Art & Theology

Cor Jesu amanti sacrum: An emblematic print series of Christ setting up house in the heart of the believer

November 16, 2024December 30, 2025 Victoria Emily Jones6 Comments

In Antwerp sometime around 1600, the Flemish printmaker Anton Wierix II (whose name is alternatively rendered as Antonie, Anthony, Antoine, or Antonius) engraved a series of seventeen* cardiomorphic emblems called the Cor Jesu amanti sacrum (The Heart Consecrated to the Loving Jesus), which portray the human heart as the dwelling-place, schoolroom, and throne of Christ. Commissioned by the Jesuit order, the series shows the Christ child cutting through the net that has ensnared the heart, knocking at the heart’s door, shining a light inside, sweeping out the monsters and vices, purging it with his blood, establishing his throne therein, teaching it, adorning it, making music in it, defending it from hostile invasion, piercing it with the arrows of love, and setting it aflame with desire.

These prints circulated as loose sheets and inside books, and various artists copied Wierix’s designs throughout the seventeenth century. The most famous book that uses the Cor Jesus images is Le coeur dévot, throsne royal de Iesus, Pacifique Salomon (The Devout Heart, Royal Throne of Jesus, Pacific Salomon) by Etienne Luzvic, SJ, originally written for a religious community, perhaps one devoted to the Sacred Heart. The book’s initial publication—in Paris in 1626—was without illustrations, but an enlarged edition was reissued in Douai and Antwerp the following year, containing twenty Cor Jesu engravings adapted by Martin Baes from Wierix’s originals, as well as additional meditations called “Incentives” by Fr. Etienne Binet, SJ.

Also in 1627, Le coeur dévot was translated into Latin, which became the basis for a number of vernacular translations throughout Europe, including an English version translated by Henry Hawkins in 1634, titled The Devout Hart, or Royal Throne of the Pacifical Salomon. This English edition includes a hymn by Hawkins for each emblem.

The odd-sounding subtitle of the book is a reference to King Solomon of the Old Testament, whom Luzvic apparently read a type of Christ in his majesty. “Pacifical” is an archaic word meaning conciliatory, peaceable.

Below I reproduce Wierix’s seventeen emblems, a loose-leaf edition held by the Wellcome Collection in London; you can click on the image to be taken to its object page.

Each engraving contains at the bottom a rhyming Latin verse in two stanzas of three lines each, interpreting the picture. The English translations provided below are sourced from the Wellcome Collection website, unless otherwise noted.

The engravings are not numbered, and their order was not fixed; they show up in variable sequences in different books. I’ve ordered them as they appear in Hawkins’s The Devout Hart. Scholars and editors have given them different descriptive titles over the years. I use Hawkins’s titles, only I’ve modernized the spellings. I’ve also provided a few quotes from Hawkins’s translation of Luzvic’s meditational texts that accompany the images in The Devout Hart, with page numbers provided in parentheses.

1. The world, the flesh, and the devil assail the heart, but Jesus saves it for himself

The world, the flesh, the devil — Anton Wierix II (Flemish, ca. 1555–1604), *The world, the flesh, and the devil assail the heart, but Jesus saves it for himself*, ca. 1600. Engraving, with etching, image 7.7 × 5.6 cm.

Fallax mundus ornat vultus,
dolus latet sed occultus:
ne crede blanditiis.

Hoc vitare si vis rete;
cito Christi sinus pete
procul ab insidiis.

(The deceptive world makes up its face, yet trickery lurks concealed. Do not trust in blandishments if you want to avoid this net! Quickly seek the breast of Christ, far from ambushes.)

2. The most amorous Jesus knocks at the door of the heart

Jesus knocking — Anton Wierix II (Flemish, ca. 1555–1604), *The most amorous Jesus knocks at the door of the heart*, ca. 1600. Engraving, image 7.8 × 5.5 cm.

Ultro cordis portam pultat
Iesus, silet et auscultate
vocem sui corculi.

Cor exsurge, vectem solve:
Quid sit opus factu, volve
in adventum sponsuli.

(Outside the door of the heart Jesus knocks, is silent, and listens for the voice of his little heart. Heart, rise up! throw back the bolt! think what needs to be done at the arrival of the little betrothed one!)

This image is rooted in Revelation 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him . . .” (KJV).

If you cannot hear the knocking, Etienne Luzvic encourages you to consider,

Is it the noise perhaps of the guests thou hast admitted in already, which so tacked up, and stupefies thine ears, as thou canst not hear thy beloved’s voice? Oh guests, or haunting ghosts, I may call you, rather! Oh sinister affections! Oh inordinate appetites! What a tumult have you made here? (49)

He further exhorts:

Hasten, therefore, O fairest of all beauties; what? Sleepest thou yet? Shake off this sluggishness. Is there a mutiny at home, then quiet the tumults, command silence, bid the door be set open. And if thy spouse now wearied with thy demurs should chance to divert from thee, and go his ways, follow him at the heels with cries, and prayers, and tiring him outright, urge him hard, that he would deign to return again to his sanctuary. (50)

3. Jesus searcheth out the monsters lurking in the dark corners of the heart

Jesus searches out the heart — Anton Wierix II (Flemish, ca. 1555–1604), *Jesus searcheth out the monsters lurking in the dark corners of the heart*, ca. 1600. Engraving, image 7.8 × 5.7 cm.

Dum scrutaris in lucernis
et vestigas cum laternis
cor peccatis obsitum;

o quot monstra deprehendis!
Iesus, scopas ni prehendis,
manet culpis perditum.

(While you search among the lights and track the heart besieged by sins, oh how many monsters do you find! Jesus, if you do not find a broom, [the heart] remains lost in wrongs.)

From Luzvic:

So long as Jesus is absent from my heart. Ah me! what monsters? what sordidies? what Gorgons? what wicked fiends? what hells are centered there?

When Jesus enters into the heart, and therein pours his light, good God? what foul, what horrible prodigies of vices the mind discovers there which the eyes had never yet detected? I say while Jesus puts forth his rays, what bestial manners? what perfidiousness? what blots of an ungrateful mind? what heinous crimes are represented in this detestable heart?

At these portents the very angels tremble. Yet go thou on, my most sweet Jesus: illuminate the darksome corners of the soul; cleanse this foul, infamous stable. Amid this Cimmerian darkness, with glimpse of thy light bewray [reveal] me to myself that . . . at length [I] may fly to thee, love nothing else but thee. Oh the only Darling of my soul! O only love of my heart, my little Jesus! (60–61)

Oh how I tremble at it, to see how many snakes there are! What spiders, what scorpions, and other such like plagues . . . (65)

Consider, then, how powerfully Jesus, as soon as admitted to enter into the heart, expels and banisheth all sins from the secretes nooks thereof. (68)

4. Jesus sweeps the dust of sins from the heart

Jesus sweeps out sin — Anton Wierix II (Flemish, ca. 1555–1604), *Jesus sweeps the dust of sins from the heart*, ca. 1600. Engraving, 7.8 × 5.6 cm.

O beatam cordis aedem!
Te cui caelum dedit sedem
purgat suis manibus.

Animose puer verre,
monstra tuo vultu terre,
tere tuis pedibus.

(O blessed temple of the heart! Let him to whom heaven has given his abode clean you with his own hands. Spirited boy, sweep away! Frighten the monsters with your look! Crush them under your feet!)

Once Jesus locates the toads, snakes, and other slimy creatures (symbols of sin) hiding in the heart’s cave, he sweeps them out. Luzvic welcomes this purging:

Go on, my little Jesus, and oh! expel, tread, crush under thy holy feet this poisonous virulence of serpents, which with their venom intoxicate and kill my soul. Destroy them quite, and so frame me a heart wholly according to thy heart. (73–74)

He asks Jesus that, once he banishes the monsters, he keep them out for good:

Thou, most Blessed Darling of my heart, fortify and prevent all the ways and passages of the enemy, and place strong guards at the entrance and gates thereof, lest happily they steal or rush in anywhere . . . (77)

But he also owns his own responsibility in keeping them out:

Oh what dullness of mind is this, what stupidity of heart, that we should so long suffer these monsters to rest and abide with us, as if they were some friends and familiars of ours! Oh truly admirable goodness of God! who hath attended and expected us so long to return to the duty and office of good men; and now at last most powerfully hath brought us into liberty, wherefore we will steadfastly purpose, and determine hereafter, to die rather than once to afford any place in our heart to sins. (82)

5. Jesus the Living Fountain in the heart

Bone Iesu fontes fluant,
in cor nostrum toti ruant,
gratiarum rivuli.

Illis animam mundare,
a peccatis expiare,
Ecce gaudent angeli.

(Good Jesus, into the heart let fountains flow, let all the streams of graces [flow]. With them to clean the soul and expiate [it] from sin, behold angels rejoice.)

In this image, blood flows out of the nail wounds in Christ’s hands and feet—a cleansing, refreshing fount.

Luzvic rhapsodizes,

If Jesus be absent, I am arid, dry, and without juice, so as neither I feel God, nor anything of God. Oh cruel aridity! O fatal drought!

If Jesus be present, he sheds divine dews of graces; he opens springs of incredible sweetness; the heart floats only and swims and sinks in these torrents of celestial delights. Oh grateful dews! O blessed springs! O ineffable delights!

Angelical hands laid hither those waters of life; sprinkle therewith my heart and soul, cleanse, and water them with endless springs of paradise. (85)

He asks God’s angels to “plunge this my dry and thirsty heart, drown it in the ocean of love” (91).

6. Jesus purgeth the heart with expiatory blood

Jesus purges the heart with his blood — Anton Wierix II (Flemish, ca. 1555–1604), *Jesus purgeth the heart with expiatory blood*, ca. 1600. Engraving, with etching, image 7.8 × 5.6 cm.

Eia Iesu tibi notum
cor, si lubet, lustra totum,
pia tuo sanguine.

An non cernis? tota patet
ara cordis, nil te latet:
Fove tuo lumine.

(Ahh, Jesus, the heart which you know, clean it all, if you like, purify it with your blood! Or do you not see? The whole altar of the heart lies open, nothing is hidden from you. Sustain it with your light.)

“Purge me with hyssop,” prays David the psalmist (Ps. 51:7). In this image Jesus uses an aspergillum to sprinkle his blood on the believer’s heart, much like Moses did with the blood of oxen (Exod. 24:1–8)—sprinkling it on the altar and on God’s covenant people—and like the Levitical priests did with the blood of bulls and goats before the mercy seat (Lev. 16).

Binet writes of the immediate effect: “Lo, the heart came presently to itself again, as soon as it felt but one little drop of thy divine love to be sprinkled on it” (98). I love that phrase: “the heart came presently to itself again.” Jesus reconciles us not only to God but also to ourselves, taking away our guilt so that we can live in the freedom we were always meant to have. He brings us home to our truest selves.

There’s power in the blood! Luzvic beseeches Jesus for just a few drops:

Take, therefore, O Jesus, love of my soul, from this infinite bath of thine some few little drops, at least, and sprinkle thy sanctuary therewith, I say—the ample field of my heart, whose sure possession thou hast taken to thyself long since. (99–100)

7. Jesus rules and reigns in the loving and devout heart

Jesus on the throne of the heart — Anton Wierix II (Flemish, ca. 1555–1604), *Jesus rules and reigns in the loving and devout heart*, ca. 1600. Engraving, with etching, image 7.8 × 5.7 cm.

Quis hic vultum non serenet?
Iesus ecce sceptra tenet
cordis in palatio.

Iesu tantum ora pandas,
manda quod vis, da quod mandas;
adsumus obsequio.

(Who would not here have a serene expression? Behold, Jesus holds the scepter in the palace of the heart. Jesus, just open your mouth, order what you want, give what you order: we are present to obey.)

Here’s a beautiful prayer by Luzvic. Its last line is a quotation from Song of Solomon 6:3, a book that Christians have read, on one level, as an allegory of the love between Christ and the human soul:

The heart . . . is hungry and thirsty, nor lives contented with any owner, unless thou fix the seat of thy kingdom in its precincts. If thou beest present with, it desires no more; if absent, come in all created things at once and woo it never so much, there will yet be place enough for more. If thou gettest from thence, all felicity departs with thee: if thou abides, all beatitude comes suddenly thither. Reign, therefore, and eternally reign in my heart, O love of my heart. Quiet the motion of perturbations, nor ever suffer the unhappy heart to thrust the king out of his seat, then which cannot happen a greater disaster to it. Nor suffer, I say, O darling and delight of my heart, that one heart should be shared into many parts. For thou sufferest no rival. Oh suffer it not ever to be enticed with the allurements of worldly pleasure, which gate being once set open, I see how easily the enemy will rush in. Be thou to it a brazen, yea, a wall of fire, which may so roundly girt the tower, as that no passage may be found unto it. But that only the Holy Ghost may come down from heaven, whereto the heart lies open, and enter therein with a full gale, and occupy the whole heart, that so I may truly profess and glory, My beloved to me and I to him. (116–18)

8. Jesus teacheth the devout heart

Anton Wierix II (Flemish, ca. 1555–1604), *Jesus teacheth the devout heart*, ca. 1600. Engraving, with etching, image 7.7 × 5.5 cm.

Sunt auscultent qui Platoni,
aut facundo Ciceroni,
aut mundi stultitiae.

Tu ne verba vitae sperne:
Audi patris aeviterne
dicta sapientiae.

(Some listen to Plato or to eloquent Cicero, or to the stupidity of the world. [But] you, do not scorn the words of life! Listen to the Father’s sayings of everlasting wisdom!)

In this image Christ is portrayed as the heart’s instructor. He sits with an open book that reads, “Erunt omnes docibiles Dei” (All shall be the pupils of God).

Luzvic imagines one of the directives he gives:

Hear, my child (for so Jesus advises from the pulpit of the heart): Do thou give thyself to me. Let me be thy possession, thy nurse, thy food, for nothing can satiate thine appetite without me. My child, throw away those leeks and garlic of Egypt, turn thy face from the stinking waters of [vain] pleasure, and put thy mouth rather to my side, the wine-cellar of graces, whence at ease thou mayest draw and derive to thyself most sovereign and incomparable joys. (128–29)

9. Jesus paints the images of the last things in the table of the heart

Jesus painting on the heart — Anton Wierix II (Flemish, ca. 1555–1604), *Jesus paints the images of the last things in the table of the heart*, ca. 1600. Engraving, with etching, image 7.8 × 5.7 cm.

Sume Iesu penicilla,
corque totum conscribilla
piis imaginibus:

sic nec Venus prophanabit,
nec Voluptas inquinabit
vanis phantasmatibus.

(Take, Jesus, your paintbrushes and daub over the whole heart with holy images. Thus neither shall Venus profane it nor shall pleasure pollute it with empty fantasies.)

The four last things, clockwise from bottom left inside the heart, are death, judgment, heaven, and hell. The image asks Jesus to make these future realities vivid in our minds so that we would live blamelessly until then.

10. Jesus brings the cross into the heart, and easily imprints it in the lover

Bone Iesu conde crucem,
virgam, Ianceamque trucem,
conde in imo corculo.

Nulla praevalebit lues,
amuleta quando strues
hoc myrrhae fasciculo.

(Good Jesus, stow the cross, the lash, and the cruel lance, stow it at the bottom of the little heart. No sin shall prevail when you pile up this preservative on a gathering of myrrh.)

In this image, Christ deposits the instruments of his passion in the heart of the believer, where they serve as a reminder of the cross-shaped ethic we are to adopt—giving ourselves for others—as well as a call to gratitude for Christ’s sacrifice and a source of strength in times of suffering.

Go in, lovely cross; enter, lance, sponge, nails, scourge; bloody thorns, get you into the closet of the heart. Welcome still, but on this condition that Jesus bring you in himself; for myrrh with Jesus is admirable, and mere sweetness.

Thou sayest thou lovest Jesus; then needs must thou his cross, for if otherwise thou boast to love Jesus, thou deceivest thyself and others.

Most sweet child, what have you and I to do with this lumber here? Scarce art thou come into the world, but thou art oppressed with the weight of punishments. Oh plant thy seat in my heart! and then shall I challenge hell itself: for if Jesus and I hold together, what Hercules can stand against us both? (150–51)

11. The heart consecrated to the love of Jesus is a flourishing garden

Jesus strews the heart with roses — Anton Wierix II (Flemish, ca. 1555–1604), *The heart consecrated to the love of Jesus is a flourishing garden*, ca. 1600. Engraving, with etching, image 7.7 × 5.9 cm.

Euge puer, rosis pinge,
latus hoc, et illud cinge,
totum cinge corculum.

Sparge foetus verni roris,
sparge totam messem Chloris:
sternis tibi lectulum.

(Bravo, boy! paint this side and that and surround it with roses, surround the entire little heart! Spread the fruit of the spring dew, spread the entire harvest of the realm of flowers: you are [thus] laying a cot for yourself.)

(Alt translation by Walter S. Mellion: Bravo, lad! Embroider with roses now this side, now that, encompass them. Wreath the little heart, all of it. Strew it with the progeny of the springtime dew, with the whole harvest of Chloris: spread for yourself a [flowery] bed.)

Jesus bedecks the heart with roses in this image—makes it beautiful and fragrant. Again, this image evokes the Song of Solomon, with its scenes of lovers in the garden.

12. Jesus sings in the choir of the heart, to the angels playing on musical instruments

Jesus sings in the heart — Anton Wierix II (Flemish, ca. 1555–1604), *Jesus sings in the choir of the heart, to the angels playing on musical instruments*, ca. 1600. Engraving, with etching, image 7.8 × 5.5 cm.

Cor exulta quid moraris?
Gaude, plaude, invitaris
piis Iesu cantibus.

Sonat chelys angelorum,
sonant tubae beatorum
mixtis Iesu vocibus.

(Heart, exult! Why do you hesitate? Rejoice! Applaud! Invite Jesus with sacred songs! The [name of] Jesus sounds forth in the lyre of angels, it sounds in the trumpets of the blessed mixed with voices [singing].)

Luzvic fancifully develops the image of Jesus as singer and choir conductor in the sanctum of our hearts, making sweet, melodious music:

I will chant the mercies of the Lord forever. For to this purpose Jesus, the prime Christ, records his ancient loves to the human heart, and now mixing with admirable skill flats with sharps, sharps with flats, the tenor with the bass, and running diversely divisions he touches with a sweet remembrance now with a moderate, now remiss, now slow, and now with a quick voice, the innumerable number of his benefits wherewith heretofore he hath wooed the heart . . . (176)

13. Jesus, the son of David, plays on the harp in the heart, while angels sing

Jesus plays the harp in the heart — Anton Wierix II (Flemish, ca. 1555–1604), *Jesus, the son of David, plays on the harp in the heart, while angels sing*, ca. 1600. Engraving, with etching, image 7.5 × 5.7 cm.

Pulsa chordas, sonet chelys,
dum nos recreas de caelis
Iesu cordis gaudium.

Dulce melos intonabunt,
novum nobis excitabunt
angeli tripudium.

(Strike the strings! Let the lyre sound forth! While from heaven you renew us, Jesus, joy of the heart. A sweet tune angels shall intone [and they] shall arouse a new dance within us.)

14. Jesus rests in the lover’s heart

Jesus rests in the heart — Anton Wierix II (Flemish, ca. 1555–1604), *Jesus rests in the lover’s heart*, ca. 1600. Engraving, with etching, image 7.8 × 5.6 cm.

Frustra Boreas minatur,
frustra fulmen debacchatur,
frustra spumant caerula:

dum in corde lectum stravit,
atque sponsus dormitavit,
tuta ridet sponsula.

(In vain the north wind threatens, in vain the thunder runs wild, in vain the sea foams: while in the heart the betrothed has spread his bed and gone to sleep, the bride elect smiles in safety.)

What a moving image—the heart as a place of rest for Jesus. From the four corners the four winds blow, but Jesus is not perturbed, so why should we be? He still has the world in his hands (well, in his lap!).

The image is an allusion to the episode in all three Synoptic Gospels where a storm arises on the Sea of Galilee while Jesus and the disciples are in a boat; the disciples are frantic, and exasperated that Jesus is snoozing, but he tells them not to worry, and then he silences the wind and waves with a command: “Peace, be still!”

The image projects peace and stillness onto our troubled hearts.

15. Jesus wounds and pierces the heart with the shafts of love

Jesus pierces the heart with love — Anton Wierix II (Flemish, ca. 1555–1604), *Jesus wounds and pierces the heart with the shafts of love*, ca. 1600. Engraving, image 7.8 × 5.7 cm.

Sat est, Iesu, vulnerasti,
sat est, totum penetrasti
sagittis ardentibus.

Procul, procul hinc libido:
nam caelestis hic Cupido
vincet ignes ignibus.

(Enough, Jesus, enough! You have shot through the whole heart with flaming arrows. Lust, [be gone] far, far from here! For here is a heavenly Cupid who will conquer fire with fire.)

Luzvic quotes from chapter 2 of Augustine’s Confessions in this section: “Lord, thou hast pierced our hearts with thy charity.”

He elaborates with his own ecstatic words:

My good Archer, shoot, ah, shoot again! shoot through this heart of mine, with a million shafts, this refractory and rebellious heart, to thy divine love: slay and kill all love that is not thine, or is adversary to it. O sweet wounds! O dear to me! O arrows dipped and tipped with honey. . . .

The heart is never in so good a plight as when it is transfixed with a thousand points of sharpest love. (216)

16. The heart enflamed with the love of Jesus shines with light and flames

Jesus sets the heart alight — Anton Wierix II (Flemish, ca. 1555–1604), *The heart enflamed with the love of Jesus shines with light and flames*, ca. 1600. Engraving, with etching, image 7.8 × 5.7 cm.

En armatas flammis tendit
Iesus manus, cor accendit
hinc et illinc facibus.

Age, totum comburatur,
in favillam redigatur
cor amoris ignibus.

(Behold, Jesus holds out his hands armed with flames, and sets alight the heart with torches on this side and that. Come, let it all burn, let the heart be reduced to an ember by the fires of love.)

17. Jesus crowns his dear heart with palms and laurels

Jesus crowns the heart — Anton Wierix II (Flemish, ca. 1555–1604), *Jesus crowns his dear heart with palms and laurels*, ca. 1600. Engraving, with etching, image 7.8 × 5.5 cm.

O beata sors amoris!
Post tot lusus, tot honoris
signa, tot laetitiae,

diadema regni datur,
et cor palmis exornatur
immortalis gloriae.

(O blessed fortune of love! After so many games, so many tokens of honor, so many of joy, the crown of the kingdom is bestowed, and the heart is adorned with the palms of immortal glory.)

* I am excluding the title page engraving from the count, which shows a ﬂaming heart, inscribed with the words Cor Jesu amanti sacrum, held up by a Jesuit and a Franciscan friar; Jesus is not pictured, and there is no corresponding verse. And it appears that the Wellcome Collection does not own (or has not digitized) this print.

Roundup: “What to Do After Voting,” Apsáalooke praise song, chapel service led by Terry Wildman (Ojibwe, Yaqui), and more

November 12, 2024November 14, 2024 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

PRESS RELEASE: “The Creative Arts Collective for Christian Life and Faith Announces Launch of Its First Competitive Request for Proposals (RFP)”: The Creative Arts Collective for Christian Life and Faith [previously], an endowed initiative run by Belmont University in Nashville, has just opened its online Letter of Inquiry form for the 2025 Spring Grant Program. Form submission deadline: December 6, 2024.

The RFP is open to interested individual artists, artist collaboratives, church leaders, scholars/theologians, arts-affiliated organizations, faith-based nonprofit organizations, or institutions who reside or operate in the United States. Eligible applicants may submit proposals with requests ranging from $50,000 to $250,000 that may be used over one year. Chosen applications will then be requested to submit a full grant proposal for the competitive 2025 Spring Grant Program.

The 2025 grant-seeking theme is “Performing Shalom.” Applicants are invited to reflect the theme in their project or program, but it is not a requirement when applying for a grant. Please click here for more information.

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SUBSTACK POST: “On Artists, Kings, and Mending the Multiverse” by Houston Coley: A wise and rousing reflection after the US presidential election. Houston Coley is an Atlanta-based documentary filmmaker, video essayist (YouTube @houston-coley), podcaster, and writer on TV and film, who “cultivat[es] spiritual imagination around art and pop culture,” as one person put it.

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POEM: “What to Do After Voting” by James A. Pearson: The poet James Pearson shared this poem from his collection The Wilderness That Bears Your Name (Goat Tail Press, 2024) on Instagram on Election Day last Tuesday. He writes, “What’s driving [all our voting] are two things: Our common needs for love, safety, and belonging. And our often conflicting attempts to meet them. Rumi wrote: ‘Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.’ History is offering us a fork in the road. Let’s turn towards what we can do—vote. Then let’s find each other in that field and do the long, slow work of building a world where everyone has access to the love, safety, and belonging they need.” [HT: Amy Peterson]

He writes further on his website, “This poem doesn’t pretend to be a full prescription for what our country needs. It’s just my way of acknowledging that all electoral choices are imperfect. Because even more important is what happens between elections—the long, slow work of building a culture of love and justice for our politicians to live up to. And the better we do that work, the better our options will be next time elections come around.”

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SONG: “Apsáalooke Praise Song,” sung by Sarah Redwolf (née Bullchief): Sarah Redwolf is a member of Crow Nation in Montana and a follower of the Jesus Way whose Apsáalooke name is Baawaalatbaaxpesh (Holy Word). Here she sings a praise song by her grandmother Xáxxeáakinnee (Rides the Painted Horse). The Apsáalooke lyrics are below; I couldn’t find an English translation, and the artist has not yet returned a message I sent ten days ago, but I believe the song was written with Christian intent, as Christianity has been in Sarah’s family for generations. Her father, Duane Bull Chief, is a traveling Pentecostal preacher and the leader, with his wife, Anita, of Bull Chief Ministries, and Sarah has often led worship for church services and other Christian gatherings. What a beautiful voice!

Akbaatatdíakaata Dáakbachee
Huúlaa-k awúaleel akósh
Sáawe dée kush
Ahóohkaáshi, ahóohkaáshi, áaaaweelee-éeh

Akbaatatdíakaata
Baléelechiisaa awúaleel akósh
Ahóohkaáshi, ahóohkaáshi, áaaaweelee-éeh [source]

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LECTURE: “The Sign of Jonah” by Matthew Milliner, Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College, Illinois, October 3, 2019: This is the first lecture in a three-part series by art historian Matthew Milliner called The Turtle Renaissance that he developed into the book The Everlasting People: G. K. Chesterton and the First Nations (InterVarsity Press, 2021). (Here’s a well-written book review that I concur with; you can read an excerpt from the book here.) In the video, the talk starts at 8:49, followed by a response by Capt. David Iglesias, JD, of Kuna nation at 1:03:31, and then a Q&A starting at 1:25:27.

In conversation with Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man, Milliner explores contact points between Christianity and Indigenous North American art, symbol, ritual, and history. The discussion touches on pre-contact petroglyphs carved into Teaching Rocks near Peterborough, Ontario (one of them, a sun figure, quite possibly representing Gitchie Manitou, the Great Spirit—Christ incarnate?), the Sun Dance (which many Native Christians interpret as a prophecy of the Crucifixion), the Ghost Dance (about resurrection and renewal), the Mishipeshu (an underwater panther often representing death, which some Native Americans used to characterize white settlers), the Thunderbird, Black Elk’s vision of a mysterious figure with holes in the palms of his hands, and the cross as an axial tree conjoining the above and below worlds. Just as ancient Hebrew culture contained pointers to Christ, so too, Milliner argues, do the Indigenous cultures of North America. Artists, preachers, and visionaries from among the Ojibwe, Kiowa, Lakota, and other peoples are “our North American Virgils,” he says—Virgil being a Latin poet whose Fourth Eclogue, written around 40 BCE, prophesied the birth of a divine savior who would usher in a golden age.

*Sun Dance Scene*, Teton Lakota, Central Plains or Northern Plains, Wyoming, ca. 1885. Muslin cloth with watercolor paint, 36 × 91 1/2 in. (91.5 × 232.5 cm). Art Institute of Chicago. See 32:55 of Milliner’s lecture.

Vision of Jesus (Kiowa Ghost Dance) — Vision of a Kiowa man named Fiqi (Eater), received during the revived Ghost Dance, of Christ blessing the ceremony, collected by ethnologist James Mooney, ca. 1890. Pencil and crayon drawing from MS 2538, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. See 38:49 of Milliner’s lecture and pages 11–12, 130, 142–44 of his book *The Everlasting People*.

Debassige, Blake_Tree of Life — See 59:24 of Milliner’s lecture and page 8 of his book *The Everlasting People*

There’s much more I could say, as there’s certainly more nuance and complexity to this, but instead let me simply refer you to Milliner’s lecture and finely footnoted book. There’s also a great audio interview with Milliner about The Everlasting People from November 2021, conducted by Jason Micheli for the Crackers and Grape Juice podcast.

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VIDEO: Chapel service led by Terry Wildman, November 6, 2023, Azusa Pacific University, California: Earlier this year I got to have dinner with Terry Wildman [previously] and his wife, Darlene, who form the Nammy Award–winning musical duo RainSong. It was exciting to hear all about their work with Native InterVarsity and other projects. They live in Maricopa, Arizona, on the traditional lands of the Pima and Tohono O’odham peoples. Wildman, who has both Ojibwe and Yaqui ancestry, was the lead translator, general editor, and project manager of the First Nations Version: An Indigenous Bible Translation of the New Testament. (The nativity narrative from the FNV translation of the Gospel of Luke, you may be interested to know, was adapted into an illustrated book titled Birth of the Chosen One: A First Nations Retelling of the Christmas Story, which just released this fall.)

Last November Wildman led a worship service for Azusa Pacific University students. Here are the key elements:

The opening three minutes are an animated video of the gospel story, narrated by Terry Wildman to a flute accompaniment by Darlene Wildman
8:12: Blessing of the Gabrielino-Tongva people
9:38: The Lord’s Prayer (FNV)
10:57: Sermon: “Worship in Spirit and in Truth” (John 4:1–42)
21:17: Reading of Psalm 8 (FNV)
23:48: Song: “Lift Up Your Heads” by Terry and Darlene Wildman, based on Psalm 24
28:40: Song: “Hoop of Life” by Terry Wildman – Native American powwows often feature hoop dancers, who dance a prayer that Creator will bring harmony and goodwill to all the gathered people. Wildman says, “I look at Jesus and I call him the Great Hooper Dancer. Because he’s the one who ever lives to pray for us, to make intercession for us, and when he dances his prayer, he is bringing harmony and balance to the whole world, to the whole universe. And if we follow him, if we give our hearts to him, he will produce that harmony and balance in us and with each other.”
35:56: Song: “Nia:wen” (Mohawk for “Thank You”) by Jonathan Maracle of Broken Walls
45:29: Closing prayer

Playlist: Christ the King

November 8, 2024November 3, 2025 Victoria Emily Jones3 Comments

The final Sunday of the liturgical year—which this year is November 24—marks the Feast of Christ the King. This festival celebrates the reign of Jesus Christ over all of creation and every aspect of our lives.

“The belief in Christ as King finds its roots in the Christian understanding of Jesus as the Messiah, whose reign exists as both a present reality and a future hope,” writes Ashley Tumlin Wallace on her blog The Liturgical Home. “In the here and now, his reign manifests in the lives of believers who seek to live under his lordship. But the Feast of Christ the King also carries a sense of eschatological anticipation, signaling the ultimate culmination of time when the reign of Christ is fully realized.”

Unlike some who sit on earthly thrones, Christ is no tyrant; he’s a benevolent ruler who leads with love and perfect wisdom. He is high and lifted up, and yet he stoops down to us and attends to our cries. He’s so committed to our flourishing that he became one of us and sacrificed himself to save us from the Evil One and reconcile us to God. We owe him our praise, our deference, our all.

For Christ the King Sunday, I put together a Spotify playlist of songs that extol Christ as king of the cosmos and of our own hearts.

It includes traditional hymns like “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” (below, sung by Paul Zach), “Come, Christians, Join to Sing,” “All Creatures of Our God and King,” “All People That on Earth Do Dwell,” “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,” “O Worship the King,” “Crown Him with Many Crowns” . . .

In looking up hymns, I was delighted to find a new-to-me one from the nineteenth century by Josiah Conder called “The Lord Is King,” which Navy Jones set to a buoyant new tune:

There’s one song on the list whose text dates all the way back to the fifth century. Written in Latin by the Christian poet Sedulius, “Regnavit Dominus” (The Lord Is King) combines praises to the One who conquered death and feeds us with himself with the humble plea, “Kyrie eleison” (Lord, have mercy). Owen and Moley Ó Súilleabháin sing it to a twelfth-century melody:

The playlist also features several psalm settings, including two of Psalm 93, which opens,

The LORD is king; he is robed in majesty;
    the LORD is robed; he is girded with strength.
He has established the world; it shall never be moved;
    your throne is established from of old;
    you are from everlasting.

One is by Jacob Mwosuko, a member of the Abayudaya (People of Judah) Jewish community near Mbale in eastern Uganda. The text is in Luganda. Though Jews would read “LORD” as referring to God the Father, ever since the early church Christians have confessed Jesus not only as Lord (Master) but also as LORD (YHWH), consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father, sharing with him all rule, authority, power, and dominion.

Also from Africa, there’s the Resurrection-rooted salsa song “Jesus Reigns” by Joe Mettle of Ghana, which I learned while attending worship at a Nigerian friend’s church plant for African Christians in Maryland:

On a softer note, there’s the piano ballad “Wondrous Things” by Sandra McCracken, Patsy Clairmont, and JJ Heller of FAITHFUL, a collective of female Christian authors and artists formed in 2019. It lauds Jesus as king to the poor, the oppressed, and the brokenhearted. Heller and McCracken perform it with Sarah Macintosh in the following video:

This next one is more of a nostalgic pick for me: “Make My Heart Your Throne”:

Over two decades ago, when I was a young high schooler, I attended a Christian retreat. The worship leader for the weekend was a man named Carl Cartee, and I remember being struck by this original song of his that we all sang one night. Its words and melody imprinted on me, and all these years later I still find myself sometimes singing them in private as a prayer that Christ would be foremost in my affections and that I would cede control to him.

One of the keenest depictions of Christ’s kingship in scripture is in the book of Revelation, where his glory and triumph are on full display and he’s surrounded by worshipping throngs. Chapter 19, where the exiled John describes “the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven,” is the source text of the song “He Is Wonderful,” sung by Lowana Wallace with Lana Winterhalt and Josh Richert:

These three overlaid, harmonized vocal lines are so enthralling!

Wallace’s song is a simplified arrangement of “Revelation 19:1” by A. Jeffrey LaValley, who wrote it in 1984 for the gospel choir of New Jerusalem Baptist Church in Flint, Michigan, where he served as music director. You can listen to a more recent performance of “Revelation 19:1” on the album Jesus Is King (2019) by the Sunday Service Choir under the direction of Jason White, or in this Mav City Gospel Choir video from 2021, which features soloist Naomi Raine. The choir is directed by Jason McGee:

The build to such fullness of sound . . . wow! It really is evocative of the ample rejoicing in heaven around God’s throne that John the Revelator narrates—“like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals” (Rev. 19:6).

For a multilingual (English-Korean-Spanish) arrangement performed by students and staff at Fuller Theological Seminary in California, see here.

This is just a sampling of the eighty-plus songs on Art & Theology’s “Christ the King” playlist, exalting the One who lives and reigns supreme in the heavens and who will one day bring his kingdom to full fruition on earth.

Cover art: John Piper (British, 1903–1992), Christ in Majesty, 1984, East Window, Chapel of St John Baptist without the Barrs, St John’s Hospital, Lichfield, Staffordshire, England

Roundup: Songs of thanksgiving, NYC art exhibitions, and more

November 4, 2024November 7, 2024 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST: November 2024 (Art & Theology)

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SONGS:

In addition to the new, nonthematic playlist above, I also have a Thanksgiving Playlist that I published in 2021 and have been adding to sporadically. Here are three new songs, among others, that you can hear on it:

>> “I Just Want to Thank You, Lord” by Lynda Randle: Singer-songwriter Lynda Randle has been performing on the Gaither Homecoming videos and tours since 1993. Here she sings one of her original gospel songs with Gayle Mayes and Angela Primm.

>> “Thanks a Lot” by Raffi: Raffi Cavoukian, who goes by his first name only, is an Armenian Canadian children’s singer-songwriter and book author, best known for his song “Baby Beluga.” “Thanks a Lot” expresses gratitude—presumably to God, though God is not named—for the sun, clouds, wind, birds, stars, “the wondering me,” and so on. This live recording is on the 1984 release A Young Children’s Concert with Raffi. I’m guessing he told the kids in the audience to close their eyes, to help cultivate a prayerful state.

>> “Herraa Hyvää Kiittäkää” (Thank the Good Lord) by Herännäisnuorten kuoro: This hymn was originally written in Swedish by Jesper Swedberg in 1694 and was translated into Finnish six years later. It uses an older (1640) tune—nice and hearty! and in a minor key—by the German composer Heinrich Albert. You can follow along with the Finnish lyrics here.

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VIDEO: Jazz Vespers Worship Service, Duke Chapel, November 19, 2019: Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, has hosted a Jazz Vespers worship service nearly every March and November since 2014, a collaboration between Duke Chapel and the Duke Jazz Program. In this recorded service from the fall 2019 semester, Rev. Dr. Luke Powery (the chapel dean) leads the liturgy and Rev. Joshua Lawrence Lazard (the chapel’s minister for student engagement) delivers the sermon, which is from 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” The music is led by Duke music professor John Brown, a Grammy-nominated jazz bassist and composer, and his Little Big Band. I can’t find the names of the two vocalists.

List of songs:

“Every Day Is a Day of Thanksgiving” by Shelby Wills
“Glory, Glory (Since I Laid My Burden Down)”
“Because of Who You Are” by Vicki Yohe
“I Feel Like Praising Him” by Shirley Caesar
“Amazing Grace” by John Newton
“Perfect Love Song” by Anita Wilson
“You Can’t Beat God Giving” by Billy Preston
“Thank You, Lord, for All You’ve Done for Me” by Walter Hawkins

Duke’s next Jazz Vespers service is Thursday, November 14, 2024, at 7 p.m. at Duke Chapel.

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LITANY: “Celebrating the Gifts of Immigrants” by Rev. Maren C. Tirabassi: “A prayer for the United States which has come to a time of conflict, when the discussion of immigration seems to be limited to a choice of two – fears of burden or pity for the vulnerable – ignoring the third truth – deep gratefulness.”

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VIRTUAL WORKSHOP: “Evocations: Advent Responsive Writing” with Marilyn McEntyre, Nov 26, Dec 3, Dec 10, Dec 17, 2024: Each Tuesday over the course of a month, from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. ET, Marilyn McEntyre will be leading an online gathering of writers in reflecting on and working with words and images gleaned from centuries of song, poetry, and paintings that celebrate Advent, the season of waiting. Participants will engage in lectio divina and visio divina as a foundation for writing personal reflections, memoir, and poetry. Hosted by Image journal. Registration cost: $195.

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ART EXHIBITIONS:

I don’t know that I’ll be able to make it up to New York City before these two exhibitions close in January, but I will try! They both look excellent.

>> Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350, Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 13, 2024–January 26, 2025: “Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350 examines an exceptional moment at the dawn of the Italian Renaissance and the pivotal role of Sienese artists—including Duccio, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini—in defining Western painting. In the decades leading up to the catastrophic onset of the plague around 1350, Siena was the site of phenomenal artistic innovation and activity. While Florence is often positioned as the center of the Renaissance, this presentation offers a fresh perspective on the importance of Siena, from Duccio’s profound influence on a new generation of painters to the development of narrative altarpieces and the dissemination of artistic styles beyond Italy.”

The New York Times published a glowing review of the exhibition, calling it “revelatory . . . the art show of the season.” Here’s a video tour:

>> Anything but Simple: Gift Drawings and the Shaker Aesthetic, American Folk Art Museum, September 13, 2024–January 26, 2025: “The Shakers, often celebrated for their minimalist approach to design, will be showcased in a new light with the exhibition Anything but Simple: Gift Drawings and the Shaker Aesthetic. Made by women in the mid-19th century and believed to represent divine messages, the ‘gift’ drawings on display represent a departure from the simplicity typically associated with Shaker material culture.

“Opening during the 250th year of Shakerism in the United States, the exhibition features drawings widely considered to be among the finest surviving examples of this rare type. These symbols of love and nature were often given as ‘tokens’ to other Shakers during meetings. Brightly colored and replete with intricate ornamentation, they represent a stunning world of celestial imagery. Compared to examples of Shaker clothing and furniture that will also be included in the exhibition, the vibrancy of the drawings will mark a distinct contrast with the clean lines typically associated with Shaker design.”

Cohoon, Hannah_The Tree of Life — Hannah Cohoon (American, 1788–1864), *The Tree of Life*, 1854. Ink and watercolor on paper, 18 1/8 × 23 5/16 in. Collection of the Hancock Shaker Village, Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Medieval roundup: Julian of Norwich, stained glass at York Minster, Jewish hymn from Andalusia, and more

October 29, 2024January 2, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

PODCAST EPISODES:

>> “Jack’s Bookshelf: Julian of Norwich” with Dr. Grace Hamman, Pints with Jack: The “Jack’s Bookshelf” podcast series explores the authors and books that influenced the life and writings of C. S. Lewis. Hosted by David Bates, this episode covers Julian of Norwich (ca. 1343–after 1416), an English anchorite and mystic who authored what editors call Revelations of Divine Love or The Showings, the first English-language book by a woman. The most famous quote from this work is “Sin is behoovely, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” Medieval scholar Grace Hamman [previously] unpacks the quote and discusses other key passages and themes from Julian, as well as what little we know of her biography. An excellent introduction!

>> “Ben Myers—The Divine Comedy,” Life with God: One of the many gifts my parents have given me over the years was a four-month study-abroad stay in Florence during my junior year of college, where one of my courses was devoted to reading and studying—in its original Italian and in the author Dante Alighieri’s hometown!—the masterful trilogy of narrative poems known as La Divina Commedia, or The Divine Comedy in English. Moving through hell, purgatory, and heaven, it is an allegory of the soul’s journey toward God. I enjoyed hearing Dr. Benjamin Myers [previously], director of the Great Books Honors Program at Oklahoma Baptist University, discuss this deeply influential work from the early fourteenth century, and sharing one of his own poems, “Listening to Reggae at the Nashville Airport.”

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VIRTUAL TOURS OF CATHEDRALS:

Cathedrals are, among other things, repositories of sacred art. I’m so appreciative of digitization initiatives that seek to make some of those treasures available to global publics online. Here are two admirable examples.

>> The York Minster Stained Glass Navigator: York Minster in northeastern England has the largest collection of medieval stained glass in the UK, with the earliest pieces dating from the late twelfth century. On behalf of the Chapter of York, the York Glaziers Trust is undertaking to photograph it all. These photos are available for viewing online through the cathedral’s “Stained Glass Navigator,” which enables you to hover over panels to identify the scenes, zoom in for higher resolution, and see where each panel in situated in the context of the window’s larger narrative.

I especially recommend exploring the extraordinary Great East Window, which depicts the beginning and the end of all things. The top section opens with the seven days of creation, followed by other select scenes from the Old Testament, but the bulk of the window—and my favorite sequence—consists of scenes from the book of Revelation. The bottom row depicts historical and legendary figures associated with the history of York Minster.

St. John takes the book from the angel (York) — John Thornton of Coventry (British, fl. 1405–1433), *St. John Takes the Book from the Angel* (Rev. 10:8–11), 1405–8. Stained glass panel from the Great East Window, York Minster, York, England. Photo courtesy of the York Glaziers Trust.

The Dragon gives power to the beast (York) — John Thornton of Coventry (British, fl. 1405–1433), *The Dragon Gives Power to the Beast* (Rev. 13:1–3), 1405–8. Stained glass panel from the Great East Window, York Minster, York, England. Photo courtesy of the York Glaziers Trust.

Satan chained in the bottomless pit (York) — John Thornton of Coventry (British, fl. 1405–1433), *Satan Chained in the Bottomless Pit* (Rev. 20:1–3), 1405–8. Stained glass panel from the Great East Window, York Minster, York, England. Photo courtesy of the York Glaziers Trust.

>> Life of a Cathedral: Notre-Dame of Amiens: Located in the heart of Picardy in northern France, Amiens Cathedral is one of the largest Gothic churches of the thirteenth century, renowned for the beauty of its three-tier interior elevation, its prodigious sculpted decoration, and its stained glass. This website put together by Columbia University’s Media Center for Art History offers a detailed virtual tour of the cathedral, drawing attention to its architectural features and artworks, from the many stone relief sculptures over its four portals (my favorite) to the octagonal labyrinth that adorns the marble floor in the nave to the early sixteenth-century misericords in the choir stall.

Voussoir close-up, Amiens Cathedral — Detail of voussoirs from the south transept portal of St. Honoré at Amiens Cathedral, ca. 1240, featuring Adam working the ground, Noah building the ark, Jonah being disgorged from the fish, Hosea marrying Gomer, and other biblical figures and vignettes

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SONG: “Adon Olam,” performed by the Maqamat Masters, feat. Nissim Lugas: The well-loved text of this traditional Hebrew prayer in five stanzas probably originated in medieval Spain, having been first found in a thirteenth-century siddur (Jewish prayer book) from Andalusia. Drawn from the language of the Psalms, it praises God for both his transcendence and his immanence. He is incomparably great, the ruler over all, and yet he’s also a personal God, a refuge for those who call on him. The prayer’s title and opening phrase translates to “Master of the Universe” or “Eternal Lord.”

Various tunes have been used for the singing of this prayer over the centuries. The Maqamat Masters perform it here with a melody based on the traditional Armenian folk tune NUBAR NUBAR, arranged by Elad Levi and Ariel Berli. They also add to the prayer a few lines from the ghazals of the Persian Sufi poet Saadi (1210–ca. 1292), about the burning fire of God’s love; Lugas sings this Farsi passage from 3:06 to 4:08.

“Maqamat Masters is a unique group of musicians that coalesced around their work together teaching at the Maqamat School of Eastern Music in Safed, Israel,” 12 Tribes Music writes. “Each of the musicians is a master in a different traditional musical genre from the Middle East, and they bring their personal voices and decades of explorations together, to create a magical, new and innovative sound.”

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VIRTUAL EXHIBITION: The Faras Gallery: Treasures from the Flooded Desert: In 1960, Faras, a small town in Sudan near the Egyptian border, was one of the archaeological sites designated for flooding by the waters of the Nile to create Lake Nasser. Responding to an international call by UNESCO to preserve the area’s cultural heritage before it would be buried beneath the new reservoir, a Polish team led by Professor Kazimierz Michałowski proceeded with salvage excavations in 1961–64. Their efforts uncovered the wonderfully preserved ruins of a medieval cathedral, active from the eighth to fourteenth centuries (it was built on the remains of an early seventh-century church) and containing over 150 religious paintings, a trove of Nubian Christian art. By agreement with Sudan, half of the findings went to Poland’s National Museum in Warsaw, while the other half are kept in Sudan’s National Museum in Khartoum.

Nubian Madonna and Child — Wall Painting with Bishop Marianos under the protection of Christ and the Mother of God, early 11th century, excavated from Faras Cathedral in modern-day Sudan. Secco tempera on plaster, 247 × 155.5 cm. National Museum, Warsaw.

Curated by Paweł Dąbrowski and Magdalena Majchrzak and hosted by Google Arts & Culture, this virtual exhibition spotlights the wall paintings and artifacts from Faras that are housed in Warsaw. It discusses the importance of the discovery of the cathedral and the technical challenges of detaching the paintings (tempera on dry mud plaster) from the walls. It also includes digital reconstructions of the cathedral’s interior and exterior in 3D stereoscopy, as well as video elements. Here is one of the four videos from the exhibition:

“Loue Me Brouthte” (Love Me Brought): Christ speaks from the cross

October 25, 2024October 28, 2024 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

Crucifixion (Taymouth Hours) — Crucifixion with bas-de-page scene of Christ leading figures from the mouth of Hell, from the Taymouth Hours, England, second quarter of 14th century. British Library, Yates Thompson 13, fol. 122v.

ORIGINAL MIDDLE ENGLISH:

Loue me brouthte,
& loue me wrouthte,
Man, to be þi fere.
Loue me fedde,
& loue me ledde,
& loue me lettet here.

Loue me slou,
& loue me drou,
& loue me leyde on bere.
Loue is my pes,
For loue i ches,
Man to byƷen dere.

Ne dred þe nouth,
I haue þe south,
Boþen day & nith,
To hauen þe,
Wel is me,
I haue þe wonnen in fith.

MODERN ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

Love me brought,
And love me wrought,
Man, to be thy fere. [companion]
Love me fed,
And love me led,
And love me fastens here.

Love me slew,
And love me drew,
And love me laid on bier.
Love’s my peace;
For love I chose
To buy back man so dear.

Now fear thee not;
I have thee sought
All the day and night.
To have thee
Is joy to me;
I won thee in the fight. 

Trans. Victoria Emily Jones

This medieval passion lyric is from the Commonplace Book of John of Grimestone, compiled in Norfolk, England, in 1372 and owned by the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. It was transcribed by Carleton Brown in Religious Lyrics of the Fourteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), page 84.

Adv.MS.18.7.21, fol. 121r, with “Love Me Brought” poem highlighted. In this manuscript, the Franciscan friar John of Grimestone jotted down miscellaneous verses and quotes to use in his preaching.

(Related post: “Undo thy door, my spouse dear”)

In the poem, Christ addresses humankind from the cross, professing his great love for her. He was begotten in love by the Father, and it’s love that brought him to earth. Love nourished and guided him, and for love he stayed the difficult course, all the way to the end. Satan had stolen Christ’s beloved, and to win her back, Christ went into battle, to redeem her who was rightfully his. His decisive move: spreading out his arms across a wooden beam, so as to embrace the world, and submitting to being nailed there.

He died for love of his lady. Love is what drew him to and secured him to that cross, what kept him there when the physical and emotional agony begged he desist. And because of his persistence in seeking us, his courageous endurance as the enemy assailed, he attained ultimate victory. “Well is me!” (Blessed am I), he exclaims, “for you are mine and I am yours.” Let nothing stand between.

Katharine Blake, the founder and musical director of Mediæval Bæbes, wrote a setting of “Love Me Broughte,” in medieval style, for the group’s 1998 album Worldes Blysse. Sweet and vigorous, it features, besides voices, a zither, pipe, recorder, tambourine, and drums.

Did you enjoy this poem? For more like it, come on out on November 23 to “Christ Our Lover: Medieval Art and Poetry of Jesus the Bridegroom,” a lecture by Dr. Grace Hamman that I’ve organized for the Eliot Society in Annapolis. Learn some of the ways Christian preachers, poets, theologians, mystics, and artists in the late Middle Ages, both male and female, conceptualized Christ’s passionate love, drawing from the Song of Songs, courtly love poetry, and more—often in quite imaginative ways!

Roundup: New book for All Saints’ Day, Bruce Onobrakpeya exhibition in DC, and more

October 22, 2024October 25, 2024 Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

NEW BOOK: Everything Could Be a Prayer: One Hundred Portraits of Saints and Mystics by Kreg Yingst: Released on October 15, this book features one hundred color block-print portraits by Kreg Yingst of folks in the family of God across time and place, along with one-page biographies. Get to know a wide range of Christian civil rights activists, scientists, environmentalists, social service workers, hymn-writers, artists, poets, evangelists, and monastics and the gospel impact they’ve made. The lineup is a mix of familiar and less familiar names, canonized saints and noncanonized. Examples include Brigid of Kildaire, Ignatius of Loyola, Satoko Kitahara, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mamie Till, Pandita Ramabai Dongre-Medhavi, and Black Elk. Click here to look inside.

The title of the book is taken from a quote by Martin de Porres (1579–1639), a Dominican friar from Peru and the first Black saint of the Americas: “Everything, even sweeping, scraping vegetables, weeding a garden, and waiting on the sick, could be a prayer if it were offered to God.”

Related events:

October 10–November 16, 2024: Art exhibition featuring the block prints from the book at The Gallery of Art, 36 W. Beach Dr., Panama City, Florida
October 26, 2024, 1:00–3:00 p.m.: Book signing at Barnes & Noble, 1200 Airport Blvd., Pensacola, Florida

Through November 1, Yingst is offering 25% off all original woodcuts and linocuts that were used as illustrations for the book; view the discounted pieces in the “Mystics, Saints & Poets” section of his Etsy shop. These are not inkjet-printed photographs of original artworks (which is what some artists misleadingly call “prints”) but are themselves original limited-edition relief prints hand-pulled on an antique proof press from carved blocks; they are made with black oil-based ink and watercolor. If you want original art in your home or to gift a friend or family member for Christmas, Yingst’s work is a great and affordable option!

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SONGS:

November 1 is All Saints’ Day, a feast for commemorating the lives and witness of our siblings in the faith who have gone before us. Here are two songs for the occasion.

>> “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God,” performed by Wendell Kimbrough: This charming little children’s hymn was written by Lesbia Scott and was first published in her native England in Everyday Hymns for Little Children (1929). In the United States the song first appeared in the Episcopal Hymnal 1940 with a tune that John Henry Hopkins, a member of the hymnal committee, composed for it, capturing the childlike cadences of the text.

>> “When the Saints” by Sara Groves: This song from Groves’s album Tell Me What You Know (2007) draws encouragement from the faithfulness of God-followers throughout history, from Moses, Paul, and Silas to Harriet Tubman and Mother Teresa to the martyr Nate Saint and his sister Rachel Saint to rescuers of sex-trafficking victims. It is a call to hearers today to pick up their cross and follow Christ into places of hurt and injustice, pursuing liberation of body and soul for all. The refrain quotes the traditional Black gospel song “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

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ART EXHIBITION: Bruce Onobrakpeya: The Mask and the Cross, National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC, June 21, 2024–January 21, 2025: A father of African modernism, Bruce Onobrakpeya (b. 1932) [previously] is one of Nigeria’s most celebrated artists, and I was thrilled this month to visit his first solo show in the US, which, as it turns out, is centered on his Christian-themed linocut prints! (The artist is Anglican.) Onobrakpeya’s career spans over six decades, and this Smithsonian exhibition is not meant to be representative of the breadth of his oeuvre, which also includes painting and sculpture and various subject matters; rather, it presents two foundational bodies of work from the late sixties, both commissioned by the Catholic Church, that helped launch the artist’s long and esteemed career.

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The exhibition displays rare artist’s proofs of the biblical illustrations Onobrakpeya made for Ki Ijoba Re De (May Your Kingdom Come) (1968), a Yoruba-language textbook for students in their fifth and sixth years of Catholic primary school (it was part of the Nigerian National Catechism), as well as a complete narrative series of prints titled Fourteen Stations of the Cross, produced in 1969. I blogged about the artist’s Stations cycle back in 2014, when I saw a different edition at the SMA African Art Museum in Tenafly, New Jersey; you can view better photos on the High’s website. For more on the work of Fr. Kevin Carroll, the Catholic missionary who commissioned Onobrakpeya to paint a church mural of the Stations that became the basis of these linocuts and who helped facilitate the May Your Kingdom Come publication, see here.

Curated by Lauren Tate Baeza, Bruce Onobrakpeya: The Mask and the Cross first opened last year at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. This is Baeza’s first exhibition as curator of African art at the High, and I’m so pleased that when she dug through the High’s extensive archives, it was a set of Christian prints by a leading Nigerian artist that most compelled her, that she could imagine building a unique exhibition around and that she felt must be pulled out of storage for more people to see. Hear Baeza discuss the exhibition from 23:28 to 35:58 of the video “African Modernisms: A Legacy of Connection.”

Onobrakpeya, Bruce_Station 1 — Bruce Onobrakpeya (Nigerian, 1932–), *Station I: Pilate condemns Jesus to death*, 1969. Linoleum block print on rice paper, 24 × 34 in. (61 × 86.4 cm). High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones.

For his Stations of the Cross, Onobrakpeya “incorporat[ed] the rich patterns of Yoruba gelede and epa masks and stylized geometric patterns found in northern Nigerian architecture. Then he added generous adire motifs and his signature elongated figures and distortions of scale,” reads one of the gallery wall texts. He also embedded a critique of British colonial rule, portraying the Roman soldiers of Christ’s passion as British officers. (Nigeria had just attained independence from Great Britain earlier that decade, in 1960.) Pilate, though, is shown as a local Nigerian magistrate doing the bidding of the British government, highlighting a deeply felt tension in Nigeria’s then-recent political history.

I really appreciate the video components of the exhibition. One screen plays a compilation of clips from interviews Baeza conducted with the artist, and another displays a two-dimensional animation commissioned from Sadiki Souza specially for this exhibition, which brings to life Onobrakpeya’s fourteen Stations. Neither is available online, at least not that I can find.

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ZOOM EVENT: “Celebration of New Global Church Music Resources,” November 14, 9:00 a.m. CDT (12:00 p.m. ET): From Baylor University’s Dunn Center for Christian Music Studies: “We are excited to announce the launch of two website projects on November 14th! In collaboration with the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary, the third edition of the Nigerian Christian Songbook will be updated with new songs and content. In addition, a new project, the Global Church Music Bibliography, highlights underrepresented voices in church music scholarship. This is an interactive dashboard and map that features church music scholars writing about their own traditions outside of North America.” At the Zoom event on launch day, you will hear from various project participants. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

A Breton prayer

October 16, 2024 Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

Nolde, Emil_Dark Red Sea — Emil Nolde (German, 1867–1956), *Dark Red Sea*, ca. 1938. Watercolor. Nolde Museum, Seebüll, Germany.

Mon Dieu, protégez-moi,
mon navire est si petit
et votre mer si grande!

Lord, help me . . .
Because my boat is so small,
And your sea is so immense.

This anonymous prayer collected from a Breton sailor—or fisherman, as some anthologies cite—is found in Émile Souvestre, Les derniers Bretons (The Last Bretons), vol. 1 (Paris: Charpentier, 1836), page 121. The English translation is by Robert Bly and is from the anthology The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy: Sacred Poems from Many Cultures (New York: Ecco, 1995), which Bly edited. He identifies the prayer as “French medieval” but doesn’t provide a source. The prayer also appears as #422 in The Oxford Book of Prayer and on page 80 of 2000 Years of Prayer; the latter places it in the “Celtic Christianity” section, as Bretons are descendants of the Celts who emigrated from the British Isles to Armorica, the northwestern extremity of Gaul (now called Brittany, part of France), after the Anglo-Saxon invasions.

Though “boat” and “sea” were likely meant first and foremost literally, there is a long tradition of boats being used as metaphors for our fragile selves, afloat the vicissitudes of life, or carried about by the divine will. Living outside a maritime context, I pray this prayer in that metaphoric sense.

Roundup: Latin American classical music, Pedro Linares sculpture, Pope Francis on literature, and more

October 12, 2024October 13, 2024 Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

UPCOMING LECTURES:

I’m one of the artistic directors of the Eliot Society, a faith-based arts nonprofit in Annapolis. I’m really looking forward to our next two events this fall! If you’re in the area, I’d love for you to come out to these talks by a musician and a medievalist. They’re both free and include a time of Q&A and a small dessert reception afterward.

>> “A Place to Be: Gospel Resonances in Classical Music” by Roger Lowther, October 26, 2024, Redeemer Anglican Church, Annapolis, MD: “At its most basic, music is a collection of sounds. How those sounds are organized varies by country and culture and reflects their values, history, and heart-longings. Join Tokyo-based American musician Roger W. Lowther on a journey through the landscapes of Western and Japanese classical music and explore their unique and fascinating differences. Roger will lead from the piano as he demonstrates the musical languages of each tradition and show how they contain hidden pointers to gospel hope in a world full of suffering and pain.”

I’ve heard Roger speak before, and he’s very Jeremy Begbie-esque in that he does theology through instrumental music. As a bicultural person, a New Englander having lived in Japan for almost twenty years (ministering to and through artists of all disciplines), he brings a unique perspective. In addition to discussing the defining features of the Western versus Japanese classical traditions, he’ll be performing a few piano pieces from each.

>> “Christ Our Lover: Medieval Art and Poetry of Jesus the Bridegroom” by Dr. Grace Hamman, November 23, 2024, St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Crownsville, MD: “If there was a ‘bestseller’ book of the Bible in the European Middle Ages, it would be the Song of Songs. When read allegorically, in the manner of medieval theologians like St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the book tells the story of the romance between Christ and the soul that culminates in Christ’s love shown on the cross. This is a story of mutual pursuit, the pain of desire and sacrifice, sensual delight, and true union. The idea of Jesus as a longing lover of each individual soul appeared everywhere by the later medieval period, in art, poetry, sermons, and the devotional writings of men and women alike.

“These themes and images can strike us as strange, even uncomfortable. An illustrated poem for nuns depicted the Song of Songs like a cartoon strip. Prayer books of wealthy nobles portrayed Christ’s wounds intimately. Poets wrote Christ in the role of a chivalric, wounded knight weeping and waiting for his lady. And yet, examining this ancient imagery of Jesus our Lover together can challenge us to greater vulnerability with our Savior, to refreshed understandings of God’s hospitality, and, in the words of Pope Gregory the Great, can set our hearts ‘on fire with a holy love.’”

Grace is a fabulous teacher of medieval poetry and devotional writing, one whom I’ve mentioned many times on the blog before. Her Jesus through Medieval Eyes was my favorite book of 2023; read my review here. She has encouraged me to move in toward the strange and imaginative in medieval theology and biblical interpretation, because there’s often beauty and wisdom to be found there if we give it a chance. She has a keen awareness of the body of Christ across time and an appreciation for the gifts they’ve bequeathed the church of today, be they words, art, or whatever else.

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VIDEO: “Poet and Pastor: Christian Wiman and Eugene Peterson”: In this four-minute video from Laity Lodge, poet and essayist Christian Wiman and pastor and spiritual writer Eugene Peterson (best known for his Bible translation The Message) talk about prayer and spirituality. They each share a poem they’ve written: Wiman’s “Every Riven Thing” and Peterson’s “Prayer Time.” “People who pray need to learn poetry,” Peterson says. “It’s a way of noticing, attending.”

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ARTICLE: “Stop and read: Pope praises spiritual value of literature and poetry” by Cindy Wooden, National Catholic Reporter: On August 4 the Vatican published a letter by Pope Francis, a former high school lit teacher, on the important role of literature in formation. Read some highlights at the article link above, or the full letter here.

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SONG: “Teach Me How to Pray” by Dee Wilson: This jazz adaptation of the Lord’s Prayer premiered at Good Shepherd New York’s September 8 digital worship service. It is written and sung by Dee Wilson of Chicago.

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ARTICLE + PLAYLIST: “Latin American Fiesta!” by Mark Meynell: I always appreciate the selections and knowledge Mark Meynell [previously] brings to his 5&1 blog series for the Rabbit Room, each post exploring five short pieces and one long piece of classical music. This Latin American installment features Kyries from Peru and Argentina, a candombe air, a four-part Christmas anthem in Spanish creole from Mexico (I found an English translation!), an Argentine tango, and a dance chôro (Portuguese for “weeping” or “cry”) from Brazil. What diverse riches!

“Classical music, as conventionally understood, is not often associated with Latin America,” Meynell writes, “though, as we will see, this is a situation that needs rectifying. Some extraordinary soundworlds were being created long before the Conquistadores arrived from European shores, and together with the cultural impact of the transatlantic slave trade from Africa, the musical mix that resulted is unique. To put it at its most simplistic, we could say that the two key musical influences were the Catholic Church and the complex rhythms of percussion and dance; and often, it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.”

View more from the 5&1 series here. In addition to “Latin American Fiesta!,” among the thirty-three posts thus far are “Autumnal Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness,” “Musical Thin Places: At Eternity’s Edge,” “Music in Times of Crisis,” “The Calls of the Birds,” and “It’s All About That Bass.”

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ARTWORK: The Old Man and Death by Pedro Linares: Last month I visited the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, for the first time and was delighted to stumble upon an exhibition that had just been put up, Entre Mundos: Art of Abiayala. On view through December 15, it highlights collection works made by artists with personal or ancestral ties to Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. The title translates to “Between Worlds,” and “Abiayala,” I learned, is a Guna (Kuna) word that means “land in its full maturity” or “land of vital blood”; it’s used by the Guna and some other Indigenous peoples to refer to the Americas.

Linares, Pedro_The Old Man and Death — Pedro Linares (Mexican, 1906–1992), *El viejo y la muerte (The Old Man and Death)*, 1986. Papier-mâché and mixed media. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones.

Linares, Pedro_The Old Man and Death (detail)

For me the standout piece from the exhibition is The Old Man and Death by Pedro Linares, a dramatic tableau in the medium of cartonería (papier-mâché sculpture), a traditional handcraft of Mexico. Commissioned by the Wadsworth in 1986 for the artist’s MATRIX exhibition, it reinterprets Joseph Wright of Derby’s 1773 painting of the same name, one of the most popular works in the museum’s collection.

Wright, Joseph_The Old Man and Death — Joseph Wright of Derby (English, 1734–1797), *The Old Man and Death*, 1773. Oil on canvas, 40 × 50 1/16 in. (101 × 127 cm). Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones.

Regarding the Wright painting, Cynthia Roman writes that it

masterfully combines Wright’s ability to depict a literary narrative with his skill in rendering a natural setting with accuracy and keenly observed detail. The subject of this painting is based on one of Aesop’s Fables or possibly a later retelling by Jean de la Fontaine. . . . According to the tale, an old man, weary of the cares of life, lays down his bundle of sticks and seats himself in exhaustion on a bank and calls on Death to release him from his toil. Appearing in response to this invocation, Death arrives. Personified here as a skeleton, Death carries an arrow, the instrument of death. Illustrating the moral of the tale that it is “better to suffer than to die,” the startled old man recoils in horror and instinctively waves him off, reaching for the bundle as he clings to life.

The Linares piece and its inspiration are placed side-by-side in the gallery, which also displays an alebrije by the same artist, papel picado, painted skulls, an ofrenda, and Diego Rivera’s Young Girl with a Mask.

“The Pillar” by Mary Cartledgehayes (poem)

October 8, 2024October 8, 2024 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

*The Destruction of Sodom*, 1175–90, mosaic, Monreale Cathedral, Palermo, Sicily

Even to the nameless dog I said farewell.
Madness took him long since,
but I remember his sharp bark,
how he warmed my feet on cool evenings.
I nursed my father in that city,
raised a cup to his lips the night he died.
We laid him near the fig tree,
its twisted trunk his monument.

Now ash marks his place, and Mother’s too,
and all the others whose bread sometimes burnt,
whose clay pots shattered, who wept with me.
They were not good people, and yet . . .
Lot’s back was not enough to see.
I turned. One sign, one glance
for all we left behind.
My faith is strong—
yea, stronger even than salt.
I wait for God to forgive my love.

From To Love Delilah: Claiming the Women of the Bible by Mary Cartledgehayes (San Diego: LuraMedia, 1990). Used by permission of the author.

Lot’s wife, unnamed and unvoiced in scripture, was probably a native of Sodom, the thriving city where Abraham’s nephew had settled. But the people there harbored sin. They were prideful, and did not share their wealth with the poor (Ezek. 16:49–50). To say they lacked hospitality is an understatement: they tried to gang-rape two visitors (Gen. 19:1–11; cf. Jude 1:7). For their persistence in doing evil, God destroyed them.

Genesis 19:12–29 records the story of Lot’s family’s escape. Two angels warn them of the coming judgment, tell them to run and not look back. But in their sudden flight, as the fire and brimstone are raining down behind them, wiping out the life they’ve known together, Lot’s wife turns to see. In an instant, she’s transmogrified into a pillar of salt.

This narrative is often preached as a lesson against looking back on one’s old (preconversion) life with longing, or clinging to the things of this world. Typically Lot’s wife’s reason for turning, disregarding the angels’ instruction, is interpreted as unbelief or covetousness.

But in this poem Mary Cartledgehayes cuts through the moralistic framing of the story and taps into its human emotional component. She suggests that the backward look of Lot’s wife was her taking a moment to mourn the loss of the people she loved and the only home she ever knew—could this be wrong? In To Love Delilah Cartledgehayes writes, “I don’t think she was motivated by greed or stupidity but by love: the love she felt for others, the love of a hometown that was a place of relationship, the love of the security in seeing the same faces at the well day after day, of sharing the births and deaths of children, of hearing the same chickens scratching in the dirt and the same dogs barking for a bite of food” (34).

For Cartledgehayes, Lot’s wife was a pillar of faith, strength, and compassion. Anna Akhmatova (“Lot’s Wife”) and Natalie Diaz (“Of Course She Looked Back”) imagine similar qualities in their poems on the subject. I’ve heard at least one commentator suggest that the salt Lot’s wife becomes is metaphoric, representing the salty tears she shed for her city, her being encrusted by grief, a monument of grief.

It’s common for those displaced by disasters to look back on their hometowns, both literally and in remembrance, and grieve the destruction, the loss of life, property, and possessions, and all the memories held there. In the case of Lot’s wife, God explicitly tells her and her family, through two angels, not to look back, so it’s her disobedience that’s punished. There’s no indication in the story that she engaged in the unrighteous behaviors of her Sodomite neighbors and relatives, or that a prior life of indulgence is what she yearns for. And yet because the punishment seems harsh, many of us try to read some kind of nefarious motive into her looking back. Or else we receive this simply as a cautionary tale about the severe consequences of defying God’s word.

Because Lot’s wife is given no backstory or dialogue (external or internal) in Genesis, nor does the narrator explain, we don’t know why she looked behind her as she fled. (The Polish poet Wisława Szymborska provides a whole list of options in “Lot’s Wife”!) I’m thankful to poets, like Cartledgehayes and others, who poke the trope of the “worldly” wife of Lot in an attempt to find the multidimensional woman beneath.

Mary Cartledgehayes is a writer and an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church, living in Louisville, Kentucky. Possessing an MFA in creative nonfiction from Goucher College and an MDiv from Duke University, she has led workshops across the US on writing and spirituality and enjoys mentoring other writers. In addition to numerous essays, poems, and sermons, she is the author of Grace: A Memoir (Crown / Random House, 2003), about love, death, praxis, fury, and entering pastoral ministry as a middle-aged woman.