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Dear Friends:

A couple of lifetimes ago I used Venn diagrams with my students to discuss set theory, and how a thing can belong to two or more groups. For example, there are the set of Americans, the set of men, and the set of movie stars, all of which include Clint Eastwood (“Make my day…”). Christianity uses an artistic symbol based on the same idea: the mandorla (Italian: “almond”), formed by two intersecting circles, signifying a person of extraordinary holiness. Of course, we are familiar with the halo, which glows around the head of the saints, and the nimbus, the 3-bar halo around the head of Christ signifying the Trinity. In certain paintings and icons, however, we behold the mandorla which envelopes the entire body of Jesus (and in certain cases the Blessed Mother). This beautiful shape has two features worth mentioning. If there is the set of “God” and the set of “Man,” then only one person belongs to both sets: Christ. (Mary also belongs to two sets: Virgin and Mother.) Likewise, Catholic spirituality involves various dualities: male and female, time and eternity, nature and grace, faith and reason, work and leisure, etc. The relationship between them is not adversarial but creative, for these pairings produce life, holiness, wisdom, virtue, etc. According to Cardinal Dulles: “Catholicism is characterized…by a both/and rather than an either/or approach.” Since God is the author of both creation and salvation, the Catholic seeks goodness, truth, and beauty everywhere, for these ultimately lead one to the Lord. The second aspect of the mandorla is paradoxical. If Jesus is, as he says, the “Light of the world,” one might expect that the edges of the mandorla would be somewhat dim, becoming progressively bright as one approaches the center, but the opposite is true. Just so, the deeper the soul delves into the reality of God, the “light” of earthly wisdom recedes, and the mystery of divine love, beyond any earthy experience, appears dark.

The Resurrection of Our Lord involves a number of beautiful paradoxes, among them “life in the midst of death.” The life of heaven, we believe, is ineffable, and so cannot it be captured in words; we can only point in the general direction. And so during the Easter Vigil the cantor chants the beautiful Exsultet with the line: “Night truly blessed when heaven is wedded to earth: the divine to the human.” The fullest realization of human happiness is eternal union with the Father in Christ, the God/Man.

Today’s artwork, the Anastasis (Resurrection) Icon, employs many symbols beyond the mandorla. According to www.orthodoxroad.com, the scene depicts the event immediately preceding Easter morning: Christ’s descent into hell. The letters in Jesus’ nimbus (ὁ ὢν=“the One” [God’s name]) signifies his divinity; the figures on his right are Jesus’ ancestors David and Solomon, and his herald John the Baptist; the Old Testament figures of Abel, Moses, and a prophet are on his left; and having crashed through the gates of hell, Jesus literally pulls out from their coffins the two figures in the foreground, Adam and Eve. Below, Death lies captive.

In a time of international strife and domestic discord, we Catholics can show, by way of example, that there is no genuine conflict between divine grace and human freedom, or between individual well-being and love of neighbor. We must simply keep the eyes of our soul fixed firmly on Christ. A Blessed Easter to you all!

Faithfully,
Fr. Valentine

Dear Friends:

There is a charming moment in Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince involving the pilot/narrator (whose airplane is stuck in the desert) and the extra terrestrial visitor from a distant, house-sized planet he meets. The pilot is repeatedly astonished by the child’s (literally) “outside-the-box” thinking: e.g. a drawing of a box with holes in it is really the living space for a sheep inside it, and a drawing that looks like a hat to the adult is really that of a boa constrictor that has ingested an elephant! The child describes the difficulties that come with life on such a tiny planet, e.g. an infestation of monster baobab trees. Its microscopic seeds are almost identical to those of delicate rosebushes; left unchecked, however, they overtake the resources of the entire planet, spelling disaster for all other living things. He says:

It is a question of discipline…You must see to it that you pull up regularly all the baobabs, at the very first moment when they can be distinguished from the rose-bushes which they resemble so closely in their earliest youth. It is very tedious work…but very easy.

One would be hard-pressed to find a better description of the purpose of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. At first, the seeds of sin and vice appear harmless, no worse than mere curiosity or attraction to countless other things. But one must pay close attention—what woke educators today call “mindfulness”—to the movements of the soul, and determine whether these attractions contribute to, or distract from, our friendship with God. The only problem I have with the Little Prince’s characterization is the last line: “It is very tedious work…but very easy.” Tedious? No doubt. But easy? Perhaps it is for a child, who has yet to let any habit, good or bad, take root. The problem, of course, is with us grown-ups, who may neglect the call of God for a long time. We allow other things to fill the soul that rightfully belongs to God alone, because “things” seem more urgent to us than “no-thing” (God) Who, in truth, is of greatest importance. Pulling up sin by its roots is painful and virtually impossible, especially when we think we can do it all by ourselves. But the saints remind us that the natural virtues (courage, temperance, justice, and prudence) eventually fail. Only by the touch of grace can we begin to make room in our hearts for God. Prayer is “lifting up the soul to God” (John Damascene); fasting makes us hunger and thirst for him “like a deer that yearns for running water” (Psalm 42:1). Finally, “by the path of love, which is charity, God draws near to man, and man to God” (St. Albert the Great). Indeed, the grace of Our Lord is at work in the desire to become closer to him. We must cultivate this holy seed.

This week’s artwork is a two-part piece depicting the parable of the Prodigal Son by French painter James Tissot (1836-1902). The boy’s “departure” in Venice and his “return” in what appears to be northern Europe are in sharp contrast to each other, both in subject matter and artistic style. The former recalls the Renaissance technique of Vittorio Carpaccio, while the latter reflects the Flemish tradition. According to the Petit Palais in Paris where the paintings are exhibited, the “mix of eras” was criticized by his contemporaries. Yet the juxtaposition of Venetian aristocracy with the son’s humble roots seems appropriate. The discipline of Lent should cultivate in us the same attitude of soul the boy only found the “hard way”: what the Panis Angelicus calls pauper, servus, et humilis (poor, submissive, and humble) before God.

Faithfully,
Fr. Valentine