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.

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.

Irish prayer beads

Irish prayer beads

I said quite a while ago that I planned to put up some designs for Anglican prayer beads. I finally got my camera sorted out so here is the first one.

Design components:

• Invitatory and cruciform beads: 8mm apple  green cats-eye beads
• Week beads: 8 mm light apple green glass beads
• Clear glass spacer beads used throughout. Celtic knot used as a three-way linker, no prayers assigned to it.
• Irish penal cross
• Double-sided medal with St Patrick on one side and St Bridget on the other.

The Irish penal cross dates from the early modern period in Ireland, roughly 17th century. It is called a penal cross because these were the penal times, when the practice of Irish Catholicism was suppressed and all too often backed up by prison sentences. Most surviving Irish penal crosses have a handmade look and vary in design because they were locally made.

The Irish penal cross is a type of icon crucifix. It usually has the same set of icons. There is not a lot of agreement on what some of the symbols mean because these things were obviously not written down during Penal Times.

Front icons:

• spiked halo: doubles as a halo and a symbol for the crown of thorns
• hammer: for the nails of the cross
• jug or chalice: last supper (bottom of cross)
• binding cords: represent the scourging
• spear: piercing of Christ’s side (left side of bottom)
• ladder: rung like steps on the right side of the cross represent a ladder to heaven
• INRI: across the top of the cross represents the sign nailed to the cross by the Romans

Back icons:

• cock and pot: variously said to be a butchered rooster that returns to life to crow the resurrection on Easter morning, or said to be related to a legend of Judas.
• three spikes: three nails used to attach Christ to the cross, in the typical v-shaped icon. This makes me wonder if it doesn’t double as a symbol of the trinity.

The Rosary Workshop has a page of antique (and some modern) Irish penal rosaries here. It appears that this form of a cross did first appear before the ‘Penal Times’ but the reality is that they were popular during the penal times. English suppression of Irish Catholic practices made them more popular by not allowing other alternatives to flourish.

I don’t really know or understand why Anglicans avoid this particular cross. As Episcopalians we didn’t have anything to do with the suppression of Irish Catholicism. Some of us, including me, have Irish Catholic ancestors. For me, this is an ancestral cross as much as any Anglican cross. I suspect that Anglicans in the US also avoid this cross because they avoid crucifixes in general and with so many icons of the passion, it makes people uncomfortable. Well, the passion isn’t supposed to make you comfortable.

All combined I like this set of prayer beads for Lent. The penal cross with its symbolism of the passion is ideal for Lent and Holy Week. Yet, the light green color also reminds of spring. The medal of St Patrick and St Bridget are not only there because they are the co-patron saints of Ireland. St Bridget’s feast day is February 1 and usually proceeds Ash Wednesday by only a few weeks (a few days last year).  Before the calendar correction February 1 would have fallen two weeks later in the lunar year and the medieval Irish  associated St Bridget’s day with the birth of spring lambs, appropriate for the ‘Mary of the Gaels’. St Patrick’s feast day, March 17th, always falls during Lent without exception.

Preparing for Lent

Here it is Epiphany and yet at my parish we are getting ready for Lent. For at least the last five years my parish has put together a booklet of Lenten reflections or meditations based on the daily office for every day of Lent from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, written by members of the parish. It takes a considerable effort to organize, recruit authors, have people across the parish write, collect the contributions, edit and produce the booklet in time to distribute it before Ash Wednesday. I think its well worth it. It is fascinating to see what 47 people across the parish will write. Many parishioners will follow the office for Lent, even if they usually don’t, to read the reflections of their church family. This year we decided to write on the psalms. Each person will have their choice of the two to four psalms assigned to the (morning or evening) office for their day.  The psalms will be a challenge but I am eager to read the results.

So here is an offer for you, if you would like a copy of our Lenten reflections on the psalms email me at hefenfelth(at)gmail.com with your name and address and I will try to send you  a copy around Ash Wednesday (while supplies last).

If your parish has any unusual preparations for Lent, I’d like to hear from you in the comments section below!