Stories
This page is a collection of stories and miscellaneous articles
related
to religious cards and icons.
Be a Card Carrying Catholic
Our
Lady of
Coromoto
The Story Behind the
Picture of
the Praying Hands
Tattered prayerbook holds lesson in
faith,
hope
A Word About "Monastery Icons"
Sharing Prayers
Don't Leave Home Without It
Reclaiming Halloween's Christian Roots
One Man's Treasure
Jesus (as many people think of Him)
In his image A 20th Century Religious
Icon
Had Its
Genesis In A Cherubic Rogers Park Boy
A Quick History Of Bible Art
The Oberammergau Passion Play
Calling Cards
St.
Bernardino Fostered Holy Name Devotion
Holy cards see resurgence in popularity
- Catholic Holy Cards: Visual, Verbal, and Tactile codes for
the
(In)visible
For an interesting look at the place Catholic Holy Cards have in the
print tradition, James Petruzzelli has authored this fascinating essay.
Click
here for the full essay.
Be a Card Carrying Catholic
by
Tom McGrath, executive editor of U.S. CATHOLIC
and author of Bringing Religion Home newsletter.
What are you doing, honey?" Asks my wife over the drone of the
vacuum.
"I'm cleaning."
"No, you're not. You're reading."
"Yeah, well... "
It's dangerous when I try to clean. I'll be quite productive until
I
run across something with words on it -- an instruction manual
from
an appliance we no longer own, old newspapers wrapped around a
knickknack
in the attic, bits and pieces of stuff at land on the top of the
nightstand.
Today I'm cleaning my dresser.
"Hey, Kathleen, did you know that Alex was 90 when he died?"
"That's nice. People will be here in two hours, dear."
I sit down and shuffle through the handful of holy cards strewn
about
my dresser and tucked among the credit card receipts. I read,
"Nell
Peterson, born, December 6, 1902, at rest, February 15, 1994." I
remember
Nell, my great-aunt, walking from the us stop loaded down with bags of
bakery goods, coming to visit, to make our day special. I can still
taste
the sweet rolls. I say a silent prayer of thanksgiving for the
love
she poured out on me, and ask her to intercede and help me be more
generous.
Here's a memorial holy card from a guy I went to high school with.
There
are cards for relatives, friends, people I knew from work. I say a
prayer
for each deceased and take a lesson from each person remembered. I read
the gospel in their lives.
Holy cards weren't originally designed to commemorate the dead
though
that's one of their prime uses these days. They came on the scene in
the
U.S. and Europe early in this century with the advent of mass
production
of printed material. Originally the were distributed by pious groups to
commemorate pilgrimages. They typically featured images and prayers to
saints. And they're not a thing of the past. The National Shrine of St.
Jude distributes 2,000,000 Saint Jude holy cards each year. Maybe
you've
seen one on the dashboard of a taxi cab or in the back pew of your
parish
church.
I recently came across a holy card given to me in 1964 upon the
occasion
of my graduation from St. Symphorosa and Her Seven Sons grammar school.
On the front of the card is a solicitous Madonna and her child; on the
back are instructions on how to enjoy your summer vacation. The tips
include:
"Obey your parents" (surely countercultural advice in the '60s);
"attend
'Class A' pictures only"; and "keep good company." Sister Boneventure,
O.S.B. handed the cards out on the last day of school,
and somehow the card survived a dozen moves, a couple of flooded
basements,
and an occasional resolution to "get rid of all this junk once and for
all!"
The liturgical renewal of the late '60s produced a bumper crop of
holy
cards. St. Benet's bookstore in Chicago featured a wide rack of cards
displaying
the modern designs of Sister Corita Kent and other graphic artists,
accompanied
by profound or inspirational quotes by the likes of Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Daniel Berrigan.
Years ago we went on vacation with my wife's family. Aunts and
uncles,
grandmas and cousins stayed at a large beach house on the shore of Lake
Michigan. My daughters were preschoolers at the time. One day I went to
wake them from their nap to go swimming. They were not in their room.
After a quick search of the house I located them perched on Aunt
Marie's
bed, one on either side of their great-aunt. On Marie's lap was spread
a well-thumbed daily missal. Most of the pages were jammed with holy
cards.
Marie was working her way through them and telling my girls about
long-gone
family and friends of the family.
"This is from your great-uncle, Hugh. He owned a grocery store. He
was
a lovely man. Here's one from Margaret Costello. She was always
so
good to your great-grandmother. Here's Father Mulholland's card. He
died
young. God rest his soul."
The girls leaned in, enraptured with these cards -- images of
saints
and angels on the one side, details of blessed ancestors on the
other.
The kids were being initiated into the communion of saints.
I stood and watched until the three of them looked up beaming. We
all
went down to the beach then, and Aunt Marie and Uncle John splashed in
the waves with the girls. They laughed and screamed as each large wave
swooshed around them. They held on tight to one another so as not
to fall over, not to be overcome. It was a great scene. It would have
made
a great holy card.
Source: US Catholic, Jun97, Vol. 62 Issue 6, p50, 1p.
Reprinted with permission from Tom McGrath and US Catholic.
Our
Lady
of Coromoto
When the Spaniards arrived at the region of Guanare, around 1591,
a
group of Indians of the Coromoto tribe decided to abandon their land
and
flee towards the Tucupido River, since they did not want to have
anything
to do with the white men or with the religion they brought with them.
Fifty
years later, still not having converted to the Gospel, the Indians live
in a small village not far from the Spaniards' town. Both groups live
in
peace, but remain isolated from each other.
Such was the state of affairs when on a morning of the year 1651,
the
chief of the Coromotos and his wife watch an extraordinary vision: in
the
ravine of the Tucupido River, upon the waters, a beautiful lady is
looking
at them with a loving expression on her face; the small child she
carries
also smiles amiably. The mysterious lady summons the Indian chief and
orders
him: "leave the forest with your people and go to the white men in
order
to receive the water on the head so as to be able to enter heaven".
Impressed by what he has seen and heard, the chief decides to obey
the
beautiful lady and leaves with his tribe to be schooled in the
Christian
religion.
But the Indian, used to the freedom of the forests, cannot become
accustomed
to the new way of life and he returns to his village with his family.
The
lady appears again, this time at the Indian's humble hut. Although the
Virgin presents herself surrounded by a luminous aura whose rays fill
the
hut with fire, she does not succeed in moving the chief, who, annoyed,
tries to throw her out and even takes his weapons in hand with the
intention
of threatening the inopportune lady. Smiling all the way, the Virgin
approaches
the chief gently and when he stretches out his hand angrily to catch
her,
she disappears before his eyes. A small holy card, where the image
of
the Lady was printed, was left in the Coromoto Indian's closed fist.
The Virgin of Coromoto is a tiny relic that measures 27
milimeters
high and 22 wide. The holy card's material could be parchment or tissue
paper. The Virgin is painted seated, and on her lap sits the Child
Jesus. It seems to have been drawn with a fine pen, sketched as a
portrait
done in India ink with dots and dashes. The Virgin and Child are
looking
straight ahead; their heads erect with royal crowns upon them. The back
of the throne which supports them has two columns joined together by an
arch. The Virgin's shoulders are covered by a crimson cloak with dark
purple
reflections, and a white veil falls symmetrically over her hair. She
wears
a straw colored tunic and the Child a white one. The image
is kept inside a richly adorned monstrance where it is presented
for the veneration of the faithful.
At the
request
of the nation's bishops, on October 7, 1944 Pius XII declared her
"Patroness
of the Republic of Venezuela" and her canonical coronation was
celebrated
on the third centenary of her apparition, on September 11, 1952. His
Eminence
Cardinal Manuel Arteaga Betancourt, Archbishop of Havana, representing
Pope Pius XII, crowned the sacred image of Our Lady of Coromoto.
The Venezuelans celebrate their patroness each year on three
different
occasions: on February 2 and September 8 and 11. The National
Sanctuary
of the Virgin of Coromoto, meeting place of great pilgrimages, was
declared
a Basilica by Pope Pius XII on May 24, 1949
Source: Marian Titles in the Popular Religiosity of Latin
America
- maintained by The Marian Library/International Marian Research
Institute, athttp://www.udayton.edu/mary/resources/engseven.html
- was last modified Feb. 27, 1998 by J.C. Tierney. Send comments to
ROTEN@data.lib.udayton.edu.
The Story Behind
the Picture
of the Praying Hands
Back in the fifteenth century, in a tiny village near Nuremberg,
lived
a family with eighteen children. Eighteen! In order merely
to keep food on the table for this mob, the father and head of the
household,
a goldsmith by profession, worked almost eighteen hours a day at his
trade
and any other paying chore he could find in the neighborhood. Despite
their
seemingly hopeless condition, two of the children had a dream.
They
both wanted to pursue their talent for art, but they knew full well
that
their father would never be financially able to send either of them to
Nuremberg to study at the Academy. After many long discussions at night
in their crowded bed, the two boys finally worked out a pact.
They
would toss a coin. The loser would go down into the nearby
mines and, with his earnings, support his brother while he attended the
academy. Then, when that brother who won the toss completed his
studies,
in four years, he would support the other brother at the academy,
either
with sales of his artwork or, if necessary, also by laboring in the
mines.
They tossed a coin on a Sunday morning after church. Albrecht
Durer
won the toss and went off to Nuremberg. Albert went down into the
dangerous mines and, for the next four years, financed his brother,
whose
work at the academy was almost an immediate sensation. Albrecht's
etchings, his woodcuts, and his oils were far better than those of most
of his professors, and by the time he graduated, he was beginning to
earn
considerable fees for his commission works.
When the young artist returned to his village, the Durer family
held
a festive dinner on their lawn to celebrate Albrecht's triumphant
homecoming.
After a long and memorable meal, punctuated with music and laughter,
Albrecht
rose from his honored position at the head of the table to drink a
toast
to his beloved brother for the years of sacrifice that had enabled
Albrecht
to fulfill his ambition. His closing words were, "And now,
Albert,
blessed brother of mines, now it is your turn. Now you can go to
remembering to pursue your dream, and I will take care of you." All
heads
turned in eager expectation to the far end of the table where Albert
sat,
tears streaming down his pale face, shaking his lowered head from side
to side while he sobbed and repeated, over and over, "no..no..no..no."
Finally, Albert rose and wiped the tears from his cheeks. He
glanced
down the long table at the faces he loved, and then, holding his hands
close to his right cheek, he said softly, "No, brother. I cannot
go to Nuremberg. It is too late for me. Look. look what four
years
in the mines has done to my hands! The bones in every finger have
been smashed at least once, and lately I have been suffering from
arthritis
so badly in my right hand that I cannot even hold a glass to return
your
toast, much less make delicate lines on parchment or canvas with a pen
or a brush. No brother...for me it is too late.”
More than 450 years have passed. By now, Albrecht Durer's
hundreds
of masterful portraits, pen and silver-point sketches, watercolors,
charcoals,
woodcuts, and copper engravings hang in every great museum in the
world,
but the odds are great that you, make most people, are familiar with
only
one of Albrecht Durer's works. More than merely being familiar
with
it, you very well may have a reproduction hanging in your home or
office.
One day, to pay homage to Albert for all that he had sacrificed,
Albrecht
Durer painstakingly drew his brother's abused hands with palms together
and thin fingers stretched skyward. He called his powerful
drawing
simply "Hands", but the entire world almost immediately opened their
hearts
to his great masterpiece and renamed his tribute of love "The Praying
Hands".
The next time you see a copy of that touching creation, take a
second
look. Let it be your reminder, if you still need one, that no one
- no one - - ever makes it alone!
Michelle Pate, Associate AIA, The Wallace Group,
Inc.,
Architects*Engineers*Surveyors
mpate@wallace-group.comDenver Catholic
Register
October 30, 1996
Tattered prayerbook holds
lesson
in faith, hope by Eileen Love
All we have left of Grandma is the prayerbook. Seven years ago, in
a
heartfelt but impromptu ceremony conducted as we sat on the edge of her
bed, my mother handed it to me.
"Your great grandmother was a saint," she solemnly confided as
though
she had never mentioned it before. "Never a day went by that Grandma
didn't
hold this prayerbook and read the Gospels and pray the office and say
her
novenas. Take good care of it."
I held it in my hands, softly and carefully as Catholics do with
relics.
So old that the binding flaked off in my hands, I leafed through the
whisper-thin
pages, yellow with age. Tucked among the pages was the story of this
woman's
life. Everything was here . . . snapshots, holy cards and
obituaries;
ads promising to make old rosaries look like new, scribbled aspirations
and a cross fashioned out of palm fronds, pale and brittle.
It was Grandma Lily who raised my mother and her five siblings
after
the sudden death of their mother in 1925. Though she was long dead by
the
time I came along, I was so accustomed to hearing about Grandma that
she
was as much a part of my growing up as the real-life folks who peopled
my existence. So familiar was I with her tales and the affectionate
references
to her that I could almost feel her comfortable bulk, see her at night
with crimpers in her steel grey hair and hear her yelling loud and
clear
through the velvet curtain of the confessional, "My grandchildren made
me lose my temper!"
Of course, Monsignor wouldn't dream of withholding absolution from
Lily.
If she lost her temper occasionally, she was entitled. After all, God
had
asked a lot of this woman.
Lily Farrell was enjoying a peaceful retirement in her Manhattan
brownstone
back in 1925 when tragedy erupted in her family and it seemed she was
called
back into active duty. It was the last thing she expected. You see,
Grandma
had lost a leg to cancer and was advised that her earthly days were
numbered.
But her own death would have to wait. Here in the twilight of her life,
God gave her her most important work to do. Not one to shirk
responsibility,
she mustered her pluck, packed her belongings and prayed all the way
out
to Long Island on the train.
Grandma ran a tight ship. From her command post in the family's
kitchen
she planned menus, phoned orders into local stores, checked homework,
and
quizzed children on their catechism. Over breakfast, she delivered a
brief
homily on the saint whose feast was being celebrated. And she was never
wrong. Lily may not have remembered where she put her glasses, but she
never forgot which saint's day it was. The children awoke to the sound
of Grandma murmuring her prayers first thing in the morning. Often they
fall asleep to the reassuring thumpety thump of Grandma's crutches
coming
down the hall as she entered bedrooms to close windows against the
elements
or tuck covers up around sleeping chins.
These days when I hold Lily's prayerbook, it is easy to conjure up
images
of her; easy to see a person who lived her life like the saints she
revered.
And though I am not as well or intimately acquainted with the lives of
the saints as she was, I am grateful for our Catholic belief in the
communion
of saints and honored to share a common faith with such uncommon
people.
Eileen Love is the assistant director of religious education at
Light
of the World Parish in Littleton.
Archdiocese of Denver Website -
http://www.archden.org/archden
A Word About "Monastery
Icons"
by Fr. Anthony Nelson
The "Light of Christ Monastery" and the Convent of the Virgin Mary
in
Borrego Springs, CA., formerly the "Gnostic Orthodox" in Geneva,
Nebraska
(Holy Protection Gnostic Orthodox Monastery and the St. John of
Kronstadt
Gnostic Orthodox Convent) are "monastic communities" of self-styled
monks
and nuns. They began in Oklahoma City in the 70's, when their current
"Patriarch"—Abbot
Bishop George Burke—showed up in town (newly run away in the dead of
night
from the Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Monastery in Boston, where he
had
attached himself) calling himself "Swami" something-or-other (I can't
begin
to spell it).
He had been raised Church of God-Anderson, near Bloomington,
Illinois,
gravitated to Chicago and loosely affiliated himself with Roman
Catholicism.
After a while he began attending the Levitt Street OCA Cathedral, and
later
the Synod Cathedral, where he got himself baptized by Bishop Seraphim.
He then migrated to California, where he joined with Yogananda, and
worked
P.R. for him. Then he went to Boston to Holy Transfiguration Monastery
"to learn Orthodox monasticism"—according to him. In Oklahoma City he
started
a Hindu community that grew to about nine monks and three nuns. One
day,
in the late 70's, he announced to the brethren that they had "outgrown"
the spiritual possibilities of Hinduism, and were going to become
Christian.
They then constituted themselves as the "Holy Protection Old Catholic
Benedictine
Monastery of the Primitive Observance." The Swami got himself
consecrated
a bishop by the self-styled "Old Catholic" bishop at St. Hilarion's
Center
in Austin, Texas (although he—the former "Swami"—stated categorically
that
it was unnecessary, because he had been a Roman Catholic bishop during
the Middle Ages in a previous life!).
Many may remember this group as having been featured on various
prime-time
news shows (P.M. Magazine and Real People) in the late 70's/early 80's
as constituting the volunteer Fire Department in the little town of
Forest
Park, Oklahoma, and also as raising ostriches on the grounds of their
property.
I remember seeing them on television one night while I was living at
St.
Tikhon's Seminary in Pennsylvania in about 1980, and wondering just
what
kind of "order" or "religion" they were. Little did I dream that I
would
come into intimate contact with them only a year or two later when I
was
assigned to Oklahoma City by the Antiochian Archdiocese.
In about 1981 "Bishop George" decided that they had outgrown Old
Catholicism,
and they became "Holy Protection Orthodox Monastery." They dressed as
Orthodox
monks and did the services impeccably well, as George had learned in
Boston.
Then, in 1985 or so, they remodeled their chapel again and became
"Coptic"—serving
their own version of the Liturgy of St. James and dressing in a form of
Coptic monastic garb. They even succeeded in having Indian and Egyptian
Coptic Christian clergy concelebrate with them, falsely claiming
various
kinds of non-Chalcedonian "Apostolic Succession" - claims which those
Coptic
Christians accepted without investigation.
I walked in on them one day and found them doing a curious service
modeled
after Hindu worship, in which they were offering fruit and flowers to
the
icons of Christ and the Theotokos in their chapel. The prayers were an
interesting (although sacrilegious and blasphemous) blend of the
Trisagion
prayers and Hindu worship. During all of this, they maintained a
second,
secret chapel on the premises. Here they practiced magical evocation
and
demonolatry. I received into Orthodoxy several lay persons who were a
part
of their "secret Order"—coming from various Protestant backgrounds.
These
particular individuals finally began to wonder if they were really
"Orthodox"
and "Christian" when, on a trip to Texas with the monks, they saw the
monks
and nuns bow down before the idol in the Hare Krishna temple in Dallas,
and Abbot Bishop George refused to bless the food served in the Krishna
restaurant because "it was already blessed, having been offered to the
idol." These former members of their cult and one former monk brought
to
me all of their secret rituals,vestments, history, and associated
blasphemous
and really frightening materials. It took me well over a year of
working
with these individuals to get them over their fear of the psychic and
spiritual
retaliation with which the Abbot had threatened them if they ever
revealed
the group's secrets. I still have these materials, and they would be
laughable
in their sophomoric secret-society silliness if they were not so
seriously
believed and practiced.
The group left Oklahoma under difficult circumstances in regard to
legal
problems concerning the estate of a novice (son of a powerful state
politician)
who died in India. All novices were required to make a pilgrimage to
India
to interview with, and receive the blessing of, one "Mother
Anandamoy"—a
Hindu holy woman—who must approve them for membership in the Community.
One of their former monks who had left the group and took a job in
Oklahoma
City (and personally continued their occult practices privately) once
made
the statement: "Orthodox Priests are like camels. They carry a cargo
of
immeasurable worth, with no comprehension of its value." The Daily
Oklahoman,
the largest circulation newspaper in the state, once carried a color
picture
on the front page of one of it's secondary sections depicting one of
their
"priests." He was shown sitting at a table during a regional "Psychic
Fair"
doing a Tarot Card reading.
On another occasion, after I had learned their secrets and forbade
my
parishioners to have anything to do with them, Abbot George announced
during
one of his sermons that he, in a previous life, had been one of
the
Christian Martyrs who suffered under Diocletian, and I (Fr. Anthony)
was
the Roman who led him to his martyrdom. He also claims that, during a
pilgrimage
to visit Mother Anandamoy in India, he was killed in a car accident in
New Delhi, but because his "work" here was incomplete, was immediately
reincarnated in his body and survived.
"Patriarch George" of the "Gnostic Orthodox Church" admitted in an
interview
in the Omaha World Herald that his
"Patriarchate" covered only 5 or 6 acres. By the way, why they chose
Nebraska is a mystery: Abbot Bishop George
announced, following a visit to Hawaii for an international peace
conference
in approximately 1985, that the Goddess of one of the volcanos appeared
to him and promised to give him the island if he would relocate his
community
there.
Apparently that offer was not good enough because, after first
relocating
in Nebraska, today they are the "Light of Christ
Monastery" in California. They claim to be the exclusive remnant of
a spurious so-called "Western Orthodox Church"
descended from, the Syrian Jacobite (Monophysite) Church of the East.
They have one "iconographer" there who paints all their pictures
(please,
not icons). All are "blessed" with one of their occult rituals before
being
shipped, and they support themselves to the tune of several hundred
thousand
dollars per year selling the demonic things. Many Roman Catholic
bookstores
sell them but, happily, most Orthodox sellers of religious items have
discovered
who and what they are and no longer do business with them.
Please don't buy their pictures—they are spiritually very
dangerous.
Sharing Prayers
by Brother John Raymond
Holy cards remind me of something I did when I was young and
daring.
When I lived in Orlando, Florida I came across a beautiful holy card
with
the Face of Jesus on it. When you turned the card at a certain angle
Jesus'
Face as depicted on the Holy Shroud of Turin would appear. Otherwise,
you
would see His Face as reconstructed by an artist from the Shroud image.
I used to keep the card on my bureau in my room. One day the idea came
to me to share this holy card with others. So I bought about
twenty-five
of them. But instead of sharing them with friends, I randomly
picked
people out of the phone book. I wrote a little note on the back of the
holy card explaining that I was a Catholic who wanted to share
something
special with them. Some of these strangers were very grateful for the
gift.
One man went so far as to track me down and come and visit me. Others
found
me in the phone book and gave me a call. It certainly created quite a
stir.
Source: Sharing Prayers. September 29, 1996 Brother John Raymond
http://www.rc.net/org/monks/holycard.html
Don't Leave Heaven Without It
By Curt Miller
Last night I picked up what I thought was a "holy card" from the
floor
of the Laundromat. Holy cards, as we called them in my Roman Catholic
youth,
bear the likeness of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, or a saint on one side. On
the other side, there’s a prayer.
Well, the card I picked up had a likeness of "Our Lady of
Guadalupe"
on one side. On the other side were instructions on how to use this
telephone
card!
Well, let me cut to the chase. I suppose that religious symbols,
slogans
and phrases have long been used to sell products. After all, sometimes
funeral homes listed their addresses and phone numbers on the backs of
"holy cards" handed out at funerals.
But I don’t know -- these days it seems a little more "in your
face."
The Heineken beer company slogan "seek the truth" suggests that if I’m
looking for the truth, I’ll find it in one of those green bottles.
"Seek
the froth," maybe -- but "seek the truth?!?"
Volkswagen assures me that if I’ve lost my soul (the soul of the
60s,
that is), that by buying the new version of the Beetle, I’ll get my
soul
back.
The clearest example of advertising co-opting religion these days
is
a campaign by a car company -- Volvo, I think. A Volvo, says the
announcer,
is the only car that can "save your soul."
So. If I have it right, all I need to do is slug down a couple of
Heinekens
buy a Volkswagen and a Volvo (can’t hurt to cover all the bases). And
when
I get to heaven, I’ll give you a call using, course, the only phone
card
endorsed by the Virgin Mary.
By Curt Miller, Dir. of the Office of Communication
Taken from the Disciples of Christ Web Page
http://www.disciples.org/offcomm/CFT798/cft7987.htm
Reclaiming Halloween's
Christian
Roots by Fr. Joe Hirsch
As Halloween approaches, there are a number of opinions about how
we
should celebrate this holiday. There are some who say we should just
have
fun and let the kids dress up in whatever they like; thus the children
dress as goblins, ghosts, devils, witches, monsters and other less
fearful
beings.
There are others who say that we should not celebrate Halloween in
any
way because it glorifies the devil and evil. They remind us that for
people
who practice the occult, this is their most sacred day of evil.
Therefore,
as Christians, we should have nothing to do with this day.
Undoubtedly there are some who glorify evil and the dark side on
Halloween.
On the other hand, Christians could make a faith statement on this
holiday
which literally means holy evening. It's been shortened over time to
Halloween.
What does holy evening have to do with Halloween?
The Celtic people had a fall celebration on Nov; 1 called Feast of
Samhain.
They believed Samhain, lord of death, was overpowering their sun god,
and
that on Oct.31 Samhain assembled the spirits of all who had died during
the previous year. These spirits had been confined to inhabit animals'
bodies for the past year as punishment for their evil deeds. They were
allowed to return to their former home to visit the living on Oct.31.
Druid
priests led the people in diabolical worship ceremonies in which
horses,
cats, black sheep, oxen, human beings and other offerings were rounded
up, stuffed into wicker cages and burned to death. This was done to
appease
Samhain and keep spirits from harming them. The people wore masks to
ward
off evil spirits.
Later the Romans blended this with their celebration of Feralia,
which
was a fall harvest festival honoring the goddess Pomona, goddess of the
orchards. Thus came the custom of bobbing for apples.
About 900, the Catholic Church moved its Feast of All Saints to
Nov.1
to counteract the emphasis on evil. Christians used the celebration
witness
and teach that we not fear evil because Jesus conquered all death and
evil
through his death and resurrection. The church added Nov. 2 as a day of
prayer for the All Souls Day.
On the night of Oct.31, Christians dressed as saints, angels and
Bible
characters. There were skits presenting the power of God over evil.
That
night became known as the All Hallowed (Holy) Evening. Thus the name
for
Halloween itself is not pagan, but Christian. Isn't it time we reclaim
it for Christ?
This isn't the first time Christians took a pagan day and custom
and
Christianize them. Dec.25 was chosen a Christmas because of a
coinciding
pagan celebration of sun god. It marks the time in which daylight
begins
to increase. The pagan worship the sun god was counteract the emphasis
on evil. Christians used the celebration to witness and teach that we
need
not fear evil because Jesus conquered all death and evil through his
death
and resurrection. The church added Nov. 2 as a day of prayer for the
dead,
All Souls Day.
On the night of Oct.31, Christians dressed as saints, angels and
Bible
characters. There were skits presenting the power of God over evil.
That
night became known as the All Hallowed (Holy) Evening. Thus the name
for
Halloween itself is not pagan, but Christian. Isn't it time we reclaim
it for Christ?
This isn't the first time Christians took a pagan day and custom
and
Christianized them. Dec.25 was chosen as Christmas because of a
coinciding
pagan celebration of a sun god. It marks the time in which daylight
begins
to increase. The pagan worship of the sun god was counteracted by
Christian
worship of the Son of God.
As late as 1955, Pope Pius XII established the feast of
St. Joseph
the Worker, patron of our diocese, in response to the Communist
celebration
of May Day on May I. Since the church has Christianized Oct.31, Nov. 1
and 2, and as a culture we have lost the Christian meaning of
Halloween,
may I recommend making all three days holy days, days in which we
witness
our faith in Jesus Christ. This is a wonderful teaching moment for our
children and our community.
I further suggest that children dress up on Halloween as Bible
characters,
angels or saints. They can visit other homes and when people ask about
their costume, they can tell about the person they represent and that
person's
place in scripture or Christian tradition.
This is a great opportunity to share our faith with others and
recapture
the Christian meaning of Halloween.
Father Hirsch is pastor of Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Parish,
St. Mary's Ridge; Sacred Heart Parish, Cashton; St. Augustine Parish,
Norwalk;
and St. John the Baptist Parish, Summit.
From the La Crosse Catholic Diocese, Times Review, Oct. 22, 1998,
p.
13
One Man's Treasure by
Michael Ferg
Michael Ferg is a holy card collector from Louisville, KY and
has
this story to share.
The big Flea Market was back in town once again a few months ago,
so
I journeyed out there in hopes of finding another holy card
treasure.
Dealers bring in their wares from all over the country so there's
always
the chance of finding something good.
My hopes and dreams came true on this day! I not only found
an
old holy card dating back to 1904, but it is a prized family piece as
well.
This wonderful holy card is of St. Joseph and little Jesus. It is
very beautiful on the front side, but what is printed on the back is
what
is so special to me. I nearly fainted when I read what it
said.
It is the Silver Jubilee souvenir card for Sr. Mary Egidia Foerg, who
is
my great, great aunt. She was my great grandfather Ferg's
sister.
When their parents came to America from Germany in the 1800's our name
was spelled Foerg and was later changed to Ferg. Sr. Mary Egidia
celebrated her Silver Jubilee on July 26, 1904 making this card 95
years
old very soon. She was an Ursuline nun here in Louisville and
that
information is printed at the bottom.
I had always wished someday I would find a card with her name on
it,
since no one in my family had one to pass down to me. I knew the
chances of that ever coming to light was very slim, but on the Friday
before
the flea market I was thinking about her and wondering what her Silver
and Golden Jubilee cards looked like. How astonished I was to
find
one of her cards the very next day. I was speechless when I read
her name on this card. I had no idea her name was spelled the old
way on it until this discovery. All of my family is amazed
too!
I feel like it was a special gift from God, because it was just shear
luck
that I even found it. I found the card among over a thousand post
cards filed under the religion section. It was the only holy card
there to even be found. The price for such a valuable card to me
was an unbelievable 50 cents.
I can't tell you how much I would have paid to get this card. To
me
it is priceless. This card means the wold to me and I treasure it more
than all the lace cards in my collection.
Michael Ferg correspondence with Brent Devitt, June 4, 1999
Jesus (as many people think
of
Him)
Warner E. Sallman was an illustrator for religious
magazines.
In 1924 he needed a picture for a deadline the next day, but was coming
up blank. Finally, he went to bed -- then suddenly awoke
with
a picture of the Christ in my mind's eye just as if it were on my
drawing
board." He quickly sketched a portrait of Jesus with long brown
hair,
blue eyes, a neatly trimmed beard, and a beatific look -- which has now
become the common image of Christ around the world. Since 1940,
more
than 500 million copies of Sallman's "Head of Christ" have been
sold.
It has been reproduced billions of times on calendars, lamp, posters
[and
holy cards.]
From Uncle John's Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader,
by
the Bathroom Readers' Institute, 1998
In his image A 20th
Century
Religious Icon Had Its Genesis In A Cherubic Rogers Park Boy
Chicago Tribune; Chicago, Ill.; Jul 15, 2001; Patrick T Reardon;
(Copyright
2001 by the Chicago Tribune)
Abstract:
Eighty-one years ago, her father, Gilbert DeMille, then a boy of 4,
posed for artist Charles Bosseron Chambers for a painting of Jesus and
St. Joseph in the newly built St. Ignatius Church in Rogers Park. It
was
a detail of that painting, the face of Jesus--the face of Gilbert--that
became "Light of the World." Between 1920 and 1940, millions of copies
of the
bare-shouldered, curly-haired, blond Jesus were sold, reflecting a
wistful devoutness, a sweet piety, that was a hallmark of pre-Vatican
II
Catholicism, and of American Christianity in general.
Full Text:
For millions of American Catholics, a painting known as "Light of
the
World," an image of Jesus as a small boy, recalls a long-gone era of
nuns
in thick habits, incense-filled sanctuaries and the Baltimore
Catechism.
Indeed, during the first half of the 20th Century, it was the most
popular
religious print in America.
Now, after decades of obscurity, the image is making a modest
comeback--on
the Internet, of all places. Go to the eBay auction Web site and, most
days, you'll find several copies of the print, dragged up from
basements
or found amid a deceased relative's belongings, and offered for sale
not
so much as religious objects but as "collectibles."
Some buyers want them for their antique frames, while others
consider
the images investments that may rise in value. Many bid out of
nostalgia,
hoping to regain a piece of their childhood and the innocence of their
early religious belief.
Darlene Baker has a different reason: She has 90 copies of the
print
hanging on three walls of her living room in Winnetka because, for her,
the image isn't just Jesus. It's also her father.
Eighty-one years ago, her father, Gilbert DeMille, then a boy of
4,
posed for artist Charles Bosseron Chambers for a painting of Jesus and
St. Joseph in the newly built St. Ignatius Church in Rogers Park. It
was
a detail of that painting, the face of Jesus--the face of Gilbert--that
became "Light of the World." Between 1920 and 1940, millions of copies
of the bare-shouldered, curly-haired, blond Jesus were sold, reflecting
a wistful devoutness, a sweet piety, that was a hallmark of pre-Vatican
II Catholicism, and of American Christianity in general.
In that era, "Light of the World" was often found in Catholic
schools,
churches and rectories. In fact, midway through the 1948 movie "The
Miracle
of the Bells," the print can be seen above the desk of a priest
consulted
by Bill Dunnigan (Fred MacMurray). Many a Catholic home also had copies
of the image, often hanging over the beds of children.
One of those beds was Darlene Baker's. "It was Daddy, but it was
Jesus,
but it was Daddy," she says.
It seems somewhat odd, but, for Baker and her three sisters,
having
a picture of Daddy-Jesus was just part of the landscape at home, no
more
unreal than their parents' old wedding photos. Well, maybe a little bit
more unreal, acknowledges Baker, now 53. "He looked so much like an
angel,
and my dark-haired, double-chinned dad bore even less resemblance to
that
boy beneath the halo than he did to the guy in the wedding tux."
DeMille, who died in 1993, was proud of having posed as the child
Jesus,
but also a bit embarrassed. "He wasn't too happy about having to take
his
clothes off," his widow, Eleanor, recalls.
His parents were Belgian immigrants. His father, Victor, was
custodian
at the St. Ignatius parish school. His mother, Alida, took care of
Gilbert
and his older brother Vic in a two-bedroom apartment that was part of
the
school. She also ran a penny-candy store on the first floor.
As a toddler and young boy, Gilbert had the run of the school
building.
"He was the nuns' pet," Eleanor says. So, when Chambers came to St.
Ignatius
to paint side altars for the church, one of the sisters suggested
Gilbert
as a model.
Looking at the painting today, it's easy to see why 4-year-old
Gilbert
might have found posing uncomfortable. In the arms of St. Joseph, Jesus
is naked except for a small piece of cloth loosely draped across his
middle.
It wouldn't have been surprising if Gilbert had squirmed around a lot
in
irritation or protest.
For whatever reason, Chambers finished the painting using another
boy's
body--a German boy, according to one source; an Italian one, according
to another--while retaining DeMille's face.
In a 1941 interview with Liberty magazine, Chambers said that,
after
he finished the painting of St. Joseph and the child Jesus, he returned
to New York. "But the face of that child haunted me. I had to paint it.
I had to paint it for its own sake," he said. The result was "Light of
the World," the image that made Chambers' reputation as an artist of
religious
subjects.
It also gave DeMille a smidgen of status at St. Ignatius--but just
a
smidgen. "All of us knew he was the one," says Sister Anna Marie Erst,
a childhood friend. "We just took it for granted. He looked like the
Holy
Child. If somebody was visiting the church, you'd say, 'Oh, there's
Victor's
son up there.' "
After attending nearby Loyola University, DeMille won a
scholarship
to Harvard Business School but dropped out a year later. Back in
Chicago,
DeMille got his first job as an accountant, a career he followed for
four
decades. He and Eleanor married in 1942 and moved to the Jefferson Park
neighborhood on the Northwest Side.
The easygoing DeMille was the quintessential mid-century American
Catholic
layman. At St. Cornelius, his new parish, he was an usher, song leader
and lector. He also served as president of the Holy Name Society and
was
a Grand Knight in the Knights of Columbus.
"We bowled together. We went on retreat together. I played golf
with
him," says Chester Schwarz, a friend of half a century. "He was a
normal
kind of a guy. He wasn't one who would tell you that you were this or
that,
or go preaching."
For many years, the only copy of "Light of the World" in the
DeMille
home was the one over Darlene's bed. And, although Eleanor often gave
the
print as a First Communion or Confirmation gift, DeMille didn't tell
many
people at his new parish about posing as Jesus. But close friends knew.
And the DeMille girls used to jokingly refer to themselves as "the
daughters
of the Christ child."
Meanwhile, on the basis of "Light of the World" and similar works,
Chambers
was gaining renown. One magazine characterized him as the "Painter of
Heaven."
And, in 1956, Parade magazine included "Light of the World" along with
works by Botticelli and Raphael in a list of what it said were the five
most beautiful images of the child Jesus ever produced.
That was rarefied company for Chambers, to be sure. But much of
his
popularity had to do with how unlike the works of the masters-- and his
contemporaries--his images were.
"He's the artist who threw a bucket of paint into the religious
art
world," wrote Edward Doherty in Liberty magazine in 1941. "He's a
rebel.
He's a modern. He's the man who revolutionized the whole business. . .
. He's given his work a modern touch, a distinctly American touch . . .
but the roar that went up from the church crowd, you'd think the poor
fellow
had committed a sacrilege!" Art experts dismissed his work as insipid
and
saccharine.
Chambers, a Catholic born in St. Louis in 1883, had studied in
Berlin,
Dresden, Vienna and Italy before settling in Manhattan with his wife,
Anne,
the niece of Archbishop Patrick Freehan of Chicago. He painted and drew
secular subjects, including the swashbuckling illustrations for a 1935
edition of Sir Walter Scott's novel "Quentin Durward," a series of ads
featuring flapper-type women for Mum's deodorant and a 1926 oil of a
nude
Mercury.
His religious art had much in common with those works. The images
were
immediate, unambiguous, prettified. Whereas great artists of the past
had
created religious compositions of intricate complexity, Chambers opted
almost always for a single, static, portrait-like pose. At a time when
painters such as Jackson Pollock and Pablo Picasso were bending and
twisting
visual tradition, or ignoring it altogether, Chambers presented images
of Jesus and the saints that looked very much like 1920s movie stars in
costume.
The work, says David Morgan, an art professor at Valparaiso
University
and author of "Visual Piety" (University of California Press), appealed
to women, and it appealed to an ethos of innocence, a child-centered
piety."
Religious educators of the time stressed the usefulness of art in
transmitting
religious messages, Morgan says. "You wanted the image to exert a
moralizing
influence," he says. And, referring to "Light of the World," Morgan
adds,
"This is the sweet little guy you can't ignore."
Indeed, these images often were displayed as though they were
spiritual
members of the household. "People would arrange photos of the family
around
a picture of Jesus or Mary," Morgan notes.
Nonetheless, by 1964, when Chambers died at age 81, his work had
suffered
a sharp drop in popularity. The Second Vatican Council, with its
emphasis
on a more grass-roots spirituality, as well as social shifts throughout
much of American society, led to an interest in more realistically
portrayed
saints, warts and all. Later came the still-raging fad for pictures of
angels.
Today, of course, the re-imagining of how Jesus appeared has gone
so
far that the British Broadcasting Corp. recently made public a
computer-generated
image, based on scientific and archeological findings about the
physiognomy
of a typical Jewish male of the era. Not surprisingly, the image looks
nothing like "Light of the World." Indeed, the face of the swarthy,
large-nosed,
curly-haired man has unsettled some Christians raised on images like
the
one from Chambers.
But Baker's mother, Eleanor DeMille, says she has always been a
little
unsettled about the image of her husband as the infant Jesus. "I don't
think of Jesus as blond," she says. "I think of him as dark, maybe very
dark."
Ten years after Chambers' death, "Light of the World" had become a
figure
of kitsch, appearing, along with a child's ukulele, on an inner-sleeve
photograph of singer Linda Ronstadt for her album "Heart Like a Wheel."
And it was a decade after that, in the mid-1980s, when Baker and
her
sisters began discovering copies of the print at rummage sales and flea
markets. "I was just astonished to find my dad being sold like an
antique,"
says Baker, who first came across a copy of the painting of St. Joseph
and Jesus in a garage during a Lincoln Park antiques fair. She bought
the
print and gave it to her parents.
"After that, any time I'd go to a rummage sale, I'd look to see if
they
had Dad. I bought maybe 10 of them, and mostly I was giving them away
to
my sisters and my nieces and nephews. For the longest time, after I
negotiated
my price, I'd tell them it was my dad, and I would get chills. It was
like
a very spiritual feeling."
Then, in October 1999, Darlene found copies of "Light of the
World"
on eBay for as little as $2. So she began bidding on as many as she
could.
And, while some cost as much as $75, she figures she has spent an
average
of $30 each for the 90 copies of "Light of the World" and 30 other
Chambers
prints she has bought.
She has traded e-mails with other fans of "Light of the World" and
of
Chambers' work in general, including Mary Popp, head of the Society for
the Preservation of Roman Catholic Heritage, based in Dayton, Ohio.
"When Vatican II came along, so much that was beautiful was
pitched,"
says Popp, whose organization seeks to save old religious artifacts
from
the landfill. Popp, who owns more than 50 Chambers prints, has
reprinted
several and sells them to raise money for the group.
Baker says she'd also like to start selling off some of her
prints,
perhaps to raise money for services to victims of Alzheimer's disease.
"What I'll keep are the best ones and the worst ones," she says.
Standing in front of a wall covered with dozens of copies of the
print,
Baker acknowledges, "It is over the top. This is my first and last
collection.
It has a life of its own."
A Quick History Of Bible Art
- by
Dan Malaan
The genre of Bible Art is very broad, so it is essential to begin
with
parameters. As used here, Bible Art refers to any visual representation
of the biblical narrative. Since that is still so broad, it has to be
limited
to major sets or works of
Bible Art. It is then further defined by types of art, usually with
chronological parameters.
The first Bible Art would have been in the tabernacle, but that
has
not survived. The first generally accepted Bible Art category was on
the
wall of the catacombs. Some examples of catacomb Bible Art still exist,
nearly 2000 years old. In the middle ages there were two basic
categories.
One category was the hand-painted pages of old Bibles. The other was
the
art which adorned most churches of that era.
Practically every inch of open surface was artistically adorned.
At
the end of the middle ages there was another category little known
today.
It was called Biblia Pauperum. It was a wood block carved with text
&
art. Biblia Pauperum, like the walls of churches, communicated the
biblical
narrative. That wood block would be inked & printed, the precursor
of engravings.
In the Renaissance, Bible Art again divided into two basic
categories.
We are all familiar with the veritable cornucopia of Renaissance
religious
paintings. But about that same time, the art of engraving began to
flourish.
The first great Bible engraver & illustrator was Albrecht Durer. He
refined wood engraving about 1500. Many of his prints have survived.
There is not much need to cover the period of 1500-1800 in depth.
The
painting & engraving categories continued to flourish. Most people
are familiar with the Bible Art of Rembrandt & William Blake. There
were many sets of Bible Engravings, but they are little known today.
Some
major sets were by Merian, Hoet, Marillier, Picart & van Luyken.
Also,
many engravings were made of famous Bible paintings. So engraving
itself
divided into original illustrations & painting reproductions.
There were two major Bible Art sets in the early 1800s. But they
are
comparatively little reprinted today.
There was a terrific set of dramatic Bible scenes by John Martin. They
were dark scenes with sweeping panoramas.
The 2nd major set ushered in, but did not participate in the golden
age of Bible Art. That was the 1846 Harper Family Bible with 1600
engravings
by J.G.Chapman. The major drawback was that almost of them were pretty
small.
Harper even put ornate borders around them to make them look bigger.
The whole operation was very expensive & so saw little reprinting.
The Golden Age of Bible Art had two sections. The b&w section
was
from about 1860-1895. The color section was from about 1895-1920 or so.
The Bible Art from this era saw massive reprinting. The proliferation
of
these editions is almost impossible to calculate.
It began with Cassell's Illustrated Family Bible, serialized from
1860-62.
It contained 900 Bible Art engravings by British & French
illustrators.
It had two features that caused it to supercede the 1846 Harper Bible.
First of all, the engravers tended to be much larger. Most of the
Harper
engravings were about 3" x 4" Many of the Cassell engravings were
about 7" x 9" But the biggest issue was the Harper was American &
Cassell
was British. There was no international copyright law until the
1890s.
So U.S. publishers could freely reprint the Cassell Bible engravings.
But the pinnacle of the Golden Age of Bible Art came out in 1866.
That
was the Dore Bible, so famous Mark Twain mentioned it in Tom Sawyer.
Gustave
Dore, a French illustrator, took the English-speaking world by storm.
By
the 1870s, Dore was literally the most famous artist in the world. For
30 years (1866-96), a new Dore illustrated edition was published every
6 days. Dore also did Dante, Milton, Tennyson, Rabelais, Ariosto,
Chateaubraind,
etc. He did Don Quixote, Baron Munchausen, Fairy Tales, Fables,
Arablian
Nights. He did The Ancient Mariner, The Raven, The Crusades &
books on London & Spain. He also began doing enormous
religious
paintings as big as 20 ft. high by 30 ft wide. The Dore Gallery
displayed
them in London for 20 years & then toured America. The Dore
Bible
engravings are literally the most famous illustrations ever made.
To date I have catalogued over 1000 book editions containing Dore Bible
engravings. Dore did over 250 full-page folio engravings of The Bible,
plus dozens of paintings. This created a veritable tidal wave of
interest
in Bible Art.
This led to a particularly U.S. phenomenon in the 1870s.
That
was the Illustrated Family Bible so cherished by religious
families.
Dozens & dozens of U.S. publishers sold Family Bibles by
subscription.
They had two terrific (& free) art sources - Cassell's Bible &
The Dore Bible. Those Family Bibles had first 200, then 1000, then 2000
Bible engravings. The Bibles got fancier & fancier, with ornate
gilded
leather bindings. They kept adding new features & new sets of Bible
Art.
The first new Bible Art added was a German set first published in
1860.
It was by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, usually referred to as
Schnorr.
He did 240 large folio outline illustrations, in a style different from
Dore. His art was little known until it was added to U.S. Family Bibles
in the 1880s. Other religious books added engravings by Alexandre Bida,
first published in 1873. Bida's art can be easily identified by
most
of his charcters having pointed beards. Bida did well over a hundred
engravings,
a little closer in style to Dore. Also added were British engravings
from
the Dalziel Bible Gallery.
The next wave of new art was added in the 1890s. The Family Bibles
added
24 Life of Christ prints by Heinrich Hoffman. Also at this time was
added
Bible paintings by Bernard Plockhorst. The Hoffman & Plockhorst
were
a new type of art - halftones. Engravings are simple to identify by all
the little grooves in the print. Halftones had more of a grey tonal
quality.
Halftones were more like photos of paintings than grooved drawings. The
paintings of Hoffmann & Plockhorst became very popular. They were
also
at the forefront of the transition to color.
The next major set of Bible Art was by James Tissot. Tissot did
over
700 watercolor paintings of Bible scenes in varying sizes. They were
published
in two major sets (NT, then OT) around the turn of the century. Some
the
illustrations were in color, some were in b&w. His art is easy to
identify
by the big thick hair & beards on most characters.
The year 1900 is a good mark for the transition from b&w to
color
Bible Art. Many Bibles & Bible Story Books began to include more
&
more color art. Some of it would be colorized older artwork & some
would be new color art.
In many ways Bible Art began a transition from the domain of
adults
to children. Two other non-book categories facilitated that transition.
One was Magic Lantern Slides & the other was Sunday School Cards.
Magic
Lanterns were the precursors to the modern film industries. They used
large
thick heavy glass slides to project images. They could be b&w,
hand-colored,
or little paintings made from engravings. They had been around for over
a century before that. But there was a major proliferation of Bible Art
slides. The most prominent slide artist was Joseph Boggs Beale.
Thousands
of Bible scenes were made into those glass slides.
Sunday School Cards were also know as Bible Cards. They were the
Protestant
version of the earlier Catholic Holy Cards. But Catholic Holy Cards
tended
to concentrate on the Holy Family & Saints. The Protestant Bible
Cards
tended to shows more biblical narrative scenes. But both types of cards
were usually pretty little chromolithographs. A chromolithograph is a
colored
engraving carved on stone rather than wood. To get the full-color look,
you had to carve a different stone for each color. Almost every major
religious
group began producing these Bible Card sets. There would be a pretty
new
Bible scene card for each Sunday School lesson. The Bible Card
phenomenon
lasted for nearly half a century. But they did not contain any
information
about who the card artists were. Some of them were derived from Dore or
Hofmann or Schnorr or other earlier art. But many Bible Cards are
completely
original art with no artist info. We hope to do further research to try
to identify more of the Bible Card artists.
There was a major Bible Art phenomenon in the second half of the
20th
century. It could best be described (for lack of a better term) as
comic-book
art format. Comic-book style simply means sequential art panels with
dialogue
in word
baloons. That began in 1959 with a Sunday School handout known as
Sunday
Pix. Each Sunday kids got an 8-page booklet which had 3 pages of Bible
Art. The artist was Andre LeBlanc, a man I was fortuante enough to know
personally. He gave me many of the proof copies for his original Sunday
Pix artwork. LeBlanc did 3000 drawings for the most complete biblical
narrative
art ever done.
The publisher, David C.Cook, then colorized LeBlanc's b&w
drawings.
It took five years to complete that serialization of the entire Bible.
Cook eventually published that in book form known as The Picture Bible.
They have now sold many millions of copies of that around the world. It
is still available.
In 1998, Barry Moser did a set of 200+ b&w Bible engravings in
the
old style. It got laudits from the art world, but caused little
reaction
in religious groups. In recent years many of the Golden Age Bible Art
engravings
have been
colorized. The classic sets keep turning up - Dore, Schnorr, Hofmann,
Plockhorst. Many people think Thomas Kinkade is a Bible artist.
But
he does not actually do Bible narrative scenes.
What type of Bible Art will the new millenium bring? Bible Art was
very
prominent up to the end of the 19th century. The 20th century was
dominated
by secular, abstract, "Modern" art. My goal is to research the highest
quality visualizations of biblical scenes. I hope to soon write a major
reference work on the History of Bible Art. Any feedback & research
input into these matters is greatly appreciated.
DAN MALAN
7519 Lindbergh Drive
St.Louis, MO 63117
(314) 781-2319
danmalan@aol.com
The Oberammergau
Passion
Play
Oberammergau is a village of Bavaria, Germany, situated among the
foot-hills
of the Kofel mountains, a range of the Alps, in the Ammer valley, 45
miles
southwest of Munich. The population is about 5,000. The
outside
walls of many of the houses are decorated with fresco paintings,
reproductions
of famous biblical masterpieces. The villagers make toys and
pottery,
and carve wooden crucifixes, rosaries and images of saints. These
carvings are shipped to all parts of the world and are found in many
churches.
The village is famous for its performance of a Passion play every ten
years.
This is probably the most important survival of the miracle plays so
popular
from the 13th to the 16th century. Contrary to popular belief,
this
production is not a portrayal of the life of Christ, but only of the
events
of his last few days on earth, from his entry into Jerusalem to his
resurrection.
The story of the play is taken directly from the Biblical accounts of
the
Gospels.
The history of the Passion play dates back to the events following
the
Reformation in Germany. The village of Oberammergau had once
prospered
from its proximity to the popular pilgrimage site of the Benedictine
monastery
at Ettal (founded in 1330 A.D.). Oberammergau’s prosperity began
to wane, however, in the mid-16th century because of the turmoil caused
by the Reformation.
In 1618, the flow of pilgrims stopped completely with the onset of
the
Thirty Years War. This conflict pitted Protestants against Roman
Catholics and resulted in the death of more than 1/4 of the population
of what is now Germany. It is believed that the carnage of this
war
caused an epidemic of bubonic plague, the Black Death. By the end
of 1632, Oberammergau was stricken with the scourge of the Black
Death.
After suffering the ravages of the plague for several months, the
inhabitants
of Obermamergau held a church service for the entire town (including
the
sick) in July of 1633. During the service, they promised God, as
an expression of gratitude for the cessation of the scourge, that they
would enact the Passion and death of Christ every ten years.
After
the service, not a single villager died of the plague, although it
continued
to ravage the rest of Europe.. The first performance of this
Passion
play was given in 1634 and repeated every ten years until 1674, after
which
the dates were changed so as to fall on decimal years. This now
has
been faithfully kept with only a couple of exceptions. The
earliest
extant text of the play was written in 1662, probably by the monks of
Ettal,
the monastery situated a few miles from Oberammergau. The text
was
slightly revised every ten years, although it has remained relatively
unchanged
since 1860. The music was composed by Rochus Dedler, a
schoolmaster
of the parish, in 1814. The initial performance of the play is
given
the first Sunday in May, and is repeated every Sunday through September
or October, with two or three extra performances each week. As a
result of the unsettled conditions resulting from the World War, the
1920
production was postponed until 1922, during which year it was played 61
times. It starts at eight o’clock in the morning and continues
for
eight hours, with a short intermission at noon. The characters
are
chosen by a committee made up of the village priest, the
Bürgermeister,
the village council and members selected by popular vote. No one
may participate in the spectacle unless he is a native of the village
and
is of unimpeachable moral character and dramatically qualified to enact
the rôle for which he is chosen. Over 1,200 characters
participate
in the play. There are more than 100 speaking parts and 900
non-speaking
parts, including 350 children. There are more than 100 members of
the orchestra and chorus. Another 400 people work as ushers,
electricians,
ticket-takers, wardrobe masters, and stagehands. It is estimated
that more than 500,000 witness the production each season. The
proceeds
are divided into four equal parts: one for the preparation of the
play, one for the furnishing of homes for the visitors, one for the
church
and one for the players.
The play is enacted on a large open-air platform, the audience
occupying
an auditorium with a capacity of about 5,000, viewing the play through
an immense oval opening in front of the auditorium. The play
consists
of 18 acts and a number of tableaux. Each act is prefaced by an
orchestral
selection and a choral anthem giving the motif of the act. This,
in turn, is followed by a tableau based on the Old Testament
prefiguring
the theme of the act. For instance, the scene depicting the
Crucifixion
is preceded by a tableau representing the offering of Isaac as a
sacrifice
by Abraham. The chief characters are the Christus, the Twelve
Disciples,
Maria the mother of Jesus, Maria Magdalene and Martha. Anton Lang
(1875-1938) held the distinction of portraying the part of the Christus
for three decades, 1900, 1910, and 1922. The participants regard
their rôles with religious devotion and enact their parts with
the
deepest reverence. In the years between the representations of
the
play, performances are given of many classics for the purposes of
training
the prospective players for the Passion play, in enunciation, stage
bearing
and all other requirements of dramatising. Married women may not
appear in the play. No wigs or facial make-up are permitted and
no
microphones are used. The costumes, however, are of the biblical
period and are of the very best material. The participants train
their hair and beards and study to assume the general appearance of the
characters for which they are the candidates.
Calling
Cards
FAITH
March 4, 2002 Issue
Ontario Anglicans' unique project brings Christian saints to life
by Rick Hiebert
MOST of the 11,000 people who live in Erin, Ont., work in Toronto, 50
miles
southeast. That may be good for families wanting rural elbow room, says
Stephen
Berryman, parish priest of Erin's All Saints Anglican Church, but it
makes
knowing
one's neighbour that much more difficult. And that, in turn, makes
spreading
one's faith
through personal contact an especially challenging task. But it's not
impossible.
Father Berryman and church member Richard Clewes, who works in the
advertising
industry, came up with a solution last fall while looking for ways to
promote
the church.
With a nod towards their church's name, they decided to use photographs
of local
residents, most of whom are parish members, to serve as models for
trading
cards
featuring a variety of saints: Agatha, Amand, Anthony, Cosmas and
Damian
(two on
one card), Elizabeth of Hungary, Florian, Francis, Jerome, Joseph,
Joseph
of
Arimathea, Joseph of Cupertino, Matthew, Sebastian, Thomas More and the
Archangel Michael.
The backs of the cards have a Bible verse or a quotation from each
saint,
and a short
hagiography. Most saints are patrons of a particular occupation, so the
models are
selected for the work they do. For example, Erin's fire chief stands in
for St. Florian,
the patron saint of firemen. The local undertaker is on the card
honouring
St. Joseph of
Arimathea, patron saint of undertakers, and so on.
About 350 of the $15 sets went on the market last November 1, All
Saints'
Day, and
about one-third have now been sold. "I get asked about the cards all
the
time in town,"
says Fr. Berryman. "Although we're only using word of mouth, they're a
hit." So much
so that new sets are being considered.
Parishioner Terry Raybould says posing as a saint has given him lots to
talk about. The
Erin resident works as a school librarian in Mississauga and, naturally
enough, portrays
the patron saint of librarians, St. Jerome. "It's given me a natural
way
to share what I
believe when people I meet ask me about it," he says. "I'm often
recognized
now.
People come up to say hello." Not only that, but the project has given
him a certain
cachet. "My grown son, Jordan, is a big Maple Leafs fan. He says it's
really
cool that I
have a rookie card."
Fr. Berryman adds that the cards also remind people why the church has
saints in the
first place--that saints were ordinary people whose faith sustained
them
in spectacular
ways. "Saints look so godly and so pious in a stained glass window that
we forget that
they were flesh-and-blood people, just like us," he says. "I hear
people
talking about
saints, saying 'I could never do what they did.' I just say, 'Yes, you
could.'"
Holy cards see resurgence in popularity
Apr-19-2004
By Joe Bollig
Catholic
News Service
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (CNS) -- Ursuline Sister Marcella Schrant is a
card-carrying Catholic, and proud of it, too. She got her first holy
card in 1935; she got her latest March 19.
That old St. Anthony card she received as a child will share a binder
with the new one of Kansas City Coadjutor Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann,
distributed during his recent welcoming Mass.
These two cards are part of a collection of more than 400 owned by
Sister Marcella, who works at the St. Lawrence Campus Center at the
University of Kansas in Lawrence.
If you've grown up Catholic, it's almost a given that at one time or
another you've received a holy card. You might have started your
collection with one you received for your first Communion, and built it
up with cards earned with correct answers in religious education class.
Like scapulars, miraculous medals and little bottles of holy water,
holy cards were standard equipment for the pre-Second Vatican Council
Catholic.
Sister Marcella figures she must have given away a ton of holy cards
during her teaching career, from 1947 to 1990. There was a time,
particularly in the 1960s, when their popularity waned. But holy cards
are making a comeback.
"The kids here (at St. Lawrence) enjoy them," Sister Marcella told The
Leaven, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Kansas City. "I bring them over
and put them on my desk for All Saints' Day in November, and they look
through them to find their saints."
Not all of the appeal of holy cards is Catholic grade school nostalgia,
however, said Michael Podrebarac, archdiocesan consultant for liturgy.
"In their original sense, they were an affordable way for common people
to have images of their patron saints when they couldn't afford a
statue or a great piece of artwork," he said.
"Holy cards fall into that category of devotional materials we call
sacramentals -- items that assist us in our prayer life and spiritual
life," he added.
The commemorative aspect is also a factor. Podrebarac has picked up
several cards from special events at which he sang, including weddings,
funerals and ordinations.
There's less emphasis on holy cards today, but they remain popular.
"I think they're still relevant," he said. "Part of the story of (the
period) after Vatican II is that sacramentals, which had been in the
forefront of lay spiritual lives, did kind of get replaced by the
Bible, liturgy and witness in the world. But it's not because they
didn't have value. People just saw the need to do more -- not to just
wear a medal, but also to live virtue."
Some collectors have set up their own Web sites, and buy, sell and
trade the cards through their sites. Retailers offer to sell electronic
holy cards online, or software to print out holy cards. And collectible
holy cards are often sold on eBay, the online auction service.
Father Eugene Carrella, pastor of St. Adalbert Parish on Staten Island,
N.Y., has approximately 40,000 cards. He specializes in holy cards that
depict saints, some of them quite obscure.
Brent Devitt, principal of Ascension Catholic School in Kettering,
Ohio, has been collecting holy cards since 1989. He even has his own
Web site devoted to collecting at: www.donet.com/~devitt. Today, he has
more than 20,000 cards in his collection. The oldest date to the 1680s.
According to Devitt, holy cards parallel the history of printing. Some
cards were made by hand; others were wood-block prints, and still
others featured finely cut paper pieces and decorative borders with a
picture of a saint.
Holy cards only became widespread when paper became cheaper and methods
of production grew more efficient. They grew more colorful after
lithography was invented at the end of the 18th century.
During the 19th century, different styles arose in Europe, said Father
Carrella. French cards had soft, pastel colors and pious,
sentimentalized figures. Belgian cards had lots of gold decoration and
elaborate backgrounds that mimicked drapery. German cards tended to be
ornate and colorful, almost like the illustrations in books of fairy
tales.
Memorial cards, created to honor those who had died and to be
distributed at their wakes or funerals, became popular during the
mid-20th century in the United States. They were often printed with
black or silver borders and featured a picture of the sorrowful Christ
or sorrowful Blessed Virgin Mary.
The next big development in the production of holy cards occurred
during the 1960s, said Devitt. These cards featured abstract and
minimalist art.
"The cards of the 1970s were very much image without sentiment," said
Father Carrella. "They might have just a plain, gold chalice instead of
a Gothic-style chalice inset with jewels."
According to Devitt's Web site, it was about that time that holy cards
began losing some of their popularity. Confusion surrounding the
reorganization of saints in the liturgical calendar might also have
contributed to their declining appeal.
But it appears that holy cards have come back into fashion. Not only
are they growing in popularity, there's a much greater variety
available.
Although the most common holy cards still depict saints and are about
the size of a playing card, some are smaller or larger. Some feature
prayers on the back, and some even honor living people, such as Pope
John Paul II. And still others are made from plastic and feature a 3-D
image that shows movement or change when the card is tilted.
END
St.
Bernardino Fostered Holy Name Devotion
By Nora Hamerman
Special to the Herald
From the issue of 1/13/05)
A recently acquired rare engraving of St. Bernardino of Siena
(1370-1444), on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington,
affords a good occasion to reflect on the Holy Name of Jesus. The
engraving, the best surviving example of the first realistic portrait
in print form, shows the saint holding the monogram of Christ as he
often did during his popular sermons.
St. Bernardino would hold up for veneration the monogram of Christ's
Name — the letters "IHS" — surrounded by rays. This ancient monogram is
a Latin form of the Greek monograms for Iesous Christos, "IH
XP" and "IC XC." It became even more popular after St. Bernardino
persuaded a playing card maker in Bologna — whose business had been
ruined because of the saint's preaching against gambling — to make holy
cards depicting it instead of making his usual fare.
The engraving based on Bernardino's death-mask was made in Germany
by an anonymous artist shortly after 1450 when the saint was canonized.
It shows a large crucifix (mandated by Pope Martin V when he approved
Bernardino’s use of the monogram disk) and a dove flying toward the
saint’s mouth, presumably indicating the Holy Spirit inspiring him. The
child at his feet might be a soul, while the tiaras symbolize the
approval of three popes.
An engraving is produced by incising lines with a tool called a
burin into a copper plate. The plate is then inked and wiped so that
the ink only remains in the incised lines. When the inked plate is put
through a press, every impression that results is an original work of
art. The process, requiring great skill, made it possible for people of
modest means to own original art.
Although there were once dozens of the St. Bernardino engraving, the
gallery’s is today unique. It will be on public view among "Six
Centuries of Prints and Drawings: Recent Acquisitions" until May 30,
2005.
The Holy Name of Jesus
January is traditionally the month of the Holy Name of Jesus, and
Jan. 3 has been restored by Pope John Paul II as the feast of the Holy
Name. This feast, still celebrated by the Franciscan order on Jan. 14,
commemorates the circumcision of Christ, where he received the name
Jesus, in Aramaic Yeshua, that was given by the angel Gabriel form God
(Lk 1:31). It means the one who saves. When a Jewish child was
circumcised, he was accepted as a son of Abraham and a full member of
his family. The Christian practice of infant baptism was adapted from
this Hebrew ritual.
We honor the Holy Name because of the command of Christ: that we
should pray in His name. "Holy Father, protect them in Your Name that
You have given Me" (Jn 17:11-12). As St. Paul wrote to the Philippians:
"at the name of Jesus every knee should bend of those in heaven, on
earth, and under the earth" (Phil 2:10). By means of this devotion, we
also make amends for improper use of the Holy Name. Honor to the Holy
Name is the reason that devout Catholics bow their heads at the sound
of "Jesus" both inside and outside the liturgy.
One Catholic Web site, beautifully describing the Holy Name,
observes that "As the name of each individual person embraces the
totality of the person, the most Holy Name of Jesus also embraces the
totality of the divinity. When we think of a person, we remember the
name, and we visualize their image. Equally, when we think of Jesus, we
remember His name and we visualize the image of God in Jesus. ‘For in
Jesus the whole fullness of deity dwelled bodily’ (Col 1:19, 2:9)."
St. Bernardino’s Lasting Fame
By promoting the Holy Name devotion, St. Bernardino of Siena made
people more aware of the individual personality. Although he refused
all worldly honors, this charismatic Franciscan preacher is the very
first canonized saint for whom we not only have an extensive record of
his ideas, but we also know exactly what he looked like.
Bald and toothless, Bernardino is depicted wearing the beige
Franciscan habit. In Washington’s National Gallery of Art, his
popularity is attested to by several beautiful paintings of the Italian
Renaissance period that were once in churches. One early panel (c.
1460) pairing Bernardino holding the monogram disk with St. Anthony
Abbot, is painted by Jacopo Bellini, the pioneering Venetian artist. In
another panel, Vincenzo Foppa, a painter active in Milan before 1500,
portrays the Franciscan friar holds an open book inscribed Pater
manefestavi nomen (Father, I have manifested [Thy] name) from John
17:5,6, words recited by St. Bernardino while he was dying. On the
book’s facing page is the monogram IHS.
Copyright
©2005 Arlington Catholic Herald. All rights reserved.