Realism and relief

As things unfold, it seems that I have nothing to write you this week, anyway nothing that is fit to print or publish. Please accept then this poem, which came to my mind as I crafted last week’s letter.  While it refers to Dutch, not French, painting, I think you will see why it follows logically and thematically.   I have shared it with you here once before, but that was nine years ago, and I trust you will find it fresh as the fruit it evokes.

Monsignor Smith

Realism

 

We are not so badly off if we can

Admire Dutch painting.  For that means

We shrug off what we have been told

For a hundred, two hundred years.  Though we lost

Much of our previous confidence.  Now we agree

That those trees outside the window, which probably exist,

Only pretend to greenness and treeness

And that the language loses when it tries to cope

With clusters of molecules.  And yet this here:

A jar, a tin plate, a half-peeled lemon,

Walnuts, a loaf of bread -- last, and so strongly

It is hard not to believe their lastingness.

And thus abstract art is brought to shame,

Even if we do not deserve any other.

Therefore I enter into those landscapes

Under a cloudy sky from which a ray

Shoots out, and in the middle of dark plains

A spot in the brightness glows.  Or the shore

With huts, boats, and, on yellowish ice,

Tiny figures skating.  All this

Is here eternally, just because once it was.

Splendor (certainly incomprehensible)

Touches a cracked wall, a refuse heap,

The floor of an inn, jerkins of the rustics,

A broom, and two fish bleeding on a board.

Rejoice!  Give thanks!  I raised my voice

To join them in their choral singing,

Amid their ruffles, collets, and silk skirts,

one of them already, who vanished long ago.

And our song soared up like smoke from a censer.

- Czeslaw Milosz,

translated from the Polish by the author and Robert Hass

Superpowers

A still-life by Paul Cezanne

One of the high points of my summer travel was a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago in order to see a blockbuster exhibition of the paintings of Paul Cezanne.  He has become a favorite of mine, especially for his still-lifes, of which our own local National Gallery of Art has quite a collection. 

The still-life in general is one of my favorite genres of painting, and it is easy to be skeptical of why I find them so fascinating and engaging.  By definition, the form is fairly simply: inanimate and often common objects arranged on a surface.  By convention, what is depicted includes fruit or food, maybe flowers, and one or two other elements besides the table on which they all rest.  This sounds guaranteed to drain all possibility of excitement from the work, but to me, the result is the opposite: a thrill, almost a distillation of the essence of art.

Using his talent and limited tools, the still-life painter uses one thing (pigments and paints on a surface) to make present a completely different thing (let us say, a lemon). Now, you cannot squeeze that lemon into your tea, but there is no denying its lemonness.  How cool is that?  But wait, there’s more:  In doing this, the successful still-life painter also conveys more than that, including what he as an observer sees in that lemon; and what the lemon, as a thing itself, makes present beyond its own simple lemonhood.  The presentation of any simple thing can make present, in an allusive or evocative way, a completely other thing, even a reality that is itself intangible or invisible.  

In other words, a good still life is an exploration and presentation of reality and our experience of it, which is I think why it works best with simple and familiar things that everyone already understands somewhat, and is ready to understand more.

What makes Cezanne’s still-lifes worth a blockbuster exhibition and a trip across the country (or at least into the city!) is his unique insight into and rendering of this process, of things both being present and making present other things.

“I paint as I see, as I feel,” Cezanne once remarked, “and I have very strong sensations.”  …The resulting works are deeply subjective and strangely moving, especially when viewed in a series, observed one of the commentaries printed on the gallery walls.  This rendering of sensations, and their uniqueness to him, he shared with fellow artist and friend Camille Pissarro, alongside whom he painted on many occasions.  As Pissarro recalled, “We were always together, but what cannot be denied is that each of us kept the only thing that counts, the unique sensation.”  Predictably, Pissarro’s paintings are different from Cezanne’s, even when painted at the same time of the same subject, as was demonstrated in the exhibit.

Now all this was delightful and delicious for me, and I spent two hours in this exhibit alone, which must be weighed against my desire to see many, many other great works in that amazing museum, which I had never before visited (that took another four hours).  But one of the features of the exhibit that raised my eyebrows was the inclusion of several other plaques with observations by artists of our own time.

This one caught my attention right at the start: I wonder what this landscape would have looked like to us without colonization?... But how do you just see the formal properties of a painting or the scholarship or the invention his work invokes without foregrounding that history?

Others were less ideological, but no more intelligible:  All in all, I think Cezanne’s quest was for the affirmation of his own eternity, driven by a monumental persistence. 

This pictorial technique Cezanne would further develop as a catalyst for abstract painting of the 20^th century: that liquid plain of painting hinged to a corporeal past that is not past.

It seemed to me that the current artists quoted were also fixated on their sensations, but, unlike Cezanne’s, their sensations were no longer of the objects observed, much less of the realities they made present, but rather of their own preoccupations and imaginings.

I was deeply relieved to learn that I was not the only one to draw this conclusion, when I read one of these commentaries simultaneously with the patron next to me and we both failed completely to stifle our snorts and chortles.   So, this lovely couple and I had a little moment of communion there, as we laughed together – always within the boundaries of museum decorum, of course! – at the inanity of many of these learned pronouncements.

This commentary only reinforced my awareness that we, as a culture, have forgotten (and been willfully deprived of) what we used to know.  Our ability to behold reality and understand it has been disassembled and discarded, leaving many of our leaders, teachers, and guides incapable of presenting anything besides their own selfish feelings.  It is no wonder that our public discourse resembles a room full of unchaperoned four-year-old only children:  Mine!  No!  I WANT it!  Ow!

Our “arts” have abandoned the great power that man has in creating art to make present what is absent and make visible what is invisible.  This is our mirror-image likeness of God’s power to do the very same thing not only in allusion and evocation, but also in effect; that is, to use one thing to bring about the actual presence in reality of another thing.  This power, we call sacramentality.  We who are in the image and likeness of the Creator show and share this power in art: not just in the visual arts, like painting, but in all of them: music, literature, poetry, theater. 

Another genre for which Cezanne is famous is his groups of nudes collectively called “bathers”.   One of the artists quoted on a plaque there opined:  What I like most about looking at his bathers…is how they remind me of what it feels like to be renewed.  Perhaps this feeling also reflects the notion that water represents a source of life, an instrument of cleansing, and a means of regeneration in virtually all cultures.  Is this why I so strongly correlate the bathers motif with the notion of renewal?

Gosh, I wonder where he could have possibly come up with that idea?  Clearly, he has some shadowy awareness of what our God has revealed to us, perfected, and elevated to the level of the divine in the sacrament of Baptism.   Or, it could just be that his shadowy awareness is the universal human starting point, looking for meaning, looking for reality, the question on every mind and in every heart.  

God answers that question univocally in Jesus Christ, who makes visible the invisible God; who takes human flesh and makes present divine life and glory; who takes a day, even a moment, and fills it with eternity; who takes bread, and makes it Him. 

To use one thing to make present another thing: this power, we call sacramentality.  Every true artist uses it.  The excitement of still-lifes is that they reveal this power.   Seeing this power at work is exciting, because you have it.

Monsignor Smith

Permanent astonishment

Prepare to be astonished.

Last week, I shared how Desiderio Desideravi, an Apostolic Letter from the Holy Father Francis on the Liturgical Formation of the People of God, took me back to my time studying liturgy in seminary.  There is still food for thought in this letter from our Holy Father, and honestly it is fun to be taken back to those days when we were all setting our sights on doing liturgy well.  In this class, Pope Francis is the professor.  He is teaching themes and theories, over-arching categories and goals.  He can shrink an amazing amount of material and action into a very little space:

Let us be clear here: every aspect of the celebration must be carefully tended to (space, time, gestures, words, objects, vestments, song, music…) and every rubric must be observed. Such attention would be enough to prevent robbing from the assembly what is owed to it; namely, the paschal mystery celebrated according to the ritual that the Church sets down. But even if the quality and the proper action of the celebration were guaranteed, that would not be enough to make our participation full.

He is not kidding that every one of those elements “must be carefully tended to.”  Go back and re-read my letter after Easter listing all the work, and all the workers, who did the “tending” necessary to make Holy Week happen.  That, however, is only one of his twenty-six “musts” that he proposes as absolute necessities.   My very favorite of his indispensable requirements, however, is astonishment. 

Amazement before the Paschal Mystery: an essential part of the liturgical act.  If there were lacking our astonishment at the fact that the paschal mystery is rendered present in the concreteness of sacramental signs, we would truly risk being impermeable to the ocean of grace that floods every celebration.  Efforts to favor a greater quality to the celebration, even if praiseworthy, are not enough; nor is the call for a greater interiority.  (underlining mine)

Now, of all the things I have worked to provide in the liturgies for which I have been responsible, I do not think I ever arranged for, secured, or guaranteed astonishment.  If that is essential, and without it we are impermeable to grace(!), then I am going to have to find a supplier.  

But upon reflection, I have never lacked for astonishment, myself.   My “supplier” is the One who always over-delivers.  The least flicker of attentiveness on my part to the mystery that I handle does, in fact, call forth awe.  To lift up bread and bring down God, even as a quotidian act, is the opposite of mundane. 

My astonishment is not confined to the elements and the action.  I am astonished at the response to the mystery unfolding that I witness when the witnesses think they are watching me.  I am astonished at the effects of the Paschal Mystery that are manifest in lives, some that are uninterested, some even unwilling.   I am astonished at the fidelity of our older brothers and sisters who have to work so hard to bring their uncooperative bodies to be in union with us in the Body of Christ.  I am astonished at the grace of parents who bring their families, also occasionally uncooperative, with nonchalant but never effortless regularity to this place where time and eternity meet.  I am astonished at the matter-of-factness with which so many busy, modern people leave at the door their customary disposition of suspicion and open themselves unaffectedly before the timeless working out of salvation in our midst.  I am also astonished, you see, by you.

When I studied liturgy in preparation for the priesthood, it was the nineties.  Most of my class agreed that the post-conciliar liturgy, which was then about twenty-five years old and the only liturgy we had ever known, could be done well, but generally had not.  A few years after my class was ordained, the Holy See published a new edition of the Roman Missal, with improved and clarified General Instructions that left less room for foolishness and abuse.  Ten years after that, a new translation into English of that Missal was published, bringing to us Anglophones a more accurate rendition of the sacred language that constitutes our worship.  These were improvements of which we dreamed, when we were dreaming of doing liturgy well.

Even in the relatively-brief twenty-four years of my priesthood, these major changes, along with some others, have made it possible for us to enjoy, expect, and effect better liturgies.  There is no reason not to hope for a few more such changes that will make possible even greater improvement.  I like to nurture that hope, even while I continue the work set before me.  Meanwhile, I am grateful that the Holy Father was able to take me back, if just for a time.  

Monsignor Smith

Taking me back

Some of the guys I studied liturgy with in seminary, getting ready to "do liturgy".

When the Pope writes a letter, we have to ask ourselves, what is he doing with this?  Is he making a law, or pronouncing a teaching, or resolving a dispute?  Is he laying down a blueprint for a new program or initiative?   So when I heard last week that we would be receiving Desiderio Desideravi, an Apostolic Letter from the Holy Father Francis on the Liturgical Formation of the People of God, I was more than a little concerned.

It is almost the last thing I would have expected.  Even after I read the introduction where he explained, I write to share with you some reflections on the liturgy. … I do not intend to treat the question in an exhaustive way. I simply desire to offer some prompts or cues for reflections that can aid in the contemplation of the beauty and truth of Christian celebration, I was not sure what to make of it.  But as I worked through it (over 11,000 words in 65 paragraphs), it took me back to my days in seminary.

We study many subjects in preparation for priesthood, but the one that everyone has a strong opinion about, and everyone has a vested interest in, is liturgy.  Because even before we start the seminary, we all have an experience of liturgy; and once we have finished the seminary, we will be responsible for “doing” liturgy.   Most other subjects could seem abstract, if only by comparison.  

We knew we would be responsible for the liturgy, and while we might not have been sure exactly how we would do it, we at least had plenty of ideas about how we would not do it.  After suffering through disappointing or even appalling liturgical efforts, we were resolved to do better.  Maybe that is why the Holy Father’s approach in his letter reminded me of those days; he, too, lists expansively many things not to do.  Here is one of his characteristic “not this, but not that either” paragraphs:

We could say that there are different “models” of presiding. Here is a possible list of approaches, which even though opposed to each other, characterize a way of presiding that is certainly inadequate: rigid austerity or an exasperating creativity, a spiritualizing mysticism or a practical functionalism, a rushed briskness or an overemphasized slowness, a sloppy carelessness or an excessive finickiness, a superabundant friendliness or priestly impassibility.

A cursory reading of that litany readily draws agreement; a closer reading by one who has to chart his course down the narrow path between disastrous opposites leads to more circumspection about one’s ability and even the possibility of finding that blessed “happy medium”.  But lest you think that Pope Francis sets the liturgical bar high only for us priestly types, he has other news for you!  Listen to this:  

Speaking of this theme we are inclined to think of it only in regards to ordained ministers carrying out the service of presiding.  But in fact this is an attitude that all the baptized are called to live.  I think of all the gestures and words that belong to the assembly: gathering, careful walking in procession, being seated, standing, kneeling, singing, being in silence, acclamations, looking, listening.  There are many ways in which the assembly, as one body, (Nehemiah 8:1) participates in the celebration. Everybody doing together the same gesture, everyone speaking together in one voice — this transmits to each individual the energy of the entire assembly.  It is a uniformity that not only does not deaden but, on the contrary, educates individual believers to discover the authentic uniqueness of their personalities not in individualistic attitudes but in the awareness of being one body.

So now, if you care to read his letter, you will find you have your marching orders.  He sets no small task before us all.   Quoting twentieth-century author Romano Guardini, he tells us: “Here there is outlined the first task of the work of liturgical formation: man must become once again capable of symbols.”  This is a responsibility for all, for ordained ministers and the faithful alike. The task is not easy because modern man has become illiterate, no longer able to read symbols; it is almost as if their existence is not even suspected.

You may not have sat through liturgy classes with a bunch of seminarians, but I suspect you are capable of that, and more.  

Monsignor Smith

Secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity

Thoughtful

At least I did not have to think about it.  

That, it seems, was for many Americans the principal benefit of letting stand for almost fifty years the dreadful decision of Roe v. Wade.  By placing it among rights granted by the Constitution, it saved much thought and even more discussion.  It was not good, but at least it was settled.  We could focus on other things.

But now, suddenly (or not so suddenly, since the draft was leaked weeks ago) that has changed.  The false assumptions, false assertions, false logic, and false predictions of that bad juridical decision have been enumerated and repudiated in a careful and conscientious ruling.  The regime of Roe is ended; praise God and the hard work of generations of countless souls.  But as history shows is often the case when a murderous tyrant is deposed, uncertainty and even chaos follow.

Right on cue, chaos has erupted.  Why else would those businesses in our own capital city be boarding their storefronts?   Hysteria on the news, recriminations, accusations, sobbing, threats, celebrities swearing they’re leaving the country!  Arson, vandalism, assassination attempts.  Dark predictions of “what they’ll take away next.”  All of it, all of it meant to generate fear, to synthesize a sense of danger:  these are things people would rather not have to think about.

The histrionics upset people, as is the intention.  Surveys do show that many people are now unhappy with the overturn of Roe, but it seems likely that many of them are upset because of the mayhem and hysteria, and that they have been dislodged from the comfortable place where they didn’t have to think about it. 

But if you do think about it, you realize that this decision does not change nearly as much as they insist.  We live in the great commonwealth of Maryland, which through its elected legislators, and over the governor’s veto, erected one of the most pro-abortion regimes in the world.  It is easier for a minor to procure an abortion legally in our state than to buy a beer – and it costs less.  The overturning of Roe does not overturn this.  In fact, it precipitated it.  

What does this say about where we live, and the people who live here with us?  Nothing we didn’t already know, unfortunately.  The sour looks in stores at our families with small children, and don’t even describe the response when they learn that you’re pregnant (again).  All those yard signs, all those issues, all that activism, but none of them, none of them with concern for the littlest among us.  How can they call it social, much less justice, if it comes at the cost of innocent lives?  This is worth thinking about.

The way our government, our Constitution, works, is that citizens may elect legislators who pass laws that promote and provide abortion on demand.  The Supreme Court did not even try to change this.   The people who live in Maryland have done precisely this.  You and I need to think about this.

Because now, without the heedless, faceless backstop of the artificial “right” to pursue this grievous wrong, actual people with faces and names must think about what it is that they are advancing and abetting.  Actual people you and I know and like and spend time with are capable of recognizing the grim horror that is abortion, and the damage it does, has done and will do, to our society and our culture.  But this will only happen if you and I set before them true food for thought, in charity, not enmity.  

We can and must pray, for strength for ourselves, for our wisdom for our fellow citizens, for courage in the right for our leaders.  We can pray for our nation and our neighborhood.  God already knows what we need, and will provide. 

You know, people demonstrated (and worse) after Brown vs Board of Education, too, and made apocalyptic predictions.  But aren’t you glad we powered past that as a nation?  It has not been easy, mind you; but definitely better.  

So too, this Supreme Court decision is a clear and lasting improvement.  It will not be easy, of course, but the demonstrations and apocalyptic predictions do not come from the contingent or culture that will do the work to make our society and our nation better.   Our forebears made slavery not only illegal, but unthinkable.  People we remember made racial discrimination indefensible.  Abortion, which is also indefensible, can and should be made unthinkable in our society. 

So it is not our lament, but rather our resolution: now, we have to think about it, and begin the work we need yet to do.

A blessed anniversary of the independence of this great country to you and your family.  God bless America, God bless you, and God help all of us to help people think about this. 

Monsignor Smith