Having now read and reviewed a whole selection of books published by Magnificat, I have finally discovered the point of them – to show that the profound mysteries of the Christian faith are best explained within a framework of beauty: examples of great art and poetry that have been born throughout the last 2,000 years as a Christian artist’s response to the sheer wonder of the Faith.
The three volumes surveyed here illustrate this even more than their predecessors. A reader alert both to visual art and to the music of words will find their understanding of theology immeasurably (if subliminally) enhanced.
The first in this series is The Splendors of the Creed by Fr Joseph Lienhard SJ and Fr Frederic Curnier-Laroche (Magnificat, 126pp, £19). The authors are at pains to show that what might seem a dry formulary, the Nicene Creed, recited unthinkingly every Sunday at Mass, is actually an extraordinary statement. I have recently had some inkling of this. Reading Fr André Ravier SJ’s thoroughly researched biography, St Bruno, the Carthusian, I was very moved to learn that on his deathbed, knowing he was about “to go the way of all flesh”, St Bruno simply recited his own heartfelt profession of faith.
This book demonstrates why the last things on St Bruno’s mind before death were the eternal truths for which he had lived, sacrificed and suffered. It shows us how this brilliantly clear formula of faith was developed and wrought during the early Christian centuries: why the historical person of Pontius Pilate was included, the introduction of Filioque, “the most contentious word in the Creed”, and much more. My favourite painting, among the visual feast of those offered, is Piero della Francesca’s The Madonna of Mercy – Our Lady, with her arms open to embrace the whole of fallen humanity, as the personification of Holy Mother Church.
The Splendors of the Rosary by Pierre-Marie Dumont (Magnificat, 110pp, £18) reminds the reader of why, in common with many other saints, St John Paul II’s favourite prayer outside the Mass was the rosary. So much so that in his apostolic letter of 2002, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, he had the inspired pastoral wisdom to include five new mysteries, the so-called “Luminous Mysteries”. Those who cling to tradition have sometimes deplored this addition. In fact, it remains a wonderful example of the development of Christian piety and practice (though not doctrine).
As Fr Dumont explains, the late pope “wished to accentuate the Christological character of the rosary” and, as John Paul II himself wrote, he intended the addition “to give [the rosary] fresh life and to enkindle renewed interest in the rosary’s place within Christian spirituality”.
Not the least of the book’s visual teaching devices is its inclusion of bouquets of flowers with each of the 20 mysteries and the explanation of their symbolic meaning. One might know that the lily symbolises purity, but I wonder if readers know what the dahlia or the daylily represent (the answer: gratitude and maternity, respectively).
The illustrations too tell us so much. For the Institution of the Eucharist, the fifth Luminous Mystery, we are shown Christ giving Communion by mouth to St John at the Last Supper, painted by Fra Angelico. The saint’s reverent and adoring posture emphasises, as no amount of verbal argument can do, why Communion on the tongue is the right and appropriate mode of reception.
Fra Angelico’s Death and Assumption of the Virgin, showing Our Lady’s Dormition surrounded by all the Apostles, is accompanied by Fr Dumont’s explanation that the artist was correctly following the earliest sources of tradition in placing this scene in Jerusalem (rather than in Ephesus, as private revelation suggests).
Regina Coeli, edited by Fr Michael Morris OP (Magnificat, 153pp, £22), is a compilation of art and essays on the Blessed Virgin Mary, and includes a moving foreword by Fr Peter John Cameron OP, explaining how Fr Morris’s art commentaries, written for Magnificat from 1999 to 2016, the year he died, were among the most popular articles in the monthly prayer guide.
Fr Morris, a professor of theology and art at the Dominican School of Theology, brings all his knowledge of history and the faith, as well as his great love for Our Lady, into play here. Of course, this makes all the difference between his art commentaries, infused with love, and those of professional art historians such as Andrew Graham-Dixon. For all the latter’s erudition and presentational skills, he cannot convey from the inside what it means to have faith – that love of God displayed by the artists whose paintings illuminate these pages, and the same insightful and interpretative love shown by their commentator, a Dominican priest.
Fr Cameron quotes Tolkien: “All my own perception of beauty, both in majesty and simplicity, is founded upon Our Lady.” That, in essence, is Magnificat’s own mandate: to “magnify” the Lord by appealing both to the reader’s intellect and senses.
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