Seen and Unseen: The late Pope Francis was right – Antoni Gaudi truly was God’s architect

My latest article for Seen and Unseen is entitled 'The late Pope Francis was right – Antoni Gaudi truly was God’s architect' and explores how sanctity can indeed be found amongst scaffolding, as Gaudi’s Barcelona beauties amply demonstrate:

'In welcoming the news that Gaudí had been declared Venerable, Cardinal Juan José Omella, Archbishop of Barcelona, said “It is a recognition not only of his architectural work but something more important.” He continued: “He is saying you... amid life's difficulties, amid work, amid pain, amid suffering, are destined to be saints.” Ultimately, he notes, “Gaudí’s life and work show us how beauty and holiness can transform the world” as they include the “recognition that sanctity can be found amid scaffolding, suffering, sublime obsession.”'

For more on Antoni Gaudí see here and here. 

My first article for Seen and Unseen was 'Life is more important than art' which reviews the themes of recent art exhibitions that tackle life’s big questions and the roles creators take.

My second article 'Corinne Bailey Rae’s energised and anguished creative journey' explores inspirations in Detroit, Leeds and Ethiopia for Corinne Bailey Rae’s latest album, Black Rainbows, which is an atlas of capacious faith.

My third article was an interview with musician and priest Rev Simpkins in which we discussed how music is an expression of humanity and his faith.

My fourth article was a guide to the Christmas season’s art, past and present. Traditionally at this time of year “great art comes tumbling through your letterbox” so, in this article, I explore the historic and contemporary art of Christmas.

My fifth article was 'Finding the human amid the wreckage of migration'. In this article I interviewed Shezad Dawood about his multimedia Leviathan exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral where personal objects recovered from ocean depths tell a story of modern and ancient migrations.

My sixth article was 'The visionary artists finding heaven down here' in which I explored a tradition of visionary artists whose works shed light on the material and spiritual worlds.

My seventh article was 'How the incomer’s eye sees identity' in which I explain how curating an exhibition for Ben Uri Online gave me the chance to highlight synergies between ancient texts and current issues.

My eighth article was 'Infernal rebellion and the questions it asks' in which I interview the author Nicholas Papadopulos about his book The Infernal Word: Notes from a Rebel Angel.

My ninth article was 'A day, night and dawn with Nick Cave’s lyrics' in which I review Adam Steiner’s Darker With The Dawn — Nick Cave’s Songs Of Love And Death and explore whether Steiner's rappel into Cave’s art helps us understand its purpose.

My 10th article was 'Theresa Lola's poetical hope' about the death-haunted yet lyrical, joyful and moving poet for a new generation.

My 11th article was 'How to look at our world: Aaron Rosen interview', exploring themes from Rosen's book 'What Would Jesus See: Ways of Looking at a Disorienting World'.

My 12th article was 'Blake, imagination and the insight of God', exploring a new exhibition - 'William Blake's Universe at the Fitzwilliam Museum - which focuses on seekers of spiritual regeneration and national revival.

My 13th article 'Matthew Krishanu: painting childhood' was an interview with Matthew Krishanu on his exhibition 'The Bough Breaks' at Camden Art Centre.

My 14th article was entitled 'Art makes life worth living' and explored why society, and churches, need the Arts.

My 15th article was entitled 'The collective effervescence of sport's congregation' and explored some of the ways in which sport and religion have been intimately entwined throughout history

My 16th article was entitled 'Paradise cottage: Milton reimagin’d' and reviewed the ways in which artist Richard Kenton Webb is conversing with the blind poet in his former home (Milton's Cottage, Chalfont St Giles).

My 17th article was entitled 'Controversial art: how can the critic love their neighbour?'. It makes suggestions of what to do when confronted with contentious culture.

My 18th article was an interview entitled 'Art, AI and apocalypse: Michael Takeo Magruder addresses our fears and questions'. In the interview the digital artist talks about the possibilities and challenges of artificial intelligence.

My 19th article was entitled 'Dark, sweet and subtle: recovered music orientates us'. In the article I highlight alt-folk music seeking inspiration from forgotten hymns.

My 20th article was entitled 'Revisiting Amazing Grace inspires new songs'. In the article I highlight folk musicians capturing both the barbaric and the beautiful in the hymn Amazing Grace and Christianity's entanglement with the transatlantic slave trade more generally.

My 21st article was entitled 'James MacMillan’s music of tranquility and discord'. In the article I noted that the composer’s music contends both the secular and sacred.

My 22nd article was a book review on Nobody's Empire by Stuart Murdoch. 'Nobody's Empire: A Novel is the fictionalised account of how ... Murdoch, lead singer of indie band Belle and Sebastian, transfigured his experience of Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME) through faith and music.'

My 23rd article was entitled 'Rock ‘n’ roll’s long dance with religion'. The article explores how popular music conjures sacred space.

My 24th article was an interview with Alastair Gordon on the artist’s attention which explores why the overlooked and everyday capture the creative gaze.

My 25th article was about Stanley Spencer’s seen and unseen world and the artist’s child-like sense of wonder as he saw heaven everywhere.

My 26th article was entitled 'The biblical undercurrent that the Bob Dylan biopics missed' and in it I argue that the best of Dylan’s work is a contemporary Pilgrim, Dante or Rimbaud on a compassionate journey.

My 27th article was entitled 'Heading Home: a pilgrimage that breaks out beauty along the way' and focuses on a film called 'Heading Home' which explores how we can learn a new language together as we travel.

My 28th article was entitled 'Annie Caldwell: “My family is my band”' and showcased a force of nature voice that comes from the soul.

My 29th article was entitled 'Why sculpt the face of Christ?' and explored how, in Nic Fiddian Green’s work, we feel pain, strength, fear and wisdom.

My 30th article was entitled 'How Mumford and friends explore life's instability' and explored how Mumford and Sons, together with similar bands, commune on fallibility, fear, grace, and love.

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Iain Archer - The Acrobet.

Antoni Gaudí: The Venerable mystic master of Catalan Modernism

The Vatican recently announced that the mystic master of Catalan Modernism, Antoni Gaudí, long known as “God’s architect,” has officially been declared Venerable by the late Pope Francis, the first formal recognition of his “heroic virtues” by the Catholic Church. This decree nudges the visionary designer of Barcelona’s Sagrada Família closer to sainthood—a campaign in the making for over two decades.

Following a visit to Barcelona to see many of Gaudí's buildings, I wrote two pieces for ArtWay about him. See here and here:

"Gaudí is the great sculptor who utilises natural form in his work both for utilitarian and aesthetic reasons. He described nature as ‘the Great Book, always open, that we should force ourselves to read’ and, as [Robert] Hughes recognised, thought that ‘everything structural or ornamental that an architect might imagine was already prefigured in natural form, in limestone grottoes or dry bones, in a beetle's shining wing case or the thrust of an ancient olive trunk.’

As a result first and overall impressions of his work are ones of exuberance and abundance characterised by the sinuous, sensuous curves and colours of his works. Whether we are encountering the shifting sea-like blues of the Casa Batlló, the abstract collage of the wave-like trencadis bench at Park Güell or the whirlpool-like undulations on the ceiling at Casa Milà, Gaudí's work possesses an ecstatic sense of natural beauty."

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The Oh Hello's - Soldier, Poet, King.

Fasting that questions our security and leads to benefit for others

Here is the sermon that I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning as part of our Eucharist for Ash Wednesday with the imposition of ashes (a second service will be held at St Mary's Runwell this evening at 8.00 pm):

Fast from hurting words and say kind words.
Fast from sadness and be filled with gratitude.
Fast from anger and be filled with patience.
Fast from pessimism and be filled with hope.
Fast from worries and have trust in God.
Fast from complaints; contemplate simplicity.
Fast from pressures and be prayerful.
Fast from bitterness; fill your hearts with joy.
Fast from selfishness and be compassionate.
Fast from grudges and be reconciled.
Fast from words be silent and listen.

These are words that have been attributed to Pope Francis, although the source for these words has yet to be fully established. Nevertheless, Pope Francis has made similar or equivalent comments.

He says first of all that: ‘We must be careful not to practice a formal fast, or one which in truth “satisfies” us because it makes us feel good about ourselves. Fasting makes sense if it questions our security, and if it also leads to some benefit for others, if it helps us to cultivate the style of the Good Samaritan, who bends down to his brother in need and takes care of him. Fasting involves choosing a sober lifestyle; a way of life that does not waste, a way of life that does not “throw away”. Fasting helps us to attune our hearts to the essential and to sharing. It is a sign of awareness and responsibility in the face of injustice, abuse, especially to the poor and the little ones, and it is a sign of the trust we place in God and in his providence.’

In saying this he was following the teaching of his predecessors, Paul VI, in his 1973 Message for Lent, said that Lent is a time of renunciation and penance but is also “a time of communion and solidarity”. As a result, invited us to listen to the exhortations of the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 58: 1-12): “This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: … sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own.” Such exhortations, noted Pope Paul, “echo the anxieties of the people of today,” and thus, “each individual truly shares in the sufferings and misery of all.”

Pope Francis also says that we fast and do penance: ‘in order to free ourselves from dependencies regarding what is passing, and to train ourselves to be more sensitive and merciful. It is an invitation to simplicity and to sharing: to take something from our table and from our assets in order to once again find the true benefit of freedom.’ As a result, ‘Fasting reunites us to ourselves. Lent invites us to look inside our heart, with fasting, which frees us from attachment to things and from the worldliness that numbs the heart.’

‘Fasting is not a diet. Indeed, it sets us free from the self-centred and obsessive quest of physical fitness, in order to help us to keep in shape not only our bodies but our spirit as well. Fasting makes us appreciate things for their true worth. It reminds us in a concrete way that life must not be made dependent upon the fleeting landscape of the present world. Nor should fasting be restricted to food alone. Especially in Lent, we should fast from anything that can create in us any kind of addiction. This is something each of us should reflect on, so as to fast in a way that will have an effect on our actual lives.’

These arguments and the words with which we began are sometimes criticised as we should not simply abstain from sinful behaviour for a period such as Lent, but should always seek to lay aside our sinfulness. However, that is to misunderstand what Pope Francis is advocating. His argument is that we begin to abstain from sin in Lent in order to continue throughout our lives.

Finally, Pope Francis argues that ‘Prayer, charity and fasting need to grow “in secret” (Matthew 6: 1-21), but that is not true of their effects. Prayer, charity and fasting are not medicines meant only for ourselves but for everyone: they can change history. First, because those who experience their effects almost unconsciously pass them on to others; but above all, because prayer, charity and fasting are the principal ways for God to intervene in our lives and in the world. They are weapons of the spirit and, with them, we implore from God that peace which men and women are incapable of building by themselves.’

So: Fast from hurting words and say kind words.
Fast from sadness and be filled with gratitude.
Fast from anger and be filled with patience.
Fast from pessimism and be filled with hope.
Fast from worries and have trust in God.
Fast from complaints; contemplate simplicity.
Fast from pressures and be prayerful.
Fast from bitterness; fill your hearts with joy.
Fast from selfishness and be compassionate.
Fast from grudges and be reconciled.
Fast from words be silent and listen.

This sermon uses material from: https://sites.google.com/view/popefrancishomilies/fasting and https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2023-03/the-popes-and-the-lenten-fast-training-the-will-in-good.html#:~:text=There%20are%20three%20key%20elements,example%20of%20the%20Good%20Samaritan.

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Forty Days And Forty Nights.

Paying attention: Consider the lilies

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Mary’s Runwell this morning for their Harvest Festival:

In our reading today we heard Jesus tell us that we should look at the flowers of the field. Stop and notice. In his painting called Consider the Lilies, Stanley Spencer depicts Jesus as mountainous in comparison with the daisies (not lilies) that he contemplates. Archbishop Stephen Cottrell has noted that this Jesus is playful, "huge and humble", godlike. Mark Oakley writes that ‘Whereas lilies call for attention, in church or posh hallways, daisies are overlooked, or considered problematic in our neat lawns. Jesus relishes their beauty, and, at the same time, challenges the sad fact about human beings that "when it comes to the present moment, we're not present".’ 

Cottrell then cleverly refers us to the words of Nadine Stair: ‘If I had my life to live over . . . I'd relax, I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been. . . I would do more walking and looking. . . I would pick more daisies.’

Simon Small writes that we find it difficult to do this because: ‘Our minds find paying full attention to now very difficult. This is because our minds live in time. Our thoughts are preoccupied with past and future, and the present moment is missed.’ But, he says: ‘To pay profound attention to reality is prayer, because to enter the depths of this moment is to encounter God. There is always only now. It is the only place that God can be found.’

This is very much what Jesus seems to be saying to us through his teaching on worry and anxiety as found in today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 6. 24 -34). When we are preoccupied with what might happen in the future, we are not living fully in the present and may well misunderstand or misinterpret what is actually going on. Jesus encourages us to live fully in the present because, as Simon Small says, that is where we encounter God.

When we genuinely encounter God in the here and now, we know that his love and forgiveness surround us and that his Spirit fills us. As Jesus prayed in John 17, he is in us and we are in him. When we know this in our hearts in the here and now, we can relax because whatever happens to us, we are accepted, forgiven, loved and gifted by the God who created all things and who will bring all things to their rightful end. We are held in the palm of his hands and, therefore, as Julian of Norwich put it, “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well”.

Jesus says that the more we live in the present and the more we encounter God’s love in the here and now, the less we will be anxious or worried. Prayer is able to help us do both things and therefore helps us to reduce our sense of anxiety or worry. Not because we have listed all our worries to God and believe that he will solve them all for us, but instead because, through prayer, we encounter more of God’s love and, as a result, trust that he will be with us whatever comes our way.

Harvest provides a wonderful opportunity for us to do this in relation to the natural world around us including the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. Harvest provides an ‘opportunity to reflect and give thanks for all the good things in our lives, especially the way in which the earth produces food for us to eat, to give thanks for all those who work to produce food and drink for us to enjoy, to say sorry for the times we are not grateful, that we don’t notice God’s work in the world, that we don’t look after the things God has given us.’ ‘We live in a different time from our ancestors where the harvest and bringing the harvest in would have dominated everyone’s lives’ but today we probably hardly notice it. What we can do, however, is pay attention to what is around us, whether in our gardens and parks or in our homes and town.

Pope Francis has written on the connection between care for our common home and paying attention in his encyclical Laudato Si. There, he wrote: ‘Those who enjoy more and live better each moment are those who have given up dipping here and there, always on the look-out for what they do not have. They experience what it means to appreciate each person and each thing, learning familiarity with the simplest things and how to enjoy them. So they are able to shed their unsatisfied needs, reducing their obsessiveness and weariness. Even living on little they can live a lot, above all when they cultivate other pleasures and find satisfaction in fraternal encounters, in service, in developing their gifts, in music and art, in contact with nature and in prayer.’ (Laudato Si 223)

He continues, saying, ‘No one can cultivate a sober and satisfying life without being at peace with him or herself…. Inner peace is closely related to care for ecology and for the common good because, lived out authentically, it is reflected in a balanced lifestyle together with a capacity for wonder which takes us to a deeper understanding of life. Nature is filled with words of love, but how can we listen to them amid constant noise, interminable and nerve-wracking distractions, or the cult of appearances.’ (Laudato Si 225)

He concludes, drawing on today’s Gospel reading, that: ‘We are speaking of an attitude of heart, one which approaches life with serene attentiveness, which is capable of being fully present to someone…which accepts each moment as a gift from God to be lived to the full. Jesus taught us this attitude when he invited us to contemplate the lilies of the field and the birds of the air…. He was completely present to everyone and to everything and in this way he showed us the way to overcome that unhealthy anxiety which makes us superficial, aggressive and compulsive consumers.’ (Laudato Si 226)

Pope Francis quotes Patriarch Bartholomew as saying that we should look for solutions to the climate emergency in a change of humanity: ‘He asks us to replace consumption with sacrifice, greed with generosity, wastefulness with a spirit of sharing, an asceticism which “entails learning to give, and not simply to give up. It is a way of loving, of moving gradually away from what I want to what God’s world needs. It is liberation from fear, greed and compulsion”. Bartholomew says that, ‘As Christians, we are also called “to accept the world as a sacrament of communion, as a way of sharing with God and our neighbours on a global scale. It is our humble conviction that the divine and the human meet in the slightest detail in the seamless garment of God’s creation, in the last speck of dust of our planet”.’ 

Such an attitude begins with our looking closely, attentively, at the world around us as Jesus encourages us to do in today’s Gospel reading and as Stanley Spencer shows him doing in ‘Consider the Lilies’. This Harvest, may we increasingly do the same.

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Barclay James Harvest - Hymn.

CTiW Solidarity Resources booklet

Churches Together in Westminster has prepared a Solidarity Resources booklet for churches. Here is my letter introducing the booklet to our members:

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the lives of all people across the globe. We, in the wealthy countries of the G20, need to recognise and take responsibility for the fact that our progress, quality and way of life is at the expense of the people of the least developed countries.

The coronavirus pandemic is not a great equaliser as some have claimed. This pandemic has reminded us that we are all connected, and that to be well and healthy we depend on others, and on our communities. In fact, unequal systems of power double down in a crisis.

The danger is that, even with a vaccine, for some time to come our focus in the UK will shift almost entirely to domestic issues and to our own recovery. This will not be a quick process but has already led to claims that we cannot afford to support the most vulnerable countries at the level we did before, thus casting them adrift.

Pope Francis has said, ‘We exist only in relationships: with God the Creator, with our brothers and sisters as members of a common family, and with all of God’s creatures within our common home.’ As a global Christian family we need to embody Pope Francis’ prophetic words as we unite to
pray and take action for our common home during this season of global pandemic.

Lucy Olofinjana writes for Churches Together in England & Wales that we need to:

‘Unite with Christians from all continents to ask for a coronavirus response that embraces sharing, not plundering. Learn the importance of living out Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 12, ‘If one part of the body suffers, all the other parts suffer with it; if one part is praised, all the other parts share its happiness.’ Let’s seek to make this a reality as we go about life as part of God’s family. Let’s ‘rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn’ (Romans 12:15) – being real and honest with one another, and truly being there for each other, in the good times and the bad. Because, after all, we are family.’

This resource booklet has been prepared by Churches Together in Westminster to help our members focus on those in developing countries who are suffering from the COVID-19 Pandemic. We hope we will all encourage our congregations to engage actively with Christian organisations worldwide in their work with vulnerable communities. This should surely be a part of our response to the universal gift of God that we remember and celebrate in Christmastide.

This booklet has been arranged as a series of daily readings around key themes:

• Day One Impact of coronavirus on people in fragile countries
• Day Two Health, shelter and survival
• Day Three Poverty and livelihoods
• Day Four Education and children
• Day Five Violence against women and girls, and gender inequality
• Day Six Impact on those with disabilities
• Day Seven Loss of rights and freedoms
• Day Eight Impact on peace processes and conflict

We encourage you to make the booklet available to your congregations and consider holding a Solidarity Sunday service to introduce the booklet and encourage support for the organisations listed in the booklet’s appendix. Solidarity Sunday is about reminding ourselves and each other that there is so much good we can do - through giving, through prayer and through powerful demonstrations of unity.

A celebration of solidarity organised by Farm Street Church with CTiW can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=XvJ4mE5C3AY. The service includes a sermon preached by Revd Tricia Hillas, Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons, testimony and readings from homeless guests of the Central London Catholic Churches service at Farm Street, and prayers from Churches Together in Westminster.

We hope you will organise your own Solidarity Sunday service and will be happy to provide any support, ideas or advice that would assist.

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World Day of the Poor 2020 - Churches Together in Westminster.

CTiW Advent & Solidarity Sunday services

 

Churches Together in Westminster joined together with St James Piccadilly for their annual Advent Service. This online service was organised by St James Piccadilly and led by Revd Lucy Winkett with contributions from members of the CTiW Executive Committee and the congregation of St James Piccadilly. This was a moving and challenging service which helpfully focused our thoughts on the core themes of Advent itself, rather than treating it just as preparation for Christmas.

CTiW also observed Solidarity Sunday and World Day of the Poor today to mark our commitment to those most vulnerable in the Coronavirus pandemic – and those who are responding. Solidarity Sunday is about reminding ourselves and each other that there is so much good we can do - through giving, through prayer and through powerful demonstrations of unity.

In his message for the fourth World Day of the Poor, Pope Francis wrote that ‘keeping our gaze fixed on the poor is difficult, but that it is more necessary than ever if we are to give proper direction to our personal life and the life of society. Until we revive our sense of responsibility for our neighbour and for every person, grave economic, financial and political crises will continue.’ The Pope reminds us that prayer to God and solidarity with the poor are inseparable.

This was a celebration of solidarity with a sermon preached by Revd Tricia Hillas, Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons. The service included testimony and readings from homeless guests of the Central London Catholic Churches service at Farm Street and prayers from CTiW, including Fr Dominic Robinson SJ, Revd Jonathan Evens, Revd Joan Ishibashi, Revd Dr Simon Woodman and Minister Belinda Letby. The service also included music from the Farm Street choir.

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The Choir of Farm Street Church, Mayfair - I Say We Are Wound With Mercy.

CTiW: Advent Service & Solidarity Sunday

Churches Together in Westminster Advent Service - Sunday 29 November, 6.00 pm, St James Piccadilly - on YouTube.

Churches Together in Westminster join together with St James Piccadilly for their annual Advent Service. An online service led by Revd Lucy Winkett with readings by members of the CTiW Executive Committee.

CTiW will also observe Solidarity Sunday and World Day of the Poor on 6 December, to mark our commitment to those most vulnerable in the Coronavirus pandemic – and those who are responding. Solidarity Sunday is about reminding ourselves and each other that there is so much good we can do - through giving, through prayer and through powerful demonstrations of unity.

In his message for the fourth World Day of the Poor, Pope Francis writes that ‘keeping our gaze fixed on the poor is difficult, but that it is more necessary than ever if we are to give proper direction to our personal life and the life of society. Until we revive our sense of responsibility for our neighbour and for every person, grave economic, financial and political crises will continue.’ The Pope reminds us that prayer to God and solidarity with the poor are inseparable.

The Diocese of Westminster are holding a special service on that day and all CTiW members, including St Martin's, are invited to attend. You are invited to join this United Service for the World Day of the Poor: A celebration of solidarity at Farm Street Church. The service will be held online at https://www.farmstreet.org.uk/livestream at 3pm on Sunday 6 December.

CTiW are producing a Resources Booklet of Readings, Reflections, and Prayers to help individuals and churches reflect upon and raise awareness of how the pandemic is impacting the vulnerable of the world. This booklet is arranged as a series of daily themes on specific issues. It will have information on organisations working abroad, and how you can support them.

 

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Arvo Part - The Deer's Cry.

Solidarity Sunday 15 November: Remembering our Global Neighbours

Solidarity Sunday 15 November: Remembering our Global Neighbours

Churches Together in Westminster will observe a Solidarity Sunday on 15 November, to mark our commitment to those most vulnerable in the Coronavirus pandemic – and those who are responding.

It is about reminding ourselves and each other that there is so much good we can do - through giving, through prayer and through powerful demonstrations of unity.

The date coincides with the Roman Catholic World Day of the Poor. In his message for the fourth World Day of the Poor, Pope Francis writes that ‘keeping our gaze fixed on the poor is difficult, but that it is more necessary than ever if we are to give proper direction to our personal life and the life of society. Until we revive our sense of responsibility for our neighbour and for every person, grave economic, financial and political crises will continue.’ The Pope reminds us that prayer to God and solidarity with the poor are inseparable.

The Diocese of Westminster are holding a special service on that day in which all CTiW members are invited to participate. We are pleased to announce an invitation to join this Ecumenical World Day of the Poor Service. It is a celebration of solidarity to be held at Farm Street Church at 3pm on Sunday, November 15th. The service will be livestreamed on https://www.farmstreet.org.uk/livestream.

If you cannot join in that service, we urge you all to mark Solidarity Sunday in your own churches.

We are producing a Resources Booklet of Readings, Reflections, and Prayers to help individuals and churches reflect upon and raise awareness of how the pandemic is impacting the vulnerable of the world. This booklet is arranged as a series of daily themes on specific issues. It will have information on organisations working abroad, and how you can support them. The booklet will be sent out to all our Members in early November.

Let us join together in support and solidarity with our Global Neighbours, for Christ has no body now on earth but ours.

By Rev’d Joan Ishibashi & Gillian Dare

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Eric Whitacre - Hope Faith Life Love.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Here is the speech I gave today at the Holocaust Memorial Day event in Redbridge:

Last year I was fortunate, through my sabbatical visits and through the Tour of the Holy Land organised by the East London Three Faiths Forum, to see a wide variety of artwork in churches and synagogues by the Russian Jewish artist Marc Chagall. Chagall was controversial as a Jewish artist for painting images of Christ’s crucifixion.

Chagall’s church commissions were created, ‘In the name of the freedom of all religions’ while, for him, ‘Christ ... always symbolized the true type of the Jewish martyr.’ He depicted this perception most famously in White Crucifixion painted in 1938 in response to the persecution of Jews by the Nazis, including Kristallnacht. Central to this painting, among scenes of anti-Jewish violence which included the torching of a synagogue, is Jesus on the cross with a tallit, the Jewish prayer shawl, draped around him as a loin cloth. For Chagall, ‘Jesus on the cross represented the painful predicament of all Jews, harried, branded, and violently victimized in an apparently God-forsaken world.’

A similar perception is described by Elie Wiesel, an Auschwitz survivor, in his book Night. There he writes: ‘The SS hanged two Jewish men and a youth in front of the whole camp. The men died quickly, but the death throes of the youth lasted for half an hour. "Where is God? Where is he?" someone asked behind me. As the youth still hung in torment in the noose after a long time, I heard the man call again, "Where is God now?" And I heard a voice in myself answer: "Where is he? He is here. He is hanging there on the gallows.’

Seen by Elie Wiesel in the context of Judaism and of the humiliation of God in going with Israel into exile and suffering, for Christians this moving story has a striking resonance because of the crucifixion. For Jews and Christians alike, the face of desolation wears another aspect, that of the presence and providence of God.

In Christian vocabulary this could be described as the prayer of incarnation. This is a prayer of presence; a prayer which recognizes that God shares our pain, frailty and brokenness. We pray acknowledging that God suffers with us. From Christ’s life, Christians also recognise two other types of prayer: the prayer of resurrection in which we pray for a miracle; and the prayer of transfiguration where, as Samuel Wells has written, ‘we see a whole reality within and beneath and beyond what we thought we understood.’ In times of bewilderment and confusion we pray that God might reshape our reality, to give us a new and right spirit to trust that even in the midst of suffering and hardship, truth can still be experienced and shared.

At Yad Yashem, on the East London Three Faiths Forum Tour of the Holy Land, I saw examples of this prayer in the words of Aharon Appelfeld who said, ‘From among the horror grew another morality, another love, another compassion. These grew wild – no one gave them a name.’ Similarly, on the Yad Vashem website I read of survivors, ‘dazed, emaciated, bereaved beyond measure,’ who ‘gathered the remnants of their vitality and the remaining sparks of their humanity, and rebuilt.’ ‘They never meted out justice to their tormentors – for what justice could ever be achieved after such a crime? Rather, they turned to rebuilding: new families forever under the shadow of those absent; new life stories, forever warped by the wounds; new communities, forever haunted by the loss.’

I also saw pages from the illustrated Bible which self-taught artist Carol Deutsch loving crafted in 1941 in Antwerp, during the turmoil of the Second World War, as a gift for his daughter’s second birthday. Carol Deutsch and his wife Fela were informed upon and murdered in the extermination camps. However, their daughter Ingrid, who was hidden with a Catholic family in the countryside, survived, as did the Bible, which miraculously remained intact. Deutsch, who died in Buchenwald, left behind a vital estate - a stalwart resistance to everything the Nazis had attempted to obliterate.

Finally, for those who are Christians, Karen Sue Smith has noted that ‘Chagall’s genius was to use Jesus’ crucifixion to address Christians, to alert them by means of their own symbol system to the systematic cruelty taking place in the Holocaust.’ For Christians then, our response should, I think, be in line with the words of Pope Francis from an interview in 2013. There he spoke of his admiration for White Crucifixion praising Jews for keeping their faith despite the Holocaust and other “terrible trials” throughout history (by implication, including those for which the Church is cupable), reaffirmed Judaism as the “holy root” of Christianity saying that, where this understood and affirmed, a Christian should not ever be an anti-Semite because “to be a good Christian it is necessary to understand Jewish history and traditions.”

I pray that this will be so for my own faith community and that God might reshape our reality, to give us a new and right spirit to trust that even in the midst of suffering and hardship, truth can still be experienced and shared.

See here and here for reports and photographs from the Redbridge event.

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Azamra - Shuvi Nafshi.

An Artist and the Saint: Manzù and Roncalli

Angelo Roncalli turned 'his four and a half year pontificate into one of the most important of the 20th century and earned legions of admirers as the down-to-earth "Good Pope John".'

The Guardian reports that, 'On Sunday, before a crowd of hundreds of thousands in St Peter's Square, Pope Francis is to canonise this popular Italian pontiff alongside John Paul II, recognising them both as saints.'

'Often described simply as Il Papa Buona, the friendly pontiff who went walking around Rome and endeared himself to ordinary people in much the same way as Francis today, John XXIII is regarded by his admirers as one of the most courageous and important popes in history. Roncalli, who had spent much of his career as a Vatican diplomat in countries including Bulgaria, Turkey and France, called the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) in 1962 and died less than a year later. But the process of change he set in motion outlived him, proving key to the church's ability to retain a degree of relevance in the modern age.'

In a piece of serendipity I am currently reading An Artist and the Pope by Curtis Bill Pepper. The artist and Pope in question 'both came from Bergamo in Italy but there the affinity seemed to halt, for one was the beloved Pope John XXIII and the other was a Communist bereft of his religious faith was the famous sculptor Giacomo Manzù. Yet Pope John, discerning the man beyond the atheist, commissioned Manzù to make his portrait bust, and despite all the artist's misgivings, there developed between them a warm and deeply significant friendship which drove Manzù to achieve the remarkable bronze Doors of Death for St. Peter's in Rome - the first new doors for the cathedral for 500 years.'

The door 'has large modelled panels that depict the deaths of Mary and Christ, as well as lesser panels that show the deaths of saints and ordinary people.  Vatican officials were wary of Manzù’s communist politics and criticized his refusal to temper his unflinching depiction of death and human suffering with a more spiritual theme. Particularly shocking was his depiction of a cardinal looking at a man being crucified up side-down, a reference to the execution of fascists after WWII.'

Commissioning Manzù is an example of the policy advocated in France by Marie-Alain Couturier and Pie-Raymond Régamey and in Austria by Otto Mauer of seeking to revive Christian art by appealing to the independent masters of the time. The book is a fascinating expose of the difficulties encountered, even at the very heart of the Roman Catholic Church and despite the significant support of Pope John, Don Giuseppe de Luca and Monsignor Loris Capovilla, in pursuing this policy.

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Sixpence None The Richer - Amazing Grace.