St. Mary's Church, Roslyn: Pastor's Page

Dear Friends:

It’s wonderful to be back to work at St. Mary’s after my “time away.” I’ve certainly missed you all, and am profoundly grateful for the love and generosity you’ve shown me over the course of my convalescence. It is no exaggeration to say that I owe my life to the efforts of doctors and medical professionals who cared for me. While you don’t need to hear the details, I would like to share a moment with you that made an impression on me. Lying in bed after the procedure, it was not possible to eat as usual. A nurse had to feed me my applesauce, spoonful by spoonful: something I hadn’t experienced since Mom performed the same task when I was two. This tiny action symbolized all the care—medical and personal—I received from kind people who did for someone what he could never do for himself.

This might sound strange, but I think it might be good for people—particularly those who exercise authority—to be sick or hospitalized at some point in life. Those of us who are in charge can suffer from the delusion that we have everything under control. We whistle past the graveyard and think that while terrible things can occur, they will never happen to us. Undergoing some disability, even for a short time, has the salutary effect of reminding us how very close we are, at every moment, to losing everything. So what would our lives be like if we were to take seriously the precariousness and fragility of our existence? There was an 18th-century Protestant theologian (with an unpronounceable name) who made this experience the basis of his religious thought. He calls it the feeling of “absolute dependence.” For him, this is not some general, vague perception of the material universe, but a primal, human awareness of God himself. Absolute dependence does not extinguish free will, but reveals the difference between limited, frail human beings and the infinite, almighty God.

This week the Church celebrates “Good Shepherd” Sunday, one of the oldest and most enduring images of Christ. Our artwork this week is a depiction of the Good Shepherd from the catacombs in Rome. Interestingly, the Shepherd was a far more popular symbol for Christians in the first three centuries of the Church than either the Cross or the image of Christ the King. Some believe that the crucifixion was still a fresh memory for early Christians, and excessively disturbing, whereas a Shepherd emphasizes God’s love. The picture of a king evoked thoughts of the ongoing persecution of Christians by the civil authorities of the time, whereas the gentle, beardless youth who cares for the flock is reassuring. Notice also that in this particular image, Jesus feeds and protects not only the sheep, but the goats as well! (cf. Matt. 25:32). It suggests that even sinners remain in the embrace of a merciful God, who seeks out the lost.

Apart from the lessons one takes from these images, the fact of these paintings counters the erroneous idea that early Christians were overly spiritualized and iconoclastic. On the contrary, James Hadley argues that concrete realities—the flesh-and-blood Jesus, the beauty of his person, and holy places like the catacombs—all convey the grace of God. Likewise, God shows his care for the most helpless among us through our Mothers. Happy Mothers’ Day!

Faithfully,
Fr. Valentine

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