Art, Old and New

This article appears in the January edition of Magnificat.  I added the pictures from the internet.  Of course, pictures don't do the windows justice!

Stained Glass Windows
Father Dominic White, O.P.

One of the most distinctive and beautiful features of many churches is their stained-glass windows.  They vary from humble little windows in a country church, depicting a local saint, to vast glories like the great rose window on the West Front of Chartres cathedral, which shows the Last Judgement, the consumation of time and space in Christ and the ushering in of the New Heaven and New Earth.



West Rose Window, Chartres Cathedral, France

The technique of coloring glass has of course been around since ancient times, but stained glass windows are one of the great inventions of Christianity.  They actually reveal a wonderful truth about what it means to be Christian.  For their effect, they rely on the light of the sun - just as God enlightened us in our baptism.  The colors of the figures in the windows, which are dull and almost invisible in the darkness, are suddenly revealed in all their glory.  Likewise, when we are filled, like Mary, with God's grace, we are not destroyed, but transformed into our true selves.

To be Christian is to be "able to share the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4), each of us in the unique self which God has made us.  In turn this recalls the preparation of the chalice in the Mass: the priest or deacon adds a drop of water to the wine, praying in silence, "May we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity."  And so the water, as at Cana, is transformed into wine, the wine into Christ, and we in turn are transformed.  Christ does not force us - but the windows remind us of what we can be if we are open to his grace.

Finally, one of the loveliest effects of stained glass is how, when the light shines through it, it colors the stone and brick around it.  Likewise, Christians who are living in the Spirit shine divine beauty - even if they are unaware of it - on those around them.  We become "other Christs", and the whole cosmos is little by little transformed.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church, Keller TX

 



And now for a newer art form.  We have all seen time lapse photography but I recently saw some work on TV by a man named Mayeul Akpovi that I think is especially interesting.  He's from the little country of Benin, Africa but now lives in France.  He lived in Paris for a few years before moving away to the Besançon region near the Swiss border.  From what I understand, after moving he realized he hadn't taken any photos of Paris to show family and friends back home in Benin.  That's when he started his time lapse photography projects.  One of his techniques is that, after each photograph taken, he moves his tripod and camera a short distance away to take the next (he says he once progressed this way for a couple of kilometres).  He takes thousands of single photos this way and then connects them together into video form.  Type this man's name into youtube and enjoy the results.

 

Mayeul Akpovi at work 

Life or Death?

I call heaven and earth today to witness against you.  I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.  Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live.  Deuteronomy 30:19

The undercover video is chilling.  Lila Rose from the pro-life organization Live Action is at a Planned Parenthood location in Austin TX, pretending to be a pregnant woman inquiring about the possibility of aborting her unborn baby if it turns out to be a girl. 

Here's part of the response from the Planned Parenthood counselor:  “I see that you’re saying that you want to terminate if it’s a girl, so are you just wanting to continue the pregnancy in the meantime?  The abortion covers you up until 23 weeks,  and usually at 5 months is usually (sic) when they detect, you know, whether or not it’s a boy or a girl.”

The counselor's tone is in the same helpful and friendly customer service manner you'd hear from a banker, a real estate agent or optometrist.  Please visit www.liveaction.org to view undercover videos at Planned Parenthood locations.

Fetus at 20 weeks (5 months)

January 22nd marks 40 years since the U. S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 that decriminalized abortion.  From 1973 to 2011, over 54 million abortions took place in the United States.  That comes to an average of one abortion every 26 seconds.  Think about that.

Shortly after the shooting massacre at the primary school in Newtown CT, President Obama fought back tears as he read his official response at a news conference.  I don't doubt the President's emotions on that occasion, but where were his tears in 2001 to 2003 when as an Illinois state senator he thrice opposed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act?

The purpose of the act was to require doctors and medical staff to provide medical care to infants born alive after an attempted abortion.  During legislative hearings in the Illinois state senate a nurse testified that at the hospital where she worked, babies born alive after attempted abortions were left to die on a shelf in a utility room. 

Here is part of the testimony of Jill L. Stanek, RN, before the Illinois Senate Health & Human Services Committee on March 12 2003 (the name of the hospital is ironic, don't you think?): 
 

When I worked at the hospital, in the event that a baby was aborted alive, he or she was not given any medical care but was rather given what the hospital calls "comfort care."  "Comfort care" is defined as keeping the baby warm in a blanket until the baby dies, although until recently even this was not always done. Until recently if staff or parents did not have time or inclination to hold the dying aborted baby, the baby was taken to the Soiled Utility Room and left there alone to die.

It is not uncommon for live aborted babies to linger for an hour or two or even longer. One of these babies once lived for almost an entire eight-hour shift. In the year 2001, of the 13 babies I am aware of who were aborted at Christ Hospital, at least four lived between 1-1/2 to 3 hours, two boys and two girls.

One night, a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down's syndrome baby who was born alive to our Soiled Utility Room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have time to hold him. I could not bear the thought of this suffering child dying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived. He was 21 to 22 weeks old, weighed about ½ pound, and was about 10 inches long. He was too weak to move very much, expending any energy he had trying to breathe. Toward the end he was so quiet that I couldn't tell if he was still alive unless I held him up to the light to see if his heart was still beating through his chest wall. After he was pronounced dead, we folded his little arms across his chest, wrapped him in a tiny shroud, and carried him to the hospital morgue where all of our dead patients are taken.

Senator Obama argued that if the aborted infant born alive was recognized as a person with the right to live, than logically all fetuses would have to be recognized as such.  Therefore the Born Alive Infants Protection Act would in effect ban abortions and so he opposed it on (supposed) consitutional grounds.  He didn't shed one tear.

According to surveys by The Alan Guttmacher Institute, which is pro-choice and affiliated with Planned Parenthood, 74% of women who have abortions say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or other responsibilities.

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta said this: "It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you can live as you wish."

 

Our Lady of the Unborn, LaCrosse WI

 

 

A Prayer for Abortion Victims

Prayer for all victims of abortion. May those involved in abortions be reconciled to God and may the innocent dead be saved.

 

Holy Mother of God and of the Church, our Lady of Guadalupe, you were chosen by the Father for the Son through the Holy Spirit.   You are the Woman clothed with the sun who labors to give birth to Christ while Satan, the Red Dragon, waits to voraciously devour your child.   So too did Herod seek to destroy your Son, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and massacred many innocent children in the process.
So today does abortion kill many innocent unborn children and exploit many mothers in its attack upon human life and upon the Church, the Body of Christ.   Mother of the Innocents, we praise God in you for His gifts to you of your Immaculate Conception, your freedom from actual sin; your fullness of grace, your Motherhood of God and the Church, your Perpetual Virginity and your Assumption in body and soul into heaven.   O Help of Christians, we beg you to protect all mothers of the unborn and the children within their wombs. We plead with you for your help to end the holocaust of abortion. Melt hearts so that life may be revered!   Holy Mother, we pray to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart for all mothers and all unborn children that they may have life here on earth and by the most Precious Blood shed by your Son that they may have eternal life with Him in heaven. We also pray to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart for all abortionists and all abortion supporters that they may be converted and accept your Son, Jesus Christ, as their Lord and Savior. Defend all of your children in the battle against Satan and all of the evil spirits in this present darkness.   We desire that the innocent unborn children who die without Baptism should be baptized and saved. We ask that you obtain this grace for them and repentance, reconciliation and pardon from God for their parents and their killers.   Let there be revealed, once more, in the history of the world the infinite power of merciful love. May it put an end to evil. May it transform consciences. May your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of hope. May Christ the King reign over us, our families, cities, states, nations and the whole of humanity.   O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary, hear our pleas and accept this cry from our hearts!   Our Lady of Guadalupe, Protectress of the Unborn, Pray for us!

Exhilaration and Disappointment

So here we are, NFL playoff time.  The word fan comes from the word fanatic.  Well I'll admit, I am a fan(atic) of the Green Bay Packers! 

I will post this on Saturday, January 12th; the day the Green Bay Packers take on the San Francisco 49ers in the second round of the playoffs.  These are two of the elite teams in the league, but after Saturday one of these teams will be finished for the season.  After all of the off-season conditioning, the gruelling summer training camp, the weekly grind of film review and practices in preparation for an upcoming opponent, the highs and lows of victory and defeat, the come-from-behind "gut check" wins and the crushing losses - after all that, one team's season will fall short of the goal of winning the championship.  The winner will move on and again the difference between exhilaration and disappointment will come down to one game.  And for many fans it's just as dramatic.

  

Bart Starr - 5 NFL Championships

Joe Montana - 4 NFL Championships

 



I have followed football and my team the Packers for over 30 years.  As a fan I've experienced the fortunes and misfortunes of my team as well as some fantastic football games generally.  When I was younger I used to "live and die" with my team, as they say.  If the Packers won a game on Sunday afternoon then my whole week was better.  If they lost, well that put a damper on the following week.  As I've grown older I've learned to appreciate the game as a game.  My life doesn't depend on the outcome.  A Packer victory is still a great joy and a loss is a disappointment, but it's a sport and for every winner there's a loser.  The game of football is still a lot of fun whatever the outcome.

 

God doesn't lean

It's probably natural that when players or fans feel they have such a personal stake in the outcome of a game, they'll implore divine assistance.  There's a famous play in football called the "Hail Mary."  As most of you know, this is a play of desperation where the quarterback throws a long pass into the endzone, with only seconds left on the game clock, in the hopes that one of his receivers in a mob of the opponent's defenders will catch the ball, thereby scoring the winning points in the game.  The play became widely known as the "Hail Mary" after a playoff game between the Dallas Cowboys and Minnesota Vikings on December 28th, 1975.  Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach heaved a game-winning touchdown pass as described above in the final seconds of that game.  Staubach is a Catholic and after the game he told a reporter about his desperate pass, "I closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary."

Regarding the Cowboys, their previous stadium had a domed roof with an open space over the playing area.  Cowboy fans said the hole allowed God "to watch his favorite team."

I've read that in the old days some Polish patriots declared, not completely seriously I assume, that God spoke Polish.

Once when I worked at Ryder Logistics & Transportation I had a discussion with a co-worker about politics.  He and I basically shared the same opinions on politics, but at one point in our conversation I remarked that "we have to be careful not to think that God is a Republican."  My co-worker responded, "No, but we know which He leans." 

Well, of course God doesn't lean.  If anything, we ought to be "leaning" toward God.  God is not a political partisan any more than He's a fan of a particular sports team.  But in our politics we ought to consider how to act in the light of God's will. 

As far as sports go, sport should be an occasion of good-natured competition and play.  It should bring out the best in both participants and spectators.  Learning to deal with defeat can be healthy; it can humble us, can cause us to dig deeper into ourselves in order to improve our game, and we can learn to appreciate greatness in our opponent (the Vikings' Adrian Peterson running for 199 yards against my Packers in the regular season finale being a good example of this).  Victory can be instructive too: we can learn to be gracious toward our defeated opponent.  Or, if we have serious personal shortcomings, hopefully in the glow of victory we will see that our personal defects are still there.  The people that we hurt still hurt; the time we've wasted on selfishness is time still lost; our destructive habits are still lurking there.  Those things put winning a game into perspective.

So on that note, let's enjoy some great football.

We Three Kings

I was a weird kid.  I enjoyed studying maps and calendars - maps especially.  It baffled me when in primary school the teacher would call students up to the big wall map of the United States and many of my classmates couldn't locate the Mississippi River or even our home state of Wisconsin.  Sometimes I'd copy maps out of an atlas or even create my own fanciful geography of island nations with cities, roads and railways, seas, rivers and mountain ranges.  Once I got a set of markers as a present for Christmas and quickly used up the green and blue ones making maps.

But I liked calendars too and I remember once seeing the word Epiphany on January 6th.  I asked my then step-mother what that was.  She told me "it's something Catholics celebrate."  When I asked what it was about, she couldn't tell me.

Epiphany is an old Greek work meaning "manifestation" and in Christianity is used to describe the revelation of God the Son as a human being in Jesus Christ.  Since as early as the 4th century the holiday of Epiphany has traditionally been celebrated on January 6th.

This revelation of God in the person of Jesus, the Incarnation, covers such events as the angel's message to the shepherds, the visit of the wise men, the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan and the wedding miracle at Cana.  In the Roman Catholic Church the emphasis nowadays is on the visit of the wise men to Bethlehem.

These men have been variously described as wise men, magi or three kings.  Scripture doesn't say how many they were and their number in Christian tradition has fluctuated, with I think as many as seven in some accounts, but over time the number three was settled upon.  Three happens to be the number of the gifts they brought to the newborn king: gold, frankincense and myrrh.

The gift of gold points to Jesus' kingship since gold was an expensive, kingly gift.  Frankincense refers to his divinity.  Incense has a strong spicy odor when burned.  It was burned at the altar in the Temple in Jerusalem; Revelations 8:4 mentions it being burned before the Lamb in heaven where it represents the prayers of the saints; and incense is burned during portions of the Catholic mass at certain times of the year.  Myrrh refers to the mystery of Christ's passion.  Myrrh is a fragrant ointment that was used in some ancient cultures to annoint the bodies of the dead (see John 19:39).

The Star of Bethlehem

Much has been written over the centuries about the star that the wise men followed in order to visit Jesus.  In what we now regard as the 6th century A.D., the monk Dionysius Exigus calculated the year of Jesus' birth; in other words the "year zero" which forms the basis of our current system for numbering the years.  It's why we call this year 2013; it's 2013 years since the birth of Christ according to Dionysius' calculations.  Anway, he seems to have miscalculated and it's generally believed now that the birth of Christ happened between 7 and 6 B.C.

All this is important in regards to the star mentioned in Scripture that guided the wise men to Jesus.  Astronomer Johannes Kepler in the 17th century calculated that in the year 7-6 B.C. there was a conjunction of the planets Jupiter, Saturn and Mars.  Kepler witnessed this same very bright conjuction in 1604.  In the 20th century, astronomer Ferrari d'Occhieppo confirmed the conjuction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation Pisces in 7-6 B.C.  Also, a reference has been discovered in Chinese chronological tables that in 4 B.C. "a bright star appeared and was visible for quite a long time."

Going back to the planets Jupiter and Saturn, Ferrari d'Occhieppo states "Jupiter, the star of the highest Babylonian deity (Marduk), entered its brightest phase when it rose in the evening alongside Saturn, the cosmic representation of the Jewish people."  Therefore, Babylonian astrologers such as the wise men would have concluded that a universally significant event was happening: the birth in the land of the Jews of a divine ruler.

According to the Roman writers Tacitus and Suetonius, there was much speculation in those days that the ruler of the world could emerge in Judah.  All of this is to demonstrate one point of the celebration of Epiphany which is the revelation of the light of the true God to the gentiles, the non-Jewish races in the world (see Isaiah 9:1 [2], Isaiah 11:10, Isaiah 42:6, Isaiah 49:6, Isaiah 51:4, Micah 5:1-4, etc.)

A question a person might ask is why, if there was a widespread expection of the birth of a great (even divine) ruler in Judah, did only the wise men make the journey?  Afterall, that was an arduous journey those guys made from Persia to Bethlehem, via Jerusalem.  In those days they didn't have road maps (though we can think of the constellations as the orginal GPS).  They didn't have highway rest areas with picnic tables and drinking fountains.  There was no roadside assistance.  Highway bandits were a very real problem.  And the journey to Bethlehem and back probably took a year or two.

So why did these guys get up and go?  Pope Benedict XVI speculates in his latest book Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives that as truth seekers, these men were inwardly disposed to the revelation of God.  They didn't know what we know in hindsight who this newborn king of the Jews really is (and neither did Mary or Joseph for that matter).  But like Mary and Joseph, they were open to the Truth.  And when the Truth spoke to them, they were prepared to hear it.  And to give their "Yes."  And to act upon it.

Are we?