Category: Art & Christianity

St Andrei Rublev, monk and iconographer

Today Byzantine Church recalls the memory of the monk and iconographer St. Andrei Rublev, monk and iconographer. His birth and death dates are not known precisely, but he is known to have lived in the 14th century. His iconography is well-appreciated world—wide; much of his sacred art resides in Russia. Rublev is buried at the Andronikov Monastery.

The troparion for St. Andrei reads:

Shining with the rays of divine light, O venerable Andrew, You knew Christ the wisdom and power of God. By means of the image of the Holy Trinity You preached to all the world the Holy Trinity in unity. And we, with amazement and joy, cry out to you: As you have boldness before the Most Holy Trinity. Pray that the Uncreated Light may illumine our souls!

Art restoration as an act of hope at Portsmouth Abbey

There is a beautiful though modern art piece which hangs over the central altar at the Benedictine Abbey of St Gregory the Great, Portsmouth, Rhode Island. As with all art in order to be formed by it, to be educated by it, you have to listen in silence. Now some art is vacuous. This piece at the Abbey is anything but empty of meaning. When I sit in prayer before this piece of art I am filled with amazement of the beauty of the Most Holy Trinity, the Crucifixion of the Lord, and the wide horizons of the theological virtues come which come alive in a myriad of ways.

I offer this piece for your consideration.

Calibrated and fixed

Nearly every morning
I make a cup of coffee
in my battered old moka pot.

While the coffee sputters and fizzes
toward completion
I carefully place a dusty crumb of incense
on the burner, next to the pot.

I watch as a thin curl of smoke rises,
as the fragrant molecules of resin ignite:
myyrh, frankincense, rose, spiknard, jasmine, and the mysterious opercula of the wing-shell mollusk.

Uncounted mornings, evenings, and high holy days have calibrated and fixed
a specific set of connections between embodiment and sacred
through the everyday science of breathing,
so that simply sitting here by the stove
and waiting for coffee
becomes church.

Iliana Filby

Knights of Columbus Museum presents Orthodox Christianity in Early Russia: the Formation of a Tradition

Holy Theotokos and childFor the better part of the past year the Knights of Columbus museum has had an exhibit on Russian icons, “Windows into Heaven.”

There is a forthcoming lecture to open up the windows into heaven even more, “Orthodox Christianity in Early Russia: the Formation of a Tradition”  The lecture is presented by Paul Bushkovitch Ph.D.

Saturday, Feb. 8, 2014, @ 2 p.m.
Free admission and parking

Knights of Columbus Museum
1 State Street, New Haven CT 06511
kofcmuseum.org | 203-865-0400

Orthodox Christianity has been Russia’s pre-eminent religion for more than a millennium and is integral to the nation’s history and culture. Yale University history professor Dr. Paul Bushkovitch will discuss the origin and foundation of Russian Orthodoxy, which has endured attacks and repression throughout the past, most notably during the preceding century. Dr. Bushkovitch earned degrees from Harvard and Columbia Universities and has studied in Russia. He has been a member of the Yale faculty since 1975 and has published and lectured extensively on Russian history.

The Knights of Columbus Museum’s exhibition of Russian icons, Windows into Heaven, runs through April 27, 2014. The museum is open daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

700th anniversary of the Divine Comedy, Dante’s masterpiece

commedia medalTruly one of the world’s great texts is the Divine Comedy by Dante. Next year and in subsequent years, we’ll hear about the honoring of Dante by bestowing annual award for artistic genius dealing with

The Best Digitally-Produced Rendition of Any Aspect of Dante’s Divine Comedy

The first recipient of the Commedia Medal will be announced on 1 December 2014 and it will be award annually until 2021.

The image of the award is posted here. It’s the creation of Dom Gregory Havill, a Benedictine monk of Portsmouth Abbey and a teacher in the Portsmouth Abbey School.

Dante published the Inferno in 1314, the Purgatorio in 1315 and the Paradiso in 1321. Dante died in 1321. What a terrific way to acknowledge cultural icon by having a Benedictine monk create an artistic piece for an award of excellence and beauty! Benedictines have always had their fingers (and their hearts and minds) in matters of faith, reason,and art to communicate the Divine Mystery.

Interested in the competition, visit the website here. Dr Sebastian Mahfood is organizing the competition.

Windows into Heaven –Knights of Columbus Museum exhibits Russian icons

I am always looking for the way heaven touches earth. Perhaps you are, too. The image that comes to mind is the finger of God touching that of Adam in a painting done by Michelangelo. I also recall that the Incarnation is a manifestation of the beauty of heaven touching the ordinariness of earth and making our existence forever beautiful. These are some thoughts on an experience of “Windows into Heaven: Russian Icons and Treasures” at the Knights of Columbus Museum (New Haven, CT). Though the icons aren’t in their original liturgical context, they nonetheless open the heart and mind onto something and someone beautiful. The icons, for me, are more than nice pieces of Christian art; they truly are positions of grace that allow my desires to be opened anew by an experience with the Divine Majesty. There is an emphasis here on the personal relationship we have with the Trinity. To say otherwise is to neglect a piece of your humanity because the beauty of the icon does invite us to a different way of living the faith.

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I was just reading an address of Cardinal Ratzinger on beauty. An amazing act of the Spirit to allow me to see the icons and then reflect with Ratzinger on the experience. He had addressed the annual meeting organized by members of Communion and Liberation in August 2002. A paragraph sticks out:


To admire the icons and the great masterpieces of Christian art in general, leads us on an inner way, a way of overcoming ourselves; thus in this purification of vision that is a purification of the heart, it reveals the beautiful to us, or at least a ray of it. In this way we are brought into contact with the power of the truth. I have often affirmed my conviction that the true apology of Christian faith, the most convincing demonstration of its truth against every denial, are the saints, and the beauty that the faith has generated. Today, for faith to grow, we must lead ourselves and the persons we meet to encounter the saints and to enter into contact with the Beautiful.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

“The Feeling of Things, the Contemplation of Beauty”

Rimini Meeting 2002


Take the time this summer to visit the KofC Museum and be inspired! Allow yourself to be wounded by beauty, as Ratzinger said.

Pope Francis’ coat of arms

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Pope Francis has decided to stick –more or less, with the heraldic art, that is, his coat of arms that he had when he was called to the Order of Bishop and then as a cardinal. The most identifiable change made is the replacing of the red cardinal’s galero and tassels with the papal keys and miter that Pope Benedict XVI chose for his arms in 2005 when he accepted the pontifical dignity but gone is the pallium. The other change is turning the star representing Mary, the Mother of God and the flower of nard representing Saint Joseph, to gold as opposed to silver. Add to the artscape is the image most associated to the Society of Jesus with the IHS sunburst. The Holy Family, hence, is illustrated here.
The keys of Saint Peter refer to the gospel passage of Saint Matthew 16:16 where Jesus says to Peter, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom.” The keys represent the pastoral authority of Jesus given to Peter and thus to Peter’s successor to forgive sins, and lead us to salvation. The silver key concerns things of earth, and the gold key things of heaven joined together by the red cord symbolizing the common witness of the blood of the Savior shed for humanity. You may want to read the Catechism on the Petrine ministry at paragraphs 880-882, the whole section “I believe in the holy Catholic Church is worth” some study and prayer.
“By having mercy and making decisions” by following Christ
~the way Pope Francis intends to exercise the Petrine ministry he’s been called to~

“For Greater Glory” now available on DVD



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The movie, “For Greater Glory,” is now available on DVD on Amazon, but it is also available from Ignatius Press.

What price would
you pay for freedom? In the exhilarating action epic “For Greater Glory” an
impassioned group of men and women each make the decision to risk it all for
family, faith and the very future of their country, as the film’s adventure
unfolds against the long-hidden, true story of the 1920s Cristero War the
daring people’s revolt that rocked 20th Century North America.

This movie is an excellent addition for your Catholic library of film and appropriate for a high school Catholic curricula, the RCIA and adult faith formation work of your parish. This forgotten part of our North American history needs to be better known.

“Building a New World”: exploring human and spiritual issues through film

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“Building a New World” is new initiative Interdisciplinary Centre  for Social Communications of the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome, Italy) beginning today, Friday, 2 March.

This project is focused on film and the power film has in our lives. The premise is: a good film liberates, forms and calls us to a new way of seeing and engaging in reality. Therefore, the good people at the Gregorian are exploring how a good movie or documentary can invite people to greatness through the imagination and research how a poorly written movie with mediocre images can severely handicap one’s openness to the true, the beautiful and the good. Just think of the good Father Robert Barron’s “Catholicism” project is doing for those learning the Catholic faith for the first time or those renewing their faith; or how damaging “The Deputy” was to to the person of Pope Pius XII and the rest of the Church.

Jesuit Father Lloyd Baugh, a professor of film,  told Vatican Radio that the initiative honors the 30th anniversary of the University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Study. It is popular these days to get at human, theological and philosphical issues by the use of film. Friends of mine do it regularly in the schools in which they instruct young minds: Benedictine Father Bede Price teaches a theology and film course at his abbey’s Priory School (St Louis, MO) and Jesuit Father Edward Oakes does so at Mundelein Seminary (outside Chicago, IL). Father Baugh he teaches theology using film as the text for class: Christology through the “Jesus films,” moral issues through the “The Decalogue” of Kieslowski, interreligious dialogue through a whole series of films from different religious traditions and so on.

The current cycle of films starting today will be inaugurated by the Gregorian University Rector Jesuit Father Dumortier, Archbishop Claudio Celli, President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, of Jesuit Father Savarimuthu, director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies at the Gregorian University, and Father Baugh.

The first film is “Welcome.” which focuses on a young Kurdish boy who attempts to illegally enter England, and in doing so encounters other people changing their vision of the world, and ultimately their lives. “Welcome” is a award 2009 winning film directed by Philippe Loiret.

Other films include

March 23: “Water” (2005 Deepa Mehta film) focuses on Asia and on “the right to Freedom” drawing attention to the tragic reality of millions of young girls in India who are promised in marriage to elderly men and widowed shortly thereafter, leaving them destitute for the rest of their lives.

April 20: “La Zona” (2007 Roderigo Pla film) dedicated to the “Americas” and to the “right to Justice”, highlighting the persistent and ever-growing disparity between rich and poor particualrly in Latin America.

May 4: “Son of Man” (2006 Mark Dornford May) looks at the plight of the African continent and its “right to Hope”. May directs a narrative of the Gospel and situating the contemporaneous of the biblical reality of a township outside of Cape Town. The desire for peace is continuously punctuated by violence. It is a look at how Jesus would respond to the human reality before his eyes and what he does to change people’s hearts.

Screenings are free and everyone is welcome. For more information visit: www.unigre.it