Jean Bourdichon, Angels Holding the Host for Adoration From Heures de Frédéric d'Aragon French (Tours), c. 1501-1504 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Latin 10532, fol. 302
"Jesus said to the Jewish crowds: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever."
John 6:51-58
(Gospel for the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ)
The feast of Corpus Christi or Corpus Domini or The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is a special feast day of the Church. It occurs on either the Thursday after Trinity Sunday (in many countries) or on the Sunday after Trinity Sunday (in the United States). It focuses our attention on the mystery of the Eucharist, in which the bread and wine that we offer are transformed into the true Body and Blood of Christ.
It was officially established for the universal Church in 1264 by Pope Urban IV, who asked St. Thomas Aquinas to compose the liturgical prayers for the feast. Thomas responded with some of the most beautiful prayers and hymns in the history of the Church. Artists also developed a complex and fascinating repertoire of images which celebrate the same mystery. In past essays I have described many of the ways in which artists have responded. Here is a series of links which you can use to access this material.
Lists of Posts Related to the Feast of Corpus Christi
Posts Examining the Related Iconography of the Manna in the
Desert, an Old Testament Prefiguration of the Eucharist, and the Multiplication
of the Loaves and Fish, a New Testament Prefiguration
Master of the Trinity, The Holy Trinity From the Petites Heures of Jean de Berry French (Bourges), c. 1385-1390 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Latin 18014, fol. 137v
In this image the Trinity is shown as two identical figures representing the Father and
the Son and a dove representing the Holy Spirit. This is only one of many attempts
by artists to give visual form to the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
Every year the Sunday after Pentecost is devoted to the contemplation of the Holy Trinity, a distinctly Christian belief.
Christians believe in and worship One God. But they believe that this One God is composed of Three "Persons", called the Holy Trinity in human language.1 What Christians do NOT believe in is three gods. Rather, in some way that we humans cannot understand, God is a community of love whose essence is being.
Trinitarian belief is unique among the monotheistic religions, not appearing in either Judaism or Islam, although it is hinted at in the Old Testament. There are God's words at the creation of humans (Genesis 1:26-27) and in the three visitors who come to Abraham's tent in Mamre, who are treated variously as three and as one and that one is "the Lord" (Genesis 18). It is also part of Christianity from the very beginning.
Within twenty to twenty-five years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, Saint Paul wrote in his Second Letter to the Corinthians:"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you."(2 Corinthians 13:13) This letter is generally dated to the year 57.2 So, this is not a belief that appeared after a couple of hundred years, but one that was already there during the lifetime of the Apostles (remember that Peter is believed to have been executed in the year 64). These people who knew Jesus of Nazareth, who had traveled with him, who had eaten with him, who had seen him put to death and had seen him rise again to walk and eat with them had come to the understanding that he was not only from God, but actually was a manifestation of God. These men and women who had seen him ascend to heaven and had hidden away in prayer in the days after that event had experienced something on the tenth day that had caused them to cast caution aside and to boldly proclaim that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of God, was God and that they had received a divine spirit, a Holy Spirit, that sent them forth to preach this to everyone. By 57 they had come to understand that all these experiences were experiences of the one God, but that these experiences were indicative of different tones within the harmony that is God.
These Apostles and disciples, Jesus’ companions during His life, were Jewish, as was Paul, and, therefore, presumably strong believers in only one God. This early appearance of belief in God as three tones, three "Persons", implies a very profound shift in their thinking. One can only presume that this shift came from the revelation they experienced from the Resurrection, the Ascension and the Descent of the Holy Spirit.
Understanding this exceptional revelation of the nature of God is one that has taxed the minds of Christians, including great poets and great theologians, as well as ordinary believers, for the past 2,000 years. It remains mysterious.
It has also taxed those who work in the visual arts. How can one depict a God who is one but also three? How does one visualize something that seems impossible to express in language? There have been various themes that artists have developed over the centuries and I have reviewed several of them in the past decade. So, I offer these links to you as an exploration of the attempt by Christian artists to express this great mystery of the faith.
If you wish to delve deeper into this fascinating subject you might want to check out the following You Tube segments:
A recent video on of theological reflections on the Trinity by Bishop Robert Barron
And a recording of the legendary preacher, the Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen.
1. I have put the word Persons in quotes to signify that this is only a feeble description of the reality of God. However, our human speech does not really have an appropriate word for this reality and the word "person" (in whatever language you speak) is the best we can do.
2. For the date see https://bible.usccb.org/bible/2corinthians/0
Pentecost From a Bible historiale by Guiard des Moulilns French (Saint-Omer), 14th Century Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Francais 152, fol. 451r
Over the last several years I have presented various essays on different aspects of the event and feast of Pentecost. This day on which the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles following the Ascension of Jesus has frequently been called the birthday of the Church. That is for good reason.
While the Apostles may have recovered their belief in Jesus and realized his divinity and power during the period from the Resurrection to the Ascension of Jesus they were still incompletely formed for their mission. However, since Jesus had promised to send them the Spirit they were hopeful. Retreating in a body to a single place to pray, they spent nine days praying together. What they prayed for and what they expected we don't know, but we do know what they received and it is mysterious.
"When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together.
And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim."
(Acts 2:1-4) First Reading for Pentecost Sunday, Masses During the Day
When the moment had passed, the Apostles were changed forever. No longer timid and afraid, they were now "filled with the Holy Spirit" and able to communicate with others in languages they had not known before. They were "enabled to proclaim" (Acts 2:4).
And proclaim they did, beginning that very day.
For "there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem.
At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were astounded, and in amazement they asked, "Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans? Then how does each of us hear them in his native language? We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travelers from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God."
(Acts 2:4-11) First Reading for Pentecost Sunday, Masses During the Day
The ways in which artists have reflected these passages have been varied over the centuries. Over these last years I have prepared essays that demonstrate the various approaches to this mysterious event in the life of the Church. Click on the links below to be directed to each.
So, Happy Birthday to all those who make up the current, terrestrial Church and also to those of the Church in Purgatory and of the Church in Celestial Bliss!
Giotto, The Ascension Italian, c. 1304-1306 Padue, Scrovegni/Arena Chapel
Forty days after the celebration of Christ's Resurrection, the Church celebrates the end of His bodily presence on this planet with the feast of the Ascension.
This event, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, ends Jesus' time on earth in visible, human form. With His Ascension the Apostles were left to pursue the mission He gave them in parting, as reported by the writers of the Synoptic Gospels.
Mark
“Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned." Mark 16:15-16
Matthew
"Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." Matthew 28:19-20
Luke
"And he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day
and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things." Luke 24:46-49
The Iconography of the Ascension
Throughout time, artists have found differing ways of depicting this event. Some of them are discussed in the following essays.
So, here we are again. For the third time in twenty years we are in a papal interregnum. One Pope has died and we await the election of another. It's a strange period because in the last half century so much of the public, official life of the church has become centered on the person of the Pope in a way not seen in the past. So we have become used to reports from Rome, filled with the comings and goings and the doings of the Popes that we might often forget just what a Pope is. He's not a celebrity figure. He's not the latest holder of a hereditary title from the historic past. He becomes Pope not be birth or talent or achievement but by the votes of his peers.
He occupies a place in the world that is unique. Non-Catholics are probably puzzled about just why this man is so important. They often misunderstand his duties and his position. He is an absolute ruler, but his hands are tied by tradition and by the very model on which the role is based. He is the Servant of the Servants of God, the Successor of Peter and the Vicar of Christ on earth. Catholics may see him that way. He is the final arbiter, the final judge of disputes that arise in the life of the church, but he does not act alone. He has many helpers, advisers, collaborators, servants and, we believe, the aid of the Holy Spirit in his actions and decisions.
While there is no Pope we have a period of intense prayer. It begins with prayers for the deceased Pope before, during and after his funeral. But, following the funeral, the church and, especially the Cardinals, enter a period of nine days, called a novena, in which the focus of prayers shifts to the future, to the task of choosing the next Pope.
This is a process that has been in formation and use for over a thousand years, Early papal elections were often raucous and influenced by pressures from external sources such as the people of Rome or local secular rulers. Gradually, the church managed to free herself of these distractions and influences. One of the first ways to do this was to sequester the cardinals under lock and key, or "con clave" until they managed to elect a new pope. They are still locked in, although the accommodation has become a little bit nicer since 1978 and the food is probably a bit better. But, in the digital age, the "key" also involves shutting down access to the outside world via wi-fi and cell phone. So, there they are 133 men, many of them older individuals, trapped between the papal guest house and the Sistine Chapel, until they can agree on the election of one of them to fill some mighty big fisherman's shoes.
The office that he will be called to fill is an immense responsibility. It is no wonder that newly elected men are given a period when they can retreat into a "crying room" chapel to pray, catch their breath, change into the new attire they will wear for the rest of their lives and, no doubt, cry. In a very real sense, their life as an individual is over. From the moment they step out of that room their life belongs not just to Christ, whose Vicar they become, but to the millions of Catholics in the world. And not just to the Catholics, they will now also belong to the Orthodox, to the Protestants, to the Jews, to the Muslims, to Hindus, to Buddhists and to all the other religious and non-religious people of the world. They will take their place in the long line of men stretching back, year on year, century on century, to the meeting between a Galilean fisherman and the Son of God. Truly, from this moment, this as yet unknown man of 2025 will be called on to accept the charge of Jesus to Saint Peter:
" Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” (John 21:18)
The office of Peter, the office of the new Pope, is symbolized in many ways: with the triple tiara and the crossed keys of the papal flag and by a chair, the Chair of Peter, a chair that is much, much more than a place to sit.
Some years ago I wrote an essay on the subject of the Chair of Peter and I think this is an appropriate time and place to call attention to it again.
The Chair of Peter
When I was a child, around the age of 7 or 8, my parents bought me what was then a popular gadget. It was a stereoscopic slide viewer, called a ViewMaster. The pre-loaded slides came on paper reels that were rotated in the viewer by pulling on a lever mechanism. Being good Irish Catholic folk they included in the gift two reels with scenes of Ireland, especially of the area around Killarney, near my mother’s home, and a reel of scenes from the Vatican. Both of these subjects were fascinating to me, the Irish scenes because of my memories of the trip I had made as a 3-year old and the Vatican scenes because it was the center of the Catholic Church.
A View Master with Reels, c. 1950s-1960s
One of the most fascinating slides on the Vatican reel was a scene of the interior of St. Peter’s Basilica, showing the full extent of the nave. And one of the things that most fascinated me and caused me to wonder was the glimpse it gave, far away, of a glowing, golden something on that distant end wall. What was it, I used to wonder. Unfortunately, no other photo on the wheel provided any further information.
View of the interior of St. Peter's similar to the one on the ViewMaster slide
It wasn’t till many years later, as a graduate student, that I found the amazing answer. It is one of the most audacious, amazing, astonishing and monumental pieces of conceptual art ever attempted and the work of that genius of the Baroque, Gianlorenzo Bernini. It is also one of the most meaning-filled masterpieces of the art of sculpture ever executed. Further, it is the place where the history of art, the history of the Church and the mystery of the Holy Spirit intersect.
Gianlorenzo Bernini, Cathedra Petri Italian, c. 1656-1666 Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica Photo: Ondra Havala
It is the great Cathedra Petri, the Chair of Peter, completed in 1666. For it, Bernini used every talent and trick that he possessed, illuminated by his solid Catholic faith, and the effect is mind boggling. Indeed, when I went to Rome for the first time in 1988 I was terrified of the effect that seeing it might have on me. I longed for someone to accompany me, since I was afraid that I might faint or start shouting for joy or perhaps even levitate. In the event, I did go alone and I survived, earthbound, partly due to the impact of being surrounded by strangers. Nonetheless my heart sang and it remains a memorable event. But, exactly what is it about this work of art that caused this fear of being overwhelmed with emotion?
Simply put, the Cathedra Petri is a giant reliquary. It is not as big or as grand as the Sainte Chapelle, built by St. Louis (Louis IX) of France to house the Crown of Thorns and a fragment of the True Cross. However, that beautiful building, while indeed grand and emotionally intense , though somewhat aloof, still does not elicit such a strong reaction. It does not truly overwhelm. Perhaps this comes from the fact that the onlooker stands within it and not outside of it, it surrounds us and we become a part of it. Not so with the Cathedra. We stand outside of it and can, therefore, be overwhelmed by it.
Ninth Century Chair Encased in the Cathedra Petri
Given by Charles the Bald to the Vatican in 875
The relic which the Cathedra preserves and protects is a chair. We now know that it is a ninth-century wooden chair, given to the Vatican by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Bald (grandson of the Emperor Charlemagne) in 875 and later covered in Byzantine ivory plaques. However, by the mid-seventeenth century, almost nine hundred years later, when Bernini was commissioned to execute the reliquary for it, the true date of the chair had been lost and it was sincerely believed to be the actual first-century chair from which St. Peter had taught when in Rome. Peter's chair is known to have existed, but may have been destroyed sometime before the gift of this chair by the Emperor, probably during the multiple disturbances that followed the disintegration of the Roman Empire in the West. It was, therefore, seen as an actual, physical link with the Apostle and first Pope.
Simply stated, in fact grossly oversimplified, Bernini’s concept for the monument presents the bronze reliquary, in the form of the object it contains, that is, a chair, borne on gilded stucco clouds. It is connected to bronze figures of four of the Fathers of the Church, two from the Latin Church (Saints Augustine and Ambrose) and two from the Greek Church (Saints Athanasius and John Chrysostom). The two Latin Fathers wear the miter, the insignia of bishops in the Latin Rite. Above and around the chair are swarms of golden stucco angels and above it is a stained glass window in which the figure of the Holy Spirit as a dove appears, surrounded by beams of golden light.
Another view of the Cathedra Petri
Gianlorenzo Bernini, Chair Reliquary From the Cathedra Petri Italian, c, 1656-1666 Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica
Gianlorenzo Bernini, Model for the Cathedra Petri Included in the exhibition Bernini: Sculpting in Clay at the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, October 3, 2012 - January 6, 2013
Gianlorenzo Bernini, St. Ambrose and St. Athanasius From the Cathedra Petri Italian, c. 1656-1666 Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica
Gianlorenzo Bernini, St. John Chrysostom and St. Augustine From the Cathedra Petri Italian, c. 1656-1666 Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica
In actuality, as viewed from the ground, the monument seems to exist in a reality located somewhere between solid materiality and amazing apparition. It appears to burst through the cold neutral marble of the walls of the apse in which it stands, with a brilliance and warmth and immediacy that is stunning. Its size is almost beyond imagining. Still photographs that lack a human presence can be misleading. It is only when the monument is seen with humans in the foreground that its true scale becomes clear. It is titanic.
Reuters photo taken during the procession from St. Peter's at the installation ceremony for Pope Benedict XVI on April 24, 2005. The Cathedra Petri can clearly be seen in this photograph, taken part way along the nave of the basilica. Its size can be judged pretty accurately from this.
Indeed, it is almost impossible to photograph it properly because of the scale. Pictures taken from a distance to capture its entirety cannot catch its details and vice versa. It is actually more of an experience than a “work of art”. Construction on it took ten years.
Some sense of the size of the work can be seen in this footage from Vatican TV (you can skip ahead a bit to eliminate some of the "talking heads" at the beginning). Beyond the sheer scale of the piece is its intensity. Nothing about it is placid, every part is exultant, every detail sings a hymn of praise and joy.
The whole seems to burst forcefully through the wall, as it materializes before our eyes. The four bronze Fathers appear to be in states of ecstasy as they hold ribbons of bronze that descend to them from the chair. They do not support it, instead it energizes and enraptures them.
Gianlorenzo Bernini, St. Augustine Italian, c. 1656-1666 Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica
Even the relief on the chair itself, the scene of the Risen Christ’s command to Peter to “Feed My Sheep” is ecstatic.
Gianlorenzo Bernini, Feed My Sheep Bas Relief from the back of the chair reliquary Italian, c. 1656-1666 Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica
Cherubs triumphantly display the papal triple tiara above it.
Gianlorenzo Bernini, Cherubs support the triple tiara Italian, c. 1656-1666 Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica
Other angels tumble over each other as they respond ecstatically to the appearance of the dove symbol of the Holy Spirit.
As Rudolf Wittkower, the famous historian of Roman monuments, said of it “It is evident that a narrow and biased approach can never do justice to the Cathedra; it is precisely the union of traditionally separate and even contradictory categories that contributes to its evocative quality. Whatever his immediate reaction, close to the Cathedra the beholder finds himself in a world which he shares with saints and angels, and he is therefore submitted to an extraordinarily powerful emotional experience. A mystery has been given visual shape, and its comprehension rests on an act of emotional participation rather than on one of rational interpretation.”1
Glimpsed initially from the far off entrance to the basilica, seen framed by the gigantic bronze structure of Bernini’s immense baldacchino above the high altar, the Cathedra is the visual culmination of the entire basilica. Although intended by Michelangelo to be one of several equally important chapels in the original, Greek cross, plan for St. Peter’s, the status of this chapel changed when the opposite “arm” was extended into the current vast nave by Carlo Maderno at the beginning of the seventeenth century (1605-1612). From that point on, this location took on greater importance, assuming the more traditional role of apse in the now longitudinally oriented building. Bernini’s grand conception fulfilled this new purpose and became the focal point for the entire building. It is traditional to read this work from the bottom up, that is, as we ourselves experience it, from the Fathers to the chair reliquary, to the apparition of the Holy Spirit. However, the art historian extraordinaire for the work of Bernini, Irving Lavin, who opened my own eyes to the imaginative universe that undergirded the work of Bernini and of the entire Baroque, read it differently: “In Bernini's vision the Holy Spirit passes through the rear wall and expands as it descends to fill the apse of the church, ultimately to include the high altar framed by the Baldacchino and the distant viewer in its exultant embrace. The essential point of the ideology of the Cathedra Petri is the singularity and unity of the Church under the papacy …. The spiritual progression from the divine will to its earthly manifestation has its visual and physical analogue in an imperceptible progression from two-dimensional, translucent polychromy, representing the pure spirit, through progressively "lower" and increasingly three-dimensional orders of reality, to reach, ultimately, our own.”2
Watching as the Cardinals gathered in front of the Cathedra to pray for the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit upon their deliberations in preparing for the Conclave to elect a successor to Benedict XVI, I began to think that this is only part of the proper reading of Bernini’s intentions. He is telling us something very important in this work. What I think he was trying to say is this: that it is the office, the Chair, and not the man who sits in it that counts. It is the office that receives the gifts of the Holy Spirit, it is the office that is upheld by the Spirit and the angels and the Fathers. The person on the chair is a passing thing, he comes and he goes through death or resignation, but the office endures and is upheld. It is the office that will never fail the Church, even though the individual sitting in it for the time may do so. As each man in the long succession of popes sits in this Chair, this office, he participates in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and is the visible guide for and defender of the earthly Church, its earthly Shepherd. However, he is also human and as a human being can sin and can make mistakes in governance. But, the true guide and protector of the Church and of the office is the Holy Spirit, who cannot err. This understanding of the papal office lies at the basis for the liturgical celebration of the feast of the Chair of Peter each year on February 22nd, established as early as the mid-fourth century.3 This is also the basis for the doctrine of papal infallibility. It is only when speaking formally ex cathedra, literally “from the chair” (i.e., from the office of pontiff) on matters of faith and morals that any pope is infallible. It is thus an office of immense responsibility and great seriousness.4 _______________________________________________ 1. Wittkower, Rudolf. Gianlorenzo Bernini, The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque, London, Phaidon Press, 1966, p.20. 2. Lavin, Irving. “Bernini at St. Peter’s: Singularis In Singulis, In Omnibus Unicus”, from St. Peter’s in the Vatican, ed. William Tronzo, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 155-159. 3. “Chair of Peter”, in Catholic Encyclopedia (1917) cited from http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03551e.htm Readings for the liturgy on the feast of the Chair of Peter can be found at http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/022213.cfm 4. Cathechism of the Catholic Church, Part 1, Section 2, Chapter 3, Article 9, Paragraph 4, Number 891 (online at http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2A.HTM)
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