Feast of Christ the King

                                                 Our Lord Jesus Christ the King

 

 

 

The feast of Christ the King marks the end of the church year. Although Christians have always believed in the Kingship of Christ, the feast is a relatively recent one dating only from 1925. At a time when the very idea of Kingship was on the way out, the Pope chose to emphasize the Kingship of Christ.The Second Vatican Council re-emphasized the importance of the feast when it moved it from the last Sunday in October to the very last Sunday of the church year.

 

Naturally, the theme of today's readings is Kingship. The first reading from the prophet Ezekiel compares the role of a leader to that of a shepherd. The reading makes clear that a true king exists to serve his people, and not to be served by them.

 

            Thus says the Lord God,

            I myself will look after and tend my sheep. 

            

In America we have never been partial to kings or the idea of Kingship. We pride ourselves on being a government "of the people, for the people, and by the people." It wasn't only that our founding fathers revolted against King George III of England but their aversion to kingship went even deeper. 

 

Kings were supposed to be God's divinely appointed representatives on earth. Their coronations were religious ceremonies where the new king would be anointed with holy oils by a religious leader. Political philosophers spoke of the "divine right of kings" to justify their power. Old traditions held that the king even possessed miraculous healing powers. It was believed that merely touching his cloak could cure many physical maladies.

 

By the time of our Revolution it was clear that most kings were not what they were supposed to be. Many had come to their thrones not by divine right or election but through violence and usurpation. Many did not behave like representatives of God especially when it came to being good shepherds. A king was supposed to be the best and noblest man in the nation but often he seemed to be the worst. Even if they started out with good intentions, power corrupted them.

 

But what if there was a person whose teaching was both simpler and wiser than any of the world's great philosophers? What if this same teacher was able to calm storms at sea and even walk on the angry waters? What if there was a person who did indeed possess miraculous healing powers? -- if merely touching his cloak could cure both physical and spiritual ailments? What if there was a person who could feed the multitudes not only with bread for a day but with the bread of everlasting life? What if there was a person whose power was so great that he could even bring the dead back to life? Finally, what if there was a person who rather than being corrupted by power, surrendered his own life for his people? Shouldn't we call that person our King?

 

Today's gospel reading from the 25^th chapter of St. Matthew is one of the most famous in all of scripture. Here we have the image of our Lord in His glory, surrounded by angels, and sitting on His throne at the final or last judgement. He says:

 

Come, you who are blessed by my Father,

Inherit the kingdom prepared for you 

From the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry and you gave me food,

I was thirsty and you gave me drink,

A stranger and you welcomed me, 

Naked and you clothed me,

Ill and you cared for me,

In prison and you visited me.

 

We know the response. When the blessed ask when they did all these things, the King replies, “whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.” What a King! He does not ask us to sacrifice ourselves for Him but only to follow His example and give our lives for others. Continually in the gospels Jesus diverts our attention from Himself and tells us that we must care for others. We can only come into His kingdom if we see Him in our neighbor.

 

Today’s second reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians seems to be all about death but it is really about life. St. Paul believed that originally we were not meant to die, that we had been created, every single one of us, to live forever in Paradise. But then sin entered the world and death followed sin. This is why St. Paul thought the Resurrection of our Lord was the central event in History. Our King has defeated death and because of that we can follow Him to everlasting life. We merely have to feed and cloth and visit all those who have been entrusted to our care.

 

The scene of the Last Judgement where the sheep are separated from the goats has been immortalized by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Even before that time innumerable churches had put this image high up in their beautiful west windows.  Usually in the back of the church, the west faced the setting sun which was identified with the end of the world or the final judgement. As they left the church the congregation could look up and see the Lamb of God in the center surrounded by Apostles and Prophets representing all the blessed.  

 

On this last Sunday of the Church year we can also look up at the Risen Lamb and think of the words from the Book of Revelation.

 

            The Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them,

            And will guide them to the fountains of the waters of life, 

            And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

###

Note: Images by Melissa DeStefano from Our Lady of the Assumption church in Fairfield, CT. Click on image to enlarge.

Reading 1: Ezekiel 34: 11-12, 15-17

Reading II: 1 Corinthians15: 20-26, 28

Gospel: Matthew 25: 31-46 (Inherit the Kingdom).

Titian: Assumption of Mary

Titian’s Assunta, the magnificent, huge altarpiece that dominates the basilica of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, the Franciscan center in Venice, established him as the foremost painter in Venice, and set him on his way to international stardom. #

The painting is an oil on panel that because of its size required 24 panels in all. It measures 690 cm by 360 cm, or 22 feet, 8 inches by 11 feet, 10 inches. During the nineteenth century it was removed from the Frari and placed in the Accademia, but in 1919 it was returned to its original location over the main altar. It was subsequently restored.

Giorgio Vasari gave a brief description of the painting in his biography of Titian. It is obvious that he saw the painting in person.

He then executed the high-altar in the Church of the Friars Minors, called the Ca Grande, a picture of Our Lady ascending into Heaven, and below her the twelve Apostles, who are gazing upon her as she ascends; but of this work, from its having been painted on cloth, and perhaps not well kept, there is little to be seen. *

Vasari did not give much thought or provide much analysis of the painting. He said that he could not see it very well but I also suspect that he took it for granted that his readers would have in their blood a full understanding of the background and significance of the subject depicted.

Today, we no longer have the theological or spiritual background that even an ordinary Venetian would have had in the time of Titian. We almost have to approach paintings like the Assunta as if we were trying to decipher the religious practices of some lost tribe in the Amazon. Art historians almost have to act like archaeologists or anthropologists in deciphering the art of the Renaissance. 

The painting derives from the medieval concept of the Dormition of Mary, the Madonna, the Virgin Mother of God. According to legend, at the time when Mary’s time on earth was coming to an end, she fell into a deep sleep. Miraculously, all the Apostles were brought back from their far-flung missionary activity to be present at the end. Then, her son Jesus would appear on the scene with a baby in his arms that represented the soul of his mother that he was about to take up into Heaven. 

Titian brought the Apostles together at the base of his painting. Peter sits in the middle with an open grave before him. A beardless John in red stands at the left clothed in bright red. The other prominent figure dressed in red with his back to us could either be James, the third of the triumvirate that witnessed the Transfiguration, or Thomas, the doubter, shown in the act of reaching for the Virgin’s girdle or sash, another popular legend.

But Titian has departed from the typical Dormition account. Jesus does not appear to take his mother’s soul to heaven. Mary has been raised from the dead by the Father. She has triumphed over death just like her son. Her dress is the traditional red, the color of her humanity, but her cloak is the traditional blue, the color of the divinity. The colors recall the words of St. Paul that are still used in the Catholic liturgy on the Feast of the Assumption.

When that which is mortal clothes itself with immortality,

then the word that is written shall come about:

'Death is swallowed up in victory.

where, O death, is your victory?

where, O death, is your sting?

The best discussion of the sources and meaning of the painting can be found in Rona Goffen’s study, Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice, still the best introduction to the art of the Venetian Renaissance. Below I include an excerpt of her analysis of the source and meaning of Titian’s masterpiece, a sermon by Lorenzo Giustiniani, the saintly first Patriarch of Venice, whose collected sermons were published in Venice in 1506. **

There is another text, however, that can almost be read as the libretto for Titian’s “opera,” and that is the sermon for the feast of the Assumption by Lorenzo Giustiniani, the venerable first patriarch of Venice. Giustiniani’s language in this sermon is derived from the great biblical canticle of love, the Song of Songs. … 

 If we read Giustiniani’s sermon standing before the Assunta—as, historically and theologically, one ought to do—then a significant equivalence is revealed between the words and the image. The patriarch’s sermon might almost be a description avant la lettre of Titian’s altarpiece; and, for reasons that will become apparent, it seems that the artist or his Franciscan patrons must indeed have been referring to Giustiniani’s text, or something very like it. However,…their use of the text also involved a significant editorial revision, so to speak. Whereas the patriarch described Mary’s funeral, Titian alluded to it only indirectly and perforce by representing the Apostles who had come to bury her. 

 Giustiniani introduced his narrative of the Assumption with images of God’s redemptive love for mankind….Giustiniani’s sermon closes with a reiteration of this theme of salvation and Mary’s role as our benevolent mediatrix. Exalted as the queen of heaven “above the troops of angels,” the Virgin turns her merciful gaze toward us… 

 Titian’s Assunta, “aflame with love,” is enframed by the statue of the Redeemer above and, below, the tabernacle relief of the man of Sorrows. Thus the Assunta, like Giustiniani’s sermon, is surrounded, as it were, by the theme of God’s loving act of redemption and Mary’s role in making this possible. 

 The Assumption is a joyous triumph: “today with great joy the Virgin has triumphed in heaven, and she has seen what she desired to see…And she saw…face to face, the face adorned with the whiteness of immortality,…The patriarch continues…As she was free of every corruption of mind and body, she was thus foreign to the pain of death”. 

 Mary’s assumption into heaven even evoked the wonderment of the angels who witnessed it, as envisioned by Titian and expressed in the question ascribed to them by Lorenzo Giustiniani, again quoting the Song of Songs (3: 6 and 6: 9). The heavenly host exclaim: “Who is this who comes to us with such a great party of angels, almost like the breaking dawn, beautiful like the moon, elect like the sun…? Let us honor her who comes to us like a pillar of smoke of the aromas of myrrh and of incense.” Giustiniani went on to relate, and Titian to anticipate, how Christ greeted his mother in heaven, addressing her in the language of the Canticle as he welcomed her to her throne as Regina Coeli: “Come, my mother of Lebanon, come my dove, my Immaculate one, my lovely one, gentle and dignified as Jerusalem, you will be crowned…Ascend to the throne that I have prepared for you, take the crown set with gems.” 

 In Giustiniani’s sermon, the Virgin responds to this welcome with wonder and humility: “Have I merited this?...What can I render to my Lord in exchange for all these things…? I shall choose the holy words of customary humility that you have taught me. I shall not draw back, nor shall I contradict, but consent to your will, with a reverent acquiescence of mind, and with those same words that I spoke when I conceived you…Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” 

Goffen argued that the Assunta marked the beginning of a new era not only for Titian but also for Venetian and European art. On the other hand, it also marked the end of an era. In 1517, as Titian was working in his studio on the Assunta, Martin Luther was posting his 95 theses on a church door in Wittenberg. Within a few years fanatical iconoclasts were destroying paintings and statues of Mary all over Europe. 

###

# Note: The Assunta had been moved from the Frari to the Academmia in 1816 and only returned in 1919. Its 21 panels measuring 690 x 360 cm were restored in 1994.

*Giorgio Vasari: Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, translated by Gaston Du C. De Vere, with an Introduction and Notes by David Ekserdjian, V. 2, New York, 1996. Pp. 785-6.

**Rona Goffen: Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice, Bellini, Titian, and the Franciscans, Yale, 1986. (103-106)

Michelangelo: Doni Tondo

Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo is one of the greatest masterpieces of the High Renaissance. It is his only surviving panel painting and now hangs in the Uffizi in its original frame. Most scholars date it somewhere between Michelangelo’s completion of the David in 1504 and his departure from Florence to Rome in 1506. Like many of the masterpieces of this era, it has elicited many different interpretations. At first glance it appears to be simply a traditional rendering of the Holy Family but, on closer inspection, a number of questions arise.

In the foreground Mary, Joseph, and the Infant Jesus are situated  in a landscape. But what is going on? Is Mary handing the Child to Joseph, or is Joseph handing the Child to Mary? Why does Mary look as she does with muscular arms shockingly uncovered? What is Joseph doing in the painting? Why, despite tradition, has he been brought so prominently into the center to play an apparently key role? What is the young John the Baptist doing behind a parapet or wall in the mid-ground? Finally, who are the five male nudes in the background, and why are they there?

As far as the first question is concerned, I originally agreed with  Giorgio Vasari’s view that Mary “presents” the child to Joseph. In his life of Michelangelo, Vasari wrote:

There came to Angelo Doni, a Florentine citizen and a friend of Michelagnolo. who much delighted to have beautiful things both by ancient and by modern craftsmen, a desire to possess some work by Michelagnolo; wherefore that master began for him a round picture containing a Madonna, who, kneeling on both knees, has an Infant in her arms and presents Him to Joseph, who receives him. Here Michelagnolo expresses in the turn of the head of the Mother of Christ and in the gaze of her eyes, which she keeps fixed on the supreme beauty of her Son, her marvelous contentment and her lovingness in sharing it with that saintly old man, who receives Him with equal affection, tenderness, and reverence, as may be seen very readily in his countenance, without considering it too long.*

Most modern scholars disagree with Vasari’s opinion, and have offered some strange and contradictory interpretations.**  Vasari was often mistaken or ill informed but he was a close friend and confidant of Michelangelo. It would be almost the height of temerity to reject his eyewitness description of the central feature in this painting. Nevertheless, it would appear that he did not take more than a glance at the painting. For example, he saw the Madonna kneeling although she is obviously sitting. 

It is so easy to overlook or ignore important and obvious details in a Renaissance masterpiece, but there are significant elements in the Doni Tondo that call for a new interpretation. Rather than handing off the Child to Joseph, I have argued that Mary is actually elevating the body of her Son in the same way that a priest elevates the Host or Body of Christ at the Consecration of every Mass. The keys to this interpretation are the hands of Mary, and the posture of Joseph. 

The position of Mary’s hands and fingers cannot allow her to either hand the Infant Jesus off to Joseph or take the Child from him. As I pondered the painting, I asked myself where had I seen hands like that before. Eventually, I realized that Mary’s hands and fingers resembled a priest’s at the Consecration of the Mass. After the Second Vatican council liturgical norms in the Catholic church were somewhat relaxed, but I remembered from my childhood that the priest would take the host between the thumb and forefinger of both hands before and during the elevation. Naturally, his other fingers would then close or cup in the shape of Mary’s as he raised the host. Since the priest’s back was to the congregation, he would raise the Host high above his head and look at it intently in the same way Mary does in the Doni Tondo.

In the art of the Renaissance it was common to equate the infant Jesus lying on his mother’s lap, or on the ground surrounded by various worshippers, with the Eucharistic host. The Portinari Altarpiece is one of the best examples. The infant Jesus lies on the ground surrounded by worshippers including angels wearing the vestments of altar servers. In Franciscan theology, for example, even when Mary was holding her infant Son on her lap, she was the altar on which the Eucharist rested. 

Hugo van der Goes: Portinari Altaroiece

In 1974 famed art historian Leo Steinberg published a brief essay on the Doni Tondo in Vogue magazine. Steinberg’s reputation was so great that practically every commentator on the Doni Tondo refers to the Vogue essay. In that essay Steinberg saw deliberate ambiguity in Michelangelo’s famous painting that makes it very difficult to determine who is handing the Child to whom. But he did find four levels of meaning including a Eucharistic one. Here is his ending. 

Christian tradition made the Virgin’s identity interchangeable with Ecclesia; and it made Joseph the typus apostolorum, protector and spouse of the Church, “guardian of the living bread for himself and the whole world” (St. Bernard). And as the maternal function of the Church culminates in the Mass, which engenders the sacramental body of Christ, so in the tondo, the unprecedented pitch of the Child above the Madonna prefigures the Elevation of the Host, of the Corpus Verum, the Eucharist—literally, a “Thanksgiving.”***

Steinberg did note the “furled fingers” of Mary but only concluded that since no woman would ever receive a child in that way, “she must have just let it go.” So, in his opinion, the raising of the Child only “prefigures the Elevation of the Host….”

I would also like to point out that the garments of Mary indicate a priestly role. Michelangelo depicted her in her traditional red dress with her blue cloak or mantle draped over her legs. But there is also a green cloth wrapped around her on which a book, perhaps a Missal, rests. Green is still the color of the priest’s vestments on most of the Sundays of the Church year.

The concept of St. Joseph as protector and spouse of the Church is sufficient to explain his prominent position in the Eucharistic celebration. The man in Michelangelo’s tondo bears all the characteristics of St. Joseph as he was portrayed during the early decades of the sixteenth century. Joseph was increasingly depicted as a virile man quite capable of protecting his family especially on the flight into Egypt. One just has to look at Raphael’s Sposalizio in the Brera. In addition, the purple and gold coloring of his garments also identifies Joseph as from the line of King David.

Even more than these characteristics, the posture of Joseph confirms his identification. He is behind Mary and the Body of Christ. At the consecration of the Mass the sacrifice is offered to the Father above at the heavenly altar. Also, we see that Joseph is not standing since he does not tower over the sitting Madonna. Is he squatting awkwardly? Is he sitting on a hidden stool? We can only see his right leg but it is bent at the knee. It would appear that Joseph is kneeling or genuflecting as all worshippers do as the priest elevates the Body of Christ. At the same time his left hand is placed firmly on the Infant’s chest. Is he actually receiving Communion or just indicating the central  role of the Church in the acceptance of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist? 

In the mid-ground the young John the Baptist looks at the elevated Christ and implies the  Agnus Dei, an ancient prayer still found in every Mass: "Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world." The five nudes in the background were explained in my full paper and will be discussed in a subsequent post. 

###

Corpus Christi

                                    Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

                                  

            

Corpus Christi window
Assumption Church
Fairfield CT

After the completion of the Easter season, we are presented with three great feast days, all designed to follow up and reinforce the great message of Easter. Two weeks ago we celebrated the feast of Pentecost commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles and on us. Last week we celebrated the feast of the Holy Trinity which brought to mind the ways in which God works in our world. Today we celebrate the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, formally the feast of Corpus Christi, which celebrates our intimate relationship  with Jesus, Himself. 

Today’s first reading takes us back to the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert after their escape from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. Moses reminds them of how the Lord has sustained them on their long journey. They had been fed with manna, a new and miraculous food unknown to them and their fathers. This had been done in order to show them that,

            Not by bread alone does one live,

            But by every word that comes forth

            From the mouth of the Lord.

In the beginning of the John’s gospel Jesus, himself, is called the Word of God. Today’s gospel from the sixth chapter of that gospel contains the hardest, perhaps the most difficult, words that Jesus ever uttered. They were so difficult that not only did they strike consternation among His Jewish hearers, but they also caused some of His disciples to leave Him. He said.

            I am the living bread that came down from heaven;

            Whoever eats this bread will live forever;

            And the bread that I will give

            Is my flesh for the life of the world.

To make his point clear He repeats it over and over.

            Amen, amen, I say to you,

            Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood,

            You do not have life within you.

This was especially shocking and disgusting to the Jews because of their traditional abhorrence to eating even the blood of animals. These words remain a stumbling block today to many who cannot accept them as literally true. What are we to make of them? How do we eat His flesh and drink His blood?

Of course, Catholics have always believed the answer is in the Holy Eucharist. At the Last Supper, Jesus took bread into His hands, broke it, and gave it to them to eat saying that it was His Body. He also took the cup of wine and told them to drink it for it was His Blood. No Pope or theologian made this up. We get it from Jesus Himself. We live by the Word of God; Jesus is the Word of God: and “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my Blood remains in Me and I in him.”

What could the Apostles have been thinking when they saw Jesus take the bread, offer thanks, break it, and then say, "This is my body that is for you?" How could the bread be His Body? Or what about, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood." How could the wine be His Blood? We know that they believed it because He said it and because He would raise His Body from the dead only three days later. We also know that the first Christian communities also believed it and from the beginning repeated the Lord's words whenever they gathered together "in remembrance of Him."

Since the beginnings of Christianity theologians have tried to come to a better understanding of what our Lord meant. In the Middle Ages they came up with an explanation that is as good as any that has been offered since. Guided by the rediscovery of the works of ancient Greek scientists and philosophers, theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas developed the concept of "transubstantiation."

Like most scientific words "transubstantiation" is a long word made up of different parts in order to give greater clarity and precision. But if we break the word down into its parts, we will get a better idea of what it means. First, let's deal with the prefix, "tran." It means going from one thing to another, like in transport or transmit. The suffix, "ation", at the end of the word means a process or action, like in transportation. So if we get rid of the prefix and suffix, we're left with the root or core of the word, "substance." Now  "sub" means under and "stance" comes from the Latin verb, "stare" which means, "to stand." 

When we deal with substance we're dealing with that which stands under a thing, it's real core, what it is. So "transubstantiation" means that the bread and wine although they still look, and feel, and taste like bread and wine, have become something else. It's something like when we advance through the different stages of life, from infancy to old age. Although our bodies change, aren't we always the same person?

However, transubstantiation is an attempt to explain a mystery. It is not the mystery itself. Like the early Christians we believe that the Body and Blood of Christ are truly present in the Sacrament of the Eucharist because our Lord said so at the first Eucharist. What we do today at each Mass is what the first Christians did from the very beginning. As St. Paul said in today’s second reading,

            The cup of blessing that we bless,

            Is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?

            The bread that we break,

            Is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

###

Reading 1. Deuteronomy 8: 2-3, 14b-16a

Reading II. 1 Corinthians 10: 16-17

Gospel. John 6: 51-59 (the living bread).

Jesus and the Rich Young Man

Giorgione: The Encounter of Jesus with the Rich Young Man

Giorgione depicts the biblical story of the rich young man, depicted in the center and identified by his golden lapel and fine clothing, who approached Jesus and asked how he could attain eternal life. Jesus, attired in a green priestly garment, tells him to keep the commandments to which He is pointing. To the left we see the traditional figure of St. Peter, the only other person named in this incident. Peter is dressed in red, the color reserved for the martyrs in the Church liturgy. He acts as an interlocutor who looks out and directs the viewer’s attention to what is going on. According to the biblical account the young man went away sad because he had many possessions.

This painting by Giorgione (1477-1510), one of the great painters of the Venetian Renaissance is in the Pitti Palace in Florence. It is labelled the "Three Ages of Man" but its true subject has eluded scholars for centuries. 

For my complete essay on the painting see MyGiorgione, my art history website.