Art/ Heritage

Jan van HEMESSEN (c. 1500-c. 1575); Parable of the unmerciful servant.; 1548-1552; Painting; Ann Arbor. University of Michigan Museum of Art.; Netherlands.

DIVINE MERCY – ‘The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant’ by Jan Sanders Van Hemessen

We move from Florence to the Dutch Provinces. The unprecedented political, economic and religious changes of the late 15th century led to the rise of Antwerp, a Flemish city in modern day Belgium. Nicknamed the ‘Queen city’, it served as the mercantile hub of the land. Antwerp also boasted of a highly accomplished bourse that attracted bankers, financers, merchants and moneylenders from all over Europe.

Complementing its economic rise was its artistic growth. Its affluent cosmopolitan atmosphere attracted numerous artists. It encouraged them to lay hand and explore a gamut of new styles. Art was no longer solely religious. Surpassing narration it provoked interpretation.

One such thought stimulating artist is Jan Sanders Van Hemessen. A leading Flemish Renaissance painter, he perfected the art of genre paintings. What is a genre painting? Put into simple terms, it is an illustration of an everyday event wherein a mundane individual plays the protagonist. Art then was no longer ideal. Rather it was raw and real.

Hemessen also played an important role in the development of the ‘Mannerist inversion’ technique. The essential here was the background and not the foreground. While the foreground featured a secular setting, a scene at the background revealed the climax moment of the narrative. This about face approach is best executed in today’s painting.

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Faith

No politics, please. Saturday, 23rd Week in ordinary time- I Timothy 1:15-17

When our minds are enraptured by a fascinating or life changing thought, then our conversations, vocabulary and writings become an extension of that thought.  Our repetitive words and sentences are indicative of the thoughts occupying our mind.  If we hate something we would end up talking about it all day long and everyone knows better not to utter the word that might set off the next world war. The same holds if we love someone; their name is ever on our lips our minds recalling every detail of their being. It could be a gadget we have bought, a place we have visited or a person we have met if we love it we talk about it.

St Paul has a love that he can’t stop talking about and that is seen in our reading of today. The reading is part of a larger doxology (a liturgical formula of praise to God) wherein Paul pens the name of Christ Jesus four times in six verses.  In all of his letters he mentions Jesus two hundred and eighteen times. I guess you know what’s on Paul’s mind for his agenda is clear.

Paul had undergone a deep conversion on the road to Damascus. The scriptures do not tell us the precise moment that Saul the persecutor became Paul the preacher; and for very good reason. Conversion is not a moment, it’s a process and may I dare say, in some cases, one where we fall more than we stand. It was the acceptance of his calling to service (1:12) that prompted Paul the preacher to stand up and proclaim; and proclaim he did.

Paul’s great boast is not in his achievements, for in his own words he calls them ‘rubbish’ (Phil 3:8). His boast is in the fact that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1:15) like him.  It would be presumptuous to state here that ALL sinners are saved by Jesus, for saving grace also demands contrition of sin. At the same time God’s mercy can’t be limited by humankind for God is God and His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not ours.

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Faith

When kneeling keeps us in good standing – Friday, 23rd week in ordinary time–I Timothy 1: 1-2, 12-14

From today, our scripture readings focus on St Paul’s letter to Timothy. Along with the letter to Titus, these letters form what are called the Pastoral Epistles because they are addressed to shepherds or pastors of the Christian communities and because they deal with church life and practice.

Timothy, like Titus was one of Paul’s closest companions. Timothy was born of mixed Jewish and pagan parentage and at some stage becomes a Christian and a follower of Paul; this after meeting him at Lystra (Acts 16: 1-3). He serves as Paul’s representative on missions to Thessalonica, to Corinth and probably also to Philippi. He was in close contact with Paul during his imprisonment in Ephesus and was with him in Corinth when the letter to Romans was written(JBC).

The letter of St Paul to Timothy is interesting because in these letters, we get a picture of an infant Church caught in a ‘sea of paganism.’ The early Christians were constantly lured back to their old ways. Once again, as in the Colossian community, false teachers attempted to lure the community to teachings of Jewish myths, the promotion of extreme asceticism which opposed marriage, the abstinence from food and the belief that the resurrection of the believers was already accomplished.

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The Discovery of the True Cross, by Italian painter Agnolo Gaddi c.1350-96. Fresco, c.1385. Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence, Italy

Jesus is the cure for He endures- Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross – Numbers 21: 4-9

The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, celebrated every year on September 14, recalls three historical events. The first is the discovery in AD 320, of the True Cross by Saint Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine. This was found under the temple of Venus in Jerusalem. The second is the dedication of the Church in 335, built by Constantine on the site of the Holy Sepulchre and Mount Calvary. The basilica was named the Martyrium, and the shrine, named the Calvarium but both were destroyed by the Persians in 614. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which now stands on the site, was built by the crusaders in 1149. Finally, the feast celebrates the restoration of the True Cross to Jerusalem by emperor Heraclius II.

But in a deeper sense, the feast also celebrates the Holy Cross as the instrument of our salvation; His salvific death on the Cross and His resurrection, through which, death was defeated and the doors to Heaven opened now to sinners.

The first reading of today, taken from the book of Numbers gives us an insight into human behaviour and God’s divine response. During their wanderings in Sinai, the Israelite’s suffer from a series of self-inflicted short term memory losses. They forget the goodness of God and His constant provision for their many needs (not their greed). When they were hungry He gave them manna from heaven, but they tired of the taste of these “cakes baked in oil” and demanded meat; which guess what, they got in the form of quails!

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Faith

Christ 24×7- Wednesday, 23rd week in ordinary time- St Paul’s letter to the Colossians 3: 1- 11

You are invited to read the text before you read the reflection.

A modern day parable often told is that of a man searching for a lost wrist watch under a street light. He does so, merely because there is light on this street and not on the street where he lost his wrist watch. All this may sound bizarre but then again that’s the purpose of a parable. And how bizarre is it when we search for God in places He does not exist, just because the world flashes a light in these places?

St Paul, in writing to the new converts in Colossae, makes precisely this point. If our sight is not set heavenwards, then we will seek the fleeting happiness that the world has to offer; fleeting happiness that is often offered in religious fads masquerading as faith, with smart lines like, “I am spiritual but not religious.” It is for this reason that we don’t find what we are looking for because we are either looking in the wrong place, or in the wrong person.

St Paul wants us to analyse our new reality and therefore our new conduct. The springboard for this understanding is in 3:1; “So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is.” The community at Colossae had now taken on a new persona, a new life in Christ. They had, in Paul’s words, “clothed themselves with new selves”. Their new reality was simply this, that they were raised with Christ who is now their life; therefore their new conduct must match this high calling.

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