May and October are like sisters. Mother Nature bids them don their seasonal colors, the one in spring green and fine florals, and the other in autumnal leaves of olive green, gold, maize, and burnt sienna gracefully falling to the ground. In these two months, Mother Nature treats the senses to an array of beauty. And we participate in her gift to us.
In October as well, we confront those ubiquitous skeletal figures in black. Who can avoid them, fascinating but ugly? Ask the average person...
In 1535, Henry VIII had Sir Thomas More beheaded for refusing to take the mandatory Oath of Supremacy blessing Henry’s marriage to his mistress Ann Boleyn. Years before, Leo X had given “the Defender of the Faith,” a dispensation to marry Catherine of Aragon, the young widow of his brother Arthur. Almost twenty years later, Henry sought a dispensation from the dispensation. Clement VII refused his request.
Determined to have his way, Henry usurped papal authority and forced the realm to...
Popular songs of yesteryear often contain lyrics that lift the spirit. Take for example, “You Gotta AC-CEN-tuate the Positive” and “The Story of, the Glory of Love.” The terse lyrics, “Day By Day,” from the Broadway musical, “Godspell” proclaim discipleship in Christ. With a catchy tune, they paraphrase a prayer in the Ignatian Exercises:
“Day by day, day by day
O dear Lord, three things I pray:
To see thee more clearly,
Love thee more dearly,
Follow thee more...
At the very end of “Adam’s Rib,” the 1949 film starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Amanda quips to her husband: “There’s no difference between the sexes…well maybe it’s a little difference.” Adam snaps back: “Well, you know, as the French say, “Vive la difference! Which means, 'Hurrah for that little difference.'”
On October 31, the French government is scheduled to abolish all references to “mother” and “father” in official documents and replace the...
“What have they done to our music!” A passionate cry from many American Catholics. The rampant impoverishment of Catholic Church music elicits this insightful conclusion from The Harvard Dictionary of Music “Western church music continues to struggle with fundamental difficulties whose defiance of final resolution may be the hallmark of the vitality of the church and culture, or merely a sign of intractability. In secular terms, such difficulties may be considered as aesthetic,...
I will never forget that moment! Flinging off his eyeglasses, he glared at me, “Sister, what have you done to our music!” I froze.
It was my first year at NYU as a graduate student of musicology, and I was enrolled in Professor Gustave Reese’s course, Medieval and Renaissance Music. He was the world’s leading authority on these two musical periods. An American Jew, a Renaissance Man, he loved the sacred music of the pre-conciliar Church. In a sense, he was its custodian. For...
Catholic and Orthodox Christians will be forever indebted to St. John Damascene (8th century) for having defended the doctrinal basis for visually depicting Jesus Christ. Because Jesus entered into the human condition through his Incarnation, he could be depicted in his human nature. The Creator of matter became matter for us and, through matter, redeemed us. In the mystery of the Incarnation, the formless becomes a visible form. The opposing position was known as iconoclasm. Damascene’s...
In the eighth-century, St. John Damascene posed a challenge to Christians: If a pagan comes and asks you to show him your faith, take him to the Church and let him see the sacred icons” (St. John Damascene, Treatise on Images against Constantine Caballinus, 95-309, quoted in Thomas Merton, Disputed Questions, 158). We will return to this question.
The Church, Patron of the Arts
Beauty is a stepping stone to God, and the Church has earned a lasting place in history for inspiring a...
Last Sunday, the New York Times Magazine featured an article entitled, “God Who?” According to its reportage, a new and young crop of atheists, numbering in the thousands, has gradually emerged. Among these are pastors “recovering from Evangelical Christianity.” Those unaffiliated with a faith-tradition are being wooed by atheistic organizations who offer protest, denial, and negation.
Wholeness
For Christians, Jesus Christ, humanity’s redeemer, is the glory of God....
Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium describes the mystery of the Church in images such as a sheepfold, the kingdom, the People of God, and Christ’s own body. All images, including that of a symphony orchestra, merely point to the ineffable.
The Symphony as an Analogy for God’s Revelation in Christ
The Classical symphony is a large-scale, four-movement orchestral piece with a conductor. Franz Joseph Haydn (d 1809) is “the father of the symphony.”
The Church’s symphony is Jesus Christ, the...
