The Symbolism of Mary in Images of the Hospitality of Abraham

Here is a hymn to the Virgin Mary, a ‘Theotokion’ from the Canon of Sunday Orthros, tone 1, in the Byzantine Rite:

Rejoice, O well-spring of grace! Rejoice, O ladder and door of heaven! Rejoice, O lampstand and golden jar, thou unquarried mountain, who for the world gavest birth unto Christ, the Bestower of life!

And from the great hymn to the Virgin Mary, the Akathist, Ikos 3:

Rejoice, O Table laden with mercy in abundance!

We can see a pattern here: Tradition compares Mary to anything that is adjacent to God, facilitates His work, or contains Christ and the Eucharist.

In the first hymn, the ladder is a reference to the ladder which Jacob sees in a dream(Genesis 32, 24-30), by which angels ascend and descend as God speaks from above, symbolising a connection between heaven and earth. A lampstand is a more generic symbol: it bears the flame of the lamp, the light which represents the Light of Christ. And the unquarried mountain from which came the unhewn stone, representing Christ, as referred to in the Book of Daniel, is also a symbol of the Virgin. 

Consider now these paintings of the Biblical episode known as the Hospitality of Abraham, recounted in Genesis 18, 1-10. These first two are traditional Russian icons, the one on the right by the famous painter Andrei Rublev.

There is no direct depiction of Mary in these. However, the scene is interpreted as an allusion to the Eucharist held within jars on the altar, and the table upon which the meal is served is likened to an altar. The three strangers, who are subsequently revealed as angels from heaven, are traditionally interpreted as symbols of the three persons of the Trinity. Some contemporary commentators see in the Rublev the shape of a chalice, traced by the right edge of the left figure and the left edge of the right figure. I will admit that while I am happy to consider that the golden chalice, which is painted on the table, is an allusion to the Eucharist that the artist intended, I am not convinced that the second was more than a feature of good and balanced compositional design, intended to mimic rhythmically the shape of the chalice. Hence, it draws our attention to it through a graceful convergence of lines.

Regardless of what we think about this more modern interpretation, by connecting even the more conservative interpretation of the imagery of all images of the Hospitality of Abraham with the hymns given above, it is fair to say that if we think of the Golden Jar in the painting as the vessel containing the Bread of the Blessed Sacrament, then the table is the “Table laden with mercy in abundance,” that is, laden with Christ, present in the Eucharist. And we now see Mary symbolised within these paintings as both table and chalice.

Here is a much earlier representation of the Hospitality of Abraham, a 5th-century mosaic in the basilica of St Mary Major in Rome:

And another Russian icon of the Hospitality, painted by an anonymous artist in the 14th century:

And a 13th-century Gothic illumination from the French Psalter of St Louis:

In all of these, we can see the Eucharistic, and therefore also the Marian, symbolism within it. 

However, if we examine a painting of the same scene by Rembrandt, even though it is a beautiful work, the symbolism is lacking. I see no golden jar or any attempt to portray a table which might be interpreted as an altar. Rembrandt was a Protestant, so it is not surprising that this is missing.

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.

Biblical Typology for Christmas in a Liturgical Hymn: Words, Music and Art

I am unusual among Christians, perhaps, in that, I have no fondness for the traditional Victorian Christmas carols that are commonly sung around this time of year. I always hated them as a child, and today I find the texts superficial, and the music saccharine and sentimental, although perhaps appropriate to the text.

Here is a hymn that we have been singing at my church over Advent which I do like. You can click the link below to hear the audio file.

The Katavasia of Christmas: follow the link for the MP3 audio file 

First, the key of the music is Byzantine Tone (Mode) 1 and sung with a drone. The combination of chant melody with a drone has a strong spiritual quality (I discuss why I think this is in a past post here: Using Drones As Harmony - A Simple Way to Add to the Spiritual Effect of Sacred Music). Second, the way in which this is sung, in natural voices, invites the congregation to participate in the singing. As it is repeated several times during the season (we sing twice each Sunday) they have a chance to learn the melody and join in. This is a style that invites both men and women to sing along with melody or drone. Our pastor sends out this recording and the score out to the congregation in our weekly mailing.

The Katavasia of Christmas: follow the link for the score

Biblical typology: this hymn teaches us how the Old Testament points to the New, and the New fulfills the Old. These are images that should be in people’s minds as they sing the hymn, and ideally will be presented to them in the schema of art in the church building so that they know precisely where to look as they sing. In this hymn, we have, for example, the Tree of Jesse, Jonah and the Whake (or “Sea Monster”), and the three children in the fiery furnace from the book of Daniel.

This presentation of biblical typology is important in so many ways. Aside from deepening our faith by impressing upon us in a profound way the grand narrative arc of salvation history, it builds up in us the facility for connecting perceptible realities with the imperceptible truths they reveal. The triple effect of art, music, and words here, in harmony with our worship of God, will transform us.

In his little book Of Water and Spirit - A Liturgical Study of Baptism, Orthodox theologian, Alexander Schmemann describes (on page 152) the essence of Mystagogia as the harmonious teaching of Scripture, doctrine, liturgy, and spirituality. This deepening grasp of the mysteries of the Faith must be taught so that we put it all into practice in the daily living of our Faith. A liberal arts education on its own cannot do this. However comprehensive it may be in its content, and however skillfully a curriculum is transmitted in the classroom, it isn’t a Christian education unless the student is simultaneously formed as a Christian so that they integrate what they learn into their lives in a Christian way. This liturgical pedagogy will do this almost regardless of the intellectual capabilities of the person.

To come back to Christmas carols, I would rather see them replaced with the traditional liturgical hymns and propers presented in the context of the liturgy itself, than the concocted Lessons and Carols service that is so much more common and superficial in its effect.

The words in the caption below are taken from the Katasavia itself.

“Rod of the Root of Jesse and flower that blossomed from his stem you have sprung from the Virgin.”

The sea monster spat forth Jonas as it had received him, like a babe from the womb, while the Logos having dwelt in the Virgin and taken flesh did come forth from her yet kept her uncorrupt.

The children who were brought up together in godliness scorning the impious decree feared not the threat of fire but standing in the midst of the flames they say: “O God of our fathers, blessed are You. We praise, we bless and we worship the Lord.” The furnace moist with dew was the image and the figure of the supernatural wonder, for it burnt of the children whom it had received, even as the fire of the Godhead consumed not the Virgin's womb into which it has descended.

A Beautiful Contemporary Anglo-Byzantine (Romanesque) Style Icon

Here is a recently completed icon of the Harrowing of Hell, by Peter Murphy. Peter is an English iconographer who paints in a neo-Romanesque style reminiscent of the illuminated manuscripts of that period. He also teaches, and for those who are on the left-hand side of the pond, he has been making regular trips to teach summer workshops for the Sacred Arts Guild of Alberta in Calgary.

This is based upon an image in the St Albans Psalter from about 1130 AD.

I think I prefer Peter’s version. The subtle depiction of the rotation of the head, shoulders, and hips relative to each other in each figure reads particularly well. It is anatomically accurate while still remaining within the stylistic constraints of the tradition.

There is one modification of the image that caught my eye, in the upper section where the flames of hell shoot out from holes in the canopy that contains it. The original had four flames, where Peter’s has three. I spoke to Peter about it, and he modified the number for artistic reasons; it created a better balance within his composition. I think this was a good choice. However, inadvertently, it created a connection for me as I was meditating upon it, which, now that I have seen this, I would choose to make more explicit if I was to paint this image in the future.

It struck me that through Christ, the flames that burn in the hell of the damned are the purging flames of the Holy Spirit prior to the bodily resurrection for the saved. This would be the case regardless of how many flames there are, but I made the connection in my mind because I thought of the image of the three figures in the fiery furnacem which I wrote about here. The three figures sang the canticle of praise that is used at Lauds on feast days.

If we were to emphasize this connection, we might choose to have four flames too. In the original narrative in the Book of Daniel, a fourth figure appears whose identity is not given and who is sometimes identified as an angel, or as John the Baptist (who can be referred to as an angel) or even as a pre-incarnational appearance of Christ. Here is the fresco in the Catacombs in Rome which appears in reproduction in the Catechism.

Biblical Typology For Children: Three Books From Emmaus Road Publishing

Building the Way to Heaven: The Tower of Babel and Pentecost 
The End of the Fiery Sword: Adam and Eve and Jesus and Mary 
Into the Sea, Out of the Tomb: Jonah and Jesus

These are the first in the Old and New Series, all written by Maura Roan McKeegan and illustrated by T. Schluenderfritz. Their goal is to introduce to children to the principle of biblical typology, that is, how the Old Testament people, symbols, and events foreshadow those in the New Testament. I do not know of any other children’s books that approach these topics in this way. It’s a great idea and it has been executed well.

There are attractive illustrations which use some of the visual vocabulary of Christian tradition (e.g. halos, and a mandorla) and the two streams of narrative are placed side by side so that the parallels cannot be missed.

I would certainly recommend all of these as part of Scriptural education for all children. Thank you to all involved for this project!

Reading through them, it seems to me that they would work best for those children who have a prior knowledge of the Biblical passages, and sufficient intellectual formation to be able to understand the concept of literary symbolism. The publisher recommends 7 years old; I wonder if for most it might be a little older than that. You can order them on the publisher’s website, here. Thanks to Peter K. for bringing these books to my attention, by the way, (Peter recently featured a wonderful book that does the same for grown-ups, Jean Danielou’s From Shadows to Reality)

There are so many reasons which the study of Scripture is
important, but here are some that relate to the value of biblical typology in particular, which these books address.

The first is that the themes in salvation history are a pattern of events that relate to each of us in our personal pilgrimage of salvation. Once we grasp the idea of the interrelatedness of all things, by understanding how particular and significant episodes in Scripture are related to each other, it facilitates a mode of thinking by which we more naturally place our own story, and hence ourselves, into that picture. So, for example, the crossing of the Red Sea relates to the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan and the descent of the Spirit, and then also to our own sacramental Baptism and Confirmation, by which each of us dies and rises spiritually and receives the Spirit (1 Cor, 10, 1-5). Our foretaste of eternal life to come, like Israel eating manna in the desert on the way to the promised land, is our reception of Holy Communion, the pledge of our own future life and resurrection (John 6, 54). Each of us has a story by which we die with Christ, and as Christians are raised up with him too. I am reminded that this applies to me every time I walk into a church and cross myself with the holy water - ‘Jordan water’.

The second is that this can be the basis of a formation that is, in my estimation, more likely to help children retain their faith when they get older, and see them through the teenage years. This goes further than simply teaching the truths of the Faith, which is, of course, vitally important too. Those that develop this way of thinking will then be more inclined to read the Book of Nature and those aspects of the culture, including the natural hierarchies in society, allegorically, and take delight in it. For such people, all that they see points to the unseen, and all that is good points to God. They will perceive a pattern in the world around them and be able to fill in the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle, so to speak. Except that this piece is not missing exactly; rather, it is real and present, but invisible. I wrote about this mode of thinking in greater depth in an earlier article, here: The Good the Better and the Sunday Best: Using St Thomas’s Fourth Way to Evangelize and Retain Faith in the Young.

The place where all of this comes to together and is illuminated most powerfully for us in the liturgy. The actions of the liturgy are powerfully symbolic. These books, therefore, will help to enrich participation in the liturgy, both through the content learned and the stimulation of this mode of thought by which we start to read what is happening, even relating to those aspects not directly taught in the books. I need hardly describe to readers of this website how beneficial this will be, in turn, to all aspects of human life if realized.

In a matter relating to my own particular focus of interest, in my opinion, the study of Biblical typology is something that should be mandatory for all people who wish to paint sacred art. Danielou’s book is more likely to be appropriate for the training of the artist, but all artists should be able to create art, intended for children or adults, which reflects such a training and communicates the truth of the Faith through beautiful art. In the Roman Church, we are at the early stages of re-establishing this as a living tradition, but once done (and I remain hopeful that it will be done), then a book could connect the themes described even more directly to the traditional liturgical art of the Church. I look forward to the day when a seven-year-old could walk into the Baptistry in Florence and instantly understand what he or she is seeing, because it not only reflects the lessons learned in a book such as this, but also the images they see in their recently built hometown parish church!

A New Edition of Card. Danielou’s “From Shadows to Reality”

NLM readers may be interested to hear of this reprint of a classic long out of print.

From the first centuries of its existence, the Church has interpreted the historical events recounted in the Old Testament as being "types" or "figures" of the events of the New Testament and of the sacraments instituted by Jesus Christ. In fact, the traditional Latin liturgy was born from this intimate connection of ancient temple sacrifice and incarnational fulfillment.

Jean Cardinal Danielou, one of the foremost Catholic scholars of the twentieth century, and a theologian especially concerned with the relationship between history and the Christian revelation, examines in this excellent book -- now reprinted in a nice new edition by Ex Fontibus -- the typological interpretation of the Fathers of the Church and their contemporaries during the first three centuries of the Christian era. Among examples he discusses are the crossing of the Jordan by the Israelites as a type of baptism, Rahab as a type of the Church, and the fall of Jericho as a figure of the end of the world. The complex interpretations of Adam, the flood, and the sacrifice and marriage of Isaac are also described in full and commented on.

The work is divided into five books entitled "Adam in Paradise," "Noah and the Flood," "The Sacrifice of Isaac," "Moses and the Exodus," and "The Cycle of Joshua". Each book is divided into chapters discussing the various types and the interpretations of Irenaeus, Clement, Gregory of Nyssa and their contemporaries, including Philo.

Link to this book at Amazon.

Link to the page at the publisher, Ex Fontibus Company.

Announcing a New Website for Liturgical Theology with a Medieval Flair: “Canticum Salomonis”

Readers of New Liturgical Movement will undoubtedly have seen (and, I sincerely hope, read) the thought-provoking contributions made by guest author Zachary Thomas during the past year. (These would include “Liturgical Splendor and the Image of God,” part 1 and part 2; “The Priestly Character of Ad Orientem Worship”; “The Eucharist, Sacred Pledge of Civilization”; and “Art as Catechesis in a Baroque Confessional.”) I am well acquainted with the depth and range of Mr Thomas’ thinking, since I had the privilege of teaching him over the course of four years at Wyoming Catholic College, and often find myself wishing he were still here in this remote outpost of the American West, always ready to discuss Latin orations or Platonic philosophy over a cup of tea.

I am therefore delighted to announce that Mr Thomas and a number of collaborators have launched a new website, Canticum Salomonis, dedicated to exploring the immense riches of Catholic commentary on liturgy over the centuries and to finding ways to assimilate this treasury of prayerful theology today. As the recently launched Liturgical Arts Journal also demonstrates, we can see in such a venture a promising surge of interest in what our forefathers have to teach us about divine worship, about liturgical ceremonies and their symbolic meaning, about offices, roles, actions, chants, and the whole panoply of material culture that emerges out of and simultaneously reinforces liturgical practice.

Having asked the authors of this new website to provide NLM with a brief sketch of their intentions, I received the following response:

“The authors plan to provide translations of a wide variety of liturgical materials, especially medieval — translations that are difficult or impossible to find elsewhere. Texts chosen for being clear expression of what our fathers thought and said about the liturgy, what questions they thought were important (or unimportant), and the ways they organized their lives around the prayer of the Church. If by opening windows onto the great ages of the liturgy’s flourishing, we can stimulate the interest and devotion of people today, we will have succeeded.

“Occasionally we also publish essays to draw our readers’ attention to salient points about the material in question and invite further reflection.

“The polemical purpose is to remedy a certain lack of imagination in Catholic circles. Those passionate about liturgical culture risk getting caught up in all the narrow difficulties of the present. So “traditionalism” becomes preserving the status quo of the 1962 Missal. That Missal as we experience it today in our oratories and parishes is one small gem in a colorful crown of western liturgical patrimony that includes many other rites: Dominican, Premonstratensian, Lyonnaise, etc. And even the way we experience our Missal today — the Sunday High Mass — is only the cusp of a vibrant liturgical life that used to include so many public offices, processions, devotions, even theatrical performances. In addition, whole genres of commentary and mystical exegesis, shedding light on how cleric and laymen experienced the rites, are little known and studied.

“To have a full understanding of what liturgy is and can be, and make fruitful efforts for its development, requires knowing it in its full breadth, paying attention to times when it was in fuller vigor.

“The title Canticum Salomonis is meant to invoke the nuptial mysticism of Old Covenant, as also to set our standard with the tradition’s typological vision: ‘Novum in vetere latet. Vetus in novo patet.’

I was especially excited to see that Canticum Salomonis will be offering a running translation of a medieval masterpiece, Gemma Animae, about which the site itself explains:

“Commentaries on the Mass and Divine Office form an important yet unhappily understudied body of mediæval writing. Few critical editions exist, much less English translations. In a modest attempt to remedy the situation, we shall undertake the translation of one of the finest instances of the genre, Honorius of Autun’s Gemmae Animae, ‘gem of the soul.’ Little is known about the author; controversy still rages about what city or abbey his demonym refers to. He was certainly a monk, however, and authored sundry works on various subjects, many of them exegetical in nature. The Gemmae Animae is his exegesis on the sacraments, and provides a suitable introduction to the allegorical bent of the mediæval mind.”

I heartily encourage all NLM readers to head over to Canticum Salomonis. Have a look at the posts already up, and subscribe to it in your feeds, if you use one. NLM wishes Mr Thomas and the other collaborators much success in this new venture!