What should I read to understand this? In my last posting I suggested that I think that social and economic conditions need not be such an influential factor on the culture as some suggest. My sense is that the form of the liturgy and the liturgical forms being produced now that are the driving force for a wider culture of beauty…or of ugliness.

I am not a trained economist and so have tried to do some reading recently to try to understand more how this might work. It is important to try to understand this. If we want to create a culture of beauty for the New Evangelisation then we need to understand what influences culture and how in order to try to redress the balance today. furthermore, anyone who wishes the production of beautiful art to be a vibrant force in the modern world must, I suggest, try to understand how this can be funded. Should it be left to free market forces? Or should we seek to subsidize favoured artists for the good of society? I thought I would pass on where my reading has taken me.

It seemed to me that there are two things that I need to have clear in my mind in trying to understand this field. The first is what is the just society that we are seeking to move towards. There are many aspects of what this might be, but in terms of social conditions the encyclicals of the Church of the last 120 years seem most applicable.…

A look at British china and porcelain from the 18th and 19th centuries might suggest otherwise Since the period of the industrial revolution in the mid-17th century and in the 19th century when it took hold in society, I would contend along with quite a few other I think, that the culture has generally been in decline. But does this mean that the first is the cause or even a contributing factor to the decline?

It is assumed by many to be the case, and we do, in my opinion, see clear signs of a decline in some areas of the culture at this time (especially so in the case of liturgical art and music). But I am not convinced that mass production or industrialisation are primary causal factors. I have always felt that the underlying design is the most important factor in the beauty of objects. There is nothing inherently less mass-producable or expensive about beautiful design. Beauty and elegance in design can be as cheap as ugliness. If we had designers who understood how to create beautiful objects, then mass production allows for the creation of lots of beautiful and affordable objects. This is a good thing, isn’t it? Of course, if designers create ugliness, then mass production will churn lots of ugly objects of the production line too, without being the cause of it.

Also, just because two events, the increase in mass production and the decline in some parts of the culture coincide, it doesn’t mean that one causes the other. …

I recently attended a wedding at the chapel of Thomas More College. The bride was stunningly beautiful, the music was sublime, the art was gorgeous.

I probably should declare at this point that my opinion on this matter is not wholly impartial: the art was my own;  the programe for the music was devised by my good friend Dr Tom Larson (who teaches the choir at TMC), who also lead the singing. The Ordinaries for the Mass were composed by another great friend Paul Jernberg, who was also singing in the choir. The propers were the  simple English propers for a Nuptial Mass composed by someone called Adam Bartlett (who I don’t know and who wasn’t at the wedding). I had not listened to these before, but they are in my inexpert opinion excellent. The psalm tones for the accompanying meditations were composed by myself and were chosen so that the mode matched that of each proper and these were harmonised into 4-part harmonies by Paul Jernberg (see examples here).We had an additional meditation for the incensing of the bride and groom. The celebrant was my friend Fr Roger Boucher who as ever said Mass with great dignity and reverence. (His name may be familiar to some of you: I have written a couple of articles about his farm in rural New Hampshire and more recently our working together in bringing the liturgy of the hours to the US veterans’ hospital in Manchester, New Hampshire.) In addition we closed with the St Michael Prayer  (a traditional Byzantine tone arranged by Paul with a little contribution from myself) and then the Te Deum sung in four-part harmonies, which is traditional Anglican chant.…

Today is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. I offer two painting for consideration. The first is Italian baroque from the 17th century. The artist is called Sassoferratu. It is in the National Gallery in London. I regularly used to pass the gallery on my way home from work and used to go in and look at paintings sometimes for just 15 minutes – this is possible when you don’t have to pay to get in. Long before I ever converted to Catholicism I was drawn to this particular painting which I found strikingly beautiful. The serene expression of the Virgin was a source of great delight to me.

The second is an icon painted by myself (based upon a Greek prototype) highlighted the personal relationship between Mother and Son.

Have a wonderful Feast day!…

St Irenaeus and St Augustine on ‘seeing’ God Here are two short excerpts taken from the Office of Readings. The first, from St Ireneaus, is from Advent and the second, from St Augustine, is from the Octave of Christmas. Both, it occurs to me, can be read in the light of the following: first is that we are made to see God the Father, in union with Him in heaven. When we  ’see’ God we know him deeply in the deepest form of knowing which is love. The action of love that draws us into in this mystery is worship of God in the liturgy. 

The first reading describes how the Trinity is active in this process. The Spirit draws us into the Son. . Through the personal relationship with the Son, we participate in His personal relationship with the Father. We are part of the mystical body of Christ, the Church, most fully when our actions are liturgicalThis is what liturgy is: the worship of the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit.

‘Man does not see God by his own powers; but God of his own will appears to men, to whom he wills, and when he wills and as he wills. For God can do all things: he was seen in former times prophetically through the Spirit, He is seen in the Son by adoption, and he will be seen in the kingdom of heaven as Father. The Spirit prepares man for the Son of God, the Son brings him to the Father, and the Father bestows on him incorruptibility for eternal life, which comes to everyone from his beholding God.’ (St Irenaeus, Against the Heresies.…

Happy Feast of Christmas. Here is a beautiful modern icon of the Nativity. This is an Eastern image and so I thought I would point out one figure who is portrayed somewhat differently here than in the West, St Joseph.

As I understand it, the standard interpretation is that by tradition in the East, St Joseph was a widower before he married Our Lady and so is always portrayed as an older man. He is hunched not just because of age, but also to reveal an inner turmoil. He is in doubt about whether or not he is witnessing a Virgin birth. The figure beside St Joseph, also as a hunched old man but in ragged clothing is the devil tempting him. All is resolved in the end for St Joseph loves his wife and through her prayers resolves this doubt. The physical separation in the icon emphasises also the point that St Joseph played no part in the conception of Our Lord.

My personal reaction to this is that this does not diminish the stature of St Joseph at all, rather it serves to elevate that of Our Lady. St Joseph is a great saint. He is the protector of the Holy Family, foster father and guardian of Our Lord. This demonstrates by contrast with the figure of Our Lady how she is even greater. In this sense St Joseph might be seen as an examplar of all other saints and so Our Lady is greater than all the other saints and angels.…

Just before the Christmas break the latest and largest painting was installed in the college chapel. It is Christ in Majesty. In painting this and placing it behind the crucifixion I had in mind two things: first that we are on a pilgrimage from this earthly life to the heavenly. In this life Christ bears our suffering and in the next we partake of his divine nature. We cannot complete this journey in this life, but we can move along the path by degrees by participation in the sacrificial life.

‘In the earthly liturgy we take part in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, a minister of the holies and of the true tabernacle; we sing a hymn to the Lord’s glory with all the warriors of the heavenly army.’ [Sacrosanctum Concilium, 8]

Second is to provide a focus during the liturgy of Christ as victim and Christ as King, sitting on his heavenly throne. The words from the Mass are: ‘In humble prayer we ask you, almighty God: command that these gifts be borne by the hands of your holy Angel to your altar on high in the sight of your divine majesty, so that all of us who through this participation at the altar receive the most holy Body and Blood of your Son may be filled with every grace and heavenly blessing.’ If you look at the foot of the cross there is a six winged seraph bearing the sacrificial victim up to heaven.…

Henry III is inspired by Roman patterns to create a two church floors Continuing a theme of traditional floor patterns from a few weeks ago, here are three variations on the quincunx. The quincunx is the name given to an arrangement of five shapes, (usually the same, for example five circles, but not necessarily so) in which four sit around one centrally placed.

The first is Roman and is at an ancient site at Hurcott in Somerset. The second and third were both created under the patronage of Henry III during the 13th century. The second is the Westminster Pavement, which is reasonably well known. The third is at Canterbury Cathedral and until I read about it in an article in the Glastonbury Review, here, I was not aware that it existed. This article suggests that Henry, who was patron of two geometric floors, was inspired by seeing Roman patterns. He is shown top left processing with a controversial relic, the precious blood of Christ. All of this is detailed in the Review article.

Those who wish to know more about the quincunx and its place in the Christian tradition of geometric art can read about it here.

…

Defending the Free Market: the Moral Case for a Free Economy, by Fr Robert Sirico

Is commerce and trade instrinsically moral?

Critics of capitalism would say no. Some, who acknowledge that the free market works to a degree when considered in cold economic terms only, argue that it is impersonal and encourages a selfish, individualistic outlook that is contrary to the principle of love that governs properly ordered personal interraction. Therefore, they say, it undermines faith and contains the seeds of its ultimate demise. This view can be reinforced, strangely, by some advocates of capitalism who say that in consideration of the economy, the generation of wealth is the only thing that matters and provided no laws are broken, then all moral considerations are private and for each person to sort out for themselves in isolation. Some Catholics who believe in the free market struggle to reconcile this with some papal encyclicals on Catholic social teaching that are critical of some aspects of capitalism. They do so by saying that in some matters the popes go beyond their authority. They might correctly highlight social injustice, they say, but when they start to analyse the economic causes and recommend economic policies to help, they are misguided and what they say is wrong and will not work.

Fr Sirico in his book does not take the position of any of these camps. He argues for the good of the free market, and does so on two counts.…

Anyone can learn to sing the psalms Following a recent article about us singing Vespers at a local hospital, a number of people have been asking me about the music for the psalm tones that we use when we sing Vespers and Compline for the US Veterans at the VA hospital in Manchester, New Hampshire.

In response to this I have put all the tones we have on a newly published page on this blog ‘Psalm Tones’ (see above). Before I describe what you will find there, I would just like to describe the last time we went to the veteran’s hospitial in Manchester, NH. We arrived as usual and were greeted by Fr Boucher in the chapel. Nobody else was there. Fr Boucher thanked us warmly for coming and told us that several veterans had wanted to come but were too ill to go from ward to chapel, and two had died earlier that day. Fr Boucher wanted us to know how important therefore, our prayer was. So we sang Vespers and Compline just as intended and as beautifully as we could for those who could not hear us.

Coming back to the tones: these are so easy to pick up that even I can do it. Just to give you an idea, I am at the level of being able to pick out a tune on the piano with one finger reading notes from a treble clef (bass clef is beyond me).…