The Province of Joy - Lenten Series 2015 - The Meeting on the turret stairs - Burton

"The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice. My beloved speaks and says to me: "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away." (Song of Solomon 2:8-13, NRSV).

A number of years ago RTE conducted a survey to find Ireland’s favourite painting and the result was “The meeting on the turret stairs” by Frederic William Burton which is one of the most popular paintings in the National Gallery despite the fact that because its rather delicate nature it is not actually on public display that often.

“This richly coloured watercolour painting depicts the ill-fated lovers Hellelil and Hildebrand, meeting on the stone stairway of a medieval tower. The princess and her bodyguard had fallen in love but her father regarded the young soldier as an unsuitable match for his daughter and ordered his sons to kill him. Burton was inspired by the story of the ill-fated lovers told in an old Danish ballad. The poem had been translated into English in 1855 by Whitley Stokes, a lawyer and philologist, and friend of the artist”[1].

“A careful reading of the ballad reveals an imagined early moment in the relationship when the couple meet fleetingly on the stairs, as Hildebrand passionately seizes Hellelil’s arm, embracing it and making the most of a brief encounter in a doomed affair. In the words of George Eliot, ‘The face of the knight is the face of a man to whom the kiss is a sacrament’. Burton creates an emotionally charged situation—by focusing attention on the knight’s intense embrace of the arm of his lady, who, taken by surprise, turns aside, having dropped her flowers, scattering the petals on the stair—symbolising the brevity of the affair and its destructive nature[2]”.

The painting probably appeals to the romantic element in our Celtic temperament; the ideal of giving all for love as the story of Hellelil and Hildebrand is after all a tragic romance – like Romeo and Juliet there is no happy ending for the two lovers. The idea of the star crossed lovers like Deirdre (of the Sorrows) and Naoise is a common theme in many stories from an Fhiannaíocht and an Rúraíocht.

The painting depicts a stolen moment; a kairos encounter; an encounter stolen outside the running tide of time as the lovers seek to mark their love for each other. A fleeting embrace as they pass each other by.

Love can be such a fleeting thing; but it is part of being human where we recognise that not being in love somehow makes us seem less human; after all the saying is that it is better to have loved and lost then not to have loved at all. Our relationships in life can be complex and not simple. But always they are moments of encounter and relationships of love can be even sacraments of encounter. “As we journey from the womb of the sea with our gaze of longing fixed on the stars, we have stopped off on this earth for a short spell of belonging”[3]. And sometimes the journey can be a “long and winding road” but “we are not asked to get it right, we are asked to be open, to keep the heart soft, and in this open space we discover the healing and stillness we long for. Maybe life is simply asking that we not anesthetise ourselves against the bigger questions, but with pilgrim hearts be always asking that which the poet Mary Oliver asks: ‘What is it you plan to do with your one, wild and precious life?’”[4]

Love is also the under lying theme of the scriptures. The stories, poetry, creation myths and historical recordings set out the journey of a people as they grow into a relationship with many side steps and tangents before its ultimate culmination and consummation in the empty tomb on Easter morning. And that idea of a love story is expressed in the Song of Songs or the Canticle of Canticles.

The Song of Songs is a book of the Old Testament which is regarded as part of the Wisdom literature. It is in unusual book in some ways with its earthy even erotic language of love and passion – recently I read of one commentator who described it as needing an R rating! In this book we hear the Shepherd and the Shulamite singing their love to each other, celebrating each other, praising each other, yearning for each other as much when they are together as when they are apart. It is the story of two lovers and their description of their love and passion for the other seen as an allegory for God’s love for the people of Israel.

As blogger Craig Adam’s notes[5]:

“....the books of Wisdom literature are life related. They speak to the here and now. They are reflections on life and how it is to be led. To the ancient Hebrews "wisdom" was the ability to live well. It was the ability to find happiness and fulfillment in life. We read in Ecclesiastes 3:12,13: "I know that there is nothing better for [people] than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil."

..... in the Song of Songs, we find ourselves in the ancient Jewish wedding festival. This is where these poems were originally read. They speak of the celebration of erotic love and of romantic longing. .......We should not be afraid of this part of ourselves. Calling it "evil" and suppressing it will not make it go away. Our sexuality is woven into the fabric of our being. The more we reject and suppress the sexual urge the more out-of-control it is likely to become.

And, it's not an evil thing to see beauty and wonder in another human being. Hey, it's a good thing! It's not evil if it causes us to see and value that person as a human being. Really, our capacity for this is too small. The truth is that we are created in the image of God — don't you know? — and, there is a beauty in everyone that we are not always capable of seeing. God sees us as handsome and beautiful and wonderful — oftentimes tragic, yes — but nonetheless as God's "very good" creation. God delights in us.

God calls us into a relationship through Jesus Christ. "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away." Can you believe you are beloved, honored, valued?

Lent is a time for us to remind ourselves of that. Like the couple in the “Meeting on the turret stairs” God seeks to embrace us and often can only find those stolen moments of encounter. Lent provides us with an opportunity to reflect on that fact that “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him[6]”.  

As Pope Benedict XVI reminded us “these words...express with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of mankind and its destiny”[7]. It poses the question for us – can we claim John’s summary of the Christian life that “we have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us”? After all “[b]eing Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction”[8] expressed in communion and community. “In the Song of Songs love becomes a concern and care for the other.”No longer is it self-seeking, a sinking in the intoxication of happiness; instead it seeks the good of the beloved: it becomes renunciation and it is ready, and even willing, for sacrifice”[9].”

But where is our passion? Where is our drive and desire for love? Why is it that the Celtic temperament and drama of the Christian love story has been subdued within us? Where is the energy and the out pouring of desire?

We are almost afraid to recognise that “I am my beloved’s, his desire is for me. Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields”[10]  Why do we not cry out and ask God to set “a seal upon [our] heart, as a seal upon [his] arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave”[11]

Looking at the painting it almost seems to ask us can we make of our own the search for God, that “I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him....”[12]. But are we seeking, searching, asking, opening ourselves to that love? As Lent draws to a close and we enter into the sacred Triduum, we can ask ourselves do we allow that space for that sacrament of encounter so that we can say 

“My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready. I will sing, I will sing your praise. Awake my soul, awake lyre and harp, I will awake the dawn”[13].

---

[1] http://www.nationalgallery.ie/ga-IE/Collection/Irelands_Favourite_Painting/Burton.aspx accessed 26th March 2015

[2] http://www.historyireland.com/medieval-history-pre-1500/irelands-favourite-paintingthe-meeting-on-the-turret-stairs/  accessed 26^th March 2015

[3] John O’Donohue, The Four Elements – Reflections on Nature; Transworld Ireland, 2010; quote from the foreword by Pat O’Donohue

[4] Martina Lehane Sheehan, Seeing Anew – Awakening to Life’s Lessons; Veritas, 2012, pg 13

[5] http://www.craigladams.com/archive/files/reflections-song-of-solomon.html accessed 26th March 2015 

[6] 1 Jn 4:16

[7] Deus Caritas est, para 1

[8] Deus Caritas est, para 1

[9] Deus Caritas est, para 6

[10] Song of Songs 7:10

[11] Song of Songs 8:6

[12] Song of Songs 2:

[13] Psalm 56

The Province of Joy - Lenten Series 2015 - Rainbows over Victoria Falls

Victoria Falls, Zambia, July 2013

Contributor: Melanie Sullivan

The photo I have chosen for the Lent reflection is not a famous one nor is it the work of a famous photographer. The photo was taken by me in 2013 when I was lucky enough to take a holiday at Victoria Falls with my parents. It is a simple picture, snapped with a simple camera by someone whose simple Christian faith has sustained and shaped her through the ups and downs experienced so far in life. It is my favourite photo of nature as rainbows are my constant reminder that after dark days, good times will follow, although like the rainbow these can be elusive and we have to search. 

How does the rainbow fit with a Lent reflection? After 40 days of flooding in Genesis, the waters take time to recede and when Noah, his family and the creatures of the earth finally the ark, God promises he will never again send a flood to destroy the earth. The beautiful rainbow, usually hidden by the clouds, is the sign God gives to Noah of this promise. It is our constant reminder of God’s love.

Lent is the time we prepare for Christ’s death on Good Friday. We remember Christ’s 40 days in the desert when he prepared himself for the death he knew he was born to accept.  These are dark days, like rainy days when we can’t see the sunshine, even though we know the sun rises every day.  During Lent many choose to give up their favourite food or drink, TV programmes, or all sorts of other things they enjoy to help them experience the darkness, the loneliness, the metaphorical rain that Christ felt in the desert. On Easter Sunday they are released from this darkness, see sunshine and the accompanying rainbow as their favourite treat is restored to them. 

The darkest day of Lent is Good Friday when the Mary and the disciples watched Christ willing die on the cross. What is it like to give up your life for others?  The best sermon I heard about the Passion asked us to image the pain that Christ would have experienced. How do you lie on a cross, already in agony from being whipped and beaten, as nails are forced into your hands and feet? The pain must be indescribable, intolerable and yet this is exactly what Christ did for us. Amazing!  How do you watch a close friend or a child die? How do you bear that grief? Coming to terms with the death of a loved one is a very dark time and when I have needed God to carry me. What Mary and the disciples did not know on Good Friday was that Christ would rise again on Easter Sunday, the day they would see the metaphorical rainbow. This promise of resurrection is what has sustained me through dark times.

Dolly Parton, well known for her Christian faith as well as her singing, is credited with saying “if you want the rainbows you gotta put up with the rain”. I couldn’t agree more. Without the rainy days of Lent we would never have the rainbow on Easter Sunday when we receive the gift of our risen Lord.   

The Province of Joy series - Lenten Reflections 2015 - The Angelus - Millet

Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) - The Angelus
Between 1857 and 1859 (Musée d'Orsay)

Background to the painting:

A man and a woman are reciting the Angelus, a prayer which commemorates the annunciation made to Mary by the angel Gabriel. They have stopped digging potatoes and all the tools used for this task – the potato fork, the basket, the sacks and the wheelbarrow – are strewn around them. In 1865, Millet said: "The idea for The Angelus came to me because I remembered that my grandmother, hearing the church bell ringing while we were working in the fields, always made us stop work to say the Angelus prayer for the poor departed". So it was a childhood memory which was behind the painting and not the desire to glorify some religious feeling; besides Millet was not a church-goer. He wanted to catch the immutable rhythms of peasant life in a simple scene. Here he has focused on a short break, a moment of respite.

Alone in the foreground in a huge empty plain, the two peasants take on a monumental quality, despite the small size of the canvas. Their faces are left in shadow, while the light underlines their gestures and posture. The canvas expresses a deep feeling of meditation and Millet goes beyond the anecdote to the archetype.

Perhaps that explains the extraordinary destiny ofThe Angelus: it triggered an unbelievable rush of patriotic fervour when the Louvre tried to buy it in 1889, was venerated by Salvador Dali, lacerated by a madman in 1932 and became a world-famous icon in the 20th century.

Reflection by Mary Keating:

Millet's 'The Angelus' is a painting which literally always stops me in my tracks. It reminds me of the importance of taking the time in the midst of the busyness of every day life to turn to GOD in humility, dependency and thanksgiving. It reminds me that The WORD was made flesh and lived {and continues to live} amongst us. 

AWESOME and something that needs moments of stopping in my tracks to ponder on. I always try to remember to stop and say the Angelus and think about the words I'm saying. 

During LENT I hope to be better at doing this and have the courage to invite people who are in  my company at Angelus time to join me in the silence or in the words.

The Province of Joy - Lenten Reflections 2015 - Ripples in the Rock Pool

Lent – forever and in this present moment

Noirin Lynch 

Ripples in the rock pools, ripples in the sea
Ripples in the sand dunes rolling into Connemara

(Shaun Davey)

The Irish coastline fascinates me, especially the rocky beaches that I love to clamber over and around.  Looking at the Atlantic is an experience of enormity, power and vastness. Gazing into a tiny rock pool is to know that all the beauty and hope of life is contained in the smallest drop, in this present moment.

In the Lenten Gospels Jesus steps away from the noise and excitement of the Jordan and into a barren place, a place he can be still and pray. All the old temptations follow him, all the dramas, all the false promises … if God really loved you, you’d never go hungry. If God really cared, there would be no suffering. You’ve trusted the wrong person in trusting God …

In this place-apart, the noises were louder and more insistent … and yet precisely because of this Jesus sees clearly and responds to them. No I won’t be bought be today’s bread, some things are more important. No, it doesn’t need to be easy to be good – some things are more important than safety. Yes, I place my trust in God and I don’t need any more than that.

Some days I feel like I am being run by the noises in my head, the noises of the city, of work, of expectations. I find myself on a treadmill of busy-ness, stressed and smiling. Then I know I need to go to my desert place. I need the rocky places and the sea.

So I step out of the busy-ness and into the calm. At first when I arrive I am restless. I wander and clamber and take photos and remember a phone call I meant to make. No signal. Hmmm, maybe that’s a sign. I try and slow down again, but my heads still busy. I clamber some more, find a perch or a hollow and sit for a moment. The voices are louder now that I’m still .., or maybe there’s just no other noise distracting me. ‘you’ve loads to do, go home’. ‘it’s bound to rain, go find a hat’, ‘maybe there’s a signal here for that phone call’. …

…. I look out at the sea.  The mighty Atlantic and her waves.  I breathe in the salt air and there is nothing to do but breathe in and out with the beautiful pounding waves as the prance and dance around the mighty stones. ‘God, but you’re great really. Really great. It’s all so perfect. There is nothing to do but be here with you and breathe’.

And then I realise that the noises that run me are silent. Like the wind took them away – only it didn’t. I just let myself be present in the present and all the future stuff wasn’t important any more. Not for this moment at least.

Green, blue, yellow and red-

God is down in the swamps and marshes

Sensational as April and almost incredible

the flowering of our catharsis.

A humble scene in a backward place

Where no one important ever looked

The raving flowers looked up in the face

Of the One and the Endless, the Mind that has baulked

The profoundest of mortals. A primrose, a violet,

A violent wild iris- but mostly anonymous performers

Yet an important occasion as the Muse at her toilet

Prepared to inform the local farmers

That beautiful, beautiful, beautiful God

Was breathing His love by a cut-away bog.

Patrick Kavanagh  (from Selected Poems, Penguin books, 1996.)

For me, Lent has long not been about what type of sweets I give up. Lent has been the insistent heartbeat of hope … remember you are dust, and into dust you shall return … remember who you really are … remember all this busy-ness is just noise … remember …. renew … repent … release …

Lent for me is ‘Beautiful, beautiful beautiful God, … breathing his love into this over-diary-ed fog’. (with apologies to Kavanagh!).  It is my moment of redemption when I remember that I want to be more than my diary or my plans. It is my space for letting go and recognising how beautifully I am held in the Fathers hand, how perfect this life really is and can be. Lent often begins at the sea and in a rock pool – and it is always in the present moment, with the ever present God - ‘I Am’.

Truly dust we are, and to dust we shall return;

and truly yours we are, and to you we shall return.

Help this to be a time of turning round and beginning again.

A Time of Turning Round  -  written by Jan Sutch Pickard, in Traveling to Easter with Jesus as our Guide, Patmos Abbey—The Order of Saint Columba.http://www.patmosabbey.org/ http://re-worship.blogspot.ie/2012/02/lent-prayer-time-for-turning-round.html

The Province of Joy series - Lenten Reflections 2015 - The Other Mary Remembers: Meditating on Mary Magdalen and the Impact Jesus had on her Life

The evenings are the best time for me - this is when I sit and remember,

those treasured moments that formed such a part of my life

that made me the woman I am now.

They dance and flicker in my mind,

just like the oil lamps that bless my evenings with warmth and light

a gentle and kindly light that plays upon the stone walls,

sometimes gold, sometimes ruby, making friends with the darkness

and fill the air with the fragrance of a sweet oil, heavy with memories.

This home, this dwelling, so loved by him,

blessed and warmed with his presence,

a place where he found friends, kindness, care, and a tenderness

that touched his heart and stung his eyes with tears.

His love is for every woman,

for every man, for all living beings,

children, animals, beasts and birds,

freely given, poured out, filled to overflowing,

a love that pierces the heart with delight,

and leaves a wound

that only love can heal,

and wound again and heal.

Gently waiting in the shadows,

another memory requests an audience,

and asks to be invited and held for a moment.

A dusty place, a dry and barren earth

where stones abound.

And dark figures and pointed limbs quietly steal away,

while a figure stoops and writes upon the earth,

and as the tiny dust clouds settle they dance and catch the sun.

And as the tears flow, a heart is cleansed and flooded with new life,

and the gaze is so tender and filled with compassion,

a compassion so deep that it wounds once more

and heals and wounds and heals.

At times, I love to run my fingers through my hair

those tresses that he loved and touched and stroked,

and it was all so natural and right,

yes, he gave me dignity, and he needed me, he needs me.

The alabaster vase is placed gently in the little nook,

a remnant of the linen cloth carefully folded,

one a sign of his life, the other a gesture of my love

a love that was too deep to be poured out,

a love that was too tender to bear, and still it wounds and heals and wounds.

They still come to my home, this dwelling that he loved,

and this is my delight,  they too love him,

they want to hold the vase, to touch the cloth, to treasure the memory.

“What was it like?” they asked, “do you remember how you felt?”

“What did he say to you?”

And time and time again, as I share this blessed story,

I taste once more the tears,

the pain, the delight, the love, the pleasure that was mine

that flooded my heart at the sound of my name,

and knew at that moment that I had found him

whom my soul had been seeking,

that he had found me.

And when I stop and listen, I still hear his voice,

a voice as gentle as the breeze,

a breath of stillness,

so softly, gently, as he says

“Come with me, my love,

for winter is passed,

the rain is over and gone,

the flowers appear on the earth,

the time of singing has come”.

Kathryn Williams pddm

- A reflection by Sr Kathryn on Mary Magdalene

The Province of Joy - Lenten reflections 2015 - "The Snail" by Matisse

"The Snail" - Matisse - 1953 - Tate Gallery London UK

Contributor: Bishop Brendan Leahy

A painting entitled “The Snail” by the French artist, Henri Matisse, hangs in the Tate Modern Art museum in London. Its large size of three metres square and its dramatic colours really struck me when I first saw it hanging there during a visit some years ago.

In a sense, the painting is simple. Using the seven primary colours Matisse has arranged the painting around geometric blocks on a white background. These blocks form a loose spiral suggesting the shape of a snail’s shell.

The painting is famous for many reasons. It has been described as a kind of drawing with scissors. It seems that when he painted this painting, Matisse was unwell and possibly dying. Though confined to bed he provided instructions to his assistants. He got them to cut or tear shapes from paper that had been painted with one of the primary colours. Then, under his precise instructions, these pieces of paper were placed on the white background and pasted down by an assistant. The overall effect was that the blocks of colour appear to float, as though always in motion. It was a painting that suggested a movement, an unfolding.

The artistic guide who was leading the group I was part of on a tour of the gallery pointed out to us that Matisse had also instructed that a piece of black be placed within the arrangement. By the canons of art, this shouldn’t work (black shouldn’t be included in the middle of primary colours) and yet, somehow, it seems to work in this case. Perhaps, suggested the guide, the sick and dying Matisse wanted to convey something about mortality, time passing and the “black” (of illness and of death) fitting in?

Lent is a time when we concentrate on our spiritual journey. We need this time every year to reflect on our lives because the life of each of us is passing. Evening comes quickly. I think Matisse’s painting expresses the fact that so many aspects of life are constantly in movement – family and friends, goals and deadlines, dreams and hopes.

Yes, there are many dimensions to our life, but perhaps what the painting also wants to say to us is that as time passes, let’s face up to the “negative” that we often feel tempted to deny or simply lament – our limits and failures, our sins and suffering. As we look at the black in Matisse’s painting and see that it somehow “fits in”, perhaps we can hear again the invitation to “take up our Cross”.

The Cross is unique for each of us. Suffering grazes everyone in life in a different way. For those with Christian faith, what matters is that we name the suffering and recognise that we can transform it by uniting our suffering to that of Jesus Christ in his dying and resurrection. As St. Paul so often repeated, our suffering, if lived in Christ, can be a source of life for others. Lent can be a time for discovering more profoundly, how the “black” can fit in. “It is when I am weak I am strong”.

The Province of Joy - Lenten Reflections 2015

Regular readers to the blog will know that from time to time we post series of reflections generally focused around the seasons of Advent and Lent. In Advent 2014 we published sixteen different reflections for the first two weeks before switching our focus to the O Antiphons.

For Lent this year we have asked contributors to reflect and dialogue with their favourite piece of art and how it speaks to us about faith and the meaning of our lives. Like a form of lectio divina we have asked them to share with us their thoughts and feelings evoked by these doorways into "the provinces of joy".

We will be honest and declare that we are plagiarizing the idea from the wonderful national treasure that is the National Gallery of Ireland. Currently they have an exhibition called "Lines of Vision" where Irish writers find inspiration in the wonderful collection in the gallery. This exhibition coincides with the launch of the publication Lines of Vision: Irish Writers on Art, a beautifully illustrated anthology of new poems, essays and stories by 56 Irish writers, inspired by the Gallery’s collection. The contributors have selected pictures from the collection as setting-off points to explore ideas about art, love, loss, family, dreams, memory, places, and privacy. Both the artworks and the literary responses to them are wonderfully diverse in subject-matter and tone.

When we set the challenge to our contributors we said that the art pieces didn't have to be strictly religious in tone, but given that we are entering into Lent challenge was for a reflection/piece of creative writing based on their favourite piece of art with a Lenten slant (where possible). 

 

The title of the series is taken from a letter written on July 14th 1964 by Flannery O'Connor the American writer and the quote is taken froma book of the same name by Angela Alaimo O'Donnell - "The Province of Joy: Praying with Flannery O'Connor".

The quote is taken from a letter O'Connor sent to her friend Jane McKane. Angela O'Donnell makes the point that

"in the face of loneliness, isolation, daily physical pain and limitation, and the psychological burden of living with a fatal disease, [O'Connor's] daily prayer to St Raphael is a daily passage to the "province of joy". O'Connor knew that the "true country", the proper destination, orientation, and disposition of a believing Christian, is joy............." 

Lent is often seen as a joyless season, but the reminder to us when we reflect on beauty and art is that it is a time set aside (a kairos moment) for us to turn again to the Lord towards the place of joy which is resting in the embrace of the One Who Embraces All.

Prayer to St Raphael

O Raphael, lead us toward those we are waiting for, those who are waiting for us: Raphael, Angel of happy meeting, lead us by the hand toward those we are looking for. May all our movements be guided by your Light and transfigured with your joy.

Angel, guide of Tobias, lay the request we now address to you at the feet of Him on whose unveiled Face you are privileged to gaze. Lonely and tired, crushed by the separations and sorrows of life, we feel the need of calling you and of pleading for the protection of your wings, so that we may not be as strangers in the province of joy, all ignorant of the concerns of our country. Remember the weak, you who are strong, you whose home lies beyond the region of thunder, in a land that is always peaceful, always serene and bright with the resplendent glory of God.