Design for a Gospel-Book. Photo taken by artist. My most complex piece yet.
The Immaculate Heart of Mary. Photo taken by artist. A first try at a theme I’d like to return to someday.
Personal Flag of the Artist. Photo taken by artist. Been mulling over this heraldic and vexillological design for a while.
The Puffins of Little Skellig, featured in the show. (Source)
Recently, I had the good fortune of watching Ireland’s Wild Coast, a PBS piece. I must recommend it in the highest possible terms. You can watch the trailer here. From PBS’s description:
Emmy Award-winning wildlife cameraman Colin Stafford-Johnson takes viewers on an authored odyssey along Ireland’s rugged Atlantic coast – the place he chooses to make his home after 30 years spent shooting some of the world’s most celebrated wildlife films.
The show goes far beyond what we’re used to in the usual nature documentaries. Stafford-Johnson’s skill with the camera is peerless. Many of his shots are photographic gems in their own right. His birds are a particular delight to watch. He captures them as they move in stillness—Kestrel, Eagle, Swan. Brought together with beautiful music and sensitive narration over the course of two hours, the gorgeous shots elevate each other to the level of true documentary art.
Irish Swans, photo by Colin Stafford-Johnson. (Source)
Stafford-Johnson couldn’t be more different than, say, David Attenborough—distant, officious, illustrative, objective, professorial. In a word, British.
Instead, he has given us a distinctly Irish documentary. Every scene is infused with an Irish sensibility. Gone is the slightly stuffy, very British narration conveying little more than scientific data about the life cycle and behavior of various animals; gone the humanitarian appeals for conservation or legislative action on climate change; gone, too, the very American emphasis on spectacle and action. While there’s some information about the creatures that inhabit the west coast of Ireland and the threats they face, it comes across in a very different way. British and American nature shows are prose, and sometimes clunky, technical prose at that. Ireland’s Wild Coast is pure poetry. Or even—dare I say it—a prayer.
At every turn, we can sense Stafford-Johnson’s affection for and intimacy with his subject. For example, Stafford-Johnson rather touchingly says that a stag in rut “has only one thing on his mind: fatherhood.” He admires the tenacity of the humble lamprey; “Any creature that has been around for that long has got life sorted.” He has a wonderful tendency to humanize the animals he films. Surrounded by humpback whales at rest after feeding, he says, “I like to think that other animals can be happy.” In some sense, that’s the whole point of Ireland’s Wild Coast. To show us the joy of the natural world, and help us rekindle our wonder in it.
Likewise, Stafford-Johnson’s environmental concerns are usually framed by a winsome sense of home. These animals are Ireland; they belong to the land and sea; they form an integral part of his home, and must be preserved as such. The Irish sense of place, an obsession that has formed the country’s art, literature, and politics for centuries, colors Stafford-Johnson’s narration in more ways than one. For this film is not just a nature documentary. At the Skelligs, at Great Blasket, at Corcomroe, and in his traditional rowboat, Stafford-Johnson reflects on the Irish people in their history and culture. He wistfully wonders what kind of life the men who built the beehive huts of Skellig Michael might have led. He contemplates the dissolution of the monasteries. And he tells us a few old Irish legends along the way.
Red Deer Stag, by Colin Stafford-Johnson. Featured in the film. (Source).
The viewer is led to contemplate nature and history through a poetic lens. We become fellow-travelers with Stafford-Johnson as he winds his way up the West Coast on a watery pilgrimage. Any student of Sophiology will recognize in Ireland’s Wild Coast a perfect example of truly Sophianic art. As Michael Martin writes at the beginning of his essential text, The Submerged Reality: Sophiology and the Return to a Poetic Metaphysics:
For sophiology, especially as articulated from the 17th century onward, asks us to attend to the grace of God, his presence, in Creation: a presence which, despite the world’s fallenness, can only be described (in the words of Genesis) as “good.” (3)
That’s precisely the message that Stafford-Johnson most powerfully communicates. Not that the earth is in danger; not that wild animals live interesting and impressive lives; not even that Ireland has a unique and valuable ecosystem on its west coast. Nothing so pragmatic as that. Rather, we are left with the powerful sense of the goodness of creation. We are led to delight in it.
In watching the film—in rewatching it—in writing this piece—I am reminded not only of the lessons of latter-day sophiologists, but of that sophiologist malgré lui, Gerard Manley Hopkins. Specifically, the words of his great sonnet, “God’s Grandeur.”
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
No words so perfectly describe the Kestrel of Corcomroe as it hovers, hesitates, and then glides down with Pentecostal grace upon its unsuspecting prey.
The Kestrel, shot by Colin Stafford-Johnson. It is impossible to understand how beautiful this bird is without seeing it in motion. (Source).
St. Augustine, Ora Pro Nobis. (Source)
I read this passage from the Confessions today and it instantly became one of my favorites selections from St. Augustine. The translation by Maria Boulding OSB is much prettier, but it’s not public domain. What follows is Book X, Chapters 6-7 (Para. 8-11).
Not with uncertain, but with assured consciousness do I love You, O Lord. You have stricken my heart with Your word, and I loved You. And also the heaven, and earth, and all that is therein, behold, on every side they say that I should love You; nor do they cease to speak unto all, so that they are without excuse.
Romans 1:20 But more profoundly will You have mercy on whom You will have mercy, and compassion on whom You will have compassion, otherwise do both heaven and earth tell forth Your praises to deaf ears. But what is it that I love in loving You? Not corporeal beauty, nor the splendour of time, nor the radiance of the light, so pleasant to our eyes, nor the sweet melodies of songs of all kinds, nor the fragrant smell of flowers, and ointments, and spices, not manna and honey, not limbs pleasant to the embracements of flesh. I love not these things when I love my God; and yet I love a certain kind of light, and sound, and fragrance, and food, and embracement in loving my God, who is the light, sound, fragrance, food, and embracement of my inner man— where that light shines unto my soul which no place can contain, where that sounds which time snatches not away, where there is a fragrance which no breeze disperses, where there is a food which no eating can diminish, and where that clings which no satiety can sunder. This is what I love, when I love my God.
And what is this? I asked the earth; and it answered, I am not He;
and whatsoever are therein made the same confession. I asked the sea and the deeps, and the creeping things that lived, and they replied, We are not your God, seek higher than we.
I asked the breezy air, and the universal air with its inhabitants answered, Anaximenes was deceived, I am not God.
I asked the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars: Neither,
say they, are we the God whom you seek?
And I answered unto all these things which stand about the door of my flesh, You have told me concerning my God, that you are not He; tell me something about Him.
And with a loud voice they exclaimed, He made us.
My questioning was my observing of them; and their beauty was their reply. And I directed my thoughts to myself, and said, Who are you?
And I answered, A man.
And lo, in me there appear both body and soul, the one without, the other within. By which of these should I seek my God, whom I had sought through the body from earth to heaven, as far as I was able to send messengers— the beams of my eyes? But the better part is that which is inner; for to it, as both president and judge, did all these my corporeal messengers render the answers of heaven and earth and all things therein, who said, We are not God, but He made us.
These things was my inner man cognizant of by the ministry of the outer; I, the inner man, knew all this— I, the soul, through the senses of my body. I asked the vast bulk of the earth of my God, and it answered me, I am not He, but He made me.
Is not this beauty visible to all whose senses are unimpaired? Why then does it not speak the same things unto all? Animals, the very small and the great, see it, but they are unable to question it, because their senses are not endowed with reason to enable them to judge on what they report. But men can question it, so that the invisible things of Him . . . are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made;
Romans 1:20 but by loving them, they are brought into subjection to them; and subjects are not able to judge. Neither do the creatures reply to such as question them, unless they can judge; nor will they alter their voice (that is, their beauty), if so be one man only sees, another both sees and questions, so as to appear one way to this man, and another to that; but appearing the same way to both, it is mute to this, it speaks to that— yea, verily, it speaks unto all but they only understand it who compare that voice received from without with the truth within. For the truth declares unto me, Neither heaven, nor earth, nor any body is your God.
This, their nature declares unto him that beholds them. They are a mass; a mass is less in part than in the whole.
Now, O my soul, you are my better part, unto you I speak; for you animate the mass of your body, giving it life, which no body furnishes to a body but your God is even unto you the Life of life.
What then is it that I love when I love my God? Who is He that is above the head of my soul? By my soul itself will I mount up unto Him. I will soar beyond that power of mine whereby I cling to the body, and fill the whole structure of it with life. Not by that power do I find my God; for then the horse and the mule, which have no understanding,
might find Him, since it is the same power by which their bodies also live. But there is another power, not that only by which I quicken, but that also by which I endow with sense my flesh, which the Lord has made for me; bidding the eye not to hear, and the ear not to see; but that, for me to see by, and this, for me to hear by; and to each of the other senses its own proper seat and office, which being different, I, the single mind, do through them govern. I will soar also beyond this power of mine; for this the horse and mule possess, for they too discern through the body.
And I’ll add this paragraph from Chapter 17 (Para. 26), which strongly reminds me of Cardinal Newman’s project in the Apologia Pro Vita Sua:
Great is the power of memory; very wonderful is it, O my God, a profound and infinite manifoldness; and this thing is the mind, and this I myself am. What then am I, O my God? Of what nature am I? A life various and manifold, and exceeding vast. Behold, in the numberless fields, and caves, and caverns of my memory, full without number of numberless kinds of things, either through images, as all bodies are; or by the presence of the things themselves, as are the arts; or by some notion or observation, as the affections of the mind are, which, even though the mind does not suffer, the memory retains, while whatsoever is in the memory is also in the mind: through all these do I run to and fro, and fly; I penetrate on this side and that, as far as I am able, and nowhere is there an end. So great is the power of memory, so great the power of life in man, whose life is mortal. What then shall I do, O Thou my true life, my God? I will pass even beyond this power of mine which is called memory— I will pass beyond it, that I may proceed to You, O Thou sweet Light. What sayest Thou to me? Behold, I am soaring by my mind towards You who remainest above me. I will also pass beyond this power of mine which is called memory, wishful to reach You whence You can be reached, and to cleave unto You whence it is possible to cleave unto You. For even beasts and birds possess memory, else could they never find their lairs and nests again, nor many other things to which they are used; neither indeed could they become used to anything, but by their memory. I will pass, then, beyond memory also, that I may reach Him who has separated me from the four-footed beasts and the fowls of the air, making me wiser than they. I will pass beyond memory also, but where shall I find You, O Thou truly good and assured sweetness? But where shall I find You? If I find You without memory, then am I unmindful of You. And how now shall I find You, if I do not remember You?
The Bonham House, Saluda, SC (Source).
It’s been a while since I posted any original wordcraft, so here’s a poem I wrote recently. The last part is a song. I wanted to hearken to the Scotch-Irish traditions of the poor folks who settled the Carolinas. You can hear me sing it on the embedded audio I have included.
On the Strange and Lamentable Tale of the Witches of Saluda
I. The Town
I saw them dancing at the old waterworks
with torchlight in their eyes, huge
gates to unseen countries
of the damned and dying.
Off in the woods, the fog
snaked through like a hungry hound bent
low over the scent
of some lesser beast.
The pines keep our secrets from us,
so we can forget.
Didn’t you know that even the
goats and horses have eyes, ears,
loose lips muttering imprecations
under their breath? Never
look over your shoulder
at a crossroads. Men have died,
petrified, for less.
Or else they shoot into space
and freeze in the rictus of their fathers,
grinning madly at the dead sun
below. I have drawn
salt from the shadow of your footsteps,
I have planted rows of teeth in my head.
What dragons will come
when I bring a scythe
to the harvest?
II. The Purlieu
You hardly know how dark
the young pine woods can be.
Not a patch of tall trees, mind you,
but ones that stand
just about twice your size.
Still plenty of silent life ahead of them.
You can see them at the edge of evening,
surrounding a field surrounding
a low crop of tombstones
all asunder and blurred
by the rain’s improvident hand.
The trees wait there, wordless,
dusk-bleached, lined up like so many
carious teeth. But they are not
what draws my eye—
the fathomless
dark that spreads behind
like a growling and
hungry gullet.
III. The Back Yard
It will not go away.
Momma said to come to the table,
no use passing your life
by the back window
daydreaming.
But I could see it pacing the lawn as I ate.
Huge, black,
unblinking, white
of tooth.
I don’t think it ever sleeps.
The heat of the noonday and the
shadow that flies by night
do not afflict it—
the stones in its shoes
and the rancid water it sips
out of our traschan lids
do not injure it—
the play of the neighbors
and the tumult of the street
do not distract it.
I have not yet seen it blink.
I have not yet seen it turn its gaze
from the house.
It watches.
I don’t think it ever sleeps.
Momma says
daddy woudn’t have tolerated
any such foolishness.
I don’t know.
It makes not a sound.
I think it knows what we talk about
in the house.
I think it knows when we rise and fall
to our prayers.
I think it listens to what we confess,
to our fights, to the whisper of the rain.
I don’t want to go out there.
I don’t want it to get it.
I don’t think it ever sleeps.
IV. Found in a Buried Notebook, Written in Red Ink
Don’t turn your back to the trees
or walk up the weed-cracked pavement
beneath the sign that reads
CAR ASH CO N LAUNDRY
and don’t keep the pottery you dig up
in your garden
bonewhite under the red
clay and grey sand. Don’t
venture to the edge of the field that
smells like salt
and don’t keep your teeth in a shoebox
(it might become a skull)
and don’t knock on walls
where there should be a door
or take down the portraits
of the nameless.
Don’t ponder what might have
broken the sign from the fencepost
or written its replacement
in an unknown script.
Don’t let your children go to the post office alone.
Don’t let your daughter play with the dolls
she doesn’t remember receiving.
V. The Song of the Lost Daughters
The young girls singing thread silk in their hair
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Discarding the rest of the clothes that they wear
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
They join with the voices of the torchbearing throng
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
And soon they forget every other sweet song
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Songs that illumine the queer, darkened lands
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Like the water you pour over bloody hands
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Her lace crown covers her eyes as they lead
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Her into a thicket that smells of ripe seed
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
To hide from the angels that watch in the trees
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
And teach her the sacred rites of the bees
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
“An will ye cam back to yer mother so fine?”
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
“Ah will ye return to me, daughter of mine?”
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
“Ah mother, dear mother, I can’t come at all”
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
“Until I’ve repeated our first mother’s fall”
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
“The Sabbath is waiting, the dance oh so dear”
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
“To teach us the meaning behind every fear”
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
They never did see her again in the day
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
But once on a new moon, as old people say
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Seven years waiting and seven years won
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Seven years burning, but far from the Sun
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Beware, all me daughters, what hides in the air
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
And never thread silks so fine in your hair
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
All ye holy English Martyrs, pray for us. (Source)
Anglo-Catholic readers will no doubt have mourned the demise of Conner McNeill’s Merrily on High, what was once among the best and most prolific AC blogs on the web. Never fear! Connor McNeill rides again. He’s back with a new blog called Mary’s Dowry. It looks as tasteful, reverent, and aesthetically sophisticated as the project that preceded it.
Mr. McNeill has decided to depart from the Church of England and join the Roman Communion. As he had been pursuing ordination with the C of E, this conversion is no small undertaking. Pray for him! And check out Mary’s Dowry while you’re at it.
Corredenzione, by Giovanni Gasparro. This painting convinced my heart of the doctrine of the Co-Redemption of Mary. (Source).
It is appropriate on this Feast of Our Lady’s Coronation and Everlasting Queenship that we contemplate the fleeting thrones of this lesser world. Let us commemorate the loss of two great English dynasties, fixed on this day by Providence.
On Aug. 22, 1485, His Majesty King Richard III was defeated on Bosworth Field by a usurper from the House of the Tudors. The Red Dragon of Wales eclipsed the White Rose of York; years later, T.S. Eliot would wear the flower every 22nd of August.
The Personal Standard of Richard III. (Source).
On Aug. 22, 1642, His Majesty King Charles I raised the Royal Standard at Nottingham. This act has widely been considered the formal start of the English Civil War that would end in Puritan dictatorship, the slaughter of the Irish and Scots, and the martyrdom of the King himself for the doctrine of Episcopacy.
The Royal Standard of the Stuarts, 1603-1649. (Source).
Consider the leaden weight of these crowns. Worn by men alternately noble and feeble, loyal and inconstant, heroic and fearful, they rot away with the passage of time. The gilt of their craft and the earthly acclaim of their subjects have gone the way of all flesh. Those crowns are memories, but even in memory they do not earn the glory and affection they once inspired. Their reputations are occulted with cumbersome connotations. Richard has been much maligned ever since his death, in part by no less a personage than Shakespeare himself. Charles, a more complicated figure, has been swallowed up by his role as the symbolic center of Tory anxieties and Whig acrimony for the better part of four centuries. More bitterly, both kings “Accept the constitution of silence/And are folded in a single party.” They have become an unimportant datum of historical trivia for most people, even in England.
The Coronation of the Virgin, by the Limbourg Brothers. (Source)
How unlike those crowns is that won by Mary! She who was immaculately conceived and preserved from every stain of sin never sullies her crown by any failure of virtue. Having borne the Son of God in her womb, no other glory could ever outstrip what she has already known in her perpetually virginal maternity. Assumed into heaven, she is preserved from the terrible corruption of the grave. And now, as the Church celebrates the Octave Day of the Assumption, we contemplate the eternal joy which her coronation engenders in all the ranks of the blessed. All generations have called her blessed, and all will forevermore. She will never be reduced in the eyes of the world, because no one is more perfect in the eyes of God.
Has there ever been so marvelous a creature as Mary? Can we name, in the orderly chaos of the creation, a being more closely united to the Trinity? Who else among mere mortals has been lauded as “More honorable than the Cherubim, and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim?” In her burns the fire of charity; in her grows the ground of humility; in her flows the water of purity; in her soars the mighty wind of patience. She is the New and Sophianic Eve, in which the Wisdom of God is most clearly manifest.
And why? Because she is the threefold Mother of the Redeemer. First, by her Fiat, she assents to a physical maternity of the Word Incarnate. Second, by the sorrows of her Immaculate Heart at the Cross, she wins a sacramental maternity of Christ in the Eucharist. And third, by her prayer in the Cenacle on Pentecost, she gains a mystical maternity of Christ in the whole Church. This threefold motherhood is but one theandric maternity—and thus we see the Trinitarian character of Our Lady’s co-redemption. She and she alone of all mankind is so favored and so bound to the work of Christ.
Coronation of the Virgin, Enguerrand Quarton. 1454. (Source). Mary crowned by the Trinity is surely an icon of the Eschaton.
A friend of mine passed on this passage from St. Amadeus of Lausanne, a Cistercian most famous for his eight homilies in praise of the Mother of God. He took it from Universalis, which gives the full liturgy of the hours online. Thus, the Church particularly commends these words to us on this holy day:
Observe how fitting it was that even before her assumption the name of Mary shone forth wondrously throughout the world. Her fame spread everywhere even before she was raised above the heavens in her magnificence. Because of the honour due her Son, it was indeed fitting for the Virgin Mother to have first ruled upon earth and then be raised up to heaven in glory. It was fitting that her fame be spread in this world below, so that she might enter the heights of heaven on overwhelming blessedness. Just as she was borne from virtue to virtue by the Spirit of the Lord, she was transported from earthly renown to heavenly brightness.
So it was that she began to taste the fruits of her future reign while still in the flesh. At one moment she withdrew to God in ecstasy; at the next she would bend down to her neighbours with indescribable love. In heaven angels served her, while here on earth she was venerated by the service of men. Gabriel and the angels waited upon her in heaven. The virgin John, rejoicing that the Virgin Mother was entrusted to him at the cross, cared for her with the other apostles here below. The angels rejoiced to see their queen; the apostles rejoiced to see their lady, and both obeyed her with loving devotion.
The Coronation of the Virgin, Cima da Conegliano. (Source).
Dwelling in the loftiest citadel of virtue, like a sea of divine grace or an unfathomable source of love that has everywhere overflowed its banks, she poured forth her bountiful waters on trusting and thirsting souls. Able to preserve both flesh and spirit from death she bestowed health-giving salve on bodies and souls. Has anyone ever come away from her troubled or saddened or ignorant of the heavenly mysteries? Who has not returned to everyday life gladdened and joyful because his request had been granted by the Mother of God?
She is a bride, so gentle and affectionate, and the mother of the only true bridegroom. In her abundant goodness she has channelled the spring of reason’s garden, the well of living and life-giving waters that pour forth in a rushing stream from divine Lebanon and flow down from Mount Zion until they surround the shores of every far-flung nation. With divine assistance she has redirected these waters and made them into streams of peace and pools of grace. Therefore, when the Virgin of virgins was led forth by God and her Son, the King of kings, amid the company of exulting angels and rejoicing archangels, with the heavens ringing with praise, the prophecy of the psalmist was fulfilled, in which he said to the Lord: At your right hand stands the queen, clothed in gold of Ophir.
An illustration of “The Woman Clothed With the Sun.” (Source)
St. Amadeus is right; “Has anyone ever come away from her troubled or saddened or ignorant of the heavenly mysteries? Who has not returned to everyday life gladdened and joyful because his request had been granted by the Mother of God?” We who still struggle with sin on the path to beatitude cannot hope to achieve our goal if we will not be with and like Mary. We, too, are promised crowns. The scriptures mention five: the imperishable crown (1 Cor. 5:24-25), the crown of rejoicing (1 Thess. 2:19), the crown of righteousness (2 Tim. 4:8), the crown of glory (1 Pet. 5:4), and the crown of life (Rev. 2:10). Our Lady wears all these and seven more, for she is the “woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars” (Rev. 12:1 KJV). Are these other seven stars the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, her spouse? Or the seven cardinal virtues? Or the seven sacraments that constitute the Church? Or the seven lesser ranks of the angels in praise of their queen? Impossible to say. Mary is not only the fountain of all holiness, but the mother of the Church’s deepest mysteries.
How might I end this praise of Our Lady that could properly continue ad infinitum? By returning to those lesser crowns with which I began.
Earthly splendor is no great thing. It can only be built on suffering—either our own or that of others. Even when turned to good (as, I would argue, Charles I attempted to use his power), it reflects something of our fallen state. It is slippery, contingent, and as mortal as we are. But the glory of heaven is without end. Incorrupt and incorruptible, it abides in the gaze of the Father. Mary, above all creation, receives this kind of glory. She, the New Eve to the New Adam, mirrors Him in all things. Let us run after the course she trod before us, the course of Her Son’s redemption! Only by pursuing a life like Christ’s can we hope for a reward like Mary’s.
May she pray for us as we celebrate her feast today.
“Coronation of the Virgin,” Fra Angelico. (Source). The Blessed Angelico returned to this subject throughout his career, but this version, hanging in the Uffizi Gallery, is my favorite.
The National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, St. Bede, Williamsburg, VA. (Source)
Of your charity, please pray for me. Today I begin a 33-day retreat for Marian Consecration. Normally I would not wish to broadcast such a spiritual undertaking on my blog, but since I know several of you, I would rather avail myself of your prayers than keep silent.
Astute Kalendar watchers will know that if I start today, on the Feast of Our Lady, Queen of Heaven, then the day of consecration will fall on September 24th. That’s the feast of Our Lady of Walsingham (well, technically not since it’s on a Sunday this year, but I don’t really care). I’ll be in London. Please pray that I might be able to pronounce the prayer at the Brompton Oratory if at all possible, and more importantly, that I might truly and obediently submit to Mary’s gentle guidance in all things.
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy,
hail, our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve:
to thee do we send up our sighs,
mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn then, most gracious Advocate,
thine eyes of mercy toward us,
and after this our exile,
show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary!V. Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God,
R. That we might be made worthy of the promises of Christ.Amen.
Here are some more of my August projects.
“Map of Hanserat, Vosh Kyaz, and the Isles.” Photo by artist. An imaginary map I came up with a while ago and wanted to see in color.
“Under the Sycamore Trees.” Photo by artist. We are like the dreamer…
“Gluttony.” Photo by artist. I may do a series on the seven deadly sins.
The famous portrait of Bishop Challoner to which Fr. Hunwicke refers in his piece. (Source)
I haven’t written much this week, as I’ve been traveling. However, on this beautiful St. Bernard’s Day, I thought I’d share this brief and wonderful gem of a piece by Fr. John Hunwicke of the Ordinariate.
An excerpt:
I’m sure there are zillions of you out there who have the following sort of information right at your snuff-stained finger tips: did prelates eo fere tempore wear their wigs all through Mass? Even after their zucchetto had been removed as they approached the Consecration? When did Catholic bishops stop wearing wigs? (I think it went out of fashion in Anglican cicles in the 1830s.)
He also gets into the question of blue episcopal choir dress, mainly used in France and Ireland. Read the whole thing.
Clerical dress is one of my longstanding interests, as is the history of 18th century Catholicism. I’m glad Fr. Hunwicke is using his formidable celebrity to draw attention to these matters. While some may dismiss clerical fashion (particularly that of the Ancien Régime) as a trivial matter, I beg to differ. Clerical dress both during and outside of the liturgy is one more aesthetic component by which we can present “the beauty of holiness.” The nondescript threads worn by so many clergy and religious today are, alas, one more surrender to the cult of stark utility, false equality, failed individuality, and, in the end, boring homogeneity.
At the moment, I don’t have the time or capacity to research the questions Fr. Hunwicke raises. But The Amish Catholic will follow this story with all due attention and gravity. You can count on that. In the meantime, I’ll feast my eyes on this doozy of a cappa magna.
Fascists surrounding student protesters on the steps of the Rotunda, UVA, Charlottesville, Virginia. This photo was taken last Friday night, August 11th, 2017. (Source).
One last word.
Although it does not come from yesterday’s readings, a verse has been threading through my mind for the course of the weekend. Nazis brought burning torches onto the Lawn that was once my home, but those torches cast no light. They bristled with a darkness blacker and thicker than the shadows that lay all around in the night. The real illumination came from those few brave students under the statue of Jefferson, who resisted the onslaught of wicked men streaming down the steps of the Rotunda. Watching their courage, I can only think of those words from St. John the Divine:
“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”
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