#reference: the taking of christ by caravaggio

[lotussart]

The Taking of The Lamb

COTLtober Week 4: A Kiss

[nepentheisms]

This is it; this is the Big 'Un that's been knocking around in my head since the bookclub's inception.

When it comes to mentions of the biblical parallels in Trigun, I've seen that Wolfwood is most frequently discussed as a Judas figure. I think it's important, though, to note that carrying out the Judas role to Vash's Jesus was a job he was ordered to take, and it's one he went through the motions of following while having the ulterior motive of killing the one who gave him the order in the first place. In fact, when Wolfwood does turn traitor, it's actually Knives and the GHG he chooses to betray. He ends up Judas-ing the guys who assigned him to the Judas mission - that's some sweet irony!

And as Wolfwood's time in the story draws to an end, he takes the path completely contrary to Judas' ignominious end by suicide. He instead takes a leap of faith and dares to place his trust in Vash's vision for humanity's future. His faith remains imperfect, but in the midst of all his doubt and uncertainty, he persists anyway.

This last stand of his becomes Wolfwood's ultimate affirmation of his devotion to Vash's ideals, and he effectively becomes a martyr, which places him far outside the image of Judas. In fact, I think that when we look back on his character arc as a whole, we can see how it more neatly lines up in trajectory with the story of another apostle: Peter.

Like Peter in the gospel narratives, Wolfwood finds it difficult to have the kind of faith that is asked of him. Vash goes into his battle with Rai Dei insisting to Wolfwood that he can finish the conflict without taking a life, but Wolfwood intervenes against Vash's wishes because he was worried about Rai Dei's next move. Peter sees Jesus walking on water and goes out to join him, but with the rough winds blowing around him, Peter becomes overwhelmed by fear and begins to sink. After these failures of faith in their respective stories, Peter and Wolfwood are then chastised by the men they follow.

Matthew 14:31 (NRSV) - Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"

And it's these struggles with doubt, these moments of fear and cynicism overtaking faith that are so instrumental to the Christian perspective on salvation with its message of "You are flawed by nature, but you are loved beyond all comprehension nonetheless. Accept this love that it may save you and change you."

In Peter's case, although he is singled out multiple times for his failures (e.g. denying Jesus three times), he still holds a special place of prominence among Jesus' disciples. The 21st chapter of John features a conversation between Peter and the resurrected Jesus in which Peter affirms his love for Jesus three times (a reversal of the three times he denied Jesus), and Jesus responds by instructing Peter to care for his flock. After Jesus ascends to Heaven, Peter continues the work set out for him in building the early church until his eventual martyrdom, which, according to church tradition, occurs via upside-down crucifixion (see Caravaggio's rendition here). Interestingly, Wolfwood's martyrdom also involves lots of grievous bodily harm being dealt by crosses.

So the saint gets brought to death's doorstep, and that brings us to the infamous whiskey bottle

Others have already pointed out that "The Bride" likely refers to the Bride of Christ. This excerpt from the Catechism of the Catholic Church sums up the concept:

The unity of Christ and the Church, head and members of one Body, also implies the distinction of the two within a personal relationship. This aspect is often expressed by the image of bridegroom and bride. The theme of Christ as Bridegroom of the Church was prepared for by the prophets and announced by John the Baptist. The Lord referred to himself as the "bridegroom." The Apostle speaks of the whole Church and of each of the faithful, members of his Body, as a bride "betrothed" to Christ the Lord so as to become but one spirit with him. The Church is the spotless bride of the spotless Lamb.

Now Peter is of particular importance when talking about the Church as an institution, because in the Catholic tradition, Peter is believed to have been granted a distinguished position of authority as the very foundation of Jesus' church, and every Pope is considered a successor to Peter in their occupation of the Church's highest office.

So Peter = Pope = the head of the Bride of Christ. And if we take the reading of Wolfwood as a Peter analogue.... you see where we're going. The Bride of Christ has been sanctified through a powerful demonstration of sacrificial love and prepared for the wedding to the bridegroom, but right here Yasuhiro Nightow subverts the biblical metaphor to devastating effect. The wedding doesn't come to fruition, because Vash can't bring himself to step into the role of the heavenly bridegroom. In this moment, he just feels all too painfully human in his grief. Wolfwood ascends - celebrated across the sky by those he saved with his selfless love, but Vash descends - acting as an ordinary person mourning the loss of a loved one.

John 13:36 (NRSV) - Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now...."

[insipid-drivel]

slow inhale

Inverted crosses and crucifixes are not “iconic symbols of Satanism”!!!

The above image? 100% holy. Totally canonical. Has absolutely NOTHING to do with Satan, Lucifer, or “The Devil”. It’s called the Petrine Cross aka The Cross of Saint Peter and is a symbol of piety, humility, deference, and martyrdom particularly to Jesus Christ (not necessarily his other canonical phases of existence) and his relationship with the Pope. It’s also one of the symbols most closely associated with The Pope.

It is one of the main reasons I can’t take exorcist and demon-themed horror movies seriously ever. Not because I’m a polytheistic soul-selling Bandrui (those things are true but they’re not why), but because it’s a continuity error! A hilarious one if you think about it! The demon is just showing how much the characters really don’t understand about the religion they’re espousing in the movie!

So, why would St. Peter be associated with something that, for all intents and purposes, we visually associate with something that is backwards from Christianity or whatever “holiness” means? Because, like Jesus, St. Peter was also crucified, or at least that is the version of St. Peter’s story that is considered most canonical. In truth, stories about St. Peter that still exist date back only as late as 200 AD with the apocryphal “Acts of Peter”. Whether or not the upside down part of the story was canonical hasn’t been determined with any real certainty, but it was the version told by this guy:

Origen of Alexandria! Origen was largely considered one of the greatest early Christian luminaries, scholars, philosophers, poets, and all-around book nerds and is the primary source for the whole “St. Peter was crucified upside down” story, inspiring Renaissance masterworks like this little number by Caravaggio:

“Crucifixion Of Saint Peter”

Origen’s popularized telling of the tragic demise of St. Peter makes a big deal about the story-canonical feature that St. Peter insisted upon being crucified upside-down because he didn’t feel worthy to emulate the same, now-iconic crucifixion of Jesus.

So how did the Petrine Cross become a symbol associated with Satanism?

France.

Well, not all of it, but France was involved. In the early 19th century, a cult leader by the name of Eugène Vintras insisted that he was the reincarnation of the Prophet Elijah. Aside from that, he also practiced necromancy (which is the art of cavorting with DEMONS, not corpses for the love of my blackened, shriveled occultist heart) and was commonly seen wearing robes and symbols depicting the Petrine Cross.

In comes This Guy:

Éliphas Lévi was another famous 19th century French Occultist (after leaving the Catholic priesthood when he was in his 20′s to get drunk and listen to metal or something) who took one look at, and presumably all surviving sketches of  Eugène Vintras, saw his regalia of Petrine crosses, and wrote the literally-damning words that for wearing his inverted crosses, Vintras’ satanic leanings were obvious.

After Éliphas Lévi wrote about Vintras’ wearing of the Petrine Cross and Satanic preferences, the inverted cross gradually became more and more associated with anti-religion movements and, of course, Satanism. The final nail in the Apocryphal Iconography Crucifixion came in the 1960′s-1980′s with the dawn of the horror movie franchise and the rise of the Satanic Panic, a mass hysteria movement that had to be debunked by the FBI where young people and children were convinced by their therapists during hypnotherapy sessions that they had been the subjects of Satanic rituals at the hands of the parents/guardians at very young ages that never happened, destroyed families, left countless people traumatized. FBI agent Kenneth Lanning went on to publish what’s commonly referred to as “The Lanning Report” to debunk the claims of abuse and lambast the therapist that started the panic in the first place.

If you want to really rock like a Satanist, consider donating stuff like feminine hygiene products to your local Planned Parenthood ;)

[gotankgo]

Lee Wagstaff «formed only by one ` 60 x 80 cm oil and enamel on canvas (😞 LOST). This was supposed to be in the exhibition ‘Line Addicts’ curated by @hifructosemag at @thinkspace_art in LA but is now lost forever thanks @ups . It was made especially for the show. As it is now lost I will tell those who may be interested a little about the piece :

This painting takes as its starting point a reworking of an image of actor/director Dexter Fletcher @dexfletch playing the young Caravaggio in Derek Jarmens film of the same name. The concentric spiral style is 100 % taken from Claude Mellan’s The Sudarium of Saint Veronica (1649) engraving. Mellan used a kind of calligraphic technique known as the ´ swelling line ` where the thickness/ widening of the line is created by the angle of the (engraving) tool. Mellans and my title refers to the mythical image of Saint Veronica’s veil which was emblazoned with Christ’s image via impression, after she blotted the inky blood from his face on road to Calvary. There is something captivating about an image not made by human hand (acheiropoietos) but bestowed to us from on high. FORMATVR VNICVS VNA / NON ALTER (the unique one made by one / [like] no other).»

[pumpkinpaix]

Hello! Feel free not to answer this question if it is in any way too much, but I've been wondering about something concerning the "western" mdzs fandom. Lately, i have seen multiple pieces of fanart that use what is clearly Christian symbolism and sometimes downright iconography in depicting the characters. I'm a european fan, but it still makes me vaguely uneasy. I know that these things are rarely easy to judge. I'm definitely not qualified to do so and was wondering if you have an opinion

Hi there! thank you for your patience and for the interesting question! I’ve been thinking about this since i received this ask because it?? idk, it’s difficult to answer, but it also touches on a a few things that I find really interesting.

the short answer: it’s complicated, and I also don’t know what I feel!

the longer answer:

i think that this question is particularly difficult to answer because of how deeply christianity is tied to the western art and literary canon. so much of what is considered great european art is christian art! If you just take a quick glance at wiki’s page on european art, you can see how inextricable christianity is, and how integral christian iconography has been in the history of european art. If you study western art history, you must study christian imagery and christian canon because it’s just impossible to engage with a lot of the work in a meaningful way without it. that’s just the reality of it.

Christianity, of course, also has a strong presence in european colonial and imperialist history and has been used as a tool of oppression against many peoples and nations, including China. I would be lying if I said I had a good relationship with Christianity--I have always faced it with a deep suspicion because I think it did some very, very real damage, not just to chinese people, but to many cultures and peoples around the world, and that’s not a trauma that can be easily brushed aside or reconciled with.

here is what is also true: my maternal grandmother was devoutly christian. my aunt is devoutly christian. my uncle’s family is devoutly christian. my favorite cousin is devoutly christian. when I attended my cousin’s wedding, he had both a traditional chinese ceremony (tea-serving, bride-fetching, ABSURDLY long reception), and also a christian ceremony in a church. christianity is a really important part of his life, just as it’s important to my uncle’s family, and as it was important to my grandmother. I don’t think it’s my right or place to label them as simply victims of a colonialist past--they’re real people with real agency and choice and beliefs. I think it would be disrespectful to act otherwise.

that doesn’t negate the harm that christianity has done--but it does complicate things. is it inherently a bad thing that they’re christian, due to the political history of the religion and their heritage? that’s... not a question I’m really interested in debating. the fact remains that they are christian, that they are chinese, and that they chose their religion.

so! now here we are with mdzs, a chinese piece of media that is clearly Not christian, but is quickly gaining popularity in euroamerican spaces. people are making fanart! people are making A LOT of fanart! and art is, by nature, intertextual. a lot of the most interesting art (imo) makes deliberate use of that! for example (cyan art nerdery time let’s go), Nikolai Ge’s What is Truth?

I love this painting! it’s notable for its unusual depiction of christ: shabby, unkempt, slouched, in shadow. if you look for other paintings of this scene, christ is usually dignified, elegant, beautiful, melancholy -- there’s something very humanizing and humbling about this depiction, specifically because of the way it contrasts the standard. it’s powerful because we as the audience are expected to be familiar with the iconography of this scene, the story behind it, and its place in the christian canon.

you can make similar comments about Gentileschi’s Judith vs Caravaggio’s, or Manet’s Olympia vs Ingres’ Grande Odalisque -- all of these paintings exist in relation to one another and also to the larger canon (i’m simplifying: you can’t just compare one to another directly in isolation etc etc.) Gauguin’s Jacob Wrestling the Angel is also especially interesting because of how its portrayal of its content contrasts to its predecessors!

or! because i’m really In It now, one of my favorite paintings in the world, Joan of Arc by Bastien-Lepage:

I just!!! gosh, idk, what’s most interesting to me in this painting is the way it seems to hover between movements: the hyperrealistic, neoclassical-esque take on the figure, but the impressionistic brushstrokes of the background AAA gosh i love it so much. it’s really beautiful if you ever get a chance to see it in person at the Met. i’m putting this here both because i personally just really like it and also as an example of how intertextuality isn’t just about content, but also about visual elements.

anyways, sorry most of this is 19thc, that was what i studied the most lol.

(a final note: if you want to read about a really interesting painting that sits in the midst of just a Lot of different works, check out the wiki page on Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, specifically under “Interpretation and Legacy”)

this is all a really long-winded way of getting to this point: if you want to make allusory fanart of mdzs with regards to western art canon, you kind of have to go out of your way to avoid christian imagery/iconography, especially when that’s the lens through which a lot of really intensely emotional art was created. many of my favorite paintings are christian: Vrubel’s Demon, Seated, Perov’s Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, Ge’s Conscience, Judas, Bastien-Lepage’s Joan of Arc, as shown above. that’s not to say there ISN’T plenty of non-christian art -- but christian art is very prominent and impossible to ignore.

so here are a few pieces of fanwork that I’ve seen that are very clearly making allusions to christian imagery:

1. this beautiful pietà nielan by tinynarwhals on twitter

2. a lovely jiang yanli as our lady of tears by @satuwilhelmiina

3. my second gif in this set here, which I will also show below:

i’m only going to talk about mine in depth because well, i know exactly what i was thinking when I put this gif together while I can’t speak for anyone else.

first: the two lines of the song that I wanted to use for lan xichen were “baby, I’m a fighter//in the robes of a saint” because i felt that they fit him very well. of course, just the word “saint” evokes catholicism, even if it’s become so entwined in the english language that it’s taken on a secular meaning as well.

second: when I saw this scene, my immediate thought was just “PIETÀ!!” because LOOK at that composition! lan xichen’s lap! nie mingjue lying perpendicular to it! the light blue/white/silver of lan xichen in contrast to the darker robes of both nie mingjue and meng yao! not just that, but the very cool triangular structure of the image is intensely striking, and Yes, i Do love that it simultaneously ALSO evokes deposition of christ vibes. (baxia as the cross.... god..... is that not the Tightest Shit) does this make meng yao joseph of arimathea? does it make him john the evangelist? both options are equally interesting, I think when viewed in relation to his roles in the story: as a spy in qishan and as nmj’s deputy. maybe he’s both.

anyways, did I do this intentionally? yes, though a lot of it is happy accident/discovered after the fact since I’m relying on CQL to have provided the image. i wanted to draw attention to all of that by superimposing that line over that image! (to be clear: I didn’t expect it to all come through because like. that’s ridiculous. the layers you’d have to go through to get from “pretty lxc gifset” --> “if we cast nie mingjue as a christ figure, what is the interesting commentary we could do on meng yao by casting him as either joseph of arimathea or john the evangelist” are like. ok ur gonna need to work a little harder than slapping a song lyric over an image to achieve an effect like that.)

the point of this is: yes, it’s intentionally christian, yes I did this, yes I am casting these very much non-christian characters into christian roles for this specific visual work -- is this okay?

I obviously thought it was because I made it. but would I feel the same about a work that was written doing something similar? probably not. I think that would make me quite uncomfortable in most situations. but there’s something about visual art that makes it slightly different that I have trouble articulating -- something about how the visual often seeks to illustrate parallels or ideas, whereas writing characters as a different religion can fundamentally change who those characters are, the world they inhabit, etc. in a more... invasive?? way. that’s still not quite right, but I genuinely am not sure how to explain what i mean! I hope the general idea comes across. ><

something else to think about is like, what are pieces I find acceptable and why?

what makes the pieces above that reference christian imagery different than this stunning nieyao piece by @cyandemise after klimt’s kiss? (warnings for like, dead bodies and vague body horror) like i ADORE this piece (PLEASE click for fullview it’s worth it for the quality). it’s incredibly beautiful and evocative and very obviously references a piece of european art. I have no problem with it. why? because it isn’t explicitly christian? it’s still deeply entrenched in western canon. klimt certainly made other pieces that were explicit christian references.

another piece I’d like to invite you all to consider is this incredible naruto fanart of sakura and ino beheading sasuke after caravaggio’s judith. (warnings for beheading, blood, etc. you know.) i also adore this piece! i think it’s very good both technically and conceptually. the reference that it makes has a real power when viewed in relation to the roles of the characters in their original story -- seeing the women that sasuke fucked over and treated so disrespectfully collaborating in his demise Says Something. this is also!! an explicitly christian reference made with non-christian japanese characters. is this okay? does it evoke the same discomfort as seeing mdzs characters being drawn with christian iconography? why or why not?

the point is, I don’t think there’s a neat answer, but I do think there are a lot of interesting issues surrounding cultural erasure/hegemony that are raised by this question. i don’t think there are easy resolutions to any of them either, but I think that it’s a good opportunity to reexamine our own discomfort and try and see where it comes from. all emotions are valid but not all are justified etc. so I try to ask, is it fair? do i apply my criticisms and standards equally? why or why not? does it do real harm, or do i just not like it? what makes one work okay and another not?

i’ve felt that there’s a real danger with the kind of like, deep moral scrutiny of recent years in quashing interesting work in the name of fear. this morality tends to be expressed in black and white, good and bad dichotomies that i really do think stymies meaningful conversation and progress. you’ll often see angry takes that boil down to things like, “POC good, queer people good, white people bad, christianity bad” etc. without a serious critical examination of the actual issues at hand. I feel that these are extraordinarily harmful simplifications that can lead to an increased insularity that isn’t necessarily good for anyone. there’s a fine line between asking people to stay in their lane and cultural gatekeeping sometimes, and I think that it’s something we should be mindful of when we’re engaging in conversations about cultural erasure, appropriation etc.

PERHAPS IT IS OBVIOUS that I have no idea where that line falls LMAO since after all that rambling I have given you basically nothing. but! I hope that you found it interesting at least, and that it gives you a bit more material to think on while you figure out where you stand ahaha.

was this just an excuse to show off cool (fan)art i like? maybe ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(ko-fi)

[longlistshort]

Currently at Matthew Marks Gallery in New York is Julien Nguyen’s first one person show at the gallery, Julien Nguyen: Pictures of the Floating World.

From the press release-

Nguyen is known for his deftly rendered paintings that combine elements of art history, science fiction, and contemporary subjects. His interest in worldbuilding can be seen in several new paintings that use biblical and classical themes as a starting point, including Ave Maria (2019), a take on the Madonna Enthroned, and St. John the Baptist (2020), a reworking of Caravaggio’s John the Baptist featuring one of Nguyen’s friends as the model.

The exhibition also highlights Nguyen’s recent emphasis on portraiture, with depictions of friends, lovers, and fellow artists painted from life. He has said of his art, “Reality occurs only in the intimacy of understanding and being understood.” The Los Angeles studio where he lives and works can be seen in several paintings, including one that presents the view from a second-story window in a depiction as thoroughly detailed as it is inventive.

The exhibition’s title refers to the visual art of Edo-period Japan, a decadent period of flourishing culture. An enthusiast of history, Nguyen uses the past as a lens through which to view, analyze, and reframe our present moment. As Zack Hatfield has described in Artforum, “Some declare the end of the world; others make new worlds. Julien Nguyen does a bit of both.”

If Nguyen’s work looks familiar, it may be because he also collaborated with Ottolinger on its fall 2020 collection, which was then worn by several celebrities.

This exhibition closes on 8/13/21.

[sunny143sr]

Top 10 places to visit in Italy

Italy is a lovely country, globally loved for providing an eclectic combination of visitor attractions. Vacationers, on one hand, love to enjoy the amazing Roman ruins of Pompeii, Rome, and Herculaneum, and on the other, can’t resist traveling to Venice and Tuscany for his or her romantic appeal.

The USA is likewise regarded for its natural sights and scenic landscapes that ship you to any other world. They are spellbinding, charming, and dumbfounding to mention the least. Virtually words don’t do justice at all. You obtain to see them trust us. However, we gained will let you get lost in the maps!

Right here are the pinnacle 10 cities, which might be additionally the pinnacle hubs of vacationer locations in Italy, which are sinfully excellent. You just can’t face up to their seduction!

Earlier than we go to the information, a quick look at the grandeur of top traveler locations in Italy!

1. Tuscany – You simply can’t leave out the greens here!

Tuscany has continually been the center of enterprise, art, and politics in Europe. The various maximum lovely locations to visit in Italy, the town also received a whole lot of prominence as a primary metropolis of the Renaissance length. Great work of artwork can be seen and loved via the art fans coming to this city. Tuscany is also famous for its notable crafts. Substances used to create awesome craft gadgets are timber, metallic, leather-based, marble, and more.

Key attractions: The Gallery of Uffizi acknowledged for its extremely good museums, treasures, palaces, and churches; excellent perspectives of Siena and the Palio; the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa and Piazza Dei Miracoli for his or her particular architecture; beautiful villages; and the scenic vineyards of Chianti.

Fine time to go to September – October, and April – June

Read More: Alaska Airlines

2. Naples – You’d be Colorbound

Naples, positioned inside the Campania vicinity, is nestled amidst the Phlegraean Fields and the volcanic place of Mount Vesuvius. However, this city isn't only regarded for its beautiful locales but also famous for its wealthy history and way of life. A number of the fine tourist points of interest in Italy, the city has the most range of architecturally renowned church buildings.

Key points of interest: Capodimonte Museum for the famous Flagellation of the Christ via Caravaggio, the celebrity-formed Castel Sant’Elmo navy fort, the well-known Lungomare amphitheater, countrywide Archeological Museum, Naples Cathedral- II Duomo, the Naples Archdiocese seat, Palazzo Reale, Gothic Santa Chiara Church, and Piazza San Domenico Maggiore

High-quality time to visit: September – October, and March – might also

Read More: American Airlines

3. Italian Lake District – The metropolis of lakes and fashionistas

Positioned in Italy’s Northern area, the Italian Lake District is known for its stunning lakes. This location has been one of the well-known Italian traveler places since the Roman instances. Each year, a large variety of tourists visit this stunning destination to admire and revel in its lovely scenic locales, Lake Garda and Lake Como. The destination is likewise recognized for its actual Italian cuisine and is frequented by fashionistas to explore the boutiques.

Key attractions: Lake Garda, Lake Como, Lake, Lake Lugano, Lake Maggiore, Lake Orta, Mediaeval castles, Renaissance Palazzi, fishing villages, and the craggy peaks of Dolomites

A pleasant time to go to September and May

4. Sicily – Wandering in the ruins is amusing too!

Sicily is the most popular tourist destination in Italy for its ancient Greek ruins. The vacation spot has been ruled by Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, and Ostrogoths. The glimpses in their rule can be still visible in the ruins. The stays of the Norman generation's notable architectural achievements additionally attract a wide variety of traffic. The duration architecture is the most important appeal inside the metropolis and is appreciated by site visitors who wish to know more about the bygone technology and its triumphs.

Key points of interest: the Aeolian Islands, Agrigento archaeological website online a.K.The Valley of Temples, the well-known cathedral Cefalu, the hilltop town Erice, Mount Etna, and the Nebrodi Mountains

5. Cinque Terre – Witness a few thoughts-blowing sunsets right here!

Referred to as “The 5 Lands”, Cinque Terre is one of the prettiest needs to see places in Italy. Beautiful vistas at the rugged coastline of Sicily are well worth admiring. The five fishing villages are related through taking walks trails and exploring them is a great concept. Furthermore, this entire region has been declared as a UNESCO international historical past website online.

Key sights: Vernazza fishing village for its cliff, twelfth Century Manarola fishing village for its Groppo and Ruins of Fortifications, Monterosso village for its church buildings and Monastery, Riomaggiore village for its craggy hills,  Corniglia for its 382 stars, and The 12 km Blue course

Fine time to go to March – July

6. Amalfi Coast – A absolutely distinctive vacation spot

Amalfi Coast is one of the most exclusive European destinations, recognized for its ecstatic coasts bordering the Mediterranean Sea. It's miles perfect for exploring nature's marvels in Italy. Positano and Fiordo of Furore are places placed close by and call for quite a time to experience its wonderful sights.

Key sights: astonishing perspectives from Ravello, an implementing and attractive cathedral of Duomo, Spiaggia di Arechi, and the 8th century Salerno citadel

Best time to go to July and August

7. Milan – A spell-binding fashion hub

Italy’s most cosmopolitan city, Milan is famous for soccer and style. The destination is likewise regarded for its herbal points of interest and fashion shows that are prepared two times a yr. The city witnesses the influx of shoppers, designers, and supermodels from all around the world at some stage in the shows. An extremely good thought to the global fashion designers, Milan is absolutely some of the locations to see in Italy.

Key sights: The famous Basilica Sant’Ambrogio devoted to Milan’s client saint, the huge Cemetery of some of the tremendous celebrities of the place, Piazza Mercanti  administrative center of Milan, pieces of artwork on the Pinacoteca di Brera, and the twelfth century Navigli Lombardi canal

Great time to go to: past due September – October, and March – might also

8. Pompeii – A walk down the lanes of records

Placed near the Mount Vesuvius foothills, Pompeii is a historical metropolis, and around 80 BC, the vacation spot became a prime port metropolis. Numerous websites offer glimpses of the Roman rule over the metropolis, that's a UNESCO World history website these days. Its discovery within the year 1748 supplied plenty of statistics about the erstwhile Roman Empire. Humans like to visit this city and explore the properly-preserved ruins to find out more about this city.

Key attractions: Antiquarium museum that gives a lot of information about this fabled metropolis, discussion board Roman metropolis square, Temple of Jupiter constructed on a raised 3-meter base, Teatro Grande, Teatro Piccolo, ancient Stabian Baths, and residence of Menander

best time to visit: April

9. Venice – The floating town

View of the Rio Marin Canal with boats and gondolas from the Ponte de la Bergami in Venice

Venice – the floating metropolis – draws a large number of travelers all-spherical the year. However, its splendor and romantic gondola rides make it the quality of most of the places to go to in Italy for a honeymoon. Many canals are crisscrossing thru the town. The time when the vacation spot witnesses a surge of travelers is throughout Carnevale. Humans sporting colorful costumes and masks are worth watching in their glory. The city is replete with loads of churches, cathedrals, theaters, and art galleries.

Key attractions: Piazza San Marco aka the Drawing Room of Europe using Napoleon, housing St Mark’s Basilica, Doge’s Palace, Torre dell Orologio clock tower, Scuola Grande di San Rocco, and the Grand Canal

Nice time to visit: late February – Early may additionally

10. Rome – The town of affection

Rome, with its stunning attractions and points of interest, is a far cherished destination amongst die-difficult romantics. It has loads of museums, artwork galleries, and theaters that provide perception into its wealthy culture and ancient past. A few of the pleasant locations to visit in Italy with your own family, Rome lets the site visitors understand more about the development of Western Civilization, the boom and progress of Christianity, and the deep-rooted history of the archeological websites.

Key sights: St Peter’s Basilica is known to be  the largest and grandest church within the globe, Roman Empire’s famous Colosseum with an ability to accommodate 55,000 spectators, Piazza Navona fountains constructed inside the seventeenth century, Pantheon built using Emperor Hadrian in the memory of Pagan Gods, and Trevi Fountain

Nice time to go to October – April

[art-now-france]

Candy Jar, Renée Caouette

Inspired and scene taken from my grandmother's house. Growing up in a divorced family, my sister and I would spend every Monday night at my grandmother's. She is a religious woman, as can be seen by the print of Caravaggio's "The Taking of Christ", and the etherial light. The wedding photos on the wall are a reference to my large family, and the champagne holder depicts my grandmother's gentle spirit and humble demeanor. The champagne holder was never filled with alcohol, but rather, always with little candies.

https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Candy-Jar/811273/3452991/view

[italianartsociety]

The First Holy Thursday: A Momentous Day and Night.

The first Holy Thursday appeared to begin at a moderate pace: with Christ and his apostles sharing a Passover meal, that went on to represent the mass and illustrate the Eucharist. During this shared repast, Jesus also likely inducted the apostles into the priesthood by asking them to take communion “in remembrance of [him]” and by the act of washing their feet (below).

Jesus also introduced a new commandment that instructed people to “love one another” (below).

Christ also indicated to Peter that he would, in time, have an important ecclesiastical role to fulfil. 

As Holy Thursday continued on towards Good Friday, the pace of events would soon quicken and become increasingly darker in mood.

Christ announces to Peter that he will soon deny him (below).

Following further discourse, prayer and a hymn, Christ went on to the Mount of Olives and prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane (below).

And it was while he was present in the Garden of Gethsemane, that Christ was betrayed to the authorities by Judas Iscariot, who kissed Jesus in order to identify him.

Jesus was then taken away under arrest and while en route to Pontias Pilate, Christ was said to have healed a man called Malchus, who had his ear amputated (below).

Jesus was then taken before the High Priests, Annas and Caiaphas (below) before being taken to Pilate for sentencing (below). 

Images: 

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1498, mixed technique, Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. Wikimedia Commons.

Attr. Marcantonio Raimondi, Christ kneeling and Washing St Peter's Feet, c.1500-1534, engraving, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gift of Henry Walters, 1917. 

Duccio di Buoninsegna, Christ Taking Leave of His Apostles, from the Stories of the Passion on the reverse side of the Maestà, 1311, tempera on wood, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena. Wikimedia Commons.

Pietro Perugino, Christ Handing the Keys to Saint Peter, c. 1481–1482, fresco, Sistine Chapel. Rome. Wikimedia Commons.

Caravaggio, The Denial of Saint Peter, 1610, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Pietro Perugino, Agony in the Garden, c. 1483-1493, oil on panel, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Wikimedia Commons. 

Caravaggio, The Taking of Christ, 1602, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. Wikimedia Commons. 

Fra Angelico, The Arrest of Christ, c.1450, fresco, Museo di San Marco, Cell 33, Florence.

Antonio della Corna, Christ Before Caiaphas, 1470-1475, tempera and gold leaf on wood, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Creative Commons Licence.

Duccio di Buoninsegna, Jesus Before Pilate, from the Stories of the Passion on the reverse side of the Maestà, tempera on wood, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena. Web Gallery of Art. 

References:

Matthew 26:20-46. 

Luke 22:47 - 23:56.

Posted by Samantha Hughes-Johnson.

[luckywilliams]

APPRECIATING PAINTINGS

Paintings can be complex things to appreciate in an informed fashion. Such informed appreciation can be undertaken via a number of different methods:

Firstly, the artistic methods and techniques undertaken can be examined. Thus, Jan Van Eyck was famous for his oil painting technique, which produced a characteristic luminous finish. Michelangelo was renowned for his fresco technique, and for his skill with anatomy and male nudes. Leonardo da Vinci was famous for his sfumato, and Rembrandt for his chiaroscuro. Titian and Matisse (amongst others) were distinguished by their colourism, Caravaggio for his Tenebrism, and Frank Auerbach for his impasto. These techniques, and many others, are an important feature of informed art appreciation.

Secondly, COLOUR has always been a very important aspect to consider, and often, throughout history, the use of colour has been subject to certain rules and conventions. For example, Ancient Egyptian paintings only made use of 6 colours – red, green, blue, yellow, white and black. Red was the colour of power and authority. Green was used as a colour to indicate new life and fertility. Blue was the colour of rebirth, while yellow was used to represent eternal things like the sun, and gold. White was indicative of purity, and black was the colour of death. As an extension of some of these principles, male bodies were painted in darker colours than female bodies.

Byzantine icon paintings followed similar conventions: Blue was the colour representing human life, while white became the colour used to represent the resurrection and transfiguration of Christ. In icons of Christ and the Virgin Mary, Christ was usually depicted wearing a red undergarment, together with a blue outer garment (symbolising the idea of God becoming a man). Conversely, Mary was usually depicted wearing a blue undergarment, and a red outer garment (indicative of someone starting off entirely human and mortal, but moving closer to God).

During the Renaissance, burgeoning European art academies restricted the use of bright colours, which were only to be used in the most appropriate contexts. It is only much later in European history, with the advent of the French Impressionists and the Fauvists, that colour really became utilised independently, and without restriction. Of course, the development of new colour pigments also had a significant impact on the tonal range available to painters. – After all, a Renaissance colour palette was a very different thing to the palette available to a 19th century artist.

The narrative content of a painting (How to appreciate it).

In order to make an informed judgement, we can subdivide the narrative content of a painting into 4 parts: a) The main message. b) Subsidiary messages. c) Symbolism. d) References and analogies. (At the end of this section, under Activities, you will be given the opportunity of carrying out some research, and completing an initial assessment of the narrative content of a famous Renaissance painting, using these 4 subheadings).

Interpreting Western art (c.500 – 1700).

Byzantine art, and its icons, together with other hieratic styles such as the Gothic, was packed with narrative meaning and symbolism – but all of a Christian kind. This exclusive focus on Christian symbolism makes the art somewhat easier to decode, though the fantastic imagery of Renaissance alterpiece art of the sort produced by Bosch and Pieter Brueghel the Elder can be more difficult to work out. Much baroque painting was more straightforward, as (during the era of the Counter Reformation) its focus was mostly just on the promotion of Catholicism. Its best works consisted of trompe l’oeil ceiling frescoes and other monumental religious works. Even here, there were some exceptions, such as the Realist School within Dutch Baroque art, which possessed much complex imagery and symbolism.

Dutch Realism 1630-90.

Some exceptional schools arose in the newly independent (from Spain) protestant areas of the United Provinces, such as those in Amsterdam, Delft, Utrecht and Haarlem. Dutch realism really developed as a result of the historical context. – The 17th century was the period of the Dutch ‘Golden Age’ in which trade grew with the East Indies, and other areas of the world, and Dutch merchants grew rich on the profits. These merchants were a new type of art buyer, requiring a new type of painting, and they commissioned some of the most complex still life paintings ever produced, by the likes of Vermeer, Rembrandt, Willem Kalf, van Hoogstraten and others.

The Decline of Religious Paintings from 1700.

Religious art declined elsewhere (not just in the United Provinces) because of the decline in the number of ecclesiastical patrons available, and the rise of the secular, middle class/professional patron, who wanted – and paid for – small scale portable paintings which could be displayed in their homes. Moreover, these new buyers wanted portraits, landscapes or genre paintings (rather than massive religious allegorical works) which showed off their newly acquired power and status. As a consequence, this ‘new’ type of painting lacked obscure religious symbolism, and can be easier to interpret.

Interpreting paintings from 1700 onwards.

For analytical purposes, these can be divided into 5 main types: i) HISTORY paintings ii) PORTRAITS iii) GENRE paintings (of everyday scenes) iv) LANDSCAPES v) STILL LIFE.

History Paintings:

This category of paintings can include mythological, religious and historical works with a ‘narrative’ which can be difficult to interpret when designed to convey inspirational or philosophical sentiments.

Portraits:

This category of painting is generally easier to interpret, though it must be remembered that the buyer of a painting often prefers to purchase a ‘manipulated’ image showing him/her at their best (e.g. Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portraits of the Prince Regent during the Regency period).

Genre:

These can be relatively straightforward to interpret, when the artist is focused, principally, upon portraying the social history of a particular scene. However, a genre painting can also be used to convey a philosophical message, making the interpretation more complex to determine.

Landscapes:

In the hundred years between 1700-1800, many landscape paintings were commissioned by landowners who wanted a pictorial record of their estates. Thus, such paintings can be relatively straightforward to understand and interpret. However, in the later 18th Century, as the Romantic movement began to take hold, many painters went into the countryside in order to ‘capture’ the essence and beauty of nature – adding considerably to the meaning and purpose behind such works. Impressionists like Pisarro and Monet can fall into this category. There are also landscapes with more of a philosophical message, which can be quite difficult to interpret fully.

Still Life:

Some of this type of painting can look very static when looked at in a superficial manner. Nevertheless, the best of Still Life painting can still be loaded with symbolism, and influenced by artistic traditions going back to at least the 17th Century.

How to appreciate abstract paintings.

The key principal behind a proper appreciation of abstract paintings is the realization that FORM is just as important as REPRESENTATION. Thus, a picture of a human face could be a very anatomically inaccurate, ‘bad’ one, but it could have a very effective and striking use of colours or shapes, and might therefore be adjudged to be a ‘beautiful’ picture/painting.

Thus, form is everything, and we need to look at colours, shapes and surface textures (and their relationship to each other) when assessing and interpreting a particular piece of work.

 ACTIVITIES

 Now that you have completed this introductory section, please have a go at the following activities. You can either talk to your tutor about the possible answers on the telephone, or via skype, or send written responses via email or post. Please enjoy thinking about your answers, and the initial research that this entails!

Task 1: Try and find out more about the artistic techniques of sfumato, chiaroscuro, colourism, Tenebrism and impasto. What did these techniques/skills actually involve?

Task 2: Try and have a look at the painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymous Bosch (1500-05) either on-line or in a suitable textbook, which is one of the great Renaissance paintings. Once you have looked at a copy of the painting, and maybe read a little about it, try and complete a brief assessment of the painting’s narrative content, using the 4 subheadings described earlier in this Section.

Task 3: Using the information supplied above about the 5 main types of paintings produced from 1700 onwards, say whether you think the following 11 paintings are either history, portrait, genre, landscapes or still life works of art: Some are more straightforward than others!

Death of Marat (1793) by Jacques-Louis David.

The Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya

The Morning of the Execution of the Streltsy (1881) by Vasily Surikov.

Arrangement in Grey and Black: Whistler’s Mother (1871) by James Whistler.

Portrait of Madame X (1883-4) by John Singer Sargent.

Man with a Hoe (1862) by Millet.

Marilyn (1967) by A. Warhol.

At the Moulin Rouge (1890) by Toulouse-Lautrec.

Ennui (1914) by Walter Sickert.

Mr and Mrs Andrews (1750) by T. Gainsborough.

Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (1812) by JMW Turner

  Adrian L. Bridge

[allatariel]

Beth and Saint Catherine of Alexandria

I wrote this nearly three years ago and it has been languishing in my google docs waiting to be made tumblr-ready ever since. I have not updated the content appreciably, so it may very well contain outdated theories or speculations long since proven false or at the very least ill-timed, but it feels like unfinished business. I'd rather realease it into the wild than delete all this work. To my knowledge, no one else has yet touched on at least the visual connections herein, but I have been out of touch with TWD and the fandom for a few years now, for various reasons. Thank you for your indulgence.

Apologies if I'm rehashing old information; I looked and couldn't find anything like this, but maybe I ain't looking right.

Special thanks to @bethgreenewarriorprincess and @bethgreeneishopeunseen for listening to me ramble about this and all your help!

The image below of Beth waking up in the hospital never appeared in the show, but has been used often promotionally (here, here, and here for a start), even years later (on August 7, 2016) with the tweet of the Beth's Journey video originally posted to YouTube on November 30, 2014 after 5x08 Coda aired.

She looks altogether more beatific than Rick did in roughly the same situation. See how the light, almost heavenly in nature, illuminates her clean face, smooth brow, and shiny hair and reflects in her eyes, giving them a diffused look, as though she’s looking at something no one else can see, like an apparition. Contrast this with Rick bathed in wan light, sweaty and unkempt, his brow furrowed in confusion and dawning alarm, as he takes in the evidence of neglect in the room around him that is plain for us to see in the ensuing shots.

I knew I'd seen this image somewhere before, and I know it's a very typical depiction of beatific passion, many examples of which can be found in religious art and throughout art history (e.g., here, here, here, and here). But it specifically looks, to me, most like Raphael's Saint Catherine of Alexandria. (for an additional analysis of Beth's saintly framing supported by connections to another saint, St. Mary Frances, see here)

This is a cropped screenshot of the full image found on Wikipedia. Note that another depiction by Caravaggio, whose The Denial of Saint Peter figures very prominently in 5x04 Slabtown (for an analysis of the use of this painting in 5x04, see here), is linked from that page and vice versa, but not any other artist's versions, of which there are many (see here, here, and here for a few). (It is also interesting to note that Caravaggio's The Denial of Saint Peter is housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and though it has toured, it has never been exhibited at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. The High does have another painting titled The Denial of St. Peter in its collection, which was painted some twenty years later by Nicolas Tournier who was influenced by Caravaggio's work.)

Saint Catherine of Alexandria is a bit of a mythic figure; the following summary of her life is quoted from the Wikipedia page for her, with citations included linked within.

Legend

According to the traditional narrative, Catherine was the daughter of Constus, the governor of Alexandrian Egypt during the reign of the emperor Maximian (286–305).[6] From a young age she had devoted herself to study. A vision of the Madonna and Child persuaded her to become a Christian. When the persecutions began under Maxentius, she went to the emperor and rebuked him for his cruelty. The emperor summoned fifty of the best pagan philosophers and orators to dispute with her, hoping that they would refute her pro-Christian arguments, but Catherine won the debate. Several of her adversaries, conquered by her eloquence, declared themselves Christians and were at once put to death.[7]

Torture and martyrdom Catherine was then scourged and imprisoned, during which time over 200 people came to see her, including Maxentius' wife, Valeria Maximilla; all converted to Christianity and were subsequently martyred.[8] Upon the failure of Maxentius to make Catherine yield by way of torture, he tried to win the beautiful and wise princess over by proposing marriage. The saint refused, declaring that her spouse was Jesus Christ, to whom she had consecrated her virginity. The furious emperor condemned Catherine to death on a spiked breaking wheel, but, at her touch, it shattered.[7] Maxentius finally had her beheaded.

Burial A tradition dating to about 800 states that angels carried her corpse to Mount Sinai. Her body was discovered around the year 800 at Mount Sinai, with hair still growing and a constant stream of healing oil issuing from her body.[9] In the 6th century, the Eastern Emperor Justinian had established what is now Saint Catherine's Monastery in Egypt (which is in fact dedicated to the Transfiguration of Christ).

She is generally believed to have been eighteen at the time of her death. Her feast day is November 25, and in celebration of this day in France, unmarried women pray for her intercession to find them husbands. These unmarried women are referred to as “Catherinettes” and their friends make elaborate hats, or bonnets, for them, using the colors yellow for faith and green for wisdom. The Catherinettes are crowned with these bonnets and make pilgrimages to St. Catherine’s statue in their local churches. Also of note and pertaining to France, she is believed to have appeared to Joan of Arc.

Saint Catherine has patronage over many things; because of her chastity, she is the patroness of unmarried women; because of her scholarship and skill in debate, she is the patroness of apologists, archivists, educators, female students, jurists, lawyers, librarians, libraries, philosophers, preachers, scholars, schoolchildren, scribes, secretaries, stenographers, and theologians; because of her association with the breaking wheel and wheels in general, she is the patroness of craftsmen who work with a wheel (potters, spinners), mechanics, millers, and wheelwrights; because of her beheading, she is patroness of knife sharpeners; because of her martyrdom, she is the patroness of dying people and nurses; because of a tradition in France on her feast day relating to her patronage of unmarried women, she is patroness of milliners, hat-makers, tanners, and haberdashers.

She is associated with a number of items, or attributes, and when depicted in art these items are often shown with her. A crown, either atop her head or at her feet, denoting her royal birth; a book, held open or closed in her hands, and perhaps her arguing with the pagan philosophers denoting her eloquence and wisdom; a bridal veil and ring denoting her mystical marriage to Jesus Christ; a dove as one legend states she was fed by a dove while imprisoned; a scourge, the breaking wheel, either whole or itself broken at her touch, and the sword that finally ended her life by decapitation; (hailstones are also listed in places, I got nothing). The type of firework known as the Catherine wheel is named for her.

Additional references for information about Saint Catherine of Alexandria can be found here, here, here, and here.

And now for the parallels, the reason I’m boring you all (all two of you) with these details about a long dead, and likely entirely legendary figure.

Like Saint Catherine, Beth is the daughter of a leader. Hershel Greene, initially of the Greene family farm and later of the prison. Before the fall of civilization, Beth was a student and after she doesn’t start out understanding what’s really going on in the apocalypse. When faced with it, she thinks she wants to die, but when she tries to kill herself she has an epiphany and chooses to live; this is rather like Saint Catherine’s path to conversion, in how she devotes her life to learning, then experiences a vision and becomes Christian.

Beth was “imprisoned” in Grady Memorial Hospital, was beaten, but never broken. Carol and the others "visited her" in her prison and she converted people, like Noah and Dr. Edwards, to another way of thinking. She broke their system by challenging it and getting Dawn killed after having killed the biggest offenders, Gorman and O'Donnell. She was shot, but didn’t die. Saint Catherine was imprisoned and tortured, many came to visit her and were converted. They tried to execute her and she not only survived, she broke the tool of her execution, symbolically breaking their system. Both were eighteen at the time of their imprisonment and attempted execution.

Beth was carried out of the hospital by Daryl, who wears angel wings, and left in a trunk after running from 800 walkers. She wasn't dead so her body would not corrupt. Additionally, she is immune to the infection and incorruptible by it (another way she “breaks the wheel” by breaking the infection). Her immunity will be the source of the cure and thus heal others. Saint Catherine's body was carried to Mount Sinai by angels and was found incorrupt and issuing healing oil in the year 800.

The mystical marriage of Saint Catherine is interesting; one variation on her conversion involves her search for a husband that matched her in intellect, nobility, and beauty and a hermit in the desert who, after a vision of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, went to Saint Catherine and told her of the spouse she desired. This hermit eventually baptised her, preparing her for her mystical marriage to Jesus. C@rol, who was a hermit for a while, brought Beth’s knife (an attribute of Saint Catherine, a small sword) to Daryl, giving him his lady’s favor, essentially marrying them (more here).

Saint Catherine’s reason for her refusal of the offer of marriage from the man who was trying to have her executed makes me think of the metas about 4x12 Still and the blood splatter on the white sweater foreshadowing Beth losing her virginity with Daryl (here and here, though there are more). I can just imagine Negan asking her to join his harem and Beth refusing by saying she's already promised to someone.

Bonus connections!

Beth’s father, Hershel, was beheaded with a sword like Saint Catherine; I know this isn’t a direct parallel as this happened to her father and not her, but I think the connection is solid enough with him being her father and her having watched it happen.

The spoked breaking wheel rather resembles a clock, which is heavily connected with Beth.

Saint Catherine appeared to Joan of Arc and counseled her; in 5x04 Slabtown Beth brought some small comfort to Joan during her confinement after her amputation.

Coda aired on November 30, the Sunday following Saint Catherine’s feast day of November 25.

Saint Catherine is a patroness of mechanics, and Daryl, Beth’s apocalypse husband, is the mechanic of the group (bonus bonus, he rides motorcycles which have spoked wheels like the breaking wheel).

The blond walker in the yellow wheelchair (mentioned here, here, and here, towards the bottom in all three) with the wounded left foot in 4x06 Live Bait is connected with Beth through her signature yellow color and wounded left foot in 5x13 Alone, and the spoked wheels of the wheelchair resemble the breaking wheel, symbolically representing the hospital and foreshadowing her breaking of it.

In Raphael’s Saint Catherine of Alexandria, there is a braid in Catherine's hair that starts at her left temple; Beth often wore a braid on the left side in her ponytail.

The traditional colors of the bonnets made for the Catherinettes celebrating Saint Catherine’s day in France were yellow for faith and green for wisdom; Beth has been strongly associated with yellow and faith and her last name is Greene. Also both she and her father have been associated with wisdom.

Not to mention the St. Catherine of ALEXANDRIA thing.

The final parallel I would like to highlight is the breaking of the wheel as the breaking of the cycle the show is currently stuck in, like a pair of millstones, the runner stone circling on the bedstone seemingly endlessly. The official synopsis for season 7 says “This half season is about these characters starting over. The overall theme of the season is beginning again.” The first episode of season 6 was called First Time Again. In season 5 after Terminus they begin again together. The Governor destroys the prison and they are forced to begin again, scattered. How many times will we take it once again from the top, everyone? (Washington D.C. = D.C. = da Capo, anyone? “Da Capo” is Italian for “from the head” and shares the same Latin root with “decapitate.”)

I mean, that's what the comic has done, over and over and over again; the war with the governor, All Out War, The Whisperer War—same shit different day. Abraham references this in his speech in 5x02 Strangers, “Wake up in the morning, fight the undead pricks, forage for food, go to sleep at night with two eyes open, rinse and repeat?” as encouragement to get them to join his mission to D.C.

Beth’s return is a way to break that cycle for the show—in the endless string of deaths and losses, finally they get someone back.

Morgan says, “People can come back, Rick.” in 6x15 East. Morgan says it to Rick just like Rick said it to the governor when he came to take the prison. Rick says, "Everyone who's alive right now. Everyone who's made it this far. We've all done the worst kinds of things just to stay alive. But we can still come back. We're not too far gone. We get to come back. I know... we all can change." in 4x08 Too Far Gone.

In 6x15 East, Morgan also says, "It—it's all a circle. Everything gets a return." Everything comes full circle with Beth’s survival, she’s not just “another dead girl” as she says in 4x12 Still.

The circle, the cycle, the wheel—Beth will break the wheel just like St. Catherine of Alexandria. Once more from the beginning, but skip to a different ending (da Capo al Coda).

[sybilius]

Luce and Heda

Christ this is uhm, romantic. 

Blondeyes art gallery date. 

Here’s some links to the art referred to in the story:

The Lute Player,  Judith Slaying Holofernes (Gentileschi), The Entombment of Christ, The Calling of St Matthew,  Judith Beheading Holofernes (Caravaggio), Still Life,  Le Retour de l'Enfant Prodigue. 

Also, some art of my own, about the last scene :)

*

The Lute Player, Theodore Rombouts.

A detail-oriented depiction of life from an admiring Caravaggisti. A man with severe brown eyes and a quizzical expression, caught in the middle of tuning his instrument. The colors are lush, yet subdued, a reasonable example of Baroque style.

“You know, I wasn't expecting art to be this funny, from the poster,” Manco tilts his head, referring to the choice of Gentileschi's Judith Beheading Holofernes, “Looks a lot like he didn’t want to be caught with the instrument.”

And here I was thinking his consternation was similar to that of my late target, frowning out the opened kitchen window just before the sniper rifle's shot caught him between the eyes.

I don't bring that up to Manco, of course. It's strange to me that I spent most of my time in preparation for the job trying to fend off distracting thoughts of my innamorato. And now that it's behind me, I can't seem to shake off the shadow of the deed.

It was as quiet as calculated. It took the police most of the day to report the murder.  By then, we’d already departed for the adobe walls of the New Mexico Museum of Art. The announcement crackled on the radio. Manco said nothing, but from the way he reached for the cigarillo-- he knew.

“It’s very slice of life,” I say with a lightness I hardly need to force, “You're right though, it is funny. Refreshing.”

Cardsharps and troubadours line the walls of this first room. Nothing sublime in subject, but it's still nice to linger among the everyday. Manco's breath catches, seeing a glimpse of The Entombment in the next room, Christ's lifeless hand draped over the stone floor. He glances back to me, as if for permission, then covers it by jerking his head and wandering indifferent through the archway.

I have to smirk. The rare moments where his facade drops are those I've come to treasure. Rather like the implicit flicker in the steady candle of the LaTour painting I'm studying. Dulcior illa sapit caro, quae magis ossibus haeret.

I suppose my mind is rather inclined to the morbid, at the moment. It surprises me that I find that mildly discomfiting.

I join him a few minutes later, rapt in front of The Calling of St Matthew. Crisp light from the window cutting through in the tenebristic style popularized by Caravaggio.

“I'll admit this has always been one of my favourites. The vividness of that gesture. Sticks in your mind.”

“I was in training to be a priest once,” he says quietly, not taking his eyes off of Matthew. It catches me out, as those careless confessions of his have wont to do. I've since learned not to press them. It tends to lead to cigarillos and careless nothings.

Perhaps then, some further background.

“Caravaggio was himself Catholic-- parts of the Baroque art movement could be framed as a struggle between Catholic and Protestant. Vivid and passionate depictions of Biblical scenes from the Catholics. The Protestants -- many of them saw this form of art as itself idolatry. But they had their own way of paying homage to their God. The vanitas paintings, for instance. I'm actually rather fond of those.”

“You believe in God, Angel Eyes?”

“Now what kind of person would I be if I did?

“.. someone like me.”

Now that surprises me, for someone in our profession. But then he’d hardly be the first. I reach for some way to smooth over what may well be a misstep.

“Facilis descensus Averni. It means, the descent to hell is easier than it looks,” I tilt my head carefully at the image, “But don’t think I’m holding that against you. It takes all kinds of madness to do the work we do.”

“Yeah.”

He stays mostly quiet as we wander through the room full of religious depictions. Something in the indulgent piety of word made -- not flesh, but very nearly, hangs on his cheeks. But it’s as I expected, he’s a good companion, for a practice such as this. One which begets moments of simple, observant contemplation.

We pass through the final room on the Italian Baroque. It’s pleasant-- more so than I bargained. I’m even considering whether we should take a trip someday -- it’s not as if I haven’t taken work in Europe before. Never particularly enjoyed it then, but perhaps with company, someone’s eyes at my back--

I tear my gaze away from Medusa’s shriek and bloody neck, following Manco along the last few paintings.

A frown plays on his lips when we reach the gory Gentileschi next to the primly murderous Judith that Caravaggio envisioned. Of course, Caravaggio had no understanding of the rage and violence women are equally capable of.

I put a finger to my lips, counting myself lucky that I was taught so thoroughly not to make such a dire miscalculation. Thanking my mentor yet again.

Manco glaces to me as if a question lies on his lips, but says nothing.

“Shall I show you a vanitas? Memory serves there’s one in the permanent exhibition.”

He nods gently, following in my footfalls now. Yes, this I dearly suspect I could get used to. Tempus fugit, amor manet, is that how the proverb goes?

At least even now it seems no less naive to me than it did four months prior. But this is dangerous territory. With a few months more, who knows what risks I might take on, what carelessness may accidentally set him in the sights of a Remington 700 much the same as my own.

Ulula cum lupis, cum quibus esse cupis. I always liked that one, and he’s got the teeth to already call himself a wolf. Perhaps one lacking in some bite, but there’s something I trust in that implicitly.

Maledizione, now that sounds like my patron.

We pass down the tiled steps to the painting I’ve spent a fair amount of time on my other visit studying, “Willem Claesz Heda. Simply titled Still Life.”

His brow furrows in a way I didn’t quite expect, looking at the beautifully rendered glass, the yellow fruit. The knives driven in to piles of acorns and oysters, all life is but vanity. A sentiment I agree with on some days -- though the moralizing implication that the vanities are but distractions from the next life I find bitter and distasteful as Heda’s rotting lemon peel.

He surprises me, walking away without saying a word. But perhaps that’s its own message. Or perhaps he felt the image spoke all it needed to.

I find him studying a piece by Luce, Le Retour de l'Enfant Prodigue. Muted brown impressionism, quite a contrast from the featured exhibition. I join him, glancing once over my shoulder.

“This one. Return of the Prodigal Son. I’ve always found hard to look at. The idea of offering one’s neck in that particular way -- it unsettles me, I suppose.”

“And to a father,” he says, casting a sidelong glance at me.

“I suppose, yes,” I’d told him that story so early, cloaked in fable, hardly expecting it to amount to much. And yet, even then -- he’s the first of my metier that I’d trust as company in so pedestrian, yet vulnerable an activity as going to see a film.

How quickly things got out of my hands.

“Shall we retire to dinner?” I offer no further thoughts on the Luce. As he was with the Heda, perhaps, the image has struck me in ways I hadn’t expected.

“Yeah.”

He takes a quiet, rueful pleasure in smoking over dinner. I choose someplace suitably New Mexican, soft tortillas and sopapillas. As much as eating in public settings can be unsettling, it remains important to have as many traceable alibis as possible, after a job. But even this normally burdensome practice is -- easier, in his company.

I consider this information carefully, when we settle back in to the hotel room on the outskirts of town. Is this what might be named as love? I suppose it would have to be -- but part of me suspects that isn’t what gives me comfort.

My gloves catch on the chain turning the bedside light on, with Manco settling into the chair in the corner, finishing a cigarillo. I draw the curtains shut, still thinking over that question in so many words, Latin, English, Italian, Spanish -- yet what sticks is an image. Impressionistic browns. Luce.

“Will you -- stay where you are,” I don’t end it as a question, but he still nods in deference. Slowly, I kneel at his feet, chest almost touching his knees. My knife-sharp senses are prickling, then practically screaming as I hold my breath, lower my cheek to his thigh.

I breathe out. There’s nothing close by I could snatch to do any kind of damage. Nothing to defend me. I hear him swallow, shift slightly.

“I’m going to -- can I put my hand--”

I half-nod distantly, not fully knowing what he’s asking until his fingers are nestled in my hair. That’s calming, in much the same way his presence was over dinner. Love, yes -- but -- it means a great deal more, to have someone who I against all odds have come to trust rather intimately.

He slowly moves his hand to where my arm is draped over the chair. A strange thing, that I allowed myself such utter vulnerability in this anonymous hotel room. No way to revisit this scene but for the unreliable particulars of memory. I keep my eyes open, sifting through the exact sensation of his calluses carding through my hair. My mind wanders to the title of the Luce, and the story it entails--

I sit up too quickly-- quickly enough that it would have been dangerous, had our positions been reversed. But he just glances downwards, eyes pooled with such concern I almost regret what I know I have to say.

“Don't mistake this as some kind of plea for forgiveness.”

He just places one hand on my chin, just as enigmatic and sly as when I met him.

“Wouldn't dream of it.”

[arts-dance]

Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337), Cappella Scrovegni a Padova, Life of Christ, Kiss of Judas

The kiss of Judas, also known (especially in art) as the Betrayal of Christ, is how Judas identified Jesus to the multitude with swords and clubs who had come from the chief priests and elders of the people to arrest him, according to the Synoptic Gospels. The kiss is given by Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane after the Last Supper and leads directly to the arrest of Jesus by the police force of the Sanhedrin.

Within the life of Jesus in the New Testament, the events of his identification to hostile forces and subsequent execution are directly foreshadowed both when Jesus predicts his betrayal and Jesus predicts his death.

More broadly, a Judas kiss may refer to "an act appearing to be an act of friendship, which is in fact harmful to the recipient".[1]

In art

The scene is nearly always included, either as the Kiss itself, or the moment after, in the Arrest of Jesus, or the two combined (as above), in the cycles of the Life of Christ or Passion of Jesus in various media.

Probably the best known is from Giotto's cycle in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua.

There is also a version called The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio or one of his disciples.[10]

A  sixth-century Byzantine Mosaic in Ravenna.

A fresco by Barna da Siena.

A sculpture representing the Kiss of Judas appears on the Passion façade of the Sagrada Família basilica in Barcelona.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_of_Judas

The Kiss of Judas by Lee M. Jefferson https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/people/related-articles/kiss-of-judas

[twdmusicboxmystery]

The Clock in 5x03 and Why It’s Finally Making Perfect Sense

aOkay, this is kinda crazy guys. A lot of it can be attributed to @wdway and M-Nonny from my FB group.

So let’s take a stroll down memory lane to episode 5x03. This episode, Four Walls and a Roof, is the one where TF kills the Termites and Bob dies. I mentioned in re-watches (X) that the clock in the background points to episode 8x08. 

I had theorized that perhaps that pointed to something Bethish in episode 8x08 (another argument for her showing up in the MSF). I hoped it would be a Sasha thing. Like that 8x08 would finally give us the missing stuff after Coda and fulfill the Sasha/Tyreese theory. We’re realizing now, it actually has more to do with Bob, who was a bit of a Beth proxy himself.

See, in this episode, Bob died….from a walker bite.

Putting Beth aside for a minute, I don’t think we can get away from that parallel. The clock in the episode where one major character (Bob) dies from a walker bite, points to another episode where an even bigger character (Carl) is dying from one too.

But think about that. Why is it so significant to point to Carl’s bite with Bob’s death? Why use this scene, more than three seasons before Carl is bitten? It can’t just be about the bite itself, because there is another main character in the interim: Tyreese. This clock in 5x03 bypasses Ty’s death and points to Carl’s. Why?

Well, by itself, the clock offers no explanation. Time to take other symbols in this scene into account.

M-Nonny was examining this scene recently, after finding out Carl is dying, and she noticed something very interesting. This:

It appears to be an egg. A gray egg sitting INSIDE THE BIBLE. The bible’s page has fallen over it. Probably just a paper weight, but that’s huge guys! We’ve established many times over that eggs, especially Easter eggs are a resurrection symbol. (See this article.) On top of that, it’s inside a bible, and sitting next to a cross, that looks strikingly similar to the one Beth wore around her wrist when she was shot. 

So we have a character dying from a walker bite, Bob and Sasha talking about what good comes out of that bad, resurrection symbols, and a clock pointing at 8x08.

(Quick note: I know I’ll get people asking if that doesn’t show that Carl, who’s bite is revealed in 8x08, will be resurrected. I get why you might interpret it that way. Indeed, it really COULD be interpreted that way. But watch the new promo for 8b. Carl really isn’t living, guys. Sorry. It sucks, but it’s obvious that he’s succumbing to the fever (not immune or he wouldn’t have symptoms at all). And AMC has confirmed that episode 9 will contain his last moments.)

So here’s how I’m interpreting this: These symbols show that the death by walker bite in 8x08 will lead to a resurrection. And that’s exactly what I’ve been saying all season: something about Carl’s death will lead to Beth’s return.

But…I’m gonna take it even further. Because I thought a lot about Tyreese while hashing this out. It’s not a coincidence that he, too, died from a walker bite. Not at all. His death episode isn’t referenced in this scene with Bob, but that’s because Beth’s resurrection didn’t come during or directly after 5x09.

So think of it this way. Bob’s death episode served as a foreshadow. It foreshadowed that after the death of a major character by walker bite (Carl) there would be a major resurrection.

(Also recall that the NEXT episode is Slabtown. It’s so on-the-nose, I can’t believe we never saw it before. The last 5 minues of 5x03, we saw these symbols. Then saw Ty and Rick bury Bob and Sasha by his grave. The first five minutes of the NEXT episode is Beth’s eyes fluttering open.)

Then the next walker bite came in 5x09 with Tyreese. 

That’s part of this symbolism too. Because in 5x08, we had Beth’s “death.” And in the very next episode, we had ALL KINDS of resurrection symbols…and Tyreese dying of a walker bite. We’ve read tons of stuff into 5x09 (see HERE). Remember there were 8s in the background, clocks on their sides, Beth looking at 5:10 clocks, skeletons (death) and suns (life/resurrection), train tracks, slide shows, etc. I could really go on and on and on about how this all connects to Carl’s death and season 8.

The short of it is that we had a suggestion of death, but not actual death, in the MSF, and things pointing toward resurrection when a major character (Tyreese/Carl) dies from a walker bite.

The slide show of death was seen in 5x09, and Michonne said the thing about it being Carl’s show in 8x01. Now he’s dying of a walker bite.

I’m even thinking about the whole “You have to pay the bill” theme in Ty’s death episode. Most of us assumed that referred to Tyreese himself. He died but Beth lived. He paid with his life so she could live. I don’t think this referred to him anymore. Carl is the payment. He’ll pay the price so Beth can return. That’s why the hat fell off his head in 4x16 and was put on hers.

See how I’m totally falling down the rabbit hole with this?

Some other possible connections:

@wdway reminded me of Karen’s “rock paper scissors” bracelet. We’ve connected it to other things as well (Rock in the Road Theory, which now makes the rock in that story something of a resurrection symbol, paper = Beth’s diary, Scissors = one she stabbed Dawn with).

But think of it this way. In this scene, we have a rock (Rock) inside a paper of the bible (Paper) and the cross which mirrors Beth’s bracelet when she stabbed Dawn and was shot. Once again: Christ symbol, death, resurrection.

We saw that bracelet on Karen, specifically after her body had been burned (We ain’t ashes) and that was a major part of the walker side-by-side theme: (X).

See how much is here? Gimple is a freaking genius!

In the Christ story, when his followers returned to the tomb after three days (3 seasons perhaps) the STONE was rolled away, and Christ’s body was gone. (Kinda like what we think happened with Beth.)

There’s also the “rock in the road” Daryl found in S4: Green jasper. 

@wdway did some research and found that the jasper of the old testament (such as in Aaron’s breastplate—again, Old Testament religious stuff; I don’t mean TWD Aaron) was actually pure white, like crystal. Again, the cross on the table is white and crystal-like. So this also may be a super-subtle reference to Daryl’s green stone in S4.

We could also link the rock symbol to Peter, in terms of biblical symbolism. In the bible, Peter was the “rock” on which Christ built his church. At Grady, Edwards named himself Peter and of course we saw the Caravaggio painting. So the rock symbol can be linked directly bback to Beth, Edwards, and Grady as well. 

There’s a picture in the background and we can’t tell what it is. We’re thinking it may have been created for TWD (not a real painting) but if anyone knows different, please let us know. At first, I thought it might be people taking Christ down off the cross. It may be. It’s obviously very unclear. That would just put more evidence toward a crucifixion and what happened to Christ’s body afterward. And the fact that we didn’t see what happened to Beth’s.

But @wdway thinks what we’re seeing is some cardinals, and power passing from one pope to another.  I’m cool with either one. And honestly, that idea is better than mine for purposes of this post. Why? Because the only way for power to pass from one pope to another in the church is for that pope to die. Carl is the sheriff. So for a “new sheriff” to “come to power” so to speak…the first one would have to die, right? 

So if she’s right, it shows specifically that one in power (sheriff Carl) will be dying in conjunction with these other symbols, and then a new one (new sheriff in town, Beth) will take over. Just saying.

Then there’s this: 

Ahem.

Queen of diamonds, anyone?

And remember that when Daryl first enters this church in 5x02, he stares at a depiction of the Last Supper. That’s only important because it points even more to the life of Christ and the symbolism inherent in it. The last supper was right before his crucifixion. 5x02 was not long before Beth’s “crucifixion” in 5x08, but more importantly, it reinforces what all these other symbols mean.

In fact, there are a TON of symbols they see in FG’s church in 5x02 we could relate to this, but I’ll let you all go re-watch and do that on your own.

In S5, it was a new person, a “stranger” that led to Bob being bitten. In that case, Father Gabriel. And he didn’t really know how to survive on his own at the time. With Tyreese, you could say the same of Noah. 

He was the new guy to TF, the “stranger” who was weak and couldn’t survive on his own. Him joining TF led to Ty being bitten. Now in S8, the stranger, Siddiq, led to Carl being bitten. Another parallel.

Finally, I’m sort of wondering if we could connect this to the St. Nicholas/Pickle story. Remember that three boys died and St. Nicholas resurrected them. I’d have to think about the details more. But here, in true TWD fashion, we have three boys (Bob, Tyreese, Carl) dying from walker bites. Time for St. Nick to show up and perform a resurrection, yeah?

I’ve thought about this a lot the past few days. In the entire history of the show, we’ve only had three characters that I can think of who were bitten by a walker and then succumbed to the fever: Bob, Tyreese, and now Carl. Well, maybe four. Others have been bitten or something similar, but it’s always played out differently.

In S1, there was Jim. He’s the possible fourth I mentioned. It was somewhat different with him because we didn’t actually SEE him succumb to the fever, but we have to assume he did. Dale wasn’t bitten by a walker, even though he did die by one. He was more…torn apart by it. Sophia was bitten as well, but as with Jim, we didn’t see her die. She disappeared entirely, and then reappeared as a walker. Merle and Shane both appeared as walkers, but they didn’t die from bites. (Merle by gun, Shane by knife.) Andrea was closer. She was bitten and we saw her with the fever, but even she didn’t wait for the fever to take her. She took her own life first.

So I get that these are subtle difference and maybe I’m splitting hairs. But again, these are the only three characters we’ve seen bitten, and then watched them to the very end, as they succumbed to the fever. That’s not an accident.

So we’ve always assumed the weirdness of Tyreese’s death episode was to emphasize the weirdness of Beth’s disappearance. Like that they gave Ty this huge send-off/death episode as a clue to Beth not being dead because she didn’t get that. And I’m sure that’s true. That’s part of it. But now, seeing these parallels leap-frogging through seasons, it’s a lot more than that.

The weirdness of Ty’s death was to show that another walker-bitten character would “pay the bill” and only after that would Beth return. And maybe these are the three deaths (in true TWD style) that had to happen to fulfill the Santa Clause symbolism. Daryl will get his gift from Santa Clause only after the three boys’ deaths.

Even three seasons later, WHAWGO (think hard about that title, guys) doesn’t make a ton of sense. It makes more to TD than to the GA, because we can see the Beth parallels, but even so. Some of it is so abstract, it’s hard to know exactly what they’re going for. Haven’t I constantly said that it will probably make more sense when Beth finally returns. We’re at the cusp of that now, and it’s all coming together.

Remember that the last thing Sasha and Bob talked about before he passed was their “good out of the bad” game. Sasha asked what was the good that would come out of Bob’s death. He died before answering. And again, the next episode, the first thing we see is Beth’s eyes fluttering open at Grady. Beth will be the good that comes out of the bad of Carl dying. That’s what this scene, in conjunction with the opening scene of Slabtown was trying to tell us.

And one other thing? 5x03, Four Walls and a Roof, was written by Angela Kang (and Corey Reed). Juuust saying.

[romancatholicreflections]

11th March >> Fr, Martin’s Gospel Reflections on John 3:14-21 for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle B: ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only Son’. Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle B Gospel (Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia & Canada) John 3:14-21 God sent his Son so that through him the world might be saved Jesus said to Nicodemus: ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved. No one who believes in him will be condemned; but whoever refuses to believe is condemned already, because he has refused to believe in the name of God’s only Son. On these grounds is sentence pronounced: that though the light has come into the world men have shown they prefer darkness to the light because their deeds were evil. And indeed, everybody who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, for fear his actions should be exposed; but the man who lives by the truth comes out into the light, so that it may be plainly seen that what he does is done in God.’ Gospel (USA) John 3:14–21 God sent his Son so that the world might be saved through him. Jesus said to Nicodemus: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God. Reflections (3) (i) Fourth Sunday of Lent We have become very aware in recent weeks of how much longer the days are getting. We are half way through the month of March and already it is bright up until after six o’clock. We have even brighter days to look forward to, especially as the clock goes forward next weekend. The brighter evenings brings everybody out. With the increase in light, there is also an increase in growth. The first blossoms of spring have already come out. Nature is coming to life after a time of hibernation. The gospel reading this morning is in keeping with what is happening in nature. It declares that ‘light has come into the world’. The light there is a reference to the light of God that has come into the world through Jesus. Both the second reading and the gospel reading make clear that the light of God is the light of love. The second reading declares that God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy; it speaks of God’s goodness towards us in Christ, the infiniteness richness of God’s grace in Christ. The gospel reading declares that God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son. In the light that Jesus brings from God we find mercy, compassion, great love, kindness, infinite grace. Sometimes we don’t like too much light. There is a certain kind of light that can expose us mercilessly, like the light of the interrogator’s lamp. However, Jesus brings a light that need hold no fear for us; it is a divine light that lifts us up, just as the Son of Man was lifted up, in the words of the gospel reading. Here is a light that assures us of our worth and that helps us to see the goodness that is within us and the good that we are capable of doing. It is a light that, in the words of the second reading, allows us to recognize that ‘we are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live a good life’. It is the light of a love that shines upon us regardless of what we have done or failed to do. As the first reading reminds us, God’s grace, God’s love, comes to us not on the basis of anything we have done. It is not something we earn by our efforts; it comes to us as a pure gift. When God gave his Son to the world, did not ask whether the world was worthy of his Son or whether the world was ready for his Son. Even when the world crucified God’s Son, God did not take back his Son from the world. Rather, God continued to give his Son to the world, raising him from the dead and sending him back into the world through the Holy Spirit, through the church. Here is a light that shines in the darkness and that the darkness cannot overcome, in the words of the gospel of John. We all long for that kind of light, a light that is strong and enduring, a light that can be found at the heart of darkness and that is more resilient than darkness. We have all experienced darkness in one shape or form. It may be the darkness of sickness, or of the death of a loved one or the darkness of failure; we may struggle from time to time with the darkness of depression, with those dark demons that tell us that we are worthless and that life is not worth living. Something of that darkness of spirit finds expression in today’s responsorial psalm. It was composed from the darkness of exile in Babylon. ‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, remembering Zion’. We may have known our own experiences of exile in its various forms, times when we felt cut off from what gives meaning and purpose to our lives. The readings this morning assure us that in all those forms of darkness, a light shines - the light of God’s enduring love that is constantly at work in our lives so that we may have life and have it to the full. In the words of the gospel reading again, ‘God gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him… may have eternal life’. Even though this wonderful light has come into the world and wants to shine upon us all, we can be reluctant to step into that light, and allow it to shine upon us. In the words of the gospel reading, ‘though the light has come into the world, people have shown that they prefer darkness to the light’. This is the mysterious capacity of human freedom to reject the light, to turn away from a faultless love and a boundless mercy. Yet, our coming to the light is often a gradual process; it can happen slowly, at our own pace. The Lord is always prepared to wait on us; he waits for our free response. We are not used to a love that is as generous, as merciful, as rich in grace and goodness as God’s love; it takes us time to receive it, to believe in it, to embrace it. Receiving God’s love and then living out of that gift is the calling and task of a life time. And/Or (ii) Fourth Sunday of Lent A painting hung for many years on a dinning room wall in the Jesuit house on Lesson Street. No one paid much attention to it until one day someone with a keen eye realized that this could be something of great value. It was further investigated by art experts, and it turned out that this painting was the work of the great Italian artist Caravaggio. The painting of the arrest of Jesus is now hangs one of the National Gallery’s great treasures. All those years it hung in the dining room of Lesson Street it was no less a treasure, but its value went unrecognized. It hung there waiting to be discovered, waiting for someone to recognize its true value as a work of art. According to the particular translation of the letter to the Ephesians we read from this evening, we are all ‘God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life’. We don’t tend to think of ourselves as works of art. Yet, like the person who spotted the painting in Lesson Street, God knows our true worth, our true value. We are works of art to God; we are of great worth and value in God’s sight. We can all think of people in our own lives whom we value greatly, whose worth to us is beyond price, because to us they are works of art. Today is Mother’s day, and most of us think of our mothers in that way, whether they are still living or are with the Lord. When someone is a treasure to us, we don’t count the cost in their regard. We will do anything we can for them. We will travel long distances to see them; we will stay up half the night to be with them if they are ill; we will protect them with all our passion when necessary. How we relate to those we value and treasure is not determined so much by how they relate to us. Even if they do something that annoys us, we tend to make all kinds of allowances for them. We say something like, ‘that’s just the way he/she is’. Their worth in our eyes is rooted in something deeper than what they do or fail to do. We value them, simply, for who they are. Our experience of how we relate to those we value, and of how people who value us relate to us, gives us a glimpse of how God relates to us. God loves us in a way that does not count the cost. The gospel reading today expresses that truth very simply: ‘God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son’. God sent his Son out of love for us and that sending became a giving when his Son was put to death on a cross. Here was a love that did not count the cost, a sending that became a costly giving when that was called for. As Paul says in the second reading, ‘God loved us so much that he was generous with his mercy’. We are of such value in God’s eyes that God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up to benefit us all. It is not surprising that the cross has become the dominant symbol of Christianity. This is not because we glorify suffering in any way, but because we recognise that the cross is a powerful sign of how much God values us, how precious we are in God’s sight; it shows the extent to which God is prepared to go to express love for us. Our love for those we value is bestowed on them for who they are more than for what they do. The same is true of God’s love for us in Christ. As Paul says in the second reading, ‘it is not based on anything you have done’. Some of us find it difficult to really believe that. We find ourselves asking, ‘how I done enough?’ Yet, when it comes to someone in our lives whom we know truly loves us, we would never think of asking them, ‘Have I done enough?’ Why should we ask such a question of God, when even the greatest of human love is only gives us a glimpse of God’s love? God loves us for who we are, people made in the image of God’s Son, and, to that extent, works of art. What God asks of us is that we receive God’s love revealed and made present in Christ, or, in the words of the gospel reading today, that we come into the light. The light of God’s love falls upon us, but we can hide from it. Children fear the darkness very often. But as adults we often fear the light, because we suspect that the light will expose us in some way. Yet, the light of God is not a harsh light, the kind of light that is trained on a suspect in an interrogation room. It is a strong, yet warm, light that brings healing and generates new life. It is an empowering light that enables us to ‘live the good life’, as Paul says in the second reading, ‘to do good works’. As the hours of day light are increasing in these days, we pray that the life-giving light of God’s love would renew us and fill us with a new desire to serve him. And/Or (iii) Fourth Sunday of Lent Children are often afraid of the dark, as the parents here in the church will know. A dim light is sometimes left on while children sleep, so that if they wake up it is not in pitch darkness. Many of us as adults find total darkness disconcerting too. Those of us who live in cities never really experience total darkness. It is different out in the country away from villages, towns and cities. I remember going on a holiday as a young person to the Arran Islands and being struck by just how dark it was at night. There was very little in the way of artificial light to dispel the darkness. The experience of near total darkness after night fell was disconcerting. Although most of us would claim to prefer light to darkness, in today’s gospel reading Jesus declares that some people ‘have shown they prefer darkness to the light because their deeds were evil’. Most crime is committed during the hours of darkness. Those who are intent on doing wrong are drawn to darkness because it provides them with cover. As today’s gospel states: ‘Everyone who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, for fear his actions should be exposed’. One of the many security measures that have become popular in recent years is an array of bright lights that come on at night whenever anyone steps into an area that is out of bounds. Light is considered, with good reason, to be a deterrent to the person who is intent on committing crime. Indeed, there is a sense in which we all fear too much light just as we do too much darkness. Many of us prefer to stay in the background, in the shadows; we don’t like the spotlight being shone on us. We all have secrets that we would wish to remain in darkness, away from the bright lights that human curiosity and inquiry might like to shine on them. There are aspects of our lives that we would prefer to remain in darkness because we are not sure how people might respond to us if a bright light were to be shone on them. We only bring our deepest selves out into the light in the presence of those we really trust. The gospel of John frequently refers to Jesus as light. On one occasion, Jesus says of himself: ‘I am the light of the world’. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus says with reference to himself: ‘Light has come into the world’. The gospel reading also declares that the light that has come into the world in the person of Jesus is the light of God’s love. In one of the most memorable statements of the New Testament, the gospel reading declares, ‘God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him… may have eternal life’. The light of Jesus is not the probing light of the grand inquisitor that seeks out failure and transgression with a view to condemnation. Indeed, the gospel reading states that God ‘sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world’. The light of Jesus, rather, is the inviting light of God’s love, calling out to us to come and to allow ourselves to be bathed in this light, and promising those who do so that they will share in God’s own life, both here and now and also beyond death. At the beginning of today’s gospel reading, Jesus speaks of himself as the Son of Man who must be lifted up. It was on the cross that Jesus was lifted up, and it was above all at that moment that the light of God’s love shone most brightly. It is a paradox that those who attempted to extinguish God’s light shining in Jesus only succeeded in making that light of love shine all the more brightly. God’s gift of his Son to us was not in any way thwarted by the rejection of his Son. God’s giving continued as Jesus was lifted up to die, and God’s giving found further expression when God raised his Son from the dead and gave him to us as risen Lord. Here indeed is a light that darkness cannot overcome, a love that human sin cannot extinguish. This is the core of the gospel. This is why the fourth Sunday of Lent is known as Guadete Sunday, Rejoice Sunday. When we are going through a difficult experience and darkness seems to envelope us, it can be tempting to think that we will never see the light again. This is the mood that is captured in today’s responsorial psalm: ‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept’. Today’s readings assure us that there is a light that shines in the darkness and that the darkness will not overcome, a light that heals and restores, in the words of today’s second reading, a light that brings us to life with Christ and raises us up with him. It shines in a special way whenever we celebrate the Eucharist. As we gather around the table of the word and the table of the Eucharist, the light of God’s love revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus shines upon whatever darkness we may be struggling with in our lives. Fr. Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, D03 AO62, Ireland. Email: sjtbclontarf@eircom.net or frmartinhogan@gmail.com Parish Website: www.stjohnsclontarf.ie Please join us via our webcam. Twitter: @SJtBClontarfRC. Facebook: St John the Baptist RC Parish, Clontarf. Tumblr: Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin.

[frmartinshomiliesandreflections]

8th July >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Matthew 10:1-7 for Wednesday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time: ‘Jesus summoned his Twelve disciples’.

Wednesday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia & Canada)

Matthew 10:1-7

'Go to the lost sheep of the House of Israel'

Jesus summoned his twelve disciples, and gave them authority over unclean spirits with power to cast them out and to cure all kinds of diseases and sickness.

These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, the one who was to betray him. These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them as follows:

‘Do not turn your steps to pagan territory, and do not enter any Samaritan town; go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. And as you go, proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.’

Gospel (USA)

Matthew 10:1-7

Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Jesus summoned his Twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. The names of the Twelve Apostles are these: first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus; Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus.

Jesus sent out these Twelve after instructing them thus, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’“

Reflections (2)

(i) Wednesday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus has been gathering a growing number of disciples since the beginning of his public ministry. According to today’s gospel reading, from this larger group Jesus called twelve to whom he gave authority and power to share in his healing ministry. The number twelve was significant; it is a reminder of the twelve tribes of Israel. This group of twelve were to symbolize the renewed Israel that Jesus was working to form. Jesus chose these twelve very deliberately. They were to receive intensive training and instruction so as to share in his ministry in a special way. Yet, by the end of the gospel, everyone of this group had deserted him, the first mentioned of the group, Peter, had denied him publicly, and the last mentioned, Judas Iscariot, had betrayed him to his enemies. In spite of the fact that these twelve had been given special authority and power and had spent more time in his company than others, listening to him and seeing what he did, they failed him when the cross came into view. They were not faithful to their calling. In the words of today’s first reading, their hearts were divided. Although Jesus calls people, calls each one of us, he cannot force us to respond to his call. Although he has a purpose for our lives, he is somewhat helpless before our refusal to co-operate with his purpose for us. Yet, in the gospel story, the failure of the twelve was not the end of their relationship with Jesus. After he rose from the dead, he appeared to them in Galilee and renewed his relationship with them, sending them out to preach the gospel to all nations. The Lord may be helpless before our failure but he remains faithful to us in spite of our unfaithfulness to him and he is always at work to bring some good out of our failures. All he asks is that, in the words of today’s first reading, we continue to ‘go seeking the Lord’.

And/Or

(ii) Wednesday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

All of the gospels make reference to the twelve disciples that Jesus chose from among the wider group of disciples. They were called to share in his ministry in a special way. They had privileged access to Jesus; they were given much and much was expected of them. When the gospel writers name the twelve and when they come to Judas Iscariot they always refer to him as ‘the one who was to betray him’. They were, of course, writing from hindsight. They knew that one of this privileged group, one of the twelve, went on to betray Jesus to the religious authorities who, in turn, handed him over to the political authorities as a threat to the peace. The gospel writers don’t try to gloss over the stark reality that one of those specially chosen by Jesus went on to betray him. In the National Art Gallery of Dublin there is a wonderful painting by Caravaggio of the moment of Judas’s betrayal of Jesus and the resulting arrest, the ‘taking of Christ’ as it is called. This moment in the gospel story has inspired many artists and writers. The story of Judas reminds us that Jesus’ choice of us does not automatically mean our choice of him. Our baptismal calling is to keep on choosing the Lord who has chosen us. Each day we need to commit ourselves to him and to his way, as he committed himself to us forever by his life, death and resurrection.