Statues

I have often spoken about the importance of books in shaping our spiritual experiences, and there can be no doubt about that. I think it is also true that art has great power to form our sensibilities, and influence, on a very deep level, our subsequent behavior and intuition about spiritual reality. Lately I have been thinking about my very own home cathedral, St Patrick’s in Manhattan. I can remember, beginning in high school and continuing into college, of spending quite a lot of time in the magnificent cathedral on Fifth Avenue, its Gothic spires and great bronze doors amidst the skyscrapers a real inspiration.

 

Every single time I would walk into the great church, the view down the nave would take my breath away and make my heart sing, eyes alternating from the great expansive ceiling to the high altar and all around to the magnificent stained glass windows.

But the great power of the cathedral, which was certainly undeniable, was complemented by the many side altars with their various mosaics, paintings and other devotional art. This of course included images and statues of Christ, the Virgin Mary, St Patrick, and other familiar and expected figures. But when I think back to what also fired my imagination, it was primarily the impressive statues in niches along the walls done by the German-American immigrant sculptor Joseph Sibbel, one of the great ecclesiastical artists of the later nineteenth century. What was different about these statues is that they were not just of devotional saints, but of great theologians and “Doctors of the Church”. They included learned and intellectual giants of the Catholic tradition, such as the twelfth century St Anselm of Canterbury, famous both for his philosophical works and prayers and meditations.

Alongside one another sat the thirteenth century Franciscan theologian St Bonaventure and the the eighteenth century moral theologian St Alphonse Liguori.

 

And finally, perhaps the one I loved most of all, the twelfth century Cistercian monk and mystical theologian St Bernard of Clairvaux.

 

There were others, but these made the greatest impressions on me, and when I consider what I have gone on to do and study, all of these thinkers have played a crucial part in my intellectual and devotional life. I have little doubt that my calling to teach about the medieval church and spirituality more generally was partly formed by literally gazing up at these wonderful statues by Sibble.

This leads me to the important point that given how influential and formative imagery can be in a sacred environment, it is so crucial that along with art that is primarily devotional, it is also important to inspire the onlooker by beautiful images that celebrate saints who are also “Doctors of the Church”, men and women who have combined lives of deep spirituality with serious study and intellectual pursuits, uniting heart and mind in the pursuit of holiness. I am thankful for Sibble and those who planned St Patrick’s cathedral for doing this, and for the way the Holy Spirit used these splendid statues to inspire and guide me in my own vocation as a Christian scholar.

 

Thomas Becket Memories

As I sit here gazing out my window at a blustery winter mix in Scotland, my thoughts travel back to different memories associated with St Thomas Becket on this the day of his martyrdom in Canterbury cathedral and his feast day.  I think I first really thought about him while reading the Canterbury Tales in high school, although my thoughts were probably more on the lovely Middle English than the reason for the pilgrimage. It was around that time that I also became aware of the great film starring Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole, which still resonates with me over time, and whose images have always stuck with me: the great excommunication scene for one, and the estranged archbishop and king meeting forlornly on the beach together.

 

While at university I first read TS Eliot’s great play Murder in the Cathedral, a text I often return to this time of year for its poetic beauty and brilliant treatment of the psychology of temptation. I have distinct memories of reading the play for the first time in late November, sitting under a tree on the old Emory quadrangle near the then Pitts Divinity library, partly grey sky and the smell of late autumn leaves around me.

From there my memories take me to my junior year abroad at Oxford, an epochal time for me in so many ways. My Christmas vacation was dedicated to touring many of the great cathedrals of England, and I arrived in Canterbury for my very first stop on December 12th, not exactly Becket’s feast day but close enough. Of course the great cathedral did not fail to impress. I was particularly moved standing and praying at the spot where at Vespers the archbishop was murdered, and also felt the poignancy that not too long before Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Runcie had prayed together there.

 

Besides the great cathedral itself, early in the morning mist I also toured the ruins of St Augustine abbey, before the Reformation one of the country’s great religious houses, whose roots go back to the earliest Benedictine mission to England. As I pondered the loss of so much, I encountered another pilgrim, and remember having a conversation about the vicissitudes of time that one has in these situations with total strangers, and then moves on.

My final stop on this trip down memory lane on that same pilgrimage brings me to the small Catholic church in Canterbury, named for the martyred saint. It is a relatively humble place when compared to the cathedral, of course, but I remember being impressed by a feeling of home in its noble simplicity. I felt keenly the power of the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, and the relics of St Thomas Becket, some of which are gathered here, home again after their dispersal at the destruction of his shrine in the cathedral by Henry VIII centuries ago. As I gazed at the lovely mural of the saints of Canterbury, I felt both the drama of history, its vicissitudes, disruptions and continuities, but also the quiet power of a Presence that is never lacking, unchanging and sustaining through it all. And for that, on this feast of the “blissful martyr” of Canterbury, I am most grateful.

Dream of Gerontius

Ever year around this time, as we soon enter the thin days in the waning of the ecclesiastical year,  I re-read several times John Henry Newman’s famous poem The Dream of Gerontius, which can be found at this link:

http://www.ccel.org/n/newman/gerontius/gerontius.htm 

It is a profound poem and to me a powerful meditation on the traditional Catholic view of death, afterlife, judgment, purification, consolation and salvation. It is undoubtedly indebted to Dante’s Divine Comedy, various other medieval poems, and I feel echoes ancient Greek drama as well. Like all great art in the Tradition, inspired by previous great art it in turn inspired its own, and forms the textual basis of Elgar’s great musical meditation. Newman in this sense could well appreciate how like all of us, he stood both in a moment of time, but as one more thread in the great tapestry of Tradition.

As the days become colder and darker, and autumn moves into All Hallows and All Souls, I will turn to it again, and if you do not know it, I recommend you do as well.