IT'S STILL CHRISTMAS - DAY 8 - FEAST OF THE CIRCUMCISION

ANGELICO, Fra
Circumcision
Museo di San Marco, Florence

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

 After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

(Luke 2:15-21)

Collect

Eternal Father, who gave to your incarnate Son the holy name of Jesus to be the sign of our salvation: Plant in every heart, we pray, the love of him who is the Savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Fra Angelico's painting depicts quite clearly the circumcision of Jesus.  When I was growing up in the Roman Catholic Church, the church celebrated The Feast of the Circumcision, which was a holy day of obligation, meaning that we were required to attend mass.  As a child, I had no idea what circumcision meant, and, when I asked, I was told it meant Jesus' name day, which I suppose was less embarrassing for adults to explain to a child than the true meaning.  The feast is is now commemorated as the Holy Name of Jesus, at least in the Episcopal Church.  As the passage from Luke shows both names for the feast are correct.  In the title of the post, I used the old name from the Roman Catholic Church, because I believe the feast is better named for the circumcision of Jesus, which emphasizes his Jewishness, which seems to be played down in parts of the Christian Testament.  In fact, certain passages in the Gospels, especially John's Gospel, seem to be downright antisemitic, which puzzles me, since Jesus was a good Jew throughout his entire life.  Yes, I know: Context, context, context, but still...

Note: I missed Day 7 yesterday.

Image from the Web Gallery of Art.

FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION

"The Virgin of the Annunciation" by Fra Angelico

O Blessed One

Mother of God, O holy one,
Inside your body, the Word made flesh,
As an infant suckled at your breast.
The God-child, cared for gently, lovingly,
Grew in wisdom and in grace.

Mother of God, what did you know?
Were you sad? Were you fearful?
Midst the joy of family life,
Did you feel a piercing in your heart?
O blessed Mary, pray for us, sinners all.

June Butler (7/17/07)

Collect of the Day: The Annunciation of Our Lord

Pour your grace into our hearts, O Lord, that we who have known the incarnation of your Son Jesus Christ, announced by an angel to the Virgin Mary, may by his cross and passion be brought to the glory of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

(Book of Common Prayer)

FEAST OF THE TRANSFIGURATION OF OUR LORD

ANGELICO, Fra
Transfiguration (Cell 6)
1440-42
Convento di San Marco, Florence


Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah’—not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’ When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.  (Luke 9:28-36)

UNKNOWN ICON PAINTER, Cretan
Transfiguration of Christ
c. 1550
Ikonen-Museum, Recklinghausen

O God, who on the holy mount revealed to chosen witnesses your well-beloved Son, wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistening: Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may by faith behold the King in his beauty; who with you, O Father, and you, O Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

When I looked on the Web Gallery of Art to find an image of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, the first to come up was Fra Anglelico's lovely fresco painted on a cell wall at the monastery of San Marco in Florence.  Although I knew I would probably end up choosing the Fra Angelico, I looked through all the paintings, and many of them were lovely, but I settled on the good friar's.  I've seen the fresco with my own eyes, which also makes me partial.  However, near the end of my search, I came upon the beautiful icon by an unknown writer of icons, and I knew I had to have it, so here are two beauties for your contemplation and enjoyment
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Images from the Web Gallery of Art.

"NOLI ME TANGERE"

Noli Me Tangere (Cell 1) - 1440-42 - Fresco
Convento di San Marco, Florence

John 20:11-18

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Above is another beautiful fresco from San Marco by the holy Fra Angelico. The painting is lovely, but the blond Jesus is a bit of a distraction. I looked at other paintings of Jesus by the good brother, and in some his hair is reddish, in others blond, and in several crucifixion paintings Jesus has dark hair - all by the same artist.

I meant the post to be in a meditative vein, but I'm afraid it's not turning out as I intended. My musings on Jesus' blondness may be inspired by a link Ann V sent to me several days ago to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald in which the writer speaks of the tendency to portray Jesus as good-looking and mostly just like us in appearance. Justine Toh says:

Any representation of Jesus reveals the values of the times and places in which it was produced. When I think of Jesus, he's conventionally attractive. He has longish brown curly hair; he's tall, lily-skinned and dewy-eyed. For a carpenter, he's curiously light on muscle. He bears a striking resemblance to the late singer Jeff Buckley.

All right, then. Toh goes on:

Christ is almost never portrayed in less than appealing terms due to the age-old assumption that looks equal worth. In this context, Jesus's beauty is more symbolic than physical, or his outward beauty is a sign of his inward goodness.

The appearance of the Jesus of my imagination is somewhat vague, indistinct. He's definitely good-looking, with longish, dark brown, wavy hair. Over the years Jesus' complexion has darkened to appear more realistically like the person of the Middle-East that he is. Jeff Buckley wouldn't be far off the mark, but with browner skin.

Fra Angelico was born in Fiesole in Tuscany, but he traveled further south to Rome and other areas of Italy in his painting career. What did the people around him look like? Why the blond and red-haired portrayals of Jesus?

Below is "Christ the Saviour" (Pantokrator), a 6th-century encaustic icon from Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai from the Wikipedia article titled "Race of Jesus". Images of Jesus from as early as the 3rd century in the catacombs in Rome are shown in the article.



I've roamed and rambled away from the subject of the painting, Mary Magdalene as the first to see Jesus after the Resurrection, when Jesus tells her, "Don't cling to me, but go tell my brothers." Mary is often shown with red hair in paintings. A woman, not one of the male apostles, saw the risen Christ first. I expect there are those who would prefer that this story was left out of the Gospel, but there it is. Mary, who followed Jesus and ministered to him throughout his public life, Mary and the other women, including Mary the mother, who stayed with Jesus even after his male followers fled upon his arrest, who stayed with Jesus to his crucifixion and death. It is a right and good thing that Mary Magdalene was the first to see Jesus.

Almighty God, whose blessed Son restored Mary Magdalene to health of body and mind, and called her to be a witness of his resurrection: Mercifully grant that by your grace we may be healed of all our infirmities and know you in the power of his endless life; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Image from the Web Gallery of Art.

"HE IS NOT HERE, BUT HAS RISEN"

ANGELICO, Fra - "Resurrection of Christ and Women at the Tomb" (Cell 8) - 1440-42 - Fresco
Convento di San Marco, Florence

Luke 23:55 - 24:10

The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments.

On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles.

When I visited the Convent of St Mark in Florence, Italy, the monastery which housed both the saintly Fra Angelico and Savanarola, I was enchanted to find that, in addition to his many other paintings throughout the monastery, Fra Angelico painted a fresco on the wall of each cell for the purpose of meditation for the monk who stayed there. What a joy to walk from cell to cell to see the wall paintings.

To be in San Marco, surrounded by the lovely frescoes of Jesus, Mary, the angels, and the saints, is to have a foretaste of heaven. The artist was named Guido di Pietro, but he was not called Fra Angelico for nothing. Angels, angels, everywhere!

Collect for Easter Day

Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord's resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

A Blessed and Happy Easter to all!

Image from the Web Gallery of Art.