The Papal Blessing of Agni Dei

  

Six years ago I wrote a post about the traditional blessing by Popes in their first Eastertide of the wax Agni Dei made from the wax of the previous year’s Paschal Candles in the churches of Rome, and their distribution as sacramentals. That article linked to one on the Liturgical Arts Journal website and can be viewed at The Paschal Blessing of the “Agnus Dei”

 

The tradition was cast aside in the wake of Vatican II, but had it survived, or been revived, last week would have witnessed the ritual being celebrated by the Pope in his first year. Maybe if he had he could have sent one to Mr Trump. 

The New Liturgical Movement website now has an article with archive film about the Agnus Dei which can be seen at Pope St John XXIII Blessing the <i>Agnus Deis</i>

The journal Catholic History has a detailed, and well illustrated, article from 2018 about the place of the Agnus Dei in the devotional life of English Catholics in the Elizabethan persecution - their import was prohibited and possessing one could cost someone their life on the scaffold - and it can be accessed at The agnus dei, Catholic devotion, and confessional politics in early modern England

It will be no surprise to my readers to add that I cannot in all conscience see why this ancient tradition was jettisoned, and would very much like to see it revived.

Remembering Evelyn Waugh

April 10th was the sixtieth anniversary of the death, on Easter Day 1966, of Evelyn Waugh.

I recall the news at the time and from what little I knew of him had a vague sense of loss of a figure in the landscape. Over succeeding years and decades I came to know his works by reading and viewing adaptations, and to appreciate his literary skill, his brilliant humour and his Catholic insight. Apart from the obvious and easily accessible ones, his is the only literary grave I have sought out and visited. In my opinion, for what it is worth, he is not only a master craftsman of the language but also the greatest English novelist of the twentieth century.

Most writers of fiction go, to some extent, out of fashion very soon after their deaths. Waugh however, who had been seen as unfashionable in his last years, was suddenly rediscovered and his reputation and popularity have continued to grow. This has been aided by the publication of his letters and diaries, by television and to a lesser extent film, but also by 

an awareness of his consummate literary skills on the printed page.

The Daily Telegraph has had two quite short articles about Waugh and his place as a Catholic literary figure which can be seen at Sixty years on, it’s time to revive Evelyn Waugh’s lost Catholic civilisation

and To understand the world today, read books from 100 years ago

Finally an impish, but also serious suggestion. I have referred before to my, shall we say, lack of appreciation of G.K.Chesterton and his extensive literary outpourings. I cannot see why anyone would want him canonised, good Catholic that he doubtless was.

Now, if people want an English man of letters who came to a deep devotion to the Catholic faith, wrote about it, and continues to provide great entertainment in his novels, as a canonised saint, then in Evelyn Waugh there is indeed a candidate. 

Never mind about youthful follies ( ask St Augustine, de Rancé, Charles de Foucauld and many others about those), scoffing the children’s bananas, the sharp tongue, but remember the loyal friend, the loving father whose own father had probably made him inhibited in expressing paternal affection, and the author of prose in the service of Catholicism. There you have a real candidate for raising to the altars. Think about it, pray about it.

Medieval Parisian Vespers

The New Liturgical Movement has an article and video on its website reporting upon the celebration of the Solemn Vespers of Easter Day - and thus the Octave of Easter Week - according to the Gallican Parisian Use. The article explains that despite its abandonment in 1871 one church, St Eugène, was given the privilege of still using this form.

The singers are from the splendid Schola Ste Cecile, whom I had the good fortune to hear a few years ago when they spent a week in Oxford whilst on a tour of England.

The report and video can be accessed at Video of Medieval Vespers of Easter in Paris

The Turin Shroud in the news again

The Holy Shroud of Turin is back in the news with the publication of a new scientific study of the DNA contaminants on its surface. The hope is that such microscopic details will help reveal where it has been and what it has been exposed to.

The results show a vast variety of material, some of which are clearly from the last five or so centuries as they are from plant varieties introduced from the New World. Other material might well suggest that the shroud was in the Middle East, or indeed that it might originate in India. It is rather a case of “you pays your money and takes your choice”.

The first report I saw was from the Vatican centred website Zenit which tends to take a favourable view of the evidence as indicative of the authenticity of the Shroud. The article can be read at New Study Reopens the Case of the Turin Shroud’s Origins: what the DNA says

The second report is from Live Science which seems very anxious to stress the results of the 1980s Carbon 14 dating to the later medieval centuries.This dating is a matter of considerable academic debate. I rather regret the way the article is written, if not indeed skewed, to support the case for the Shroud being a forgery. However, in the interests of impartiality I am giving the link, which is accessible at Shroud of Turin, claimed to be Jesus' burial cloth, contaminated with carrot and red coral DNA

As I have written before on this subject I am definitely inclined to believe the Shroud is genuine, but accept that we shall probably never know with certainty this side of Judgement Day.

Christ is Risen Alleluia!

Christ is Risen, Alleluia!

He is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

 

Detail from The Resurrection 

Piero della Francesca

1463-65

Image: Finestre sull’ Arte

Looking back to my post for Easter Day last year and also to the fact that it was well received, I have done as I did last year and reproduced Pietro della Francesca’s depiction of The Resurrection, and an giving a link to last year’s article, which I definitely recommend because of its Patristic content, and which can be accessed at Christ is Risen Alleluia!

To supplement that and to provide some reflective and art historical reading about the painting and its survival as readers digest their Easter lunch, chocolate eggs, or relax on Easter Monday, here are three articles about it.

The first is a discussion of the work in its historical context and can be accessed at Piero della Francesca | The Resurrection, Museo Civico, Sansepolcro | Art in Tuscany

The second can be viewed at Travel Notebooks - Finestre sull'Arte

The third concentrates on the near miraculous survival of the fresco in 1944 and can be viewed at HOW ONE MAN SAVED THE "GREATEST PICTURE IN THE WORLD"

 I wish a holy, blessed, joyful and happy Easter to all my readers 

Alleluia!

Traditional Good Friday Chasubles

Yesterday the Liturgical Arts Journal had an article to mark Good Friday about traditional black vestments, as per the usage before Pope Pius XII’s changes in the 1950s. It has some splendid examples of the vestment maker and embroiderers arts in its illustrations. Some are antique, others from the later nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries. It also includes a folded chasuble, which would only have been used on Good Friday.

The aricle can be seen at Historical Chasubles for Good Friday   

The medieval view of Judas

The always useful website Medievalists.net has an interesting article about how Judas and his fate, as well as an involved biography to shoe just how unsavoury he was, were presented by medieval writers.

Illustrated with illuminations from medieval books it can be accessed at Judas in the Middle Ages: The Making of an Anti-Hero 

Gethsemene by Giotto

Detail of the Kiss of Judas by Giotto, 

1304-6, in the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua

Image: Formae Divinae Wordpress

I think the fresco of the Kiss of Judas is the finest, or most powerful, of these early fourteenth century masterpieces in the Scrovegni Chapel, and one which commands attention and invites reflection and meditation.  

The way in which the lumpen figure of Judas envelops Jesus is striking, signifying the loss of personal autonomy of the Redeemer in the Passion - He is now in His enemies’ power. yet the serenity of expression points to the Divine self-surrender central to the Triduum. 

The website from where I found this image has a meditation on the painting and this central feature which can be read at “The Kiss of Judas” by Giotto