Mantilla the Hon on Church Art

Guest blogger Mantilla Amontillado is the founder of Veritas Vestments. She holds a degree in Ecclesiastical Haberdashery from Salamanca University. She has done the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella three times on horseback and is engaged to the famous matador, Senor Augusto Torquemada

The other day hon, I am going to this conference for priests to set up my table and you know, there is this guy there who is talking to me about the art he does for churches. He is making this abstract art which he thinks is very smart. It is a tabernacle which is stuck into the middle of this large piece of wood which he tells me is supposed to be a tree. Then on top of this tree is some metal. It is supposed to look like a big crown of thorns I think, but it looks more like something he gets out of a junkyard, but he is all excited and tells me that when the light come through the stained glass window which is green it shines on the junkyard stuff so it look like tree leaves. He is telling me that this is like the tree of life, but inside is the tabernacle. Then he asks me what I am thinking, and is waiting there like some kind of eager puppy for me to tell him how smart he is.

So hon, let me tell you, after I finish yawning I say to him, "Look, this is not really what I think of for a tabernacle. Why do you have to be so smart and put it into a tree? I don't want the tabernacle to look like a tree. I want it to look like a tabernacle. You know what I mean?" But he doesn't know what I mean so I try to explain, "Look, when I see a tabernacle I just want it to be a tabernacle. It should look like a little house for Jesus but made out of gold. That's all. Why you want to put Jesus in a tree?" But I can see he thinks I'm stupid and know nothing about art, so I just tell him that I have to go have a pee. That always shuts up stupid men.

Anyway hon, I'm sitting in the bar having a Pink Gin Fizz and I'm thinking about this Jesus in a tree and now I'm getting kind of, you know, angry about it. See it's like this hon, when you get all clever and creative about a tabernacle what you are doing is drawing attention not to the tabernacle and to Jesus but to yourself. That's not good. Another thing is that if it is a tree tabernacle, then once you understand the symbol, then that is all it can ever be--just a pretend tree, and its not even a nice tree. If you want a nice tree go into the forest. There they have nice trees. If it is a tabernacle, and just look like a little house for Jesus, then you can see many different meanings. Then it is a true symbol.

So when you see the little house for Jesus all made out of gold you think of heaven which is a place where he go to make many mansions for us. One day will will all have a little gold house to live in with Jesus, but we're not going to have trees to live in are we? Then I am thinking if it is just a little house for Jesus, then it reminds me of the Ark of the Covenant where the holy bread was kept, and I think of the Blessed Mother who was also the Ark of the Covenant. She was a beautiful little house for Jesus when he live in her womb. Then I am also thinking when I look at the tabernacle of the temple of God in Jerusalem because that is also his house, and I am thinking that I should be a temple of the Holy Spirit and be a beautiful tabernacle for God.

So I am thinking all of this and getting pretty mad at that smart artist guy who think he is so clever for making Jesus live in a tree house. What is this, some kind of Swiss Family Robinson Jesus? No. A tabernacle should look like a tabernacle. A tabernacle doesn't have to be turned into a symbol. It is already a symbol. This is something you should always remember. This is what I learn when I do my degree in Ecclesiastical Haberdashery at Salamanca: a symbol is a symbol. Don't put symbols on top of symbols. It's stupid and even worse, it's tacky.

Anyway, these kind of artists don't know nothing about sacred art. All they know is how to be so smart and show everybody how creative they are. The great church artists would spit on them, or maybe just laugh at them.

You Won't Be Real Catholics...

ABY: Those Anglicans who join the Ordinariate. They won't be real Catholics you know.

Interviewer: But they would simply be in a similar situation to the Eastern Rite churches wouldn't they?

ABY: What is Eastern Rite Churches?

CofE Conservative Revolt

This article from the Daily Telegraph has a misleading headline. It purports to be all about a new homosexuality row in the Church of England. In fact, it is more interesting than that. If I am reading it correctly, there is a move amongst Anglo Catholic and Evangelical conservatives in the Church of England to get the CofE to align itself with the Anglican Church in North America.

ACNA is a confederation of conservative groups that have come together and are putting themselves forward as the rightful continuing group of Anglicans in North America. By getting the Church of England to align with ACNA the conservatives are being pretty shrewd. Rather than expel the Episcopal Church from the Anglican Communion (which would never happen) they want the Church of England to simply do a side step and align with ACNA. It is not clear whether they want the CofE to align with ACNA in addition to the Episcopal Church or instead of the Episcopal Church.

It is interesting to see this whole thing continue to develop. The main problem, of course, is one of authority. Why should ACNA necessarily be the real continuing Anglican Church in North America and not one of the other 100 or so continuing churches? I don't think it will fly. The Church of England is dominated by establishment type liberals. They're not going to hook up with a bunch of New World breakaways. Nevertheless, it was a nice try boys.

Hey, I know! Why don't these disenchanted Anglicans put the same effort into making the Anglican Ordinariate fly worldwide? Because they'd rather have a couple of thousand popes than one pope.

Meanwhile Damian Thompson reports on what the Archbishop of York thinks of the Anglican Ordinariate..."they won't be proper Catholics..."

English Lass to Attend Super-bowl Party

Mrs. Longenecker, who misses England, but is bearing the suffering of living in South Carolina with all the dignity of a martyr is to attend her first Super Bowl party tomorrow evening.

She's already committed a faux pas by asking which basketball teams are playing, so are there any female veterans of such social events who can give her a few hints? What is the dress code? Is she to sit in front of the wide screen TV with the fellas swilling beer, munching pretzels and cheering the gladiators on? Will she have to spout knowledgeably about first yard lines, field goals and first and ten to go, or do all the ladies retire to a drawing room with their embroidery to sip sweet tea?

As a native American who grew up without a TV, lived for 25 years in England and is rather unconcerned about athletics, I have to confess that this is only my second such important event. I think I'll be able to fake it though...

Liturgy Conference Report

NLM has a report here on the recent Society for Catholic Liturgy conference held at St Mary's Greenville.

The picture is the interior of St Mary's and shows the altar at which I am graced to celebrate Mass each Sunday.

Grace Alone

Since coming into the Catholic Church I have become increasingly bewildered by the Protestant objection that Catholics believe in salvation by works. Often the Catholic is accused of believing this because of his reliance on the sacraments, but this can only be held by someone who does not understand the Catholic view of the sacraments.

The non-Catholic perceives the sacraments to be performed by human beings through a humanly invented religious institution. These 'works' are something Catholics perform and receive in order to get salvation. They are added to by the 'good works' Catholics have to do in order to 'win merit' and get into heaven.

But Catholics don't believe that the church is a human institution or that the priest is just a man doing some religious works in that human institution. Instead we see that the Church is a divine institution. It is the Body of Christ on earth. The priest acts in persona Christi. Therefore it is Christ, through his Church and through the action of the priest, who performs and provides for all the sacraments.

Once this is understood it becomes clear that far from the sacraments being some sort of religious 'good work'. They are the pure, un-merited action of God towards us. The sacraments are the gift of Christ to his church through his church. When we come to baptism or communion or confession or any of the other four sacraments we come totally empty handed. 'Nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to Thy cross I cling.' We come to receive from him the grace of the salvation he won for us. This is exhibited nowhere better than in infant baptism, when the child, totally helpless and reliant on others is brought (like the paralyzed man who was lowered through the roof) to the feet of Christ.

We respond to this outpouring of grace with faith and faith-ful actions, but even then, it is Catholic teaching that the faith we have and the faith-ful actions which result are themselves inspired and empowered by grace.

I have never been very intrigued by the justification debates because it seems to me that once this Catholic understanding of total reliance on grace is established as a foundation that all the rest of one's understandings of justification etc. are taken care of.

But there it is. I'm not great theologian I fear, and where the theologians see nuance and little problems I am blind.

The Church of England Morally Mute

Too often I am accused of taking pot shots at the Church of England, so I thought I'd let an Anglican vicar do my target practice for me. Here Rev.Giles Pinnock explains why the Church of England is so often silent in the face of moral outrage.

The Memory of God

Jeffrey Steel writes eloquently here and here about the Mass being not only our anamnesis or 'living memory' of the passion of Our Lord, but also that the Mass is God's way of remembering us.

Loathing Traddies

A commenter on an earlier post gives me a poke saying I "loathe traddies"

No I don't. I loathe self righteousness, and self righteous trendies are just as odious as self righteous traddies. The people I suspect are the ones (on both sides) who can't laugh at themselves.

This is why y'all ought to read The Gargoyle Code. I take pot shots at both sides. Try it. I think  you'd like it.

St Agatha Virgin and Martyr

Our age doesn't much understand the veneration the Catholic Church has for a fourth century Virgin and Martyr. Both Virginity and Martyrdom seem alien virtues in an age that is conditioned to do everything possible to remain alive as long as possible and treats sex like just another recreational activity. Virginity and Martyrdom? What does that mean?

The virtue of virginity is even misunderstood by Christians who otherwise value celibacy and 'family values.' People can't help but misconstrue the virtue and see it as somehow anti-marriage and anti-sex. Certainly there have been some Catholic writers who have treated sexual relations as innately filthy, but this is Christianity infected with Manichaeanism--that Eastern idea that the physical realm is somehow less worthy than the spiritual. So what is the virture of virginity?

There seem to me to be two aspects to it: first of all we value the virgins not because they have never had sexual intercourse. That would simply be a negative definition--like defining someone from Des Moines as 'a person who has never been to Paris, France.' No, there must be a positive virtue and it is that the virgin is one who has retained the essence of innocence and childhood. The gospel says that unless we become like a little child we cannot enter the kingdom, and the virgin is one who has retained a sense of beautiful, child-like innocence. Secondly, the virgin is one not one who has simply never had sexual intercourse. Lack of this action does not mean a person is truly a virgin. A person could be a physical virgin but be anything but virginal in his or her thoughts and words and activities.

The second aspect which confirms a true virgin in the spiritual sense is that this person who has remained a little child is also consecrated totally to God. This is the second aspect of virginity that all of us can learn from. We see the virgin martyrs like St Agatha and they become icons of what each of us must be, for each one of us, no matter how soiled and stained by our sins must again become like a little child. We must once more be washed in the blood of the Lamb and be restored to our baptismal perfection through the sacraments. We must also, like the virgin martyrs be totally and utterly dedicated to God. They show us this in their actual lives. We hope to attain it by God's grace.

Agatha is also a martyr in an age that cannot understand martyrdom. It is strange that we cannot, for we have just emerged from the bloodiest century the world has seen, a century when more innocent souls of all sorts endured torture and deprivation and a kind of martyrdom in the death camps, the pogroms, the holocausts and genocides. It is Christianity which begins to make sense of these deaths and says, "Here are souls who are baptized finally into the complete identification with Christ. They have given their blood for the blood of the Lamb"

So Agatha and the other martyrs show us two truths in their martyrdom. First, that there are some precious deep down realities that are the foundation of everything else, and we cannot compromise them without compromising everything else. Our faith is our heart. Take out our heart and we cease to live. The martyrs tell us that these deep down realities are so precious and so eternal that we would rather die than lose them. If this is so, then the martyrs also show us that to live in that reality is to live a kind of martyrdom day by day anyway. We are there to live only for that deep down reality which is the faith, and living that way is a way of daily, joyful sacrifice.

St Agatha, Virgin and Martyr, pray for us.

St Agatha's, Portsmouth

This former Anglican Church is now used by members of the Traditional Anglican Communion. Does this mean it will soon become a Catholic Church? Let's hope many other beautiful former Anglo Catholic Churches like this one will be salvaged and elevated for a beautiful celebration of the Mass. Read more about it here.

Among the Billion

Some days you simply see the reality and it is stunning. I was celebrating Mass with just a few people in our beautiful little daily Mass chapel when I held aloft the host and knew, just knew that the whole thing was true, not just true but deeply written in the deep genetic code of creation true.

Do I have my doubts? Not really, but sometimes the mind is distracted. Sometimes the concerns of the world, the everyday stuff turns your mind away and you don't think of the miracle. You forget the wonder. You neglect and overlook what is real and what is really happening.

And what did the trick for me this time was the action of blessing throats for St Blaise Day. We were a day late because I was out of town, but still the faithful wanted throats blessed, and so there I was with the crossed candles and the legends of a saint no one is quite sure about and a custom that to my old former Protestant mind seems at least quaint if not superstitious, but I do my job and I ask God's blessing and I conform my mind to the mind of the Church and at that moment the window opens and the light streams in and I'm getting misty because I see a child, a teenager, a middle aged teacher, a parent, a man with a PhD, a Vietnamese person, all come together for this simple act.

There, suddenly I see that I'm part of the billion. A billion Catholics that is, and growing for yes, the church is young and growing across the world. And suddenly the cynics and the intellectuals and the journalists and the angry atheists and the flippant worldly fools who think the church is dead and religion is for superstitious peasants and believe that the days of the religious people are over--all of that is not only shallow and flippant and empty, but it is not even the majority. It is the squeak of a mouse unaware that he is the room of an elephant. Many many more believe than disbelieve. Many many more believe in the fullness of the faith than anyone has stopped to count. Each week they are there quietly getting up and going to Mass because they believe, and they far, far outnumber the noisy doubters who shake their fist at God.

Call me triumphalist if you like, but I saw that the future is not dark and grim. The future is the Church. The future is all those thousands marching in Washington. The future is seminaries overflowing in Africa and Asia. The future is new religious orders, new vocations and a new Springtime in the Church.

I do not fear the future for I am one among the billion.

Ordinary People

I've just watched again Robert Redford's classic Oscar winning drama Ordinary People with Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore and Timothy Hutton. This is one of my favorite films. The study of the family dynamic in the midst of grief is stunning and heart wrenching. It reminds me of the book People of the Lie by M.Scott Peck.

Both Peck's book and the film portray the sort of evil that can exist within a family when one or more family members maintain a facade of perfection and unconsciously project all the evil onto another family member who is scapegoated. In the film the mother cannot bear anything to go amiss in her perfect suburban family. When her golden boy dies tragically the younger son assumes all the blame. The father's sensitive suffering, the boy's breakdown and the mother's cold resilience in the face of it is chilling.

This is one of those  films which does not have a morsel of explicit religion in it, but is woven through with deep lessons in human love and forgiveness that point ultimately to the love and forgiveness at the heart of the gospel. Despite no overt religion, a spiritual theme is woven through as the high school chorus sings Alleluias, and Hutton in his happy moments sings Alleluias as he euphorically runs along.  It may not be intended, but I also couldn't help reading into the film an extended meditation on the parable of the prodigal son with (in this case) the Mary Tyler Moore character playing the part of the self righteous elder son.

If you've never watched Ordinary People give it a try. The acting is excellent. Mary Tyler Moore is riveting, Hutton turns in an amazingly powerful performance for such a young actor and Sutherland supports the conflict between them alternating between weakness and strength.  Redford directs with a sure and understated eloquence to produce a piece of deep and powerful domestic drama which I think deserves to be a classic. The themes of enduring love and forgiveness--and the terrifying results when forgiveness and love are rejected echo in the heart and mind for a long time.

Beautiful Church Beautiful Bride

A comment on the post on beauty makes a good point. Churches should be beautiful because the Church is the bride of Christ and should be 'without spot and wrinkle, as a bride adorned for her husband.' The liturgy refers to Psalm 45 where the splendor of the king and his queen are praised and refer this to the church which is the bride of Christ and therefore the Queen of the King in the Kingdom of heaven.

If a church building is a symbol and sacramental of the Body of Christ, then each element in the building points to the organic Body of Christ. The imagery of the people of God being a temple or a building built up and dwelt in by the Holy Spirit pervades the New Testament, and we can build up a complex analogy with each believer being a living stone, the Lord being the corner stone, the apostles and prophets being the pillars and foundations...

If this is so, then a beautiful and glorious church building not only points us to the glory of the celestial city, but also to the supernatural beauty of the church, which is the result of grace perfecting the nature of each of the redeemed. I am just dipping my toe into this rich theology of sacred architecture, and musing while I wait for my plane, but the question then arises, what were they thinking when they built Catholic Churches that are carpeted arenas, flat flying saucer churches with amplification systems rather than acoustics and a meeting hall rather than a temple?

I think I know what they were thinking and it doesn't smell Catholic to me.

Update on the Anglican Ordinariate

Things are moving forward for the Anglican Ordinariate. Fr.Z has a report here from the English paper, The Church Times.

Three Rivers

It was great to have a little tour of Pittsburgh with Chris Chapman at the helm. Last evening I spoke to the Diocesan Adult Education Lecture Series on St Benedict and St Therese--The Little Rule and the Little Way. Met some blog readers, caught up on some reading and writing and am now heading back to Greenville. More and more airports provide free WiFi which means you can blog on the go.

I'm reading Kenneth Howell's new commentary on Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Symrna. A review will be posted shortly, but Howell points out how much the early fathers fought against Docetism. Docetism is the heresy that proposes that Jesus Christ was not fully God incarnate, but only seemed to be God or that he was merely 'godlike'. They also denied the reality of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist, denied the miraculous, neglected the poor and were eventually schismatic.

The interesting thing for me was to see how the Docetists were the modernists of their day. What do the modernists teach except that Christ was not really God in the flesh. Instead combined with a feel good self help kind of religion they teach that Christ was 'so fully man that he shows us God.' In other words he 'seemed' like God or reflects the Divine in Man. Like the Docetists they also deny miracles and the Eucharistic miracle. They also don't see the problem with schism.

Howell points out that Ignatius and Polycarp fought to defend the Catholic understanding of the faith. The fully incarnational view of Christ leads to the fully sacramental Catholic view. Jesus Christ was true God from true God. The bread and wine truly become the body, blood, soul and divinity of Our Lord. The Church is the Body of Christ, the sacrament of salvation. Therefore schism is a terrible wound to the Body of Christ the Church and a terrible wound to the unity of that Body through the Eucharist. In Catholicism everything is connected, and the sin of heresy and schism is not just a matter of 'well, I like this church better than that one' or 'this belief seems more reasonable to me' but both heresy and schism are grievous sins against the whole Church which is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.

Ignatius and Polycarp and the other fathers of the Church (as well as the apostles themselves) did not hesitate to condemn the heretics and schismatics as false teachers and enemies of the gospel of Christ. We are not so bold.

Beauty Truth and Re-Enchantment

We often hear the famous quote, "Beauty is Truth and Truth Beauty" but do not quite understand it. In what way is Beauty Truth and Truth Beauty? We are confused by this because for we often think of 'truth' as an explicit factual or dogmatic statement. 'Truth' is something therefore to be affirmed like an article in the creed or a fact discovered by historical or scientific research.

However the Truth that is unlocked by Beauty is more than that. The Truth that is unlocked by Beauty is a Truth that is experienced through the experience of Beauty. When we go into a beautiful church, hear a beautiful piece of music or experience beautiful liturgy or see a beautiful work of art it is the transcendent human experience that goes with the beautiful thing which introduces us, indeed, takes us into the Truth. As soon as we begin to explicate the poem, analyze the picture, classify the architecture or dissect the music we lose what we were enchanted by, and it is this enchantment through beauty which matters. In the latest issue of St Austin Review Joseph Pearce writes, "Disenchantment is the false myth, the ultimate lie that denies the very cause and source of things, whereas in contrast, re-enchantment reawakens us to the True Myth and the Great Music."

In the same issue Tom Howard writes for the need of re-enchantment in the ordinary things of life and quotes C.S.Lewis' great sermon, The Weight of Glory, "'Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales, Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us.' He is speaking, of course, explicitly of the bleak spell that The Enlightenment has cast over us all."

In an essay Tolkien and St Thomas on Beauty in the same magazine, Michael Waldstein writes, "Amazement and love for beauty are not emotions that are distant from the serious attempt of understanding our world. They work like a lens or a telescope. They bring the deep structures of the world closer to our eyes and allow us to understand. For such understanding, beauty is not an incidental decorative addition, but close to the very heart of intelligibility, because it is the end the creator has in mind."

Why should we take time and spend money to make our churches beautiful, our liturgy beautiful, our music beautiful, our art beautiful? Because it is through this beauty that we are taken into the heart of the divine order of all things. This is so difficult to communicate in a world of useful things. We have come to regard beautiful things as only so much luxurious ornamentation. We regard expenditure on beauty as wasteful--boors that we are--but this is not only boorish it is spiritually bereft.

Chesterton said "Every argument is a theological argument." The argument over beauty in churches is essentially a theological argument. Our churches and liturgies and music and art are ugly and banal because they are utilitarian, and they are utilitarian because they are un-supernatural. Modernism denies the supernatural element of religion, so the only thing left is a sort of Coca Cola Up Up with People philosophy. All grins, sweetness and positive thinking, but just like Coca Cola, fizzy, sweet and it rots your teeth.

While it is admirable to make churches and music and liturgy beautiful again, unless this is accompanied by a genuine belief in the supernatural sacraments and doctrines of the church it will only be so much window dressing. When the supernatural heart of the Catholic faith is re-affirmed the reverence and the beauty which re-enchants our world will follow naturally.

Pittsburgh Here I Come

I'll be in Pittsburgh tomorrow night for a lecture on St Benedict and St Therese--the Little Rule and the Little Way.

Details:

• The time is 7:30-9:00 p.m.
• The place: St. Paul Seminary Auditorium,
• The address: 2900 Noblestown Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15205
• Admission is Free

Y'all come now!

What Shall We Do With the Convert Clergy?

I've contributed to CatholicOnline from time to time in the past. Here's my latest article which gives some ideas on how convert clergy--especially those from non-liturgical churches might best be employed by the Catholic Church.

If you are a minister or pastor or priest of a non Catholic denomination and you are thinking of becoming a Catholic there is a support organization for you. Coming Home Network International supports, encourages and directs clergy converts in every way possible. Check out their website here.

Nice Headline

'Priestly Bloggers are a Great Gift to the Church' says the Pope. Thanks Papa!

Sorry no Podcast

For the second week running my recorder gadget went on the blink during my homily. I'll have to check it out. So, sorry no homily podcast!

Out of curiosity, could you give me some feedback? Do you listen to my podcast homilies? If so, how often? Would you ever go to my website and download former homilies? Would you pay for the service? I'm thinking of putting up the podcasts as archives over there and don't know whether to charge for the service. Maybe put them up for free, but ask for donations?

What think ye?

Britons Back Mercy Killing

This report from the Daily Telegraph tells us that three out of four British people don't think you should be prosecuted for killing your loved ones. The euphemism they use is 'Assisted Suicide"...and they make fun of Americans for calling "the toilet" the 'bathroom'???

Anyhow, why should we be surprised that secularists, either in Britain or the USA, (for we have proponents of euthanasia here too) should be in favor of mercy killing? It's not too difficult to figure out: if you don't believe in God or life after death; if you believe that when you die there is nothing at all, no heaven, no hell, just zilch, nada, zip, then mercy killing makes perfect sense. Put the sick person out of their misery. Oh, and by the way, you'll save a pile of dough too because it's expensive to treat all those sick people.

For that matter, if you don't believe in God, heaven, hell and all that stuff, and mercy killing is okay, then what's wrong with screening fetuses in order to abort the unfit? (whoops, I forgot we already do that) If there is only the zero after death, then why not eliminate the mentally unfit, the disabled and the elderly?

While we're at it, isn't our society loaded with other people who are also a terrible burden? They may not be physically disabled or mentally ill, but what about all the underclass who refuse to get a job, soak up welfare payments which they spend on booze and ciggies and drugs. They do nothing but breed more dimwit freeloaders. The eugenicists and social engineers would herd them off to a nice quiet place in the country and put them to sleep too.

Let's not forget all those people who are deviant in their thoughts. What about those who engage in hate crimes and thought crimes? Aren't they even more dangerous than the indigent and mentally unfit? They are a kind of terrorist. Shouldn't they be eliminated too for the health and safety of us all?

Start with mercy killing and you'll end with Auschwitz.

Cardinal DiNardo on the Anglican Ordinariate

Rocco, over at Whispers in the Loggia has an interesting report on Texas Cardinal DiNardo's visit to an Anglican Use parish and his comments on the implementation of the Ordinariate.

Those who are interested in this Anglican reunion scheme are wondering who the Ordinary for the United States will be. I suspect it will be a celibate, former Episcopalian who has been a Catholic priest for a long time already. That way the man can be a bishop and they will also avoid choosing the ordinary from one of the two groups who are interested--the Anglican Use parishes and the TAC.