Poetry – Art & Theology

Marian roundup: Contemporized statuettes, Mary as an icon of literacy, and more

May 7, 2024May 9, 2024 Victoria Emily Jones6 Comments

Since the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church has celebrated May, a time of new growth, as “Mary’s month.” The calendrical placement of this celebration probably has to do in part with the fact that the ancient Greeks celebrated a festival to Artemis, the goddess of fecundity, in May; the ancient Romans, Flora, the goddess of flowers and spring. Because Mary, by the power of the Holy Spirit, conceived in her womb and brought to birth the life of the world, Jesus Christ, Christians see her as standing at the threshold of an eternal springtime.

POLL QUESTION: Before moving on to the six roundup items below, if you are a regular reader of this blog or other media like it, would you please help me out by answering the following poll question? (I’m trying out this WordPress feature for the first time!) Over the years I’ve gathered a lot of compelling poems and artworks on the Annunciation, encompassing a variety of eras, styles, and perspectives, and I’d like to pursue the idea of turning one or the other, or both, into a book. Which kind of Annunciation-themed book would you be most inclined to buy? Keep in mind that a book with art would cost significantly more because it would be in full color and probably a larger hardcover. Also note that a book that combines art and poetry would obviously have fewer selections of each than a book dedicated fully to one or the other.

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UPCYCLED MARY STATUETTES: Soasig Chamaillard is a French artist who, since 2006, has been acquiring small, damaged statues of the Virgin Mary—either from garage sales or received donations—and restoring and transforming them, often with reference to children’s toy lines and media franchises, comic book heroes, or other pop-culture icons. Some are silly or irreverent; others, merely quirky. Here are two I like, which both modernize Mary, by her dress or her reading material. Click on the images to view detail photos of the final product, and see here and here for blog posts that document the transformation process.

Jeans Mary (before-after) — Before/After. Right: Soasig Chamaillard (French, 1976–), *Jeans-Marie* (Jeans Mary), 2015. Plaster, acrylic paint, resin, metal frame, height 48 cm.

Chamaillard, Soasig_New Bible (before-after) — Before/After. Right: Soasig Chamaillard (French, 1976–), *Nouvelle Bible* (New Bible), 2008. Plaster, acrylic paint, resin, digital print, height 40 cm.

The first shows Mary in high-waisted jeans and red Converse high-tops with rosettes on the tongues. The second one, a Madonna del Parto, shows her pregnant and reading the book J’élève mon enfant (Raising My Child) by Laurence Pernoud, picking up tips on being a new mom.

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ESSAY: “Mary: Evolution of a Bookworm” by Joel J. Miller: “It’s unlikely the historical Mary could read at all, but medieval Christians transformed her into an icon of literacy,” often showing her with a book in hand, whether as a child learning to read from her mother, Saint Anne; at the Annunciation, with the book of Isaiah, the Psalter, or a book of hours splayed open on her lap; or teaching her own child, Jesus, how to read. Drawing on the research of Laura Saetveit Miles, author of The Virgin Mary’s Book at the Annunciation: Reading, Interpretation, and Devotion in Medieval England [previously], Joel J. Miller discusses how images of Mary reading “rode a wave of rising female literacy and simultaneously encouraged its expansion.”

Annunciation (Brunswick Casket) — Ivory plate of the Annunciation from the Brunswick Casket, made in Metz, France, ca. 860–70. Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, Germany. This is the earliest known representation of the Virgin Mary with a book at the Annunciation.

Costa, Lorenzo_Annunciation — Lorenzo Costa (Italian, 1460–1535), *Annunciation (Mary Reading)*, first third of 16th century. Oil on panel, 62 × 60.5 cm. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Old Masters Picture Gallery), Dresden, Germany.

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CONVERSATION: “Sacra Conversazione” with Walter Hansen and Bruce Herman: In this written conversation from Image no. 62, artist Bruce Herman [previously] and patron Walter Hansen discuss the two large altarpieces Herman produced comprising six paintings on the life of the Virgin Mary: Miriam, Virgin Mother and Second Adam. The article is about the creative process and Herman’s collaboration with Hansen and with student apprentices in Orvieto, Italy, but it’s also about attempting to recover Mary’s image from a heap of the saccharine or overly exalted on the one hand, and ironic detachment on the other. Herman says,

I had vivid memories of Boston art critics and museum people back in the 1980s telling me that [religious] subject matter could only be approached ironically, but I had a persistent feeling that they were wrong. I’ve sensed for many years that the tradition of biblical imagery in art is far from exhausted—maybe simply stalled out due to loss of nerve or imagination. To me, much of the recent religious imagery we’ve inherited is fairly shallow. I know this might sound odd, given more than a thousand years of tradition, but I honestly believe that new insights are arrived at in every generation. Why can’t a contemporary artist paint the Virgin Mary without irony—and maybe even specifically attack the problematic nature of much Marian imagery? Why can’t a century of experimentation in painting yield something relevant to that tradition?

It’s an excellent conversation! You may have to subscribe to Image journal to access it, but it’s well worth it for all the wonderful content they put out quarterly and access to their archives.

Herman, Bruce_Miriam, Virgin Mother — Bruce Herman (American, 1953–), *Miriam, Virgin Mother*, 2007. Oil on wood with silver and gold leaf, 95 × 154 in. (241.3 × 391.2 cm).

Read more about the two altarpieces and view more photos at www.bruceherman.com/magnificat, and in the beautifully produced catalog magnificat, with a foreword by Hansen and essays by Rachel Hostetter Smith and John Skillen. The book also features four paintings from Herman’s related Woman series.

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ART VIDEOS:

What follows are my two favorite videos from the Visual Commentary on Scripture’s twelve-episode series “Unlocking Christian Art: The Virgin Mary,” in which theologian Ben Quash and art historian Jennifer Sliwka discuss religious artworks from museums in Berlin.

>> “Holy Kinship”: The subject of this video is a late medieval German limewood carving by Hans Thoman depicting Jesus’s extended family on his mother’s side. He and his mom, grandma, grandpa, step-grandpas, aunts, and cousins pose for this matriarchal family portrait that reflects a medieval legend (rejected by the Council of Trent) that Saint Anne was grandmother not just to Jesus but also, through two subsequent marriages, to five of the twelve apostles: James the Greater, Simon, Jude, James the Less, and John the Evangelist. Also included in this sculpture group are Elizabeth and Zechariah with their son, John the Baptist, and Emelia with her son Servatius of Tongeren, a fourth-century saint whom legends name a distant relative of Jesus. [view object record]

>> “Leave-Taking”: From the same period and general region as the above sculpture comes a painting by Bernhard Strigel (1460–1528) that shows Jesus taking leave of his mother just before his entry into Jerusalem the week of his death, a popular subject in northern Europe in the sixteenth century. The episode derives from a versified Marienleben (Life of Mary) from the early fourteenth century written by the Carthusian monk Philipp von Seitz, aka Bruder Philipp, from Middle Franconia. [view object record]

View more videos like this on the VCS YouTube channel.

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SONG: “Mary” by Patty Griffin: “Mary, you’re covered in roses, you’re covered in ashes, you’re covered in rain . . .” From the 1998 album Flaming Red by the country-folk artist Patty Griffin, the song “Mary” is a tribute to the woman who mothered Jesus and mothers us all. A compassionate presence who lives on in heaven at her son’s right hand, she feels the pain of other mothers who’ve lost their children. Griffin sings of Mary’s beautiful, big, humble, suffering, nurturing, pondering heart.

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POEM: “Christ’s Mother Reflects: His Childhood” by Micha Boyett: This is the last in a series of five Advent poems written from the perspective of Mary for John Knox Presbyterian Church in Seattle in 2010, the other four being on the subjects of the Annunciation, the boy who is snatched away by a dragon in Revelation 12, the Visitation, and the Nativity. Here, after Jesus’s death, Mary reflects back on his life—an early heartbreak of his, his contemplative nature, a question he once asked, his delight in scripture study, the hard choices he made, her own unfulfilled hope for normalcy on his behalf, the tearing of his flesh that mends us.

Easter Hymn from the Early Church

May 3, 2024May 4, 2024 Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

Watanabe, Soichi_To God Be the Glory — Soichi Watanabe (Japanese, 1949–), *To God Be the Glory*, 2009. Acrylic on canvas, 52 × 39 in. Collection of the Overseas Ministries Study Center at Princeton Theological Seminary.

This is the paschal feast,
the Lord’s passing from death to life:
so cries the Spirit.
No type or telling, this, no shadow.
Pasch of the Lord it is, and truly.

You have protected us, Jesus,
from endless disaster.
You spread your hands like a mother
and, motherlike, gave cover with your wings.
Your blood, God’s blood, you poured over the earth,
giving life, because you loved us. 

The heavens may have your spirit, paradise your soul,
but oh, may the earth have your blood!

This feast of the Spirit
leads the mystic dance through the year.
New is this feast and all-embracing;
all creation assembles at it.

Joy to all creatures, honor, feasting, delight!
Dark death is destroyed
and life is restored everywhere.
The gates of heaven are open.
God has shown himself human,
humanity has gone up to God.
The gates of hell are shattered,
the bars of Adam’s prison broken.
The people of the world below have risen from the dead,
bringing good news:
what was promised is fulfilled.
From the earth has come singing and dancing.

This is God’s passing!
Heaven’s God, showing no stinginess, 
has joined us together with God in the Spirit.
The great marriage hall is full of guests,
all dressed for the wedding, 
no guest rejected for want of a wedding garment.
The paschal light is the bright new lamplight,
light that shines from the virgins’ lamps.
The light in the soul will never go out.
The fire of grace burns in us all,
spirit, divine, in our bodies and in our souls,
fed with the oil of Christ.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Join, then, all of you, join in this great rejoicing.
You who’ve been working the vineyard from the early hour
and you who came later,
come now and collect your wages.
Rich and poor, sing and dance together.
You who are hard on yourselves, you who are easy,
honor this day.
You who have fasted and you who have not,
make merry today.

The meal is ready: come and enjoy it.
The calf is a fat one: you will not go away hungry.
There’s kindness for all to partake of and kindness to spare.

Away with pleading of poverty:
the kingdom belongs to us all.
Away with bewailing of failings:
forgiveness has come from the grave.
Away with your fears of dying:
the death of our Savior has freed us from fear.
Death played the master: he has mastered death.
The world below had scarcely known him in the flesh
when he rose and left it plunged in bitter mourning.

Isaiah knew it would be so. [Isa. 14:9]
The world of shadows mourned, he cried, when it met you,
mourned at its being brought low, wept at its being deluded.
The shadows seized a body and found it was God;
they reached for earth and what they held was heaven;
they took what they could see: it was what no one sees.
Where is death’s goad? Where is the shadows’ victory?

Christ is risen: the world below [hell] is in ruins.
Christ is risen: the spirits of evil are fallen.
Christ is risen: the angels of God are rejoicing. 
Christ is risen: the tombs are void of their dead.
Christ has indeed arisen from the dead,
the first of the sleepers.

Glory and power are his for ever and ever. Amen.

This text is a composite of excerpts from two Easter sermons spuriously attributed to John Chrysostom (ca. 347–407) and drawing inspiration from Hippolytus of Rome (ca. 170–ca. 235), which I adapted from Walter Mitchell’s English translation from the original Greek that appears in Adalbert Hamman, OFM, ed., Early Christian Prayers (Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1961), 31–35. The source texts can be found in the Patrologia Graeca 59:741–46 and 59:721–24. They probably date to the fourth century.

“An Easter Carol” by Christina Rossetti (poem)

April 22, 2024 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Woman gathering flowers (Stabiae) — *Woman gathering flowers*, first century CE. Detached fresco, 38 × 32 cm, from the Villa Arianna in Stabiae, Campania, Italy, now in the Collection of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, Italy. The woman may be Primavera (a personification of spring) or Flora (the Roman goddess of flowers, fertility, and abundance), or simply a generic maiden at leisure.

Spring bursts today,
For Christ is risen and all the earth’s at play.

Flash forth, thou Sun,
The rain is over and gone, its work is done.

Winter is past,
Sweet Spring is come at last, is come at last.

Bud, Fig and Vine,
Bud, Olive, fat with fruit and oil and wine.

Break forth this morn
In roses, thou but yesterday a Thorn.

Uplift thy head,
O pure white Lily through the Winter dead.

Beside your dams
Leap and rejoice, you merry-making Lambs.

All Herds and Flocks
Rejoice, all Beasts of thickets and of rocks.

Sing, Creatures, sing,
Angels and Men and Birds and everything.

All notes of Doves
Fill all our world: this is the time of loves.

This poem was originally published in A Pageant, and Other Poems (London, 1881) and is in the public domain.

One of the most celebrated poets of the Victorian era, Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894) was an English writer of Romantic, devotional, and children’s poems. She was the youngest of four siblings, among them the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, several of whose paintings she sat for, famously modeling for the Virgin Mary. A devout Anglican whose verse gives vivid expression to the life of faith and to spiritual longing, she is recognized as a saint by the Church of England and the Episcopal Church, who celebrate April 27 as her feast day.

“Fishers of People” by Andrew Roycroft (poem)

April 13, 2024 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Mynheer_Nicholas_The Calling — Nicholas Mynheer (British, 1958–), *Jesus Appears on the Shore: The Calling*, 2007. Oil on canvas, 31 × 25 cm. Final painting from the thirteen-piece Sarum Cycle on Christ’s passion. [read artist profile]

Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore;
yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. (John 21:4)

Lap lulled by lifeless waters,
ill-cast nets bearing no weight,
the fishermen see against
charcoal dawn
the lone figure of the Lord—
come to draw them in again,
and launch them out.

This poem is No. XXXII from 33: Reflections on the Gospel of Saint John by Andrew Roycroft (Baltimore: Square Halo Books, 2022). Used by permission of the publisher.

Roycroft’s poems from the collection 33 are remarkable for their concision, especially this one based on John 21. There’s so much richness packed into these seven spare lines, about resurrection, restoration, plenitude, calling. The rabbi Jesus whom they had followed for three years and staked all their hopes in had died; he was executed by the state. Disappointed and forlorn, and some perhaps ashamed by their abandonment of him in his hour of deepest need, the disciples return to their livelihood as fishers. But their first night back at sea proves fruitless, yields no catch; the waters are dead, like their Lord. Or so they thought.

A voice from the shore yells out to them, telling them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. Skeptically, they do, and the nets fill with such an abundance of fish that the men can barely heave them up. It’s then that they recognize the voice as that of their beloved Jesus. Peter cannot contain his joy and jumps into the sea, splashing his way to reunion with the one he had denied knowing just the previous week.

Jesus and friends then have a fish barbecue breakfast on the beach. He redeems Peter and removes his guilt by asking him three times, “Do you love me?,” giving him the chance to respond triply in the affirmative, counteracting the three no’s he had spoken the other night outside the house of Caiaphas. “Then feed my sheep,” Jesus says. Peter would go on to show his love for Jesus by doing just that, playing an instrumental role in the early church.

Luke places the episode of the miraculous catch of fish at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, when Jesus calls his very first disciples (see Luke 5:1–11). That this episode bookends the Gospels speaks of second chances and the persistence of God’s promise to make fruitful his word. In both versions, the call is the same: “Follow me.” Through life and in death and out the other side.

At the end of the Gospel of John, Jesus calls his disciples back into ministry, to teaching and healing and spreading the good news of resurrection. The abundance teeming below the surface of the Sea of Galilee hints at the life and heft of the new movement Jesus was launching—the imminent multiplication of followers of the Way. Having reeled them in from their feelings of lostness and imbued them with fresh hope, Jesus casts his disciples back into the waters of the world, commissioning them to draw others into God’s kingdom of love and grace.

Andrew Roycroft is a poet and pastor from Northern Ireland who blogs at Thinking Pastorally. His poetry has featured in a variety of journals in the UK and Ireland, in Arts Council for Northern Ireland projects, on BBC Radio, and in the work of composer Anselm McDonnell, and he has received several commissions from New Irish Arts. 33: Reflections on the Gospel of Saint John (Square Halo, 2022) is his first poetry collection.

Roundup: New Easter songs, joint Easter-iftar dinner, and more

April 9, 2024May 2, 2024 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

Here’s my new (nonthematic) playlist for the month of April!

But also, because Easter lasts through May 18, be sure to check out the 184 songs I handpicked for the season, which includes some new ones mixed in since the playlist’s original publication.

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NEW SONGS:

>> “He Lives” by Emma Nissen: Emma Nissen is a Latter-day Saint singer-songwriter from Arizona known for her gorgeous jazz vocals. Here she performs an original song about God the Father giving his Son, Jesus, to redeem the world through his life, death, and resurrection. “Let there be light, let there be love . . .”

>> “Living Among the Dead” by Caleb Stine: Alt-country singer-songwriter Caleb Stine, based in Baltimore, released this Johnny Cash–esque, resurrection-themed song just before Easter. The title and chorus come from the words the angels spoke to the women who went to Jesus’s tomb the Sunday after his death, looking for his body. “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” they asked. “He is not here but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to the hands of sinners and be crucified and on the third day rise again” (Luke 24:5–7).

The first verse narrates that momentous visit to the tomb. The second verse fast-forwards to the present day and raises issues of poverty, mental illness, substance abuse, culture warring, and militarism, some caused and others exacerbated by the death-dealing policies or neglect of the government. Many people look to politicians for salvation, trusting in their often empty promises, embracing their divisive rhetoric, and ignoring major character flaws for the sake of power. This song cautions us not to go to a dry well for sustenance—not to quench our thirst for living water in places that cannot give it.

The third verse tells of a “thin man in a dusty hat” who regales the story of a carpenter who healed and fed people, who drove out demons from bodies and greedy opportunists from temple courtyards, who befriended those of little means and those who were ostracized. He addressed human suffering head-on with tenderness and self-sacrifice. When the chorus comes in a final time, I hear in it that this loving, serving, reconciling Christ is still living, his Spirit is still moving, and that we ought to get behind that movement, practicing resurrection where we live. “Be not of fear, be of light, lift your head.” As the body of Christ, we should follow him in doing the same deeds and proclaiming the same good news of liberation.

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BLOG POST: “50 Ways to Practice Resurrection during the 50 Days of Eastertide” by Tamara Hill Murphy: Spiritual director and writer Tamara Hill Murphy of Connecticut shares fifty simple ideas for celebrating the Easter season in your day-to-day, including retelling baptism stories, visiting a botanical garden, watching a movie that makes you laugh, swinging on the playground, cooking a new veggie recipe, building a new piece of furniture, or washing your car by hand. “I find a lot of joy . . . in seeing these ordinary choices during my day as ways to practice a life that trumps death, a resurrection kind of life,” Murphy writes.

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PODCAST EPISODE: “The Beauty—the Poetry—of Christian Experience” with Benjamin Myers, Faith & Imagination: I listen to at least a dozen podcast episodes a week, and this one has been one of my favorites of the past few months. Dr. Benjamin Myers is a literature professor at Oklahoma Baptist University and a former poet laureate of Oklahoma. Here, host Matthew Wickman interviews Myers about two of his six books: A Poetics of Orthodoxy: Christian Truth as Aesthetic Foundation (2020) and the poetry collection The Family Book of Martyrs (2022). They talk about the incarnation and its implications on art; the disclosure of the extraordinary in the ordinary; the inherently unsecular nature of all good poetry; how beauty mirrors grace; the importance of the humanities in Christian education (how it “thickens up” the soul); the obligation of Christian art to capture both the “something good” and the “something missing” of our lives; and how love calls us to the things of this world.

A few additional highlights for me:

Myers came to faith after attending a Lessons & Carols service, compelled by the beauty and truthfulness of the story it told.
“Beauty is not just in the eye of the beholder but also in the being of God.”
At 37:24, Myers reads a poem he wrote for his youngest daughter: “Elizabeth Discovers Rock and Roll.”

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INSTAGRAM VIDEO: from AJ+: On March 31 in the Borgerhout district of Antwerp, a mile-plus-long table set up along the Turnhoutsebaan brought together city residents for a joint Easter-iftar dinner. Easter is the most sacred feast of the Christian year, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus; on Easter Sunday, Christians break the forty-day fast they’ve held for the duration of Lent. Lent almost always overlaps in part with Ramadan, a Muslim holy month of fasting that commemorates the prophet Muhammad’s first revelation. On each day of Ramadan after sunset, the fast is broken with an evening meal called an iftar.

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Christians and Muslims in Antwerp broke their fasts together at an outdoor Easter-iftar dinner on March 31. Photo: Sanad Latifa.

Borgerhout carried out this interfaith initiative in collaboration with the FMV cultural association and other partners in the hopes of promoting dialogue, social cohesion, and connection. I love this idea of gathering folks together across lines of religious difference to enjoy community, good food, and spiritual celebration! For more information, see https://www.2kmsamenaantafel.be/.

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NEW ALBUM: Three Gifts by Liturgical Folk and Jon Guerra: Ryan Flanigan of Liturgical Folk and Jon Guerra have teamed up to release an EP of three songs, one for each of the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and love (1 Cor. 13:13). Here’s “the greatest of these”:

“Easter, Before It’s Noticed” by Jill Peláez Baumgaertner (poem)

March 30, 2024 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

Turcios, Joaquin Vaquero_Dawn of the Resurrection — Joaquín Vaquero Turcios (Spanish, 1933–2010), *Alba de Resurrección* (Dawn of Resurrection), 1956. Oil on canvas, 120 × 180 cm. Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain.

The garden in the deep night
after God’s rapt silence
has no breath. No echo even
in the vacant tomb which no one
yet has visited, no one seen,
and yet everywhere his breathing,
the turn begins, the blanket
of sunrise in mist stretches
to swaddle the earth,
gouged and waiting.

Jill Peláez Baumgaertner (born 1948) is the multi-award-winning author of six poetry collections and an academic book on Flannery O’Connor as well as the editor of the anthologies Taking Root in the Heart: Poems from the Christian Century (Paraclete, 2023) and Imago Dei: Poems from Christianity and Literature (Abilene Christian University Press, 2012). A Fulbright fellowship to Spain and a nomination for the Pushcart Prize are among her honors. Professor emerita of English and former dean of humanities and theological studies at Wheaton College, she lives in Chicago with her husband, Martin, where she serves as poetry editor of the Christian Century. Hear her discuss her work on a recent Faith and Imagination podcast episode on poetry and the Divine Presence.

Roundup: One-word poems, “Go to Hell” musical setting, and more

March 28, 2024March 29, 2024 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

POEM SEQUENCE: “The Unfolding” by Michael Stalcup: Michael Stalcup has published a sequence of five short poems in Solum Journal that “tells the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection by unfolding five words that take us from Maundy Thursday through Easter Sunday,” he says. “I wrote these poems in a very unusual way, restricting myself to words that could be formed from the letters in each poem’s title. . . . This poetic form calls for creativity within intense limitations, which seems fitting for Holy Week—a time when Jesus crafted the most beautiful art this world has ever known within the constraints of his own suffering and death.” Stalcup has also presented them on Instagram (click on the image below).

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ARTICLE: “Don’t Rush Past Good Friday” by Brian Zahnd: Pastor and author Brian Zahnd cautions us not to shortchange the cross on the way to Easter, but rather to slow down and dwell there, beholding the crucified Christ.

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SONGS:

>> “Friday Morning” by Sydney Carter, performed by Timothy Renner: This Good Friday song by the English folk musician Sydney Bertram Carter (1915–2004) is difficult—one might even say blasphemous. That’s because it’s voiced from the perspective of the “bad” thief, who is spewing hatred and bitterness over his fate and blaming God for having created such a cruel world. But we’re aware of an irony in the refrain that the convicted man is not: “It’s God they ought to crucify / Instead of you and me, / I said to the carpenter / A-hanging on the tree.”

Read or listen to a reflection on “Friday Morning,” by Andrew Pratt, here.

>> “Go to Hell” by Nick Chambers: This song is a setting of a poem by Pádraig Ó Tuama from his collection Sorry for Your Troubles (Canterbury Press Norwich, 2013). The title is shocking, I know, but it’s derived from a line in the Apostles’ Creed, where we Christians profess that after Jesus died, he “descended into hell.” The singer-songwriter, Nick Chambers, writes in the YouTube video description: “In between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is possibly strangest day of the Christian year. On Holy Saturday, not only is Jesus, the God-Man, in the grave; traditions abound about his descent to the dead, his ‘harrowing of hell.’ What does it mean for the coming down of God-with-us not to end on earth but ‘under the earth,’ extending hope to the furthest regions of human pain and abandonment? Such a question deserves more poetry than explanation.”

“Go to hell” is a slang expression of scorn or rejection, to which Jesus was no stranger. As in the previous song, there’s an irony here, in telling Jesus to go to hell—because he did. Literally. Ó Tuama meditates on how Jesus shares in our vulnerabilities and yearnings and seeks to pull us out of the hells we’re in and redeem our stories.

Hear the poem read by the poet here, or at the end of the Stations of the Cross video below. “he is called to hell, this man / he is called to glory . . .”

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GUIDED MEDITATION: “Stations of the Cross, Good Friday, 2020” by Pádraig Ó Tuama: In 2020 the poet-theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama put together this twenty-minute video reflection for Good Friday structured around the Stations of the Cross, consisting of photos of art he’s taken and the praying of collects he’s written. (Several of the collects can be found in his book Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community from 2017.) The throughline is a set of stained-glass Stations by Sheila Corcoran at the Church of Our Lady Queen of Heaven at Dublin Airport; others are by Jong-Tae Choi, Gib Singleton, Sieger Köder, Richard P. Campbell, and Audrey Frank Anastasi.

Corcoran, Sheila_Veronica's Veil — Sheila Corcoran, *Station 6: Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus*, ca. 1964. Stained glass, Church of Our Lady Queen of Heaven, Dublin Airport. Photo: Patrick Comerford.

Campbell, Richard_Stripped — Richard P. Campbell (Dunghutti/Gumbaynggirr, 1958–), *Station 10: Jesus is stripped of his garments*, 2001. Reconciliation Church, La Perouse, Sydney, Australia.

But before stepping onto Jesus’s Via Dolorosa, Ó Tuama considers Judas, sharing a stained glass panel by Harry Clarke that illustrates a medieval legend about the Irish monastic saint Brendan the Navigator. According to the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis, on one of his voyages St. Brendan encountered Judas at sea, tied to an iceberg. He learned that an angel had taken pity on Judas in hell and given him a reprieve of one hour to cool himself from the flames of judgment. Ó Tuama then prays for those who, like Judas, are tormented by guilt and see no way out.

He closes with a reading of his poem “Go to Hell” (set to music in the previous roundup item).

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SONG: “For the Songless Hearts” by Jon Guerra: “There’s a lot of hubbub around Easter weekend in churches. And for good reason,” says singer-songwriter Jon Guerra. “But our hearts can’t always cooperate with the prescribed mood of the Easter season: ‘Celebrate! Be happy! Sing!’ Sometimes the last thing we are able to do is sing. Thankfully, Good Friday and Easter are not about mustering a mood. Good Friday and Easter are about remembering that there is One who meets us in our life and meets us in our death. He sings for us—and over us—when we can’t.”

That’s what “For the Songless Hearts” is about—a single released in 2017, and which Guerra sings with his wife, Valerie. In a Mockingbird blog post about it, Guerra admonishes, “Remember that before the tomb was empty, it was full. ‘When he was laid in the tomb, he laid right next to you.’” Jesus knew the depths of sorrow and the sting of death. We are not alone in such experiences.

“El Greco: Espolio” by Earle Birney (poem)

March 26, 2024 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

El Greco_El Espolio — El Greco (Domenikos Theotocopoulos) (Spanish, 1541–1614), *El Espolio* (The Disrobing of Christ), 1577–79. Oil on panel, 55.7 × 34.7 cm. National Trust, Upton House, Warwickshire, England. Photo: National Trust Photo Library / John Hammond. [object record]

The carpenter is intent on the pressure of his hand
on the awl, and the trick of pinpointing his strength
through the awl to the wood, which is tough.
He has no effort to spare for despoilings
nor to worry if he’ll be cut in on the dice.
His skill is vital to the scene, and the safety of the state.
Anyone can perform the indignities; it is his hard arms
and craft that hold the eyes of the convict’s women.
There is the problem of getting the holes straight
(in the middle of this shoving crowd)
and deep enough to hold the spikes
after they’ve sunk through those soft feet
and wrists waiting behind him.

The carpenter isn’t aware that one of the hands
is held in a curious beseechment over him—
but what is besought, forgiveness or blessing?—
nor if he saw would he take the time to be puzzled.
Criminals come in all sorts, as anyone knows who makes crosses,
are as mad or sane as those who decide on their killings.
Our one at least has been quiet so far,
though they say he has talked himself into this trouble—
a carpenter’s son who got notions of preaching.
Well here’s a carpenter’s son who’ll have carpenter’s sons,
God willing, and build what’s wanted, temples or tables,
mangers or crosses, and shape them decently,
working alone in that firm and profound abstraction
which blots out the bawling of rag-snatchers.
To construct with hands, knee-weight, braced thigh,
keeps the back turned from death.
But it’s too late now for the other carpenter’s boy
to return to this peace before the nails are hammered.

Earle Birney (1904–1995) is regarded as one of Canada’s finest poets. He is the author of twenty-five poetry collections, including David and Other Poems (1942), Now Is Time (1945), and Near False Creek Mouth (1964). He taught English at the University of British Columbia, where he founded and directed the first Canadian creative writing program. He was also a novelist, essayist, literary critic, and radio playwright.

Book Review: Jesus through Medieval Eyes by Grace Hamman

March 15, 2024 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

As an English major in college, I was required to take a course on medieval literature. I had not been looking forward to it—Romantic and Victorian lit were more my thing. I worried that working through Old English and Middle English texts would be a slog. But boy were my expectations upended! I was enthralled by all the imaginative theology I encountered in verse, drama, and sermons, from the Dream of the Rood on down. I went to a public university, but the saturation in Christian thinking is unavoidable for students of the history of English literature. After overcoming some hang-ups I had acquired from my fundamentalist Baptist upbringing, I found my faith opened up, strengthened, and inspired by my study of medieval writers. The same has held true in my studies of medieval art.

If you missed the opportunity to study the creative outputs of the Middle Ages in school but want to wade into those waters, you must follow the work of Dr. Grace Hamman, a medieval scholar from Denver who writes and teaches on the great works of that era through her newsletter, podcast, and more recently her first book, Jesus through Medieval Eyes: Beholding Christ with the Artists, Mystics, and Theologians of the Middle Ages (Zondervan, 2023). The book explores seven identities of Jesus—Judge, Lover, Knight, Word, Mother, Good Medieval Christian, and Wounded God—engaging art and literature that develop these tropes, some more familiar to us as moderns than others. Mechthild of Magdeburg, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Gregory the Great, Fra Angelico, Petrus Christus, Thomas Aquinas, Anselm of Canterbury, and Richard Rolle are among the folks we meet.

The church’s writings and images from the past, Hamman says, are a gift to us in the present that can help us see beyond our time- and culture-bound limitations. “In reading these exploring, adoring, faithful witnesses from the past, we can come to know Jesus—and ourselves—better,” she writes. “What we find strange or beautiful in these medieval witnesses can reveal our concerns, hidden biases, and even new truths. They also teach us new and profound ways to love him” (6).

She continues,

I began reading medieval texts because, to my joyful surprise, I learned that medieval Christians loved Jesus. They wrote about Jesus incessantly, compulsively, athirst with love, devotion, and creativity. They possessed vast Christian imaginations, often more expansive and interesting than many of the Christians who preceded or followed them. I discovered that writers of this period were far more comfortable than we today in thinking about Jesus metaphorically, highlighting particular and peculiar attributes, and crafting new stories about him. Their narrative freedom, delight in allegory and metaphor as paths to truth, and cultural difference offer us the gift of strange new insights—the gift of surprise. (10)

To receive that gift of surprise, Hamman advises, we must approach the texts with a spirit of openness—a willingness to sit with them quietly, attentively, and humbly before making judgments, acknowledging that our own views are not necessarily superior. Then we can welcome in the discernment process, weighing the validity of the picture at hand, determining whether we want to graft it into our understanding of Christ and his work.

I appreciate how Hamman regards the medieval era with neither nostalgia nor negativity. She’s not suggesting we simply embrace medieval theology wholesale, as if it represents some kind of golden age we ought to return to. No, we can and should be critical of certain aspects—but we should first come to these works with a genuine readiness to receive and to learn, not instantly writing them off because they come from a time or tradition we’re not a part of.

Some of the pictures of Jesus that Hamman addresses are

a barefoot knight who jousts with the devil and storms the gates of hell, wearing human nature as his armor
a mother who gestates, gives birth, and breastfeeds
a lover who “forms us in blooming beauty through his tender desire” (53)

In chapter 3, “The Lover,” Hamman includes a woodcut illustration of one of the couplets from the late medieval verse dialogue Christus und die minnende Seele (Christ and the Loving Soul), showing the soul making herself naked before Christ her bridegroom so that they can join in spiritual union. Each gives themselves to the other in vulnerability.

Christ as Lover — “Christus beraubt die Seele ihrer Kleider, so daß sie nackt ist” (Christ strips the soul of its garments so that it is naked), Germany, ca. 1460. Woodcut illustration from a broadsheet of *Christus und die minnende Seele* (Christ and the Loving Soul). Albertina Museum, Vienna, Inv. DG1930/197/3.

She also walks us through the anonymous fifteenth-century poem “Quia Amore Langueo,” which brings together the language of romance with imagery of the crucifixion; its Latin refrain, taken from Song of Songs 2:5, translates to “Because I swoon with love.”

It’s important to pay attention to the places in these ancient texts and images that cause discomfort or confusion, as they are often places that helpfully challenge our assumptions today of who God is or what Christianity should look like.
—Grace Hamman, Jesus through Medieval Eyes, pp. 53–54

Jesus through Medieval Eyes introduces the reader to several important medieval texts, including the Old English poem Christ III, concerned with the second coming of Christ; Piers Plowman by William Langland, an allegorical poem in which the narrator, Will, is on a quest for the true Christian life; and the enormously influential Meditationes Vitae Christi (Meditations on the Life of Christ) and its derivative The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ by Nicholas Love, who encourages us to exercise our “devout imagination” by envisioning the events of the Gospels. The latter includes charming, homey little narrative details, like Mary using her kerchief as a swaddle for the newborn Jesus, and after his forty-day fast in the desert, Jesus craving his mama’s home cooking.

I admire how Hamman takes art seriously as a theological medium, recognizing how historically, the church has expounded its theology not only through the written word but also through painting and other visual expressions. And so she integrates art images throughout the book, weaving them into her discussion. There are sixteen total, reproduced in black-and-white near the text that refers to them, for convenience, as well as in a color insert, where they can be enjoyed more fully. I wish more theologians and church historians would follow Hamman’s example of drawing on art as a resource for understanding the development of, and for inquiring into and articulating, religious ideas.

But what really sets Hamman apart from other medievalists, in my opinion, is the balance in tone she manages to achieve between academic, devotional, and personal. (It’s something I struggle to achieve as a writer.) She writes with authority but also with an intimacy that is inviting and refreshing. She lets us into her own background and experiences and feelings and is transparent about her enthusiasms and distastes. I feel like she’s a wise old friend conversing with me over a cup of tea. Whether it’s an audio commentary she’s published on her podcast, a Substack missive, or this book, I always come away from her content having learned something, been given something to reflect on or explore further, and been drawn closer to God. She’s a wonderful teacher!

Christus, Petrus_Christ as the Man of Sorrows — Petrus Christus (Netherlandish, ca. 1410–ca. 1475), *Christ as the Man of Sorrows*, ca. 1450. Oil on panel, 11.2 × 8.5 cm. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, England.

In Jesus through Medieval Eyes, each chapter ends with a scripture, reflection questions, one or two suggested exercises, and a prayer—some sourced from medieval authors, others original.

Each chapter opens with a whimsical line drawing based on medieval manuscript marginalia, which often feature humorous scenarios, like a knight fighting a snail or a rabbit hunting a human! (Role reversals were a favorite form of play for medieval artists.) This design element further immerses the reader in that world. The cover too, its art taken from a French book of hours illuminated by Jean Colombe, gives a sense of the shine of medieval manuscripts with its gilt lettering and halos of the saints.

Hamman has revitalized my interest in medieval literature, in all its wild beauty and strangeness. You may have noticed her influence on my blog over the past few years I’ve been following her. I encourage you to follow her on Twitter @GraceHammanPhD and Instagram @oldbookswithgrace, subscribe to her Medievalish newsletter, and BUY HER BOOK! It would be great material for a Christian book club, and would also make a great gift.

You may also want to check out the recent interview Hamman sat for on The Habit Podcast, part of the Rabbit Room Podcast Network. It’s a terrific introduction to her work:

A version of Hildegard of Bingen’s “Ave generosa” by Gabriele Uhlein

March 12, 2024March 12, 2024 Victoria Emily Jones4 Comments

Hudyma, Olesya_Ukrainian Madonna — Olesya Hudyma (Ukrainian, 1980–), *Ukrainian Madonna*, 2021. Oil on canvas.

Mary,

God delights in you so much, 
God was so taken with you,
          he sank his love’s fire
          deep within you.

So much love he gave you,
          that with it you nurture his son.

So full of ecstasy is your body
that it resounds with heaven’s symphony.

Your womb exults.

It exults like the grass,
          grass the dew has nestled on,
          grass the dew has infused with verdant strength.

That is how it is with you,
Mother of all joy.

From Meditations with Hildegard of Bingen, introduction and versions by Gabriele Uhlein (Rochester, VT: Bear & Company, 1983). Used by permission of Inner Traditions International. All rights reserved.

This book is the first time Hildegard’s writings appeared in English. In selecting, translating, and adapting the material for it, Uhlein worked from the German critical editions of De Operatione Dei (1965), Liber Vitae Meritorum (1972), and Hildegard’s letters (Briefweschel) (1965) and songs (Lieder) (1969), all published by Otto Müller Verlag in Salzburg.

For the original Latin of the above hymn and a more straightforward translation by Nathaniel M. Campbell, see here. This link also includes a musical performance of the Latin (Hildegard wrote her own lyrics and music!).

Hildegard of Bingen, OSB, (ca. 1098–1179) was a German Benedictine abbess, theologian, preacher, poet, composer, playwright, and medical writer and practitioner. She founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg and Eibingen and was named a “doctor of the church” by Pope Benedict XVI in recognition of “her holiness of life and the originality of her teaching.” Hildegard’s most significant works are her three volumes of visionary theology: Scivias (Know the Ways) (for which she also supervised miniature illuminations), Liber Vitae Meritorum (Book of Life’s Merits), and Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of Divine Works). But she is also well known for her liturgical hymns and antiphons, as well as the many letters she wrote to popes, emperors, abbots, abbesses, fellow mystics, and layfolk, dispensing wisdom and advice.

Gabriele Uhlein, OSF, (born 1952) is a retreat guide, workshop leader, and artist dedicated to the recovery of the Christian mystical tradition and the honoring of intuition and creativity in spiritual deepening. Born in Klingenberg, Germany, she emigrated to the US at age two. She has a PhD in process theology and Jungian-oriented psychology from Chicago Theological Seminary and is a member of the core staff at the Christine Center, a natural sanctuary in Willard, Wisconsin, rooted in the Franciscan principles of contemplation, hospitality, compassion, simplicity, transformation, and care for the earth.