Christ is Risen Alleluia!

Christ is Risen Alleluia!

He is Risen indeed Alleluia!

The Resurrection 

Piero Della Francesca 1463-65

Sansepolcro 

Image: Wikimedia.org

I make no apologies for using once again Piero della Francesca’s The Resurrection in this greeting to my readers. The “greatest picture in the world” is so compelling an image that it is hard not to use it again.

The figure of Christ tells, wordlessly, the viewer that the World has changed - it will never be the same again.

Two friends shared with me their appreciation of this text from the Divine Office for Holy Saturday, and which has a similar, but, in this case, verbal, approach as Piero della Francesca in this painting. There are significant differences yet the essential truth is there in both. The homilist is, one might suggest, seeking to expressi the Redeemer’s thoughts just as He prepares to emerge from the tomb and step both into and out of time.

An ancient homily on Christ’s Descent into Hell

Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all.” Christ answered him: “And with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.

For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.

See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.

I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.

Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.

Text from divineoffice.org

The Wikipedia account of the painting appears to have been updated and can be seen at The Resurrection (Piero della Francesca)

The Khan Academy also has a new article about the painting which can be seen at Khan Academy

Family Rosary has a recent, more devotional, article at Discovering The Resurrection by Piero della Francesca

A blessed, joyful and happy Easter to all my readers 

Washing Molly Grimes on Good Friday

The BBC News website has a genuinely antiquarian feel about it today with the story of the tradition which ended in 1832 of seven maids ritually washing an effigy, popularly known as ‘Molly Grimes’, in the parish church at Glentham in north Lincolnshire on Good Friday.

The article can be read at The curious case of Molly Grimes and Good Friday statue washing and it is well worth looking at the link in it to more of the source material for the story which is at The Northern Antiquarian website

, external

I hope they can find a way to revive the custom in the church.

I have, I think, read of the Glentham story in books about Lincolnshire. I imagine it originated with the custom of laying out an effigy of the dead Christ at the end of the Good Friday Liturgy which then remained in the church until the Easter Vigil or Easter Day. In an area that was conservative in matters of religion such a custom may have survived, and either consciously been adapted or have evolved through time into the washing of an effigy of a former lady of the manor. That such folk-memories did evolve and survive is attested elsewhere, such as the fresh flowers placed in the hands of a medieval female effigy in the church at Tong in Shropshire. The effigy has apparently substituted for the statue of  Our Lady since the reformers got to work in the sixteenth century.. Another example which is, I think, based on a true story ( but if it isn’t it is still worth sharing ) from the neighbouring county of Nottinghamshire is in Robertson Davies’ wonderful novel The Rebel Angels - and now you will have to go and read it to find the story! 

My Easter gift to you all….

Relic of the Holy Cross Pilgrimage

Earlier this evening I watched the livestream of the opening liturgy of the Latin Mass Society’s Jubilee Year Pilgrimage of the Relic of the Holy Cross. This was at the exquisitely restored shrine church of Corpus Christi Maiden Lane.

Following Stations of the Cross there was a Solemn Procession and Benediction of the Holy Cross, followed by individual veneration. The relic will then travel northwards and visit cities, towns, villages and traditional pilgrimage  sites through the year. This national pilgrimage is taking place as the Latin Mass Society celebrates its sixtieth anniversary. The principal intentions are for the good estate of the Catholic Church and for the conversion of England and Wales.

Details of the route and liturgies can be seen on the official website holycross2025.org

The Royal Maundy at Durham Cathedral

Yesterday the King and Queen went to Durham Cathedral for the Royal Maundy Service. His Majesty is continuing his mother’s custom of taking the ceremony to cathedrals across the country rather than just holding it in London or Windsor.

Unfortunately the service is rarely televised often televised beyond a short clip on the news about a Royal visit rather than as part of a living tradition of the monarchy. I recall watching on occasions when it was televised when the late Queen distributed the Maundy purses in Durham fifty years ago, and her visits to do so at Winchester in 1979 and St David’s in 1982. 

Now, with the development of a much wider range of media transmission, the Service yesterday can be seen in a shortened form on the Royal Family Channel at King Presents Maundy Money at Royal Maundy Service at Durham Cathedral

More about the medieval sealskin bindings at Clairvaux

The Artnet website has a report about the identification of sealskin as the binding of a number of manuscripts from Clairvaux, about which I wrote in Sealskin at Clairvaux

This new article adds further details from the research, partly about the origin of the sealskin, but also about its choice by the Cistercians. The argument is that although the bindings are now brown this is a result of aging, and that originally they would have been white or light grey. This would correspond to the white or off-white monastic habits of the Cistercians.

The article can be seen at These Medieval Texts Were Bound With an Unlikely Animal Hide

Liturgical colours, Folded Chasubles and the Broad Sstole

Now, dear reader, reading that title, don’t get too excited, but I do have some good things to share with you.

Mass this morning according to the 1962 Missal with its change of liturgical colours from red to violet after the Palm Procession made me realise I needed to be sure I was up to speed on what and when, the various changes were wrought in the 1950s and 1960s. Once Mass, Sunday lunch, and the Boat Race were out of the way I betook myself to the Internet in search of the answer.

The excellent Liturgical Arts Journal had three linked articles. The most recent from 2023 outlined the changes in the colours of the vestments for today between 1955 and 1969-70 and can be seen at Palm Sunday: Variations in the Vestments and Their Colours in the Span of Fifteen Years

That led me to two further, and related, articles which I am sure I have shared before with readers, but make no apologies for doing so again. They look at topics beloved of traditionally minded observers of liturgy and vestments, and particularly at this time of year. Both are very well illustrated and clearly well researched.

The more recent, from 2017, is about the History and Designs of the Folded Chasuble

An earlier article from 2009, is on the parent website, that of the New Liturgical Movement. It is rather more detailed and can be seen at Use, History and Development of the "Planeta Plicata" or Folded Chasuble

These days,thanks to the wonder of the Internet, one can sometimes find Masses online where the folded chasuble and broad stole make their traditional appearance. I had the good fortune to tune in to an FSSP Mass in Mexico in 2020 to find these historic vestments in use. If one is really lucky you might, of course, be able to attend such a liturgy celebrated according to the pre-1955 norms.

I am sure you will not need to ask what my views would be on the suitability of these changes to the liturgy.

Book review: Medieval French Nobles

This is another book by the author of the one on peasant life which I republished last week. The two complement each other and draw upon material from the same French regions and era..

"Strong of Body, Brave and Noble": Chivalry and Society in Medieval France

Constance Brittain Bouchard.    

Cornell UP  2017

A valuable and insightful study

This is a book I would thoroughly recommend, and indeed have done to friends.

I have to disagree with another Amazon reviewer Cebes “Useful but flawed study” who criticises it for not offering a simple model of aristocratic life in the period. The point surely that Bouchard is making is that it was a society that was complex and changing, and that generalisations are difficult if not dangerous.

As a work it offers a synthesis of many studies referenced in the footnotes, and is of great value as a bibliographic guide.

 

There is a great deal that is covered and discussed in a relatively short and very readable book. The life of the medieval nobility is opened out and unpacked in a way which is accessible to the modern reader, enhancing and enriching one’s understanding of the past.

I think it has a wider application than just the area the author predominantly concentrates on of Champagne and Burgundy. It is applicable to much of western Europe in the period and indeed for later centuries.

A book that is valuable for the general reader, for students, and for academics looking for pointers with research.

Posted on Amazon  24.3.2023

More good news about Catholic Church restoration

In addition to the announcement about the restoration work in Nottingham Cathedral there is more good news about the great Preston church of St Walburga. 

Now administered as a Eucharistic shrine by ICKSP the church has initiated a programme to undo changes carried out in 1972 and to restore the church to its original 1854 layout as designed by the architect Joseph Aloysius Hansom. 

There is an illustrated article about the project at St. Walburge’s Church set to have original design aspects reinstated

I have never visited Preston but were I to do so visiting St Walburga’s would be my principal aim. From all the pictures I have seen the interior, reminiscent in different ways of medieval gothic churches in both Germany and Italy, is a sight to see, whilst the spectacular tower and spire, added some years after the main building was completed, is the third highest spire, and the tallest on a parish church, in the country. The whole church is testimony to the confidence of mid-nineteenth century Lancashire Catholicism.