by SFXparish | Dec 21, 2018 | BLOG
When the angels went away from them to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go, then, to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”
So they went in haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. (Lk 2:15-16)
There are few images more endearing to the Christian faith than the scene known as the Adoration of the Shepherds. It is a scene perhaps less noble yet more charming than the Adoration of the Magi. While the kings travelled many miles in caravan from foreign lands following a star to offer homage, the shepherds were keeping night-watch over the sheep when angels announced to them the birth of the Messiah. The magi were prosperous gentiles; the shepherds were rustic Jews such that the angelic message – “for today in the city of David a savior has been born for you” – certainly had its full, intended effect. The magi followed a bright star that perhaps could be seen by day; the shepherds were custodians of the night, guardians in the darkness called forth into the glorious light. In Catholic art, the biblical narrative of the shepherds adoring the new born Jesus is most often shown at night so that the light in the image is Jesus Himself.
For this 4th Sunday in Advent and for our 2018 celebration of Christmas we are using for our reflection a quotation taken from the Christmas Mass at dawn. To properly emphasize these words from Sacred Scripture we have chosen to adorn our bulletin cover with a work by the eclectic painter Anton Raphael Mengs entitled (of course) The Adoration of the Shepherds (1770).
Mengs is a very interesting character. He was born of a Danish, Jewish father in German Bohemia and raised in the Jewish faith. His father took him to Rome when he was thirteen years old and only three years later he returned to Saxony to become a court painter at the age of sixteen. On his second visit to Rome, Mengs married a peasant girl who had once posed for his paintings. He married her after converting to Catholicism. He became the director of the Vatican school of painting. Upon his death he was buried in a Catholic Church in Rome dedicated nationally to the Netherlands. He was the father to twenty children.
In our beautiful image we see the confluence of many styles: the exuberant color of the Baroque, the theatrical energy of Rococo, the contrasting light of Tenebrism, and the introduction of forms later to be associated with the Neoclassicism style founded by Mengs. Mengs also unites the three orders of being: the preternatural (the angels), the supernatural (the God-made-man) and the natural indicated by the many human images, but also by the single canine – representative of the celebration of all God’s creation.
Angels incense above in the liturgy of heaven; one angel holds an olive branch while pointing in the direction of the earth. On earth the peaceful light of the Christ Child is surrounded by hands of praise forming the four points of the compass (Joseph’s hand being “south”) indicating the far reaching vitality of the moment. Mengs has painted both a divine and bucolic scene.
May your hearts be filled with the joy and wonder of the adoring shepherds! Blessed Christmas!
–Steve Guillotte, Director of Pastoral Services
by SFXparish | Dec 14, 2018 | BLOG
“Sing joyfully, O Israel! Be glad and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! The LORD has removed the judgment against you, he has turned away your enemies; the King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst…” (Zep 3:14-15)
Angels appear often in sacred scripture. The term “angel” in Greek means “messenger” and angels have been, since the creation of man, the great messengers of God. The angels are also the great proclaimers of God’s glory in heaven. Interestingly, there is a not-too-serious debate among some Bible buffs as to whether or not angels actually sing. Those who contend that angels do not sing state that while you find them in sacred scripture praising God and shouting for joy, the Hebrew word for “singing” is never plainly used to describe their activity. However, those who say that angels do sing will quote Job 38:7: “the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy”. This use of poetic parallelism regarding angels (morning stars) equates singing with “shouting for joy”. Thus, the Book of Job has the angels singing in wonder while God creates. J.R.R. Tolkien went even further in his work The Silmarillion since he has the Divinity sit and watch as the music of his angels spills out into the void to create the universe. Shakespeare made his own contribution to the debate with a prayer for the dying Hamlet that “flights of angels sing thee to thy rest”. Perhaps it is just that the speech of angels is so melodic that it resounds as beautiful song when pronounced fervently.
One thing we do know is that man (male and female) has an affinity for song. On this Gaudete or Rejoice Sunday we should participate all the more in joyful song to the Lord. The high liturgy of the Church is always celebrated in song or chant. While we will never know for sure what the speech or song of angels sounds like until we reside with God in our resurrected bodies, we may fairly surmise for now that when we sing our hymns of praise and thanksgiving, we do so in imitation of the angels soaring in the liturgy of the Most High.
In order to ruminate on the corporate song of angels and men on this Third Sunday of Advent, we have placed on our bulletin cover a Mannerist work of Orazio Gentileschi, entitled St. Cecelia with an Angel (1621). One can still see in this work the influence of Caravaggio in light and color. However, this later work of Gentileschi appears to be a return to Mannerism as seen for instance in the sophistication of the posture of Cecelia’s wrist and fingers and the somber intimacy of saint and angel.
Sadly, we are not able to show the entire painting which is almost as wide as it is tall. Still we can see St. Cecelia, patron saint of Church music, being inspired by the Spirit as symbolized by the celestial being holding up sheet music to Cecelia who needs not look up to read, for she perceives it in her soul. Cecelia plays on a (simple) pipe organ – the instrument which the Vatican II council declared to have special status in the Church liturgy.
Let us rejoice in song this Advent, singing proclamations to the Holy Trinity with the angelic host.
–Steve Guillotte, Director of Pastoral Services
by SFXparish | Dec 6, 2018 | BLOG
Jerusalem, take off your robe of mourning and misery; put on the splendor of glory from God forever… For God will show all the earth your splendor: you will be named by God forever the peace of justice, the glory of God’s worship. (Bar 5:1,3-4)
The observance of Advent has a penitential aspect. This aspect is not as pronounced as in Lent when penitence is palpable in its sorrowful expression of Christ’s Passion. In Advent we liturgically mourn over what had been lost. In a properly and spiritually dramatic fashion we attempt to pray like those faithful Jews who suffered not only military occupation but severance and estrangement from God. For the loyal Jew – one of the remnant of Israel – this separation was part of his historical reality, for he was: a foreigner in Canaan, a slave in Egypt, one despoiled by Assyria, one carried away by Babylon, and one subjugated by the Greeks and Romans. In all these miseries, the ancient Jews felt not only the physical and material suffering of their malefactors, but also the punishment and loss of their benefactor, the Lord God.
Still, the righteous Jew was not without hope. The psalmist declares in today’s liturgy of the word sung between the readings from Baruch and Saint Paul, “those who sow in tears shall reap rejoicing”. This describes precisely the crux of Advent: mourning awakening expectation; for our remembrance of sorrow is not without purpose. Our Advent tribute to mourning is one of beatitude, a ritual sadness leading to indwelling happiness. It explains the heart of every Christian who navigates his or her sufferings on earth through the straits of grace on the way to heaven.
To bring out the message of the Prophet Baruch we have created our own allegory of hopeful mourning. We place on our bulletin cover for this 2nd Sunday in Advent a work by the Spanish modern painter, Pablo Picasso, entitled, The Crouching Woman (1902). This work is representative of Picasso’s “blue period” said by him to have begun around the time of the suicide of one of his close friends. For about three years (1901-1904) Picasso is believed to have endured a period of deep depression that flowed off his palate and onto his canvas until he entered his cheerier “rose period” in 1904. During his blue period the figures in Picasso’s paintings were often alone and grieving.
Thus, we use the isolated figure of The Crouching Woman as a symbol of Jerusalem in “mourning and misery.” Jerusalem is encouraged by the prophet Baruch to take off her robe and “to put on the splendor of glory from God forever.” Interestingly, this image could have been used a few weeks back for the Sunday reading from the First Book of Kings about the widow, Zarephath. Here we see the sad and isolated woman whose jug of oil was running dry and who was making ready to lay down and die (1 Kgs 17:12). In a way the widow herself was a symbol of Jerusalem which suffered drought for its insolence toward God. However, Elijah brought the widow the hope of rain and sustenance in famine in the same way we are to experience spiritual recovery during Advent. Let us cast off the blue of sadness and place within out hearts the rose of peace and hopefulness.
–Steve Guillotte, Director of Pastoral Services
by SFXparish | Dec 5, 2018 | NEWS
We want to extend our gratitude to all who came to our parish game show night which raised over $7,000 for our Seminarian/Vocations Fund. Near 70% of the donations came directly from parishioner sponsorship. We are starting to build a small “war chest” for the Lord as we continue to support (from our parish) two seminarians, one deacon candidate, and a postulant religious sister. But financial support would be nothing without spiritual support – so keep praying!
by SFXparish | Nov 29, 2018 | BLOG
“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars… And then they will see the Son of Man
coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.” (Lk 21:25; 27-28)
Those who pray the Rosary each day are blessed at least twice per week to meditate on that miraculous event known as The Ascension (if they follow the regimen of St. John Paul II and pray the Glorious Mysteries on Sundays and Wednesdays). Meditation is necessary since when we think too hastily on Jesus’ ascension into heaven we miss out on its profound continuity; for as we shall see, it is not an event confined to the past, but a promise illuminating the future.
It is this promise of the return of Jesus that we celebrate during Advent. While Christians wait for the celestial signs predicted by Jesus, we seek also signs of grace within our hearts. One sure sign of grace is how joyous we become over the heritage which Jesus left us. Thus, we set aside time to pray and worship over the precious events of His life on earth such as the Incarnation and Nativity (even as we pray the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary). We battle against the disruptions of the secular, commercial Christmas which advance upon our Advent meditation. We celebrate Advent not only as a season of preparation for Christmas, but because Advent and Christmas are both seasons for preparation of the triumphant return of our Lord to the earth. All our Advents and all our Christmases embolden our hope in the return of Jesus Christ known as the “Second Coming”.
How do we prepare for this coming? St. Paul tells us in this Sunday’s second reading “to be blameless in holiness… at the coming of our Lord Jesus” (1 Thes 3:13). This is a tall order, for who among us is blameless and holy! The answer to this question is: the one who is sanctified through earnest repentance and forgiveness; for it is the extraordinary mercy of God that he forgives the sincere and repentant sinner who also, in imitation of God, forgives those who trespass against him.
In order to commemorate and prepare for the return of Jesus Christ, we place on our bulletin cover for this 1st Sunday in Advent a painting by the neoclassical artist John Singleton Copley entitled The Ascension (1775). Copley was born in Boston, MA and although he moved to England in 1775, his prior painting in colonial America left him famous enough to have a square, hotel, and plaza named after him. Even while residing in England he maintained a quiet sympathy for the American Revolution and became friendly with John Quincy Adams.
Our focus for this painting today is on the angels in the lower right quadrant. While the Apostles linger on the Mount of Olives after losing physical sight of Jesus, the angels proclaim, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky” (Acts 1:11)? The angels then offer assurance that Jesus will return in the same way he was seen going into heaven. Our call then is not to stand lurking at what is past, but to faithfully evoke our Christian memory while prayerfully preparing for our future glory.
–Steve Guillotte, Director of Pastoral Services
