Entering Heaven on Earth with the Photography of Fr Lawrence Lew OP

One of our best Catholic photographers, Fr. Lawrence Lew, OP, whose work has very often been shared at NLM over the years, has given us a new book that will be of great interest to all readers here:

Entering Heaven on Earth: The Signs, Symbols, and Saints of Catholic Churches 

It’s a stupendous coffee-table encyclopedia comprising just what the subtitle of the book tells us. Fr. Lew himself is responsible for all the gorgeous photos as well as the crystal-clear, just-the-right-length, theologically profound commentary, fully worthy of a member of the Order of Preachers.

In Part I, Fr. Lew takes us through sacred architecture, the form of the Church, color and ornamentation, altar and tabernacle.

In Part II, he looks at living creatures and nonliving creatures as symbols.

In Part III, the way the Bible is depicted in sacred art, with the rosary mysteries, the Old Testament scenes and typology, depictions of God, angels, the Last Judgment, and the sacraments.

In Part IV, he takes us through artistic depictions and symbols of the saints: Our Lady, apostles, evangelists, and all the other categories, with their halos, habits, flora, fauna, objects, body parts, and instruments.

As I paged through the book I could not believe how thorough it is — there’s probably not a single thing you’ll ever see in a Catholic church, no matter how lavish its use of signs and symbols, that is not explained here!

One thing I especially appreciate is that Fr. Lew’s commentary is deeply traditional but also quite delicate — there’s no hammering. He simply takes things for granted, such as the communion rail, or black as a proper color for Requiems. He’s a “gentle traditionalist,” to use Roger Buck’s phrase.

Some photos of the book:

The book is available from the publisher, from Amazon, and doubtless from other online shops too. This book is a good way to evangelize with beauty and tradition.

Photos of Solemn Pentecost Mass Offered by Newly Ordained FSSP Priest (Part 2)

On Monday, I published the first part of this set of photos of the first Mass of Fr Isaac Lind, which he offered on Pentecost Sunday. He was ordained for the Fraternity of St Peter on May 26th along with two others, Frs Quinn Gomez and Evan Schwab. Here is the continuation of the series, starting from the Offertory. Thanks once again to Mr Ron Lawson for sharing these beautiful images with us.

21. Preparing to incense the offerings.

22. Since this is the priest’s second Mass ever, the deacon, as a kindly older brother, is reminding him of the order of incensation, which is rather elaborate.

In case anyone is wondering what “order of incensation” refers to, here’s a diagram from a Roman Missal with all the indications:

23. ...incensation, continued...

24. The deacon incenses the priest. By now the subdeacon has the paten, which he has covered in the humeral veil and is holding up before his eyes, blocking his view of the unfolding mysteries. Note the servers waiting at the edge of the sacristy to emerge for the Lavabo.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Photos of Solemn Pentecost Mass Offered by Newly Ordained FSSP Priest (Part 1)

Fr. Isaac Lind, FSSP, one of the priests ordained on Friday, May 26, celebrated his first Sunday Mass two days later, on Pentecost, in the Fraternity’s chapel in Lincoln, Nebraska. St. Francis of Assisi is truly a Gothic gem of a church; it was once a chapel (!) for a Franciscan hospital, which explains its stained glass windows, but that’s a topic for another post. Fr. Lind’s first Mass, on the vigil of Pentecost, was offered at a Carmelite monastery where two of his sisters are nuns; joining him for the solemn Mass was his older brother, a monk of Clear Creek monastery. The Lind family is doing some heavy lifting vocationally! (Of your charity, please say a prayer for all of them.)

The subdeacon of the Mass was a fellow member of the FSSP; in the sanctuary were yet other seminarians; and in the choir loft, still more seminarians, joining the dozen or so regular singers (including yours truly). What an monumental occasion, from Veni Creator at the start to Te Deum at the end!

Thanks to fellow chapel associate and resident photographer Ron Lawson, I had a magnificent portfolio to choose from. I have picked my favorites and will offer some commentary. There are many perspectives on the ceremonies here that would be difficult to see from most places, or to see at all, and once again we can and should be thankful for the “ministry of photography” that has spread the healthy contagion of tradition all over the world. As Matt Menendez famously said at the New York Sacra Liturgia Conference, contrasting the first generation of trads with today’s, “They had the trauma; we have the internet.”

1. Vesting in the sacristy. Always a busy place before Solemn Mass!

2. Fr. Lind vesting for the procession.

3. Entering the church, between the holy water angels.

4. A packed house, including a bunch of FOCUS missionaries who happened to be in town. (Yep, “the kids are old rite!”)

5. In the place where I (on the left) spend most of my time in church on Sundays... together with some future choristers.

6. The priest sprinkles the people with holy water during the Vidi aquam.

7. After the Vidi aquam, the priest doffs his cope and dons the chasuble, assisted by the deacon & subdeacon (as indeed he is assisted by the two of them throughout the Mass).

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Why Photography Proliferates in Liturgies: A Response to Paul Inwood

On February 28th, at the internet antipodes to NLM, Paul Inwood offered readers an impassioned fervorino, “Specators or participants?,” on the excesses to which the faithful will go in pursuit of that optimal photo of their darling chickabidees receiving this or that sacrament:

What sort of policy do you have for photos in church during sacramental celebrations? I’m thinking particularly of First Communion celebrations, where a kind of liturgical anarchy seems to have invaded the church. In the age of the ubiquitous mobile phone, everyone can be a photographer, recording images of an event to be cherished subsequently. But people do not always think about how they might be impacting the rite, other people, and, most of all, themselves. All of us have seen celebrations whose character has been completely transformed by hordes of competing relatives (dads and uncles especially) who have swarmed all over the church, not only getting in the way of liturgical ministers but of each other, fighting for the best position. The atmosphere of the celebration has been derailed.

But wait, was it not one of the great achievements of the reform to bring the congregation out of their former condition of “mute, inert spectators” into “active participants”? It sounds as if Inwood might prefer, in this case, a bit more inertness and muteness — or, to put it in language more familiar to traditional Catholics, attentive receptivity, with a heightened awareness of the momentous actions at which we are privileged to assist, and a dignified participation that accords with it.

Inwood continues, in escalating dismay:

From a ritual point of view, we now see phenomena such as, instead of holding the worship aid and singing the entrance song, everyone is holding up their phones taking pictures of their kids in the entrance procession. Of course, no one can see past the forest of phones…. And once your phone is out, the temptation to check your emails or your social media feed instead of being part of what is going on can be difficult to resist.

To my surprise — as I believe it has never happened before — I find myself vigorously agreeing with the author on this point. I hate nothing more than that forest of phones. Indeed, I think smartphones have done and will end up doing quite as much damage to the residuum of Western Christian civilization as the Industrial Revolution did to the significantly greater civilization of its period. (Like Inwood, I don’t have a particular problem with an appointed professional photographer doing his or her job discreetly; one thinks of masters like Allison Girone, Tracey Dunne, Marc Salvatore, and Fr. Lawrence Lew. Moreover, Gregory DiPippo has ably defended “strategic” liturgical photography.)

Taking notice...

Then Inwood raises a number of questions:

How do you tell people truths that they may well not understand? That it’s impossible to “photograph” a sacrament, and that by attempting to record a “magic moment” they are actually depriving themselves of the opportunity to enter into that moment by being fully present to it? That taking a picture in effect “distances” you from what’s going on? You become a spectator instead of an integral “part” of the action.

Here, we must part ways. The problem is not that people are trying to record a magic moment; the problem is that there is no magic in the moment, by which I mean, anything of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans that would command a response of reverence or holy fear, the silence of humility and respect for something that comes across as sacred, a sense of decorum in the presence of the Other. The modern liturgical rites are so fully “inculturated” to Western secularity that they are experienced as “more of the same,” or perhaps, at best, as formal social occasions for recognizing accomplishments and sharing sentiments. The recent Filipino archbishop’s letter on abstaining from applause during Lent points to precisely this phenomenon.

One only wishes he could trace the problem back to its root, which is that the liturgy itself must have the qualities that draw us into being fully present to it. One of those qualities, paradoxically, is a heightened sense of “distance”: the distance between man and God, between earth and heaven, between the sinner and holiness, between the people in the pews and the priest at the high altar. The separation reminds us that we are dust and to dust we shall return; it reminds us that we are in need of outside help — of precisely supernatural help. We acknowledge a Mediator only when we know that God is our end and we are infinitely far from Him. Liturgy loses all of its meaning for those who are comfortably patted on the head for their goodness, or worse, celebrated as the center of the show. Or worse still, who are bored to tears by a monotonous alternation of words and ditties.

Now, I have to be quite honest and say I haven’t seen this problem nearly as much at the traditional Latin Mass as I have at the Novus Ordo. Although being snappy-happy can occur at any affair of a spectacular nature (that is, one worthy of taking notice of) — and the entrance and exist of a cappa magna-wearing prelate is almost guaranteed to defeat the photographic self-control of all but the most ascetical — why do the faithful at a traditional Latin Mass seem so much less disposed to whip out their phones, even though there is usually a lot more beautiful stuff going on to notice? Why is the forest of phones not springing up out of pockets and purses?

I think the answer is obvious. The traditional Latin Mass feels like serious God-directed worship, and so it would take considerable chutzpah to yank out the phone. It would be like Moses taking a picture of the Burning Bush and sharing it on Facebook: “Hey, Jethro, check THIS out!” In contrast, the Novus Ordo as Paul VI wanted it to be celebrated habituates people into thinking of the Mass or any other sacramental rite as being “for them,” “their event,” “our time as community.” The closed circle encourages a photographic self-portrait. If we deprive the faithful of the theocentric atmosphere created by ad orientem, silence, Gregorian chant, and plenty of kneeling, are we surprised that they will fall back on their secular habit of snapping shots of the cutey-pies?

Here is the moral: If you want people to be serious participants, give them something manifestly serious to be prayerful spectators of — in Richard Crashaw’s words, the “full, final sacrifice, on which all figures fix’d their eyes.”

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s website, SoundCloud page, and YouTube channel.

A Note about Photography in Church

I am sure that many of our readers have read that in his Wednesday audience this week, the Pope spoke very disapprovingly of the taking of photographs during the liturgy. “The Mass is not a show: it is to go to meet the passion and resurrection of the Lord, ... The Lord is here with us, present. Many times we go there, we look at things and chat among ourselves while the priest celebrates the Eucharist... But it is the Lord! ... (the priest says) lift up our hearts. He does not say, ‘We lift up our phones to take photographs!’ ... And I tell you that it gives me so much sadness when I celebrate here in the piazza or basilica and I see so many raised cellphones, not just of the faithful, even of some priests and even bishops.”

This is an excellent admonition, and sadly, a rather necessary one, but I am quite sure that His Holiness was referring to things like this:

and not to things like this:

Photo by Mr Arrys Ortañez, from our third Corpus Christi photopost of 2015, part of the Sacra Liturgia Conference held that year in New York City.

We do not live in a normal age in the Church’s life, and one of the things that makes it abnormal is the very widespread phenomenon of badly done and ugly liturgies; their ugliness is often far more distracting than any photographer, however poorly behaved. Photography is an extremely useful tool, I would say even a necessary one, for presenting people with models of liturgies which are well-done and beautiful. As long as they are taken with discretion, in a way that does not intrude upon the congregation’s ability to pray, I see no reason why we should have a problem with photographs taken during the liturgy. NLM will continue to publish such images, and we encourage others to do so. Photographs that have a documentary, historical, instructional or apologetic purpose, and serve as part of the Church’s evangelical outreach are one thing; photographs taken in function of the addictive selfie culture and digital tourism are another matter entirely.

The Façade of Assisi Cathedral: Guest Article by Julian Kwasniewski

The Cathedral of St Rufino in Assisi, the third church to be built on the same site, was begun in 1140 A.D., about 40 years before St Francis was born. It is perhaps less visited than the major Franciscan sites in the city, but it was certainly very important in the early history of the Order. It was while hearing Francis preach in the church (where they both had been baptized as children, along with many of their early followers) that Clare decided to follow him in his life of poverty. We are very glad to share with our readers these marvelous photographs of the church’s façade, along with the accompanying commentary, both by Julian Kwasniewski, Peter’s son; I think that the use of black and white really conveys very well how intricate these carved decorations really are. You can see some more of his excellent work recently publish on the website OnePeterFive (here and here).

The Façade of the Cathedral of Assisi: A Personal Discovery

Introduction: Where and How

“Terrible is this place: it is the house of God, and the gate of heaven; and it shall be called the court of God.” (Genesis 28, 17, the Introit for the Dedication of a Church.) 

This past July, I was blessed to be able to visit Assisi, the magnificent city of St. Francis, and of medieval Christendom. Although we saw many famous places of beauty and majesty, here I wish to share my thoughts about an obscure place of wonder, that of San Ruffino, the Cathedral of Assisi. At this church I found a beauty which, after reflecting on it later, filled me with delight and fear at the truth shown therein.

Having glanced briefly at the interior and exterior and said the usual sort of thing that you say about another great edifice, my group of family and friends prepared to move on, hoping for some lunch and gelato! However, I was about to have the scales lifted from my oblivious eyes. Some of our group ended up taking a look at the crypt–treasury, and my father and I were left to wait in the square in front of the church. Then I discovered the real beauty and complexity of this court of God.

This is what I wrote in my journal: “July 16th 2016 …The Façade of the Cathedral of Assisi is exquisite: not awe-inspiring like the façade of Chartres, but in the way that one must ‘get to know it.’ It took me a good half hour to appreciate its workmanship. Going over the façade again and again, each time bringing to my eyes new details: heads, faces, people, and animals, all secretly hidden only for the attentive. The idea of a church that is so extensive in its decoration that no one man can appreciate it is a lost principle—and only God can really understand and value the offerings that these churches make. Also, in Christendom there is no sense of ‘we have built some great churches, now we can do something else.’ No, rather: ‘nothing we do can satisfy God—but a little bit more makes a little bit more…’ ”

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Photographs from Valaam Monastery

I just stumbled across the website of Valaam Monastery, a Russian Orthodox foundation located on a large island in Lake Ladoga, the largest lake in Europe, to the north of St. Petersburg and the Karelian Isthmus. The monastery established a photographic studio in the 1850’s, and has evidently amassed an enormous archive; the website has a special section dedicated to photography, with links to eleven different collections. In addition to a section of historical images, the works of a number of talented individual artists are highlighted, including two members of the community. Here is just a tiny selection, made more or less at random; the site is very much worth perusing. Valaam is also the home of a special kind of liturgical music, and the website provides a number of links to recordings. (h/t P.A.G.)