I’ve just published a new Spotify playlist for January (thirty spiritual songs on no particular theme), and I want to also remind you of my Epiphany Playlist.
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ANNOUNCEMENT: Vatican to hold Stations of the Cross art contest: Artists from across the globe are encouraged to participate in the Vatican-sponsored contest for fourteen new Stations of the Cross paintings. The winner will be announced September 30, 2024, awarded €120,000 (about $131,000), given a year to complete the commission, and then have their set of paintings exhibited in St. Peter’s Basilica during Lent 2026. The first step is to fill out an online application, which will become available January 8, with a deadline of January 31. Learn more at the link. (Update: The registration link is now live at https://contest.viacrucis2026.va/en/registration.)
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ART OBJECT: Burgundian Crèche, ca. 1450: In researching depictions of Joseph at the Nativity, I came across this charming little limestone-carved crèche from fifteenth-century Burgundy, France, acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Set inside a dilapidated brick interior patched with wattled matting, the scene portrays the infant Christ lying in a wattled manger that rests on a crumbling wall ledge. Such an unusual composition! I’m not sure why the infant is placed so precariously and at a height when there’s a carved cradle available on the ground, where angels kindly fluff his pillow, but I suppose it was to avoid overcrowding and for visual balance.
A donkey licks Christ’s feet while an ox licks his hand, which he appears to delight in, as he lifts his arm for better access. To the left and right of him are a trio of angels and shepherds, respectively, excitedly leaning in from outside to get a better look. Mary gazes up at her son in adoration while Joseph dutifully tends to a parental chore: drying one of Jesus’s freshly washed linens at the fire. (Dad doing laundry—huzzah!)
To learn more about this sculpture, see the journal article “Popular Imagery in a Fifteenth-Century Burgundian Crèche” by William H. Forsyth.
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ART COMMENTARY: On The Adoration of the Magi by Domenico Veneziano: From the Visual Commentary on Scripture comes this 2022 video, one in a series filmed on-site at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. Theologian Ben Quash and art historian Jennifer Sliwka discuss an early Italian Renaissance tondo depicting the Adoration of the Magi.
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SONGS:
>> “Rejoice with Exceeding Great Joy”: Written by Lanny Wolfe in 1978 and performed by Reggie Smith, Charlotte Ritchie, and Ladye Love Smith at Bill and Gloria Gaither’s Homecoming Christmas 2006:
>> “Star of Bethlehem”: Written by Noel Dexter, arranged by C. S. (Cedron) Walters, and performed by the Jamaica Youth Chorale at their 2019 Christmas concert. Noel Dexter (1938–2019) was a Jamaican composer, choir director, and music educator, and this is probably his best-known work. It’s set to a Nyabinghi rhythm.
When the star of Bethlehem arise, hallelujah
When the star of Bethlehem arise, hallelujah
When the star of Bethlehem arise
Come show me where the young child born!There were wise men coming from the east, hallelujah
There were wise men coming from the east, hallelujah
There were wise men coming from the east
Come show me where the young child born!They brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh . . .
Not a man can save my soul . . .
But Jesus!
Show me where the young child born!
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VIDEO: “#NatZooZen: Giant Pandas Mei Xiang and Tian Tian in the Snow”: This Smithsonian’s National Zoo cam footage from January 2021 shows two giant pandas at play, sliding down a snowy hill! So adorable. Tian Tian and Mei Xiang arrived at the National Zoo in 2000 and in 2020 produced a cub, Xiao Qi Ji. All three pandas returned to Beijing in November, having been lent to the US by China as part of a cooperative research program whose contract has expired.
Art & Theology 