Choose Your Glasses

 If you told me in high school that the Bible talked about seven-headed Satanic dragons, leopard-bear-lion hybrids, and a horned beast who inscribed ‘666’ on men’s foreheads and right hands, I don’t think I would have ever become Christian. [1]. Was anyone serious about wholeheartedly believing in all this happening in some place called Heaven? In fact, if one had not shown me that this came from the Book of Revelation, I would have guessed this to be either a very creative (or maniacal) fantasy novel.

No, not part of a whimsical medieval comic book or novel. This is actually what happens/is to happen in the heavenly world beyond us! Royal MS 19 B XV. 

Perhaps, I should tip my hat to Rudolf Bultmann. Maybe my example vindicates his assertion that this is all “mythological talk” that is “a thing of the past.” [2]. I certainly would have asked the exact same question as Bultmann, albeit in far less eloquent terms:

“How in the world does modern common sense understand any of this?!”

That’s the key. “Modern common sense.” Dragons and beasts in this alternate realm called "Heaven" aren't part of that. But it's all in the scripture! Admittedly, I was entertained by our class discussions on John possibly being in an altered mental state. Are we to take John’s word literally? Revelation is a prophetic vision, after all. [3]. The synoptic Gospels paint a simpler picture of Judgment with Christ separating the saved and the damned like sheep and goats. [4]. Yet, John’s vision takes place in that heavenly realm, far beyond the precipices of any limited, human periphery. We bear, as faithful Christians, the duty of believing according to the witness of John that this heavenly war will unfold.

Wait, it will happen. It (likely) did not already happen. The introduction in the Mercers' play on Judgment notes that “the Judgment is the only event of the future dramatized in the cycle.” [5]. Now, I would argue that most people would read that remark nonchalantly. But it made me realize that this is where WE enter the story—yes, this fantastical, mythical story that many today would find utterly absurd. The parts of the gospels about Judgment and Revelation quintessentially cannot be read as historical narratives; these visions and prophecies carry us into our future.

Consequently, we, just as the medieval Christians, just as John exiled on Patmos, are all part of the same story. That meant that we were not merely engaging in an anthropological exercise. We were not simply exploring the impacts the millennial commemoration of Christ’s death had on 11th-century Christians or the lasting influence of the Anglo-Norman vision of the Apocalypse. [6]. We are ourselves trying to see God by examining how our predecessors tried to see God. The absurdity of it all is only because "modern common sense" cannot see God. At least, not until He comes again. [7].

Allow me to briefly digress. Since today was the last day of classes in my college career, I thought it fitting to take a “celebratory” selfie. Coincidentally, I wore one of my many pairs of sunglasses because it was sunny outside. It was Professor Fulton Brown’s comment about the readings that reminded me of that selfie; she introduced them by suggesting that each of them used different “modes of proof.” That is, they each portrayed the “reality” of the impending Judgment in different ways.

My goofy picture I took on Thursday morning commemorating my last day of college classes. Our class discussion made me think of the many sunglasses I wear and how they affect my peripheral vision. Nonetheless, I still don't "see" God with any of my glasses on. The cross pendant is also quite fitting.

We also discussed how the Book of Revelation as well as the prophecies of Jesus in the gospels, much like the rest of the Bible, are about seeing God (or, as this class has now taught me, entering the Tabernacle). Connecting these last few points, I then suggested that each primary reading was attempting to “see” God through different means.

First, the Christ III poem in the Exeter Book was attempting to see God in his awesome might through poetic and emotive lyricism:

“All the faithless children of men

Will suddenly see in their false hearts

How cruelly they mocked and scorned him,

Spat in his eyes, taunted and tormented him. . .” [8].

Second, Hugh of St. Victor attempted to see God through a scrutinizing, technical theological lens in which he incorporated both Aristotle and Augustine. For example, he labors through chapters XIII to XX on the physical details of how the dead of all characters, shapes, and sizes are to be resurrected. [9]. Third, the Mercers’ enactment of the Last Judgment is a dramatic attempt to personify the impending Judgment, appealing to a human audience. [10].

Returning to the obvious question, what does a random pair of sunglasses have to do with any of the above? My running sunglasses are tinted yellow, meaning that they impose some “pigmentation” on my normal periphery when I look around. In a sense, they change how I see the world around me. Yet, I still have sight even without them. By no means, however, would I ever claim that I can see God right now.

This is why I think each of our readings is like putting on different glasses. Just as each pair fundamentally changes how I see by either color tints or magnifying lenses, internalizing how each mode of presentation of Revelation (whether via iconography, dramatic play, theological treatise, or poem) is my attempt to “see” God in different ways by understanding how people of the past tried to “see” God. Indeed, reading John’s Revelation itself is an exercise of trying to “see” God, by internalizing the angelic vision John received while on Patmos.

While each pair of glasses fundamentally alters my vision, none of them bring me fully to God. I might see things in slightly different shades or sizes, but I do not see Heaven and Hell, angels, or dragons. The unique problem of the biblical accounts of Judgment Day is that it is unironically a revelation. We, as spectators, cannot simply “live out” this vision firsthand.

Similarly, each medium we immersed ourselves in had limitations. The Mercers’ rendition captured well the human element of Judgment but clearly had constraints in terms of casting, equipment, and other surreal elements (souls are obviously not humans dressed in grey rags). The iconography was amazingly surreal and dramatic but consists nonetheless of still-life pictures at the end of the day. The Exeter Book appeals lyrically but falls short in terms of visual imagery. In all of these, our own senses crave more.

The Last Judgment by Hans Memling (ca. 1467-71).

Last Judgment by Giselbertus (ca. 1130).

The York Mystery Plays in 2022. Not a materially convincing enactment of the story we all live in, but an important and strangely appealing one, nevertheless.

Yet above all, the common shortcoming is that they all come from the imagination of people who cannot fully see God. It is no wonder, then, why each differs dramatically from another. We observed in class, however, that almost all of them are very faithful to the scripture and other canonical details surrounding Judgment. The variance of depictions feels much less a mystery when we consider that they are all from people who have not fully “seen” God.

What does this leave for us today, then? We are in the story, still trying to figure out that very story. Having spent nine weeks in this class, I have come to realize that the class is much more than an anthropological exercise. It’s not merely a matter of reading “history.” It is, instead, trying to see God by joining the thousands-of-years-long story of others trying to also see God. So, until Judgment Day comes and I enter the Tabernacle, I'll resort to trying on different sunglasses.

--PJZ

1. Rev. 12-13.

2. Bultmann, Rudolf. “New Testament and Mythology” (1941). New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings. Trans. Schubert M. Ogden. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1984, pp. 2-3.

3. Rev. 1:1, 9-11.

4. Matt. 25:32.

5. “The Mercers: The Last Judgment.” York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling. Eds. Richard Beadle and Pamela King. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1984, p. 266.

6. Fulton Brown, Rachel. From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-1200. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, pp. 64-9; Mâle, Emile. The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century (1972). Trans. Dora Nussey. New York: Routledge, 2018, pp. 359-61.

7. Matt. 24:30; Mark 13:26; Luke 21:27; John 12:45; John 16:16.

8. “Christ III: Judgment.” The Complete Old English Poems. Trans. Craig Williamson. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017, pp. 349.

9. Hugh of St. Victor. On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith. Trans. Roy J. Deferrari. Cambridge, Mass.: The Medieval Academy of America, 1951, pp. 457-62.

10. “The Mercers: The Last Judgment.” 

Making Sense of the End of the World

The last time I devoted extended thought to the Apocalypse of Saint John was in late 2019 and early 2020, when I read Karen Armstrong’s Holy War for leisure and a dystopia—Station Eleven—for school. The Book of the Apocalypse figures prominently in both narratives. For the Crusaders, the end of the world was constantly front of mind, and they saw figures such as Frederick II as candidates for the antichrist. Professor Fulton Brown’s “Apocalypse, Reform, and the Suffering Savior” helpfully frames this mid-Middle Ages apocalyptic thinking as part of a societal moment centered around 1033 A.D., the thousand-year anniversary of Jesus Christ’s resurrection. Meanwhile, a major character in Station Eleven is a young boy-turned-cult leader whose obsession with the Book of the Apocalypse is all-engrossing.

Reading Holy War and Station Eleven made me interested in Christian prophecies of the end of the world; and, during the COVID quarantine, I pulled my Ignatius Press large-print Bible off the family shelf with hopes of carefully reading Apocalypse. Other reading opportunities distracted me from doing so. Thus, I was excited to read Apocalypse—along with the Gospel accounts of the end of the world—for this class. As I read through these narratives, I attempted to keep track of the various events and synthesize them into a coherent whole. This blog post is my first stab at doing so.

The end of the world will be catalyzed by the loosening of the seven seals on the book to the right of the enthroned Jesus Christ (Apocalypse 5:1–5, 6:1–17). On Earth, the loosening of the seals will bring about a chain of events that culminates in the second coming. There will be false prophets (Matthew 24:5, Mark 13:6). Sorrow will follow, in the form of war, pestilence, earthquakes, famine, and the persecution of Christian believers (Matthew 24:7, Mark 13:8, Luke 21:9–12). The Book of the Apocalypse presents that sorrow in the allegorical terms of the four horsemen, who are emblematic of war, famine, pestilence, and death (9:18). In the thick of sorrow, “many false prophets shall rise, and seduce many” (Matthew 24:11). They will have ample opportunity to deceive, because people will be so distraught by God’s wrath that they will be open to alternatives to Him. But, of course, only those who stick with God will enjoy His eternal kingdom.

Following sorrow will be “the great tribulation” (Matthew 24:21), “such tribulations” (Mark 13:19), “great distress” (Luke 21:23). A seminal event in this sequence will be Jerusalem being “trodden down by the Gentiles” (21:24). “[T]he holy city they shall tread under foot two and forty months” (Apocalypse 11:2). This conquest will be undone, however, by “lightnings, and voices, and thunders, and . . . a great earthquake” (16:18): “[T]he great city [will be] divided into three parts; and the cities of the Gentiles” will fall (16:19).

Bridging the period of sorrow with that of tribulation will be Saint Michael’s expulsion of the dragon—Satan—from Heaven (Apocalypse 12:9). The dragon will empower the beast (13:4), i.e., the antichrist, who will presumably be among the “false Christs and false prophets” who emerge during the period of tribulation (Matthew 24:24).

The second coming of Jesus Christ.

Enter Christ. He will arrive in the now-familiar form of the majesty, “coming in the clouds of heaven with much power” (Matthew 24:30; cf. Mark 13:26, Luke 21:27). During the second coming, Christ’s “eyes [will be] as a flame of fire, and on his head [will be] many diadems” (Apocalypse 19:12). He will defeat the beast and his armies, throwing the former straight into “the pool of fire” (19:19–20). Then, an angel will throw the dragon—Satan—into a bottomless pit (20:3). There Satan will remain for a thousand years, the period of Christ’s government on Earth (20:5). Constituting Christ’s holy administration will be “the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus” (20:4). However, there will be no general resurrection at this juncture, with the “rest of the dead liv[ing] not” (20:5).

Satan will be released from the bottomless pit after a thousand years and allowed to prepare for battle with Christ, only to be thrown into the pool of fire in the cosmic defeat of the ages (Apocalypse 20:7–9). There, he will “be tormented day and night for ever and ever” in the company of the beast (20:9).

Why would Christ release Satan in the first place? Hugh of St. Victor’s On the Sacraments suggests that Satan’s final defeat will demonstrate, once and for all, the sheer magnitude of Christ’s power—allowing Satan to “see how great an adversary the City of God has overcome with great glory to its redeemer, helper, liberator” (p. 452). Compounding Satan’s eternal torment, then, will be endless embarrassment.

After defeating Satan, Christ will resurrect everyone—both the saved and the damned. “Filled out with flesh, alive with limbs,” “this untold clutch of creatures [s]hall come before their Creator, a multitude [o]f men and women, all made young again” (Christ III, p. 347). “[T]hey will be born again at the perfect age of thirty years” (Mâle, pp. 374–75).

The enthroned Christ will place some of this “untold clutch” to His left and the remainder to His right, with the basis of His assessment being the state of each person’s conscience (Matthew 25:33; On the Sacraments, p. 464). Then, to those on His left, Christ will say, “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41, cf. Apocalypse 20:14–15). “[T]he fearful, the unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars” will “have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone” (Apocalypse 21:8). Worse yet for the damned, though, will be the knowledge that they will spend eternity separated from God.

On behalf of the saved, Christ will bring about the end of the world, instituting in its place a “new heaven and a new earth” (Apocalypse 21:1). He will bring from the heavens to Earth a jeweled “holy city Jerusalem” (21:10), which will have streets of “pure gold, as it were transparent glass” (21:21). However, much like the worst part of Hell is not the fire but the absence of God, the best part of the New Jerusalem will be its residents’ ability to see the face of God (22:4), and not ‘merely’ through the human visage of Christ (On the Sacraments, p. 454). “[W]e shall love and we shall praise,” forecasts Hugh of St. Victor (p. 476).

The obligation of every Christian is to ensure that he is ready for the last judgment. As Christ put it, “[w]atch ye . . . because you know not the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:13). Life is the only opportunity we have to win ourselves a ticket to Heaven; and, if the parables of the ten virgins and the talents make anything clear, it is that we should avoid squandering our chance at salvation.

— DMH

Communio Sanctorum

Why do we need the saints? What do they provide that Jesus Christ does not? This was the question fundamental to our classroom discussion. Catholics and (Mainline) Protestants do admittedly share a lot of the fundamental foundations of Christianity. Both branches believe in Jesus Christ, fully human and fully divine, who was the second Person of the Holy Trinity. He died on the cross for the forgiveness of sins of everyone (or just the elect according to Calvinists). There exists both heaven and hell, and God will sort between them like wheat and tares, with some going to the Kingdom of Heaven and some condemned to the "furnace of fire", the “wailing and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:36–43). The Christian proposition appears simple: By accepting Jesus Christ as our savior, we can be saved!

Thus, we return to our central question. Given that both Protestants and Catholics believe in a personal God that we can directly pray to, why would we ever need to cultivate a relationship with a saint (or saints) and ask them to pray on our behalf? We could just talk directly to Jesus and tell Him that we want to be emulate Him as best as we can and that we want to be saved. I see three main reasons behind cultivating a devotion to the saints. First, it provides a more complete understanding of what the Church is and who are its members. Second, we earn the petition of someone who is in heaven alongside Christ Himself. Third, it provides an opportunity for us to grow in holiness by modeling their holy but human life.

First, a reflection on saints—or "holy ones"—provides a better understanding on what Christ's Church actually is. We see many times in the New Testament that the Church is one body (1 Cor. 12:12-27, Rom. 12:5, Col. 1:18, Eph. 4:16,), According to the Catholic Church, there exists three components of this Church. There is the Church Militant / Pilgrim, who is composed of Christians on Earth fighting against sin; the Church Penitent / Suffering, composed of the souls in Purgatory; and the Church Triumphant, composed of those who made it to heaven. Thus, the divide for Catholics is not between living and dead; it is between followers of Christ and those who do not believe in Christ. This is further corroborated in the Gospel of Luke, where he writes that "[H]e is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive." (20:38). While it may feel like death to us, the souls of holy people do not just disappear from existence. Death is not the end of the journey for Christians. We are (hopefully) rejoicing in eternal life with Christ.

 

The Church Militant and the Church Triumphant, fresco by Andrea da Firenze in Santa Maria Novella, c. 1365

The second reason is that something particularly potent about the saints' ability to intercede on our behalf. This is seen in the writings of early Church fathers, like St. Augustine, where he writes that “God does [the miracles] while [martyr-saints] pray and assist (City of God, bk. 22, ch. 10). Anslem of Canterbury (1033-1109) corroborates this viewpoint in his ten recorded prayers to saints. These prayers demonstrate the power (potentia) of the saint in heaven being able to provide greater spiritual health than during their time on earth—given that now they are finally in full union with Christ. (Fulton Brown, “Anselm and Praying with the Saints”, 120). Professor Fulton Brown explains the relationship between the Church Militant, the Church Triumphant, and God well through her Trinitarian analogy: “As with three persons of the Trinity, so with the three people of prayer: God moves the sinner to repentance through the saint; the sinner moves the saint to intercede for him through God; and the saint moves God to have mercy on the sinner. It is, as it were, a triangularity of agency—God moving the sinner who moves the saint who moves God—as much as of presence or identity.”

Protestants are right that Christ is perfect in every way. He is the best model of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. However, no Catholic believes that any saint is better than Christ. Christians are saints because they have been sanctified in Christ (Rom. 1:7, Phil. 4:21-22). However, the myriad of saints provides us with a plethora of examples of how to live out a Christian life, in both broad and specific contexts. St. Maximilian Kolbe showed what it meant to love your fellow man, St. Joseph demonstrates the virtue in being a hard-working man, and St. Francis of Assisi highlighted the beautiful role of poverty in worship. While none of these men can ever compare to God Incarnate, they provide us with examples on how to follow Jesus Christ. Surely, if we had more people in the world emulating the holy ones in heaven, they would be a lot closer in the road to becoming united with Christ. What is particularly nice about cultivating a devotion to one of these saints is that it still allows us grow in virtue and grow closer to God without having to directly face God ourselves. Thus, God can best be understood as the Sun. It can be difficult to look directly at Him because His holiness is incomparable. However, we can best appreciate Him through a refraction—special solar viewing glasses-like the saints. The saints exist as a bridge to get us to better understand God. None of these saints are as perfect as God. However, that is that exact drawing point. Veneration and asking for petitions from the saints brings us closer to the saints and God, not just closer to the saints at the expense of God. Of course, Catholics still need to cultivate the individual and personal relationship with God directly. However, prayer to the saints should be seen as an aid, not an impediment in that journey.

 

For any of my Protestant friends reading this who still have some qualms about asking the saints to pray for us when we can just “go directly to God”, I bring up one final analogy. Have you ever asked anyone on Earth to pray for you or had someone ask you to pray for them? What is the purpose of that? Could the person requesting prayer not just have gone directly to God? While Christianity is about having a personal relationship with Christ, it is equally about being in community with the greater spiritual Church. There is something truly beautiful about the communal aspect of prayer and Christianity overall. For the holy ones that departed before us and are now in heaven, why would they be cut off from us, divorced from the world outright? After all, God is the God of the living, not of the dead.

 

Disputation of the Holy Sacrament, fresco by Raphael in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, 1509-1510

- Alejandro Ignacio

Redemption Arcs: Heroic and Holy

    For as long as humanity has existed, people have loved good redemption arcs.  From King Gilgamesh to Prince Zuko, stories abound of figures who had lost their way finding better paths and becoming better people in the process.  These stories are so common in part because we are all human, and therefore flawed and fallible (Jesus and the Virgin Mary notwithstanding).  We all regret certain things we’ve done, and to see someone make amends - or at least sincerely attempt to do so - and become a better person gives us hope that we can do the same.

    Redemption arcs are common in hagiographies as well.  As I will expand upon later, I believe that there are elements of saintly redemption arcs that set them apart from many other tales of redemption and repentance.  With that said, I think that analyzing Christian stories through this lens can be useful.  Much like we are, those canonized as saints were flawed people in life.  Frankly, many of them did awful things.  Some were criminals who swindled, robbed, or even murdered others before changing their ways.  Saint Paul was even a notorious persecutor of Christians before he himself converted.  And yet, through Christ, they were saved and served as examples for others.  

    An emblematic tale of saintly redemption is found in Catholic narratives surrounding Saint Mary Magdalene. The Bible never explicitly identifies this Mary as a formerly promiscuous sinner, but Catholic doctrine has identified her as such ever since the Papacy of Saint Gregory I (“Who framed Mary Magdalene?”).  Jacobus de Voragine expanded upon this version of Mary in The Golden Legend.  He wrote that Mary was an immensely wealthy woman who “gave her body to pleasure” in the years before she met Jesus; indeed, she was often referred to as “the sinner” due to her infamy (The Golden Legend 375).  However, this changed when she was divinely inspired to see Christ at the home of Simon the Leper.  Upon seeing him, she realized her sinfulness and washed and anointed the feet of Christ.  Though a Pharisee criticized Jesus for letting Mary touch him, Jesus paid him no heed and forgave Mary her sins (The Golden Legend 375-376). 

    From that moment on, Mary Magdalene changed her ways and did her best to “go and sin no more”.  Jacobus recounts Mary’s subsequent involvement in the ministry of Jesus, in which she played a crucial role by financially supporting him and the other apostles (The Golden Legend 376).  Moreover, Mary became an inspiration for others even during her own lifetime.  When Mary and another group of Christians were exiled and landed at Marseilles, she found great success in converting the local population.  Jacobus attributed her success in this area to her kissing of Jesus’s feet - and, by extension, to her sincere repentance (The Golden Legend 377).  

    Mary played a particularly instrumental role in the conversions of the governor of the province and his wife, whose journeys to Christ paralleled Mary’s own.  Though their voyages were rockier than Mary’s, they too began on their paths after they repented.  Initially, they were both reluctant to provide the Christians with food and shelter, and Mary had to angrily rebuke them to convince them to do so (The Golden Legend 377).  And in spite of her own anger towards the pair, Mary forgave them and hoped that they could find Christ too.  When the governor asked that she pray to the Christian God for a son, Mary obliged him even though he was not yet a believer; this inspired him to go on a pilgrimage, which his wife would join.  Later, after his wife tragically died in childbirth, the pilgrim expressed regret for asking Mary for her prayers.  Yet despite his grief-stricken outburst, he prayed that Mary would intercede on behalf of his newborn and his late wife, continuing on his pilgrimage afterwards (The Golden Legend 377-378).  

    Years later, after the governor had seemingly completed his journey, he found the island where he had buried his wife and left his son behind.  Upon discovering that the boy had lived, he joyously expressed faith in God and gratitude for Mary’s prayers (The Golden Legend 379).  At this point, his wife came back to life and revealed that she had been with both him and Mary Magdalene in spirit during his pilgrimage.  From here on out, the family were committed Christians and worked to nurture the church in the region (The Golden Legend 380).  Thanks in large part to Mary Magdalene’s intercession, they had changed for the better.

    Repentance is crucial in Mary Magdalene’s tale, as it is central in the arcs of many of its characters.  It is through Mary’s apology, and through Christ’s acceptance of her apology, that she becomes this exemplar of faith that others can look to for guidance.  It is through the initial repentance of the governor and his wife that they ultimately have a son and find God.  Indeed, the dual stories emphasize the crucial role of repentance within the Christian faith in general, as repentance is essential for salvation.  Likewise, repentance is a theme in the stories of many saints; Paul repented and changed his persecutory ways after seeing a vision of Jesus, while Saint Augustine abandoned his hedonistic lifestyle after his baptism.

    I don’t want to imply that repentance is somehow exclusively a feature of saintly or Christian redemption arcs.  Remorse and repentance (in the sense of regretting one’s past deeds and sincerely attempting to do better) are commonplace in redemption arcs in general; just look at Boromir’s heroic sacrifice after his attempt to steal the One Ring or Roy Mustang’s commitment to atoning for the Ishvalan genocide in Fullmetal Alchemist.  Still, I think Mary’s story also illustrates one key difference between Christian and (many) secular redemption arcs: the centrality of God in the process.  Mary could not just apologize and be redeemed afterwards; she had to be forgiven.  It was Jesus who forgave her, just as he forgives all who repent.  Additionally, though Mary was instrumental in the conversion of others, Jacobus makes it clear that she was not enacting these changes through her own power.  Instead, she was constantly praying to God on behalf of her charges.  It was God, not Mary, who granted the couple a son, spared the newborn, and resurrected the governor's wife.  In addition to reminding us where all miracles really originate from, these facts remind us of the necessity of God in salvation.  In many secular redemption arcs, characters can find it in themselves to change, with or without outside assistance.  In Saint’s tales, and in Christianity, people can find it in themselves to repent of their sins; however, they are ultimately only saved and redeemed through Christ.   

    Finally, I think that Mary’s redemption arc is indicative of how saintly lives can be useful as sources of inspiration.  To an extent, all of us have failed in some way.  The saints also experienced failure, both before and after they found Christ.  And yet, by repenting and trusting in him, they were saved.  Their examples provide us with hope that we can be saved if we repent and trust in God as well. 

-WJC

Outside sources:

1. Schlumpf, Heidi. “Who framed Mary Magdalene?” U.S. Catholic, March 29, 2016. https://uscatholic.org/articles/201603/who-framed-mary-magdalene/ 

Dante and Praying with the Saints

    Reading from The Golden Legend,  St. Bonaventure on St. Francis and St. Anselm’s prayers to the saints got me thinking about Dante this week. Dante was not just the author of the Inferno, but the poet of a journey that leads all the way to Paradise. In his account of that journey there is not simply narrative, but song, thought, and prayer. The gateway, so to speak, to the peak of his journey is mediated by saints. I think we might learn something from the way of addressing the saints presented by Dante, a man among the most passionate and thoughtful of his Medieval contemporaries and teachers and extraordinary among them for felicity of expression, especially considering that the saints most important to Dante are among the most important for our studies of Christian Medieval mythology. 

    

    Dante’s paradise has several layers and Dante encounters the blessed in everyone one besides the first. That of which I think today is that in which Dante describes the souls of the Blessed Wise: the Heaven of the Sun. Dante names more of the blessed in this Heaven in more than any other: twelve in its first circle and again twelve in its second. The main speaker of the first is St. Thomas Aquinas, while in the second it is St. Bonaventure. St. Thomas, the Dominican, eulogizes St. Francis, while St. Bonaventure, the Franciscan, eulogizes St. Dominic. This interlocking and parallel structure suggests that Dante had considered one of the perennial perplexities of the saints: here on Earth, the saints were divided and even disagreed with each other, while in paradise they stand together. Dante guides us to consider our relationship with the saints in view of this perplexing fact. It is all the more emphasized as follows: St. Thomas stands next to Sigier of Brabant and St. Bonaventure next to Joachim of Flora: both in earthly life attacked the views of their eventual heavenly companions. 

    Reading St. Thomas’s and St. Bonaventure’s eulogies of St. Francis and St. Dominic respectively helps cast some light on this situation. St. Thomas’s eulogy of St. Francis describes the events and significance of his life in the strongest terms and in a way agreeing with St. Bonaventure’s Life of St. Francis. He goes from his “guerra del padre” (his fight against his father) to his reception of “l’ultimo sigillo” (the final seal, the stigmata). St. Thomas’s highest and most constant praise of St. Francis, however, is an anagogic symbol: St. Francis is like the Sun of the Heaven of the Sun, he is always rising to God as God took him up directly to paradise at his death. St. Bonaventure’s eulogy of St. Dominic, on the other hand, is of course different from St. Thomas’s of St. Francis insofar as their lives were different. The governing anagogic symbol here is not an ever-rising Sun, but an ever-maintained garden: the life of St. Dominic was a constant fighting against the “mondo errante” (the errant world) as a gardener fights that which would hold his plants back. The lives of the saints were different, so their symbols are different: but, by the same consideration, we see that their motions, their ultimate ends, are the same. The Sun is rising, the plants are growing. Both St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure end their speeches by transitioning to the subjects of the other, which as a Dominican and a Franciscan respectively, we would have expected to be their subjects all along. But no: in Paradise love of one’s own comes after love of the other. The love of God to which all the different saints aspired is the first and unifying thing. 

    
The lesson to take from Dante’s invocation of the saints in the Heaven of the Sun seems to me to be similar to the lesson Prof. Fulton Brown adduced from St. Anselm’s prayers to the saints. Saints and believers, despite the peculiar differences between their struggles and ways of living, feel for each other's yearning for the grace of God. This yearning crosses worldly lines: the Dominican St. Thomas may eulogize St. Francis and the Franciscan St. Bonaventure may eulogize St. Dominic, St. Thomas may stand next to Sigier of Brabant and St. Bonaventure next to Joachim of Flora. Difference, in Paradise, points to God. Even more: just as the extreme of St. Anselm’s empathy for the saints points to Mary Magdalene, Dante’s invocations of the saints in the Heaven of the Sun must be taken in view of his ultimate connection to his lady Beatrice. Both St. Anselm’s and Dante evince a profound respect for men like them, and all the more so in the differences among them, but save a particularly high place for women unlike them. This difference for both men led to a more immediate connection to God.

-LB

Will you pray for me?

Praying to saints is a contentious topic among the different christian denominations, but I do not think it should be. It is true that we can always go to God for help, and I agree that we should. It seems to me, and maybe for other Catholics as well, that the saints are just another way to go to God for help. I do not think we (Catholics) “pray to” saints but “pray through” them. I think this is done for a couple reasons, but one reason stands out to me personally. One of my best friends, he is actually the person that brought me back to the faith, was going through a tough time in his life. As we were talking he said something along the lines of, “What does He (Jesus) know of suffering, He is God with the perfect family.” While it is true that Jesus is God, and his family was perfect, I think the point he was getting at is it can be difficult to see yourself, or connect with someone you see as vastly different than you. The argument that can be leveled at this idea, “you are lacking in your faith then,” I think is a fair one, but should we not attempt to recover our faith by any moral means possible? The saints are easier for some to connect with, just look at the beginning of Saint Anselms prayers to any of the saints. Saint Anselm always begins with how terrible of a sinner he is, and I will speak for myself here, makes him more relatable to me, who is also a terrible sinner.

The difference between “praying to” and “praying through” is a small but important distinction. One of my favorite prayers, the Hail Mary, has the verse “Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” Notice that it does not say, “forgive us our sins,” only God can forgive sins, but we can ask Mary, who is the closest to God to pray for us on our behalf. Similarly in Saint Anselm’s prayer to Saint Paul, he says, “I seek someone who will pray for me,” he continues a few lines later with, “that you, Lord, may spare, and you, Paul, may intercede (Saint Anselm, 146 & 147).” He never asks Saint Paul to have mercy on him but to pray for Saint Anselm in overcoming his affliction of sinfulness. Just as we ask Saint Mary to pray for us due to her closeness with God, we can ask other saints, who by definition are in full communion with Him to pray for us as well.

Asking saints to pray for you has no true difference than asking your mom, your friend, or Mr. Smith to keep you in their prayers. We are just asking these people to ask God for His help on our behalf. This reminds me of the monasteries we have talked about previously in our discussions. The analogy was made that these monasteries are fortifications against the demons of the world,  and the monks are spiritual warriors on our behalf, going out and doing hardcore spiritual warfare. Well to use a similar example the saints are sort of like a prayer factory on our behalf, they are asking for God’s grace and mercy to be bestowed upon us at a much higher rate. The fact that the saints’ bodies are no longer among the living should not be an important point to christians. We believe in everlasting life, we believe that those in heaven are still in communion with those who have been baptised. They are still members of our spiritual family, so really there is no difference between asking Saint Michael to pray for me and asking any of the people reading this.

The saints also serve as role models for those here on earth. I am going to assume that all christians share the same ultimate goal, to know and love God. Well who, besides Christ, is better to look up to than the saints, who they themselves were imitating Christ in their lives. It always leads back to Him. By looking up to and following in the footsteps of those that came before us and achieved the goal that we all share, we are striving to join in that heavenly community that they already successfully have. We can recognize God’s hope through Saint Teresa of Calcutta, His charity through Saint Maximillian Kolbe, and His faith through Saint Joseph. These saints did not possess these virtues on their own but only through God. They are people to be looked up to because like the angels they mirror Him. The saints are part of God’s prescence in the world, and as christians we should be striving to do the same thing. One of the passages that we read yesterday was the martyrdom of St. Stephen Protomartyr, as he was being stoned he did the following, “And falling on his knees, he cried with a loud voice, saying: Lord, lay not this sin to their charge (Acts 8:59).” Echoing the words of Christ on the Cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).”

-- L. O'Connor Jelenik

Resurrection Poem

Resurrection Poem

Rise, therefore, beloved of Christ,

be like the dove 

that makes its nest in the heights in the mouth of a cleft

Dark in the morning, a lark chirps second dawn

She’s coming, silent 

the air behind anointed by her burden of

scented oils, that spilled on her hands as she sealed them

in flasks of skin, filled, then slung over both bent shoulders.

Her blue-lit way wends westward,

enshadowed feet tread towards the hill’s heavy ridge, the oil

too is heavy, grown heavy,

and her shoulders ache 

but forward 

still she ascends between the rocks now

and a chill of dawny dew breathes from the trees heavy hung

with buds of early fruit.

O hard heart, insane and impious

O human heart, 

you are harder than any hardness of rocks

Freed by the focus of her task from tears 

and from yesterday’s thought of the rot of rest

and the blank of future years ahead she looks wide-eyed, 

attending through the gloaming gloom,

—is this the way? I should be nearing…

Here is the place, there, cleft in the hill

she stops, gut drops sharp at the stoneless sepulcher’s mouth

she thinks of wild beasts, then of men, 

ducking quickened to gaze within—

Gold splits the dark 

double-dawn lit bright, 

too light to behold right 

the tomb is aglow and Not with torches,

she squints and crouches, 

oil flasks drop and burst and dribble perfume crowds the blazing cave

the radiance speaks:

Why seek ye the living among the dead?

Heel-turning tremble-kneed race-stumble back down the path 

He is not here, He is not here!

Whoever you are, 

run

with living desire!

Annotations:

Lines 1-3: This poem begins with the intermingled words of Bonaventure's Tree of Life (pg 155) and the prophet Jeremiah. Here we have a prefiguring of Mary Magdalene’s ascent to the gravesite, paired with the image of the ascending of the tree of life (which is also an image of the cross). Mary Magdalene, who was loved by Christ, is in some sense heeding the words of the prophet, going up to be with the dead Christ, if only for a visit. 

Line 4: The poem immediately drops us into the dark of pre-dawn, replacing the typical ‘early’ with ‘dark’ to emphasize that Christ is not known to be risen yet, that the disciples (Mary Magdalene in particular) is still ‘in the dark’. We have a bird singing here as well, prefiguring the Angel who in turn will prefigure Christ, announcing joy even when all still seems dark. 

Lines 5-8: Now the poem brings us close to the figure of Mary Magdalene walking to the tomb with oils to anoint the body. Echoing the account in the book of John, she is alone. The fact that she spilled oil on her hands is on one hand a practical detail, as she likely would be perfumed with the perfumes she had concocted, but it also suggests that she, like Christ, has been anointed for death in some sense. These lines also emphasize her labor and her burden that she carries, both very much for Christ. 

Lines 8-16: These lines carry the poem forward along Mary Magdalene’s lightening path - as the day grows lighter her burden grows heavier, but she moves ever forward towards the tomb. The landscape shifts and becomes up-hill, and there are two images of rockiness - first the poem says she is ascending among rocks now, and then we have the images of trees, “heavy-hung” (recalling the cross, of course) but hung with unripe fruit, which we can imagine as little rock-like plums and peaches and pomegranates etc. 

Lines 17-19: Here the image of the rocks and unripe fruits are paired with the language of Bonaventure (pg. 155 and 137), bemoaning the hardness of his heart, which he says is “harder than any rock.” But the image of an unripe fruit is essential here because it shows a rock with the potential to soften, to ripen, to turn into a more heart-like thing. A bud of early fruit is also an image of expectancy, and the poem here is increasingly charged with anticipation of what Mary Magdalen will find. 

Lines 20-23: Here there is reemphasized the sense that this morning is different from the last days of mourning, that while Mary’s experience may be of the relief of having a task, there is also a notable relief from tears that comes with the task of bringing herbs to the tomb. As is specified in the gospel of (?), the women who prepared the herbs would have rested the day before as it was the sabbath, and not been able to attend to the body. Of course while observance of the sabbath was required for Jewish lawfulness, I imagine the women would have been disturbed by the thought of Jesus’ body unanointed, rotting while they rested. And of course the time immediately following the death of Jesus must have been rife with all sorts of questions and confusions about the future - the gospel accounts repeatedly emphasize that the disciples did not understand or believe that Christ was going to rise, so their conjectures about the future may have been quite grim at that time. Mary Magdalene in particular, of course, had been demon-possessed and prostituted prior to encountering Christ, and may have dreaded the possibility of a future resembling her past. 

Lines 23-29: Here we see Mary first wondering whether she’s in the right place - she’s only been here once, if at all, and it is dark. Then the moment of recognition coupled with the stomach-drop of seeing the stone rolled away. 

Lines 30-37: Here we have a change in the rhythm and sounds of the poem as Mary looks inside the tomb and sees the angel(s). She drops the oils and they spill onto the floor, crowding the senses not only with the piercing radiance of the angel but with the smell of the “stream of the oil of gladness” (Bonaventure, 171) that Bonaventure writes about in the Tree of Life. 

Lines 38-42: The poem cuts to her race back to the other disciples, showing her fear and her confusion. We then get a final echo of Bonaventure (pg. 171), who at the end of the Tree of Life tells us too to run. 

-Alice