to the Gospel and to the New Covenant.

The Virgin of Nazareth has been introduced into the inscrutable mystery, which is the living God, the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In that context the Virgin's vocation to be Mother of the Messiah was revealed to her, a vocation to which she responded with her fiat: "Let it be done to me according to your word" (Lk 1:38). ...

The moment of vocation always directly concerns a particular person, but as with the Annunciation at Nazareth it also means a certain "unveiling" of the mystery of God. Before it becomes an accomplished fact within an individual, before taking on the form of a choice and personal decision, a vocation refers back to another choice, a choice on the part of God, which has preceded the human choice and decision.

Christ spoke of this to the Apostles during his farewell discourse: "You did not choose me, but I chose you" (Jn 15:16).

This choice invites us - as it did Mary at the Annunciation - to discover ourselves in the depths of the eternal mystery of God who is love. "

The Virgin Mary and the Archangel Gabriel are pure and full of grace and surrounded by symbols underlining these qualities. Both are filled and animated with Love and Joy.

El Greco's style is highly charged and hypnotic. His elongated and foreshortened figures lend a mystical air.

But with his Greek Orthodox background, was he more than particularly careful in his depiction of the Holy Spirit at the time of the Annunciation especially as he was painting for a clerical audience in post-Tridentine Spain ?

But was it his Greek Orthodox background which allowed him to paint such a startlingly different composition ? In the Eastern Church, the Feast of the Annunciation is one of the twelve Great Feasts of the church year.

The Annunciation is called Euangelismos (Evangelism) in Greek, literally meaning "spreading the Good News".

Papal Visit Souvenirs

The Official website for the Online Store for the Pope`s Visit to the United Kingdom has opened for business.

Here is a selection to tempt you.

Holy card Bespoke with Newman's prayer and image and logo of event

£1.00

Plate: Contains images of Pope Benedict XVI

£20.00

Beatification 100% Cotton T-shirt

Celebrating the Beatification of John Henry Newman

Print contains John Henry Newman's Moto - "Heart Speaks Unto Heart"

£15.00

Benedict XVI Tee

£18.00

Flashing Candle

Electronic flashing light that bares the Official Logo of 2010 Papal Visit

£8.00

Pope Pius XI : Against the Tide of Eugenics

The compulsory sterilisation by the State of some of its citizens must count as one of the great wrongs of the Twentieth century.

It did not just happen in Nazi Germany or in Communist China.

It is also worth reminding ourselves of what happened. It could not happen here, could it ?

This is a repost from about three years ago.



During the late 19th century and the first part of the 20th century, several physicians, such as Nobel prize winner Alexis Carrel, supported eugenics, a theory first formulated in 1865 by Francis Galton.

For certain eugenicists, sterilisation was considered a valid part of the "solution" to ending the "menace of the feebleminded" in society. These eugenicists believed that by halting the reproductive capabilities of the "feebleminded" and "defective," their genetic traits would not be passed on to further generations, and over time would therefore be eradicated from society.

Eugenics was discredited as a science after the Nazis' experiments in World War II became known.

However, prior to this, sterilisation of the "feebleminded" (including compulsory sterilisation) became part of the public policy of certain states in the United States, Nazi Germany, some provinces in Canada, Sweden, Australia, and a number of other countries.

It was a very near thing but compulsory sterilisation was only just averted in the United Kingdom.

In The Great Socialist Shame, the noted Human Rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC explained:

"T]he warped biological principles of the English eugenics movement, had the enthusiastic backing of some of the most distinguished intellectuals, writers, doctors and civil servants in the UK. In 1934, for example, a Department of Health report, from a committee chaired by Sir Lawrence Brock, praised Nazi legislation and recommended adoption in the UK of compulsory sterilisation of the "feeble-minded", a class comprising "a quarter of a million mental defectives and a far larger number of the mentally subnormal".

The US Supreme Court, in 1927, had already upheld eugenics-based forcible sterilisation of "degenerates" (ie, of the poor, and especially of poor blacks). The liberal jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes dismissed the court challenge with the comment that "three generations of imbeciles are enough". In the same year, after lobbying from the Eugenics Society, the British government had updated the UK's Mental Deficiency Act, which provided for the detention of the "feeble-minded", including "moral imbeciles" such as single mothers on benefits.

Most shocking of all was the extent of support for eugenics from British socialists and literary giants. George Bernard Shaw argued for humane extermination of "the sort of people who do not fit in". Aldous Huxley wanted to "prevent the sub-normal from having any families at all". Marie Stopes publicly pleaded for the sterilisation of "the hopelessly rotten and racially diseased". Both Virginia Woolf and D H Lawrence privately urged that the state should exterminate "imbeciles"
.
Oxford's Professor Desmond King has, in a recent book, concluded that their "desire to improve the lower orders was invariably well-intentioned". This is over-kind: these arrogant intellectuals were perfectly capable of imagining the inhumanity that their policies entailed. Their main objective - compulsory sterilisation of the unfit - did not happen in Britain because of opposition from the Catholics (thank God, in this respect, for G K Chesterton) and from Labour MPs (who rightly feared that the working class would be the real victims of the Fabian intelligentsia). "

In the face of the prevailing orthodoxy, the Catholic Church always opposed sterilisation especially eugenic sterilisation. The same was not true of some other Christian denominations.

The author G.K. Chesterton (before he converted to Catholicism in 1922) led the opposition outside the UK Parliament to the Mental Deficiency Bill of 1912, which had been introduced by Winston Churchill, the Home Secretary in the Liberal Administration. As a result of his campaign and those inside Parliament such as Wedgwood, Outhwaite, and Banbury, the Bill was defeated. A new Bill was reintroduced in 1913 but this omitted the most objectionable parts of the original Bill.

In 1930, Pope Pius XI put the Catholic position beyond all doubt in his Encyclical, Castii Connubii (On Marriage). Nowadays the Encyclical seems to be mainly known for its position on artificial contraception and being the forerunner of Humanae Vitae.

Its importance and its courage in contradicting the prevailing orthodoxy of favouring compulsory eugenic-based sterilisation programmes now seems to be forgotten or overlooked. Events would prove him right. Unfortunately, the events were in Nazi Germany.

He said:

"68. Finally, that pernicious practice must be condemned which closely touches upon the natural right of man to enter matrimony but affects also in a real way the welfare of the offspring. For there are some who over solicitous for the cause of eugenics, not only give salutary counsel for more certainly procuring the strength and health of the future child - which, indeed, is not contrary to right reason - but put eugenics before aims of a higher order, and by public authority wish to prevent from marrying all those whom, even though naturally fit for marriage, they consider, according to the norms and conjectures of their investigations, would, through hereditary transmission, bring forth defective offspring. And more, they wish to legislate to deprive these of that natural faculty by medical action despite their unwillingness; and this they do not propose as an infliction of grave punishment under the authority of the state for a crime committed, not to prevent future crimes by guilty persons, but against every right and good they wish the civil authority to arrogate to itself a power over a faculty which it never had and can never legitimately possess.

69. Those who act in this way are at fault in losing sight of the fact that the family is more sacred than the State and that men are begotten not for the earth and for time, but for Heaven and eternity. Although often these individuals are to be dissuaded from entering into matrimony, certainly it is wrong to brand men with the stigma of crime because they contract marriage, on the ground that, despite the fact that they are in every respect capable of matrimony, they will give birth only to defective children, even though they use all care and diligence.

70. Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of their subjects; therefore, where no crime has taken place and there is no cause present for grave punishment, they can never directly harm, or tamper with the integrity of the body, either for the reasons of eugenics or for any other reason. St. Thomas teaches this when inquiring whether human judges for the sake of preventing future evils can inflict punishment, he admits that the power indeed exists as regards certain other forms of evil, but justly and properly denies it as regards the maiming of the body. "No one who is guiltless may be punished by a human tribunal either by flogging to death, or mutilation, or by beating."

71. Furthermore, Christian doctrine establishes, and the light of human reason makes it most clear, that private individuals have no other power over the members of their bodies than that which pertains to their natural ends; and they are not free to destroy or mutilate their members, or in any other way render themselves unfit for their natural functions, except when no other provision can be made for the good of the whole body. "

Time`s edition of Jan. 19, 1931 reported extensively on the wide adverse reaction to the Encyclical.(It only quoted those against.) In particular, it noted one which it described as a compelling rebuttal:

"But one of the most compelling rebuttals was not a direct one. It came from Professor Julian Sorell Huxley. Brother of Novelist Aldous Leonard (Point Counterpoint) Huxley, and grandson of the late great Biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, Julian Huxley is himself a most distinguished biologist and eloquent member of the scientific vanguard. Speaking to the Philadelphia Forum, he said: "In the long run we must envisage the control of population in the same manner we now control contagious disease. Birth control is by no means perfect, but it is one of the major events in the world's history! . . . In one or two centuries ... we shall tell the man who can't provide for himself and his family that he cannot have State aid unless he agrees not to have any more children. If he refuses, State aid shall also be refused him or else he shall be locked up. ... In our society a man with a small family finds that he gets ahead quicker and that his smaller number of children can have greater advantages. All of this may seem very undemocratic, but heredity and biology are very undemocratic."

After the Nazi experiences in Germany discredited such practices, Pope Pius XII re-iterated the position in his Allocution to midwives, October 29, 1951.  He said:

"It would be more than a mere lack of readiness in the service of life if an attack made by man were to concern not only a single act but should affect the organism itself to deprive it, by means of sterilisation, of the faculty of procreating a new life. Here, too, you have a clear rule in the Church's teaching to guide your behaviour both interiorly and exteriorly. Direct sterilisation— that is, whose aim tends as a means or as an end at making procreation impossible—is a grave violation of the moral law and therefore unlawful. Not even public authority has any right, under the pretext of any "indication" whatsoever, to permit it, and less still to prescribe it or to have it used to the detriment of innocent human beings.

This principle is already proclaimed in the above mentioned Encyclical of Pius XI on marriage. Thus when ten years or so ago sterilisation came to be more widely applied, the Holy See saw the necessity of expressly and publicly declaring that direct sterilisation, either perpetual or temporary, in either the male or the female, is unlawful according to natural law, from which, as you well know, not even the Church has the power to dispense.

As far as you can, oppose, in your apostolate, these perverse tendencies and do not give them your cooperation

FURTHER REFERENCES:

1. The experience in the United States

Eugenic Sterilization Laws by Paul Lombardo, University of Virginia
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay8text.html

The Eugenics Archive
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/

"Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Virginia, Eugenics, and Buck v. Bell"
http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/library/historical/eugenics/index.cfm

Eugenics in America : Sterilization
http://www.facinghistorycampus.org/campus/rm.nsf/0/378157EF2F49B448852570360070E6F5

The Betrayal at the Root of the Culture Wars By Anne Barbeau Gardiner (New Oxford Review)
http://www.newoxfordreview.org/reviews.jsp?did=1006-gardiner

Eugenic Sterilization and a Qualified Nazi Analogy:
The United States and Germany, 1930–1945
Andre´ N. Sofair, MD, MPH, and Lauris C. Kaldjian, MD
Ann Intern Med.: American College of Physicians–American Society of Internal Medicine (2000) (.pdf file)
http://www.annals.org/cgi/reprint/132/4/312.pdf

Eugenic Sterilization and a Nazi Analogy
Jay A. Nathanson, MD, and Michael A. Grodin, MD
Ann Intern Med.: (June 2000)
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/132/12/1008

Catholic participation in the American Eugenics Society in the 1920s by Sharon Leon (.pdf file)
Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences Volume 59, Number 1, pages 3 -49 (2004)
http://jhmas.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/59/1/3.pdf

2. The experience in the United Kingdom

The Enemy of Eugenics by Russell Sparkes
http://www.secondspring.co.uk/articles/sparkes.htm

Eugenics and Politics in Britain, 1900-1914 by G. R. Searle
http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:mDCDnUh4u70J:www.arno.daastol.com/books/searle.rtf+mental+deficiency+act+1913+%
2Bchesterton&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=16&ie=UTF-8

3. General History

SHAPING GENES:
Ethics, Law and Science of Using New Genetic Technology in Medicine and Agriculture
12. Selective Human Breeding (pp. 214-235 )
http://www.csu.edu.au/learning/eubios/SG12.html

St John Vianney

This week is the feast of St John Vianney

While he was alive, the Curé d’Ars (St John Vianney 1786 – 1859) always refused to allow himself to be photographed.

On the centenary of his death in 1959, there was commissioned a « Photo-robot » derived from various documents especially the death photographs a true likeness of the Saint. Below is the result.

Source: French National Archives