liturgy – Page 2 – Art & Theology

Last week I returned from a two-week trip to western Europe, where my husband and I spent time in Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, and Porto Cristo), southern France (Aix-en-Provence and Marseilles), and Italy (Florence, Rome, Pompeii, and Amalfi). We had only a little time in each city, but wow, what beauty! I’ll be going through our photos soon and sharing some on the blog. In the meantime, here’s one Eric took outside Notre-Dame de la Garde in Marseilles, a basilica built atop a 489-foot-high limestone outcropping that overlooks the Old Port.

Veronica and Christ (Marseilles) — *Veronica and Christ*, Notre-Dame de la Garde, Marseilles, France. Photo: Eric James Jones.

The stone sculpture, from the twentieth century, shows Veronica (an apocryphal saint) wiping Christ’s brow on his way to Calvary. Her gesture of compassion is meant to symbolize the action of missionaries, to whom the sculpture is dedicated.

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While I was gone, Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, passed away. Like many soul singers, she got her start singing gospel, and her 1972 album Amazing Grace, recorded live from New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, is the highest-selling live gospel music album of all time. Below you can watch her perform the title track, a hymn classic, in 2014.

Many famous singers and musicians paid tribute to Franklin at her eight-hour-long funeral on August 31. One of my favorite performances was Stevie Wonder’s rendition of “The Lord’s Prayer” on harmonica.

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NEW ON ARTWAY: ArtWay is a web publication I contribute to that seeks to connect Christians to the rich history and contemporary practice of visual art. Last Sunday I wrote a visual meditation for the site on Bill Viola’s video piece Emergence, which references a Man of Sorrows painting by Masolino.

Emergence by Bill Viola — Bill Viola (American, 1951–), *Emergence* (still frame), 2002, from The Passions series. High-definition video master tape. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California.

Along with the other editors, I also curate items for ArtWay’s Poetry section. Most recently I selected a poem by Abigail Carroll titled “Dear Wounded Saint,” based on a Caravaggio painting of St. Francis of Assisi. Carroll is a brilliant poet, and I heartily recommend her two collections, Habitation of Wonder (2018) and A Gathering of Larks (2017).

Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy by Caravaggio — Caravaggio (Italian, 1571–1610), *Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy*, ca. 1595. Oil on canvas, 92.5 × 127.8 cm (36.4 × 50.3 in.). Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut.

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ARTIST INTRO: A chain of connections brought me into contact with Berenice Rarig, an Australian artist whose work comprises installation, performance, sculpture, and photography. In addition, she is the founder of MAKE Collective, an initiative of the Presbyterian Church in America’s missionary arm that helps creatives become part of international church-planting movements through cultural engagement, creative thinking, and artistic excellence. As she was visiting the Baltimore area last week, we got lunch together and shared our visions for our respective ministries.

I loved learning about Berenice’s unique approach to art as mission. “My role as an artist is to point to what’s already pointing,” she says. “I join St. Augustine who said, ‘Everything in creation points to the Creator.’”

> Read an interview with Berenice Rarig from 2006, published in The Creative Spirit: A Journal of Faith and the Arts.

Here is a video-recorded lecture she gave at the Mumbai Arts Conference in 2015; it’s titled “Imaging Grace.” In it she explains the three works of hers pictured below, and others. Wishbones, quail eggs, and coffee filters—that gives you a sense of the kinds of materials she likes to work with. She had a load of donated clock parts in her trunk when I was riding with her, which she is excited to tinker with for her next art project.

Cathedral de St. Icarus the Wishful by Berenice Rarig — Berenice Rarig (Australian, 1959–), *Cathedral de St. Icarus the Wishful*, 2012. 50,000+ wishbones, wire frame, and lights, 9 ft. high.

A Tiny Hum by Berenice Rarig — Berenice Rarig (Australian, 1959–), *A Tiny Hum (Humanity) 3*, 2012. Quail eggs and wire.

Whispered Prayers by Berenice Rarig — Berenice Rarig (Australian, 1959–), *Whispered Prayers*, 2001. Folded coffee filters.

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PATRONAGE OPP: Monthly worship services by Liturgy Fellowship: I just became a patron of Liturgy Fellowship and am excited to see what they turn out! “We are starting a new project. Every month we are going to invite a guest liturgical artist to write a worship service for us. The themes will vary from biblical themes, to the church calendar, to under-served topics. If things go well we will also try to invite others to write original songs and create art to go along with the service theme. This will (hopefully) grow into a fantastic resource for the church!”

Leonardo da Vinci painting breaks all-time sales record: A painting of Christ by the Renaissance master sold for $450.3 million at Christie’s on Wednesday to an anonymous bidder, making it the most expensive painting ever acquired, either at auction or (it’s believed) through private sales. (It displaced by a long shot Picasso’s Women of Algiers, which sold for $179.4 million at auction in 2015, and the reported $300 million paid privately for Gauguin’s Nafea Faa Ipoipo?, also in 2015.) A common iconographic subject in the sixteenth century, “Salvator Mundi” translates as “Savior of the World”; Leonardo’s shows Christ in Renaissance dress, holding a crystal orb in his left hand (representative of Earth) and raising his right hand in benediction. He painted it around 1500 for King Louis XII of France, but it was presumed lost until 2005—“the biggest [artistic?] discovery of the 21st century,” said Christie’s. It’s one of only twenty known paintings attributed to Leonardo.

Salvator Mundi attributed to Leonardo da Vinci — Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452–1519), *Salvator Mundi* (Savior of the World), ca. 1500. Oil on walnut, 45.4 × 65.6 cm (25.8 × 19.2 in.).

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White-chair memorial inside Sutherland Springs church opens to public before demolition: First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, reopened to the public on Sunday evening for the first time since a mass shooting on November 5 killed twenty-six people attending worship. In the week between, volunteers came in and repaired all the bullet holes, ripped up the carpet and tore out the pews, and applied fresh coats of white paint to the walls and concrete floor. A temporary memorial has been erected, consisting of white folding chairs that bear the names of the victims in gold paint as well as roses with chiffon ribbons. The one pink rose among twenty-five red ones is for the unborn child who died with his or her eight-months-pregnant mother.

Temporary memorial, November 12, 2017, First Baptist Church, Sutherland Springs, Texas. Photo: Drew Anthony Smith for the *New York Times*

Although the congregation has not yet officially voted on it, it’s likely that the church will be demolished and a new one built in its place; the pastor said many congregants do not want to go back in there because of the trauma. (The Sunday after the shooting, they worshipped in a large outdoor tent nearby.) Preemptively, a San Antonio contractor teamed up with other local business owners to form a nonprofit, Rebuilding Sutherland Springs Inc., to raise money for a new church building and park. Through GoFundMe, they have already raised $1.1 million of their $2.5 million goal. Click here to donate.

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Thanksgiving-themed black gospel jazz service: This video recording is from a Jazz Vespers service held on November 10, 2015, in Goodson Chapel at Duke. Chapel Dean Luke Powery and others offer prayers and readings, while the John Brown Big Band, a professional jazz ensemble, leads music. The songs are as follows: “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah” (opening); Walter Hawkins’s “Thank You (Lord, for All You’ve Done for Me)” (5:15); “Thank You, Lord” (11:44, reprised 52:26); “Every Day Is a Day of Thanksgiving” (25:05); “Perfect Love Song” (56:25); “Amazing Grace” (1:03:24); and “When the Saints Go Marching In” (1:09:04).

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Advent candle-lighting liturgy: Advent season is just around the corner. Here are five dramatic readings for the lighting of the Advent candles, based on traditional liturgies. They were written by Kathy Larson, director of Christian education and creative arts at Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. They sound very compelling!

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NEW BOOK: Every Moment Holy by Douglas Kaine McKelvey: On November 3 Rabbit Room Press released a collection of one hundred-plus new liturgies for daily life bound together in a beautiful hardcover volume with linocut illustrations by Ned Bustard. Some of the prayers are intended for routine acts, while others are for special, memorable, difficult, or even tragic occasions. Included are liturgies for laundering, for home repair, for the watching of storms, for the first hearthfire of the season, before beginning a book, for setting up a Christmas tree, for the welcoming of a new pet, for the morning of a medical procedure, for the death of a dream, upon tasting pleasurable food, and for the sound of sirens. The aim is to encourage mindfulness of the constant presence of God. Five free liturgies are available for download at https://www.everymomentholy.com/liturgies. The book is for sale exclusively at the online Rabbit Room Store. Read an interview with the illustrator here.

Communing with the Lord during one’s daily tasks is what the seventeenth-century monk Brother Lawrence calls “practicing the presence of God”; poet George Herbert calls it “drudgery made divine.” The Anglican priest Jonathan Evens led a short meditation a few months ago at St. Stephen Walbrook that draws on the wisdom of these two near contemporaries, titled “Doing Our Common Business for the Love of God”—very much in the same spirit as McKelvey’s book.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK: The following church-sign photo from the Canadian Memorial United Church and Centre for Peace in Vancouver has been making the rounds on Twitter via Banksy:

“If you are more fortunate than others, build a longer table, not a taller fence.”

Tag: liturgy

Roundup: Aretha Franklin, Berenice Rarig, and more

Roundup: Record-smashing painting; Sutherland Springs memorial; jazz Thanksgiving; Advent candle liturgy; Every Moment Holy