NatlGeo:"Jesus" special issue

[eish]

 

I paint with a broad brush since protestantism is as varied as its adherents and has no unified doctrine or practice. Anglicans will use the title "Saint" although it seems to carry not very much significance for them, a quaint tradition for naming streets and cathedrals. I was never one of them so it is hard to judge. The Via Media places a strong emphasis on avoiding those topics which divide the more Catholic-minded Anglicans from the more Protestant-minded ones, so it makes sense to me that real contemplation of the title's significance might be discouraged.

Mainland European Protestantism, as well as the Radical Reformation (which American Protestantism is somewhat strongly linked to), tends to have a strong aversion to the title. Lutheranism might vary a bit since it is not that radical in most places, but Reformed churches, Evangelicals, Baptists, etc. have a negative visceral reaction. Your average Protestant is offended at the idea of considering someone else holy, just as he is offended at the idea of considering someone else noble. (Democracy in state, in society, and in theology.)

Anyway, that Thai dancer should be unsurprising in any Roman Catholic church. Their custom is "enculturation," achieved by reimagining the Lord and his saints in the local populations which they conquer and (most often forcibly) convert. "Marian apparitions," the "Our Lady of [insert blank]" phenomenon, is endemic to Roman Catholicism. Guadalupe being the Mexican example most famous in the US. They waited for some woman or child to announce that the Blessed Virgin had appeared to her, along with the Child Christ, being of the local ethnicity. This image would then be widely distributed and proclaimed a miracle for the purpose of endearing themselves to the local populace. But in truth the practice predates their colonial expansions, given that already in the post-Schism Middle Ages the Roman Catholics had started painting Christ and his saints after the likeness of local human models rather than their known descriptions. It is how we got the image of Jesus as an Italian man in the first place.

Of course any rational person would look at it and conclude that it is a denial of the Incarnation, to claim that the Lord did not take actual human flesh from an actual human mother with a real appearance and a real ethnicity.

[Barbara]

VERY INTERESTING. Thank you, eish, for that excellent survey. It's REALLY helpful !

Yes, also Renaissance painters like Raphael always used women they knew as models for their depictions of the Mother of God. I always thought it was dismaying !
 
 

[eish]

Yes, also Renaissance painters like Raphael always used women they knew as models for their depictions of the Mother of God. I always thought it was dismaying !
 
 

Not only that, the artists would paint themselves, their rich patrons, and relatives of the patrons. Usually these would be minor figures such as someone kneeling by the cross, but I can't guarantee that you might not find people who paid to be depicted as Christ or His saints. Even if none did--I hope they didn't, but it is a broad genre--painting oneself for example praying next to the Crucifixion is not the pious act that they perceived it to be.

[Barbara]

Oh, I never knew that ! What an arrogant thought - to inject oneself into a painting of that scene - or as any holy figure.

I had no idea this might have happened, but it makes sense, though the Renaissance was of course the opposite of a pious time.

Here is an example of the dynamic eish mentioned earlier. It's by the French 19 th century painter William-Adolphe Bougereau. The model for his group of paintings that show a similar Mother of God, called "Our Lady of the Angels" was a woman he knew.

I think this story was that of many of the Catholic painters : they searched high and low for a suitable model to depict the Queen of Heaven.
Finally, they met a woman who may have become their girlfriend and copied her face for their Mother of God and also sometimes for female Saints.

Not too inspiring !

 
 

[Barbara]

Some others may not agree, but to me the worst choice of artwork displayed in this National Geographic issue was one which, thankfully, i can not reproduce here. The image is only available for sale by the "artist", whose name is Janet McKenzie.

That "artist" rose to "fame" as a result of a contest in the National Catholic Register newspaper. This was either late 1999 or early 2000 [accounts differ].

The judge of the thousands of entries was a probable radical Catholic nun, especially considering this was nearly a quarter century ago.

This image was the one she selected out of countless possible choices for pictures painted of the Savior. She lavished every praise on this particular picture, which became known as "Jesus of the people". It received encomiums from every quarter.
But also it generated a fair amount of negative responses, which the "artist" shrugged off.

[eish]

Oh, I never knew that ! What an arrogant thought - to inject oneself into a painting of that scene - or as any holy figure.

I had no idea this might have happened, but it makes sense, though the Renaissance was of course the opposite of a pious time.
 
 

 

Self-insertions were the same phenomenon that gave birth to the rosary. In a sense it all began with their flawed anthropology which in turn sprang from spiritual blindness.

Because the Latins intentionally departed from the faith, their intuition was darkened. (*Nous to the Hellenists. We need to stop forcing foreign terms where the English already exists because obscurantism and exoticism do not spread the Gospel.) They lost all spiritual sense which caused them to fall into the same trap as pagans in their rituals, of confusing the psyche for the spirit.

Roman Catholic prayer life is all psychological. It is about feelings and sentiments which they call spirituality. When making a decision they pray (in their manner of prayer) and whatever gives them a warm fuzzy feeling they call "discernment."

Part of this prayer life dating back centuries is self-insertion at the stations of the Cross. By imagining themselves piously present at scenes of the Passion, they believe they are elevating themselves whereas in reality they are merely flattering themselves with imaginations of being more pious than the apostles who fled.

They do not understand that the spirit is higher than the psyche. It is not a big step, then, to say that a man who mistakes warm tingly feelings for holiness might flatter the woman who gives him warm tingly feelings with imagined holiness.

Food for thought given how our romanticised culture has put women on a pedestal--in a bad way--precisely since the Renaissance.

[Barbara]

Why is it that you date that pedestal-placing of women to the Renaissance particularly, eish ?

About the "nous", i remember the 1st time i read that term. It was paradoxically in a copy of that OCA journal "Ascend", was that the name of it ? Which was edited by the future OCA Met Jonah [Paffhausen].

I immediately thought the word sounded pretentious : "Look how intellectual we St John of San Francisco monastery monastics are !"

The term sounded so nebulous that thereafter, my eyes glazed over whenever it appeared in some treatise.
There was NEVER an adequate definition of the word provided.

So, eish, you are saying that it really means intuition ? That sounds more comprehensible than all the high-flying descriptions one sees.

I agree, throwing around esoteric Greek terms, especially in an effort to impress new arrivals, creates nothing but confusion in their minds.
Hence it is counter-productive. Instead, simple, clear explanations in English can succeed.