04.22.09
Bishop Katharine on Earth Day 2008
Happy Earth Day! Bishop Katharine gives us a practical sermon for Earth Day 2008. She is preaching from the Chapel of Christ the King at the Episcopal Church Center in New York.
I’ll only add here that my congregation celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2007 of sharing its campus with a Lutheran church. This is not an Episcopal-Lutheran fusion at all. We are two independent congregations that share one campus. We occasionally have a joint celebration for feast days like Good Friday or Ascension, and share a few ministries, but we are otherwise completely separate. It works quite well really. The parishes began sharing space in 1981-2 to give a new Lutheran parish help starting out. I don’t think that anyone then planned on us still sharing space over 25 years later.
I wonder how many in our congregations see our sharing a campus as an act of good stewardship for our Earth? Its clear that its seen as a cost savings arrangement that allows us to support more ministry work, but I think its environmental savings have been overlooked. We have 50% of the carbon footprint that we would have without our partner congregation.
04.19.09
Our Lady Stella Maris
Our Lady Stella Maris
This is one of my favorite modern icons, called Our Lady Stella Maris (Star of the Sea). It was recently commissioned by the Apostleship of the Sea (GB). It was a painted by Dr Stephane Rene in neo-Coptic style. The Coptic desert fathers included St Jerome, who first recorded ‘stella maris‘ as a name for Our Lady. It has been reported on various Catholic websites that the term “Our Lady” in Aramaic could be translated as pilot, leader or guide, and that Stella Maris is the oldest of Mary’s many titles. Stars were guideposts to ancient navigators on sea or land. Lastly, we know the name. The idea that Mary is the guiding star to her son is an very old one.
An interactive icon that details the meaning of all the elements of the icon can be found here, just roll your mouse over each part. For example the boat represents the spiritual path of the individual believer and it also represents the church navigating throughout time. The four fish represent the four gospels, and are an ancient symbol for Jesus. I’ve seen a couple of Dr Rene’s icons and the four fish seem to be common.
The many missions, hostels and ships called ‘Star of the Sea’ call upon Our Lady as their patron and guide.
[corrected 4/20/09]
04.14.09
Which Mary in the Garden?
One of the bits of Christian tradition that I always find interesting is the interaction and really competition that has gone on between stories and attributes of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene. There has been a lot more competition than the average Christian today would guess and most of it has been the Blessed Virgin Mary’s accumulation of Mary Magdalene’s story. In my great grandparents village, Castelventrano Sicily, they hold an Aurora procession at first light on Easter morning.
Aurora procession in Castelvetrano, Sicily
The novelty of this procession is that it celebrates a meeting between the risen Christ and his mother on Easter morning. In this village, the Virgin Mary has drawn in Mary Magdalene’s meeting with Christ in the garden. Over the years reading on Marian folklore and traditions, I know that this village is not the only place where this migration between Marys has occurred. There seems to be an assumption that Christ must have visited his mother before he would visit anyone else. This is all extra-biblical tradition because the bible has no hint of a meeting between Christ and his mother on Easter or the days immediately following. In fact the Virgin Mary isn’t mentioned again until Pentecost where she is among the apostles and other close followers in the upper room.
Much of this has to do with social attitudes toward motherhood than anything else. Sicily has a convoluted attitude toward motherhood. On the one hand, it has been a male dominated society. On the other, mothers rule the home and make up a social web that underpins society. It is also a society with several thousand years of focus on divine mothers. Recall that Sicily is Persephone’s island and her mother Demeter was the primary goddess in pre-Christian times. The spring festitval is the time of Persephone and Demeter, when Persephone returns to earth from Hades bringing new life, and as goddess of grain- the bread of life. It would be tempting to see a link between the Risen Lord meeting his mother on Easter morning and Peresephone meeting her mother Demeter on her annual spring return from Hades, but that would not be true. The Aurora festival was introduced to western Sicily in c. 1660 by Discalced Carmelites of Santa Terea. It is unclear if they originated the meeting with the Madonna or if it was originally the holy women. What is sure is that Sicily has embraced this particular varient of tradition and the entire island has a very strong devotion to the Madonna.
Addendum: Jon Sweeney tracks down a source for this tradition to Caxton’s Golden Legend.
04.09.09
Angelico’s Agony in the Garden
Fra Angelico, a Dominican artist, was baptized as Guido di Piero in c. 1395 in Italy. He died in Rome in 1455 after making a career as an extremely popular fresco painter and sometime vicar of his monastery of San Dominco in Fiesole, Italy. He painted most of his frescoes in Florence but was also commissioned to paint several frescoes in Rome by successive popes. He was beatified in 1984. 72 of his paintings can be seen here including the painting of Mary Magdalene in the Garden on Easter morning in the post on the Mary Magdalene chaplet. His paintings of the annunciation are also very famous.
Angelico's Agony in the Garden, Museo di San Marco, Florence, Italy c. 1450.
I came across this painting while looking at paintings of Mary Magdalene earlier this week. It is a really unusual painting because it depicts the women of Jesus’ following while he is in the Garden of Gethsemane. To be sure we know who is who, Angelico has painted the names of each of the figures in their halo. We have from left to right, James, John and Peter asleep in the garden. Within the house, we have Mary and Martha awake and at work. So is he making the point that the women were vigilant and awake while the men sleep? Perhaps. Lets look at what the women are doing…. Mary is dressed in gray-blue and reading a book, while Martha, this time in red, is praying. Interesting. He seems to accept that Mary Magdalene = Mary of Bethany, so logically he puts Martha there too. He has painted Mary continuing her study as implied by Mary of Bethany learning from Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. As Mary continues her study, a contemplative behavior, while Martha is actively praying. Is he trying to show Mary and Martha in the common medieval juxtaposition of the contemplative life and the active life.
This painting is from the same church and Mary and Martha are there again. Martha in the green cape. Here we see Mary’s gray cape again, but behold there is the red dress underneath afterall. Well it is a rational assumption if you equate Mary of Bethany with Mary Magdalene, then you would assume that Martha would be one of the unnamed women there also. Looking at the rest of Angelico’s paintings from the same church he paints all of the women at the flogging, the way of the cross, crucifixion, and entombment in red (including the Blessed Mother). In the cell of Jesus carrying the cross, he is dressed in red as well. All of his paintings seem to use a lot of red, so maybe the color isn’t very significant. It really is odd there there are women in scenes like the flogging where they wouldn’t usually be seen.
These frescoes are more interesting than individual medieval paintings because these frescoes are intended to be teaching tools. Frescoes on the walls of churches are how most of the common people learned the bible. They are story boards first and art second.
04.07.09
Red Easter Eggs
Red Easter Eggs
As you all are preparing for Easter, here is a new idea. The origins of red Easter eggs among the Easter Orthodox goes back to a story of Mary Magdalene. I have heard two stories on the origins of the egg. The egg itself is said to represent Christ. The intact egg died red represents Christ’s passion and death, while the opened egg represents new life. So here are the stories linking Mary Magdalene to the red Easter eggs.
Mary visits the Roman emperor and greets him with “Christ has risen”. The emperor replied that Christ can no more rise again than this egg can turn red. At that point the egg in his hand turned blood red. She then continued to preach Christ’s resurrection to the stunned emperor. This is the most common story I have heard and it is only associated with Mary Magdalene.
St Mary Magdalene
The second story is less common. Boiled eggs were a common food in Jesus’ time. So Mary Magdalene and the other women took boiled eggs with them to the tomb on Easter morning. When they arrived at the tomb they discovered it was empty and met the risen Lord. As a sign, their eggs turned red. I’ve only seen this story on the internet, once. The first story seems to be much more widely accepted.
So you might wonder, as I did, how red Easter eggs became ubiquitous among the Eastern Orthodox. First the story is very popular and Mary Magdalene has always been a major saint in the East, where she was never associated with women of ill repute and is known as being ‘equal to the apostles’. Most modern icons of Mary Magdalene today show her holding a red egg. From antiquity, red has always been a color associated with Mary Magdalene in the East and West. In the West, she is often shown with red hair and/or a red dress. In the East she is more often shown with a red veil and associated with the red Easter eggs.
Belarusian Easter Eggs
It turns out that home made red easter eggs are really easy to make from materials available to every peasant in the East. Apparently all it takes is the skins of yellow onions and the eggs. This recipe recommends adding a little vinegar, but I’ve seen other recipes without the vinegar. That is all the ingredients you need: eggs, yellow onion skins, water to boil it in and some white vinegar. I don’t know why the yellow onion skins produce a blood red stain. Some recipes call for raw eggs to be wrapped in yellow onion skins and then boil them together. I think this gives the eggs a red crackle appearance. Other recipes call for making the red stain by boiling yellow onion skins, straining it and then boiling the eggs in the prepared stain. So if you are having people over for Easter why not try staining red eggs rather than using plastic eggs or food coloring.
