Out of the Mouths of Babes

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m a sucker for church art projects (especially those created by children). This past weekend, beloved spouse and I were speaking at a church in Whitewater, WI. Before our talk, we were hanging around in the hallway, and I spotted a series of paper crosses. They were decorated with post-it notes containing what appear to be maxims on how to live better, more faithful lives.

Many of the maxims appear to be written in some dialect of Middle English.

A few of my favorites, with translations (pictures below):

tele the shroth (tell the truth?)
de Helfoe (be helpful)
de kine (be kind)
de nise de gade (be nice to God)
pray to Jesus evrebe (pray to Jesus everyday)
dont swar (don’t swear)

Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today is the feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary or, as it is known in the East, The Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos [God-Bearer] into the Temple.

The earliest attestation of this tradition is in the Proto-Gospel of James (Protevangelium Jacobi):

When the child turned three, Joachim said, ‘Let us call the undefiled daughters of the Hebrews. Let each of them take a lamp, and let each stand burning so that the child might not turn back and her heart be captivated by things outside the temple of the Lord.’ This is what they did until they came up to the temple of the Lord. And the priest welcomed her, kissed her, blessed her, and said, ‘The Lord God has magnified your name among all generations. In you the Lord will manifest his redemption to the sons of Israel in the last days.’ He placed her on the third step of the altar, and God showered her with grace. She danced with her feet, and the entire house of Israel loved her (PJ 7:4-10).

From the Festal Menaion:

Having received the fruit of the promise come from the Lord, today in the temple Joachim and Ann offered the Mother of God as an acceptable sacrifice; and Zacharias the great High Priest received her with his blessing.

Into the holy places the Holy of Holies is fittingly brought to dwell, as a sacrifice acceptable to God. The virgins adorned by virtues go before her carrying torches, and offer her to God as a most sacred Vessel.

Let the gate of the temple wherein God dwells be opened: for Joachim brings within today in glory the Temple and Throne of the King of all, and he consecrates as an offering to God her whom the Lord has chosen to be his Mother.

Amen.

*the image at the start of this post is a fresco from the Scrovegni (Arena) Chapel in Padua, painted by Giotto.

Faith Like a Child

A few weeks back, I found myself in the basement of my wife’s church before the Easter vigil. I wandered into a classroom, and on the walls were some images that intrigued me. They were clearly drawn by children, but I cannot speculate as to the nature of the project. There were about 15 total, and I photographed two of the best to share with you. Without further delay, here they are, accompanied by some commentary (click images to enlarge):

Image 1: A fascinating combination of theology and science! In case you can’t make out the captions, let me assist. The rocket ship is God, and the fuel tank and “extra” rockets are “other religions.” The robotic arm of the rocket is Jesus, and the satellite it grasps is none other than the Catholic Church. Now, the captions also stipulate that the rockets on the ship (In addition to the “extra” rockets? I’m not sure.) are the Holy Spirit. The astronauts, of course, are believers. In this case, there is only one astronaut: Spongebob Squarepants. Curious, mad, brilliant. Some questions, of course, arise. First, if Spongebob is a believer, then why is he floating around outside of both the rocket ship and the satellite, both of which would be proper locations for a person of faith (assuming that the satellite is actually a space station). Second, if the rockets are both other religions and the Holy Spirit, then what is the fire? Third, don’t satellites generally detach from the arms that launch them? Or, does this image depict the drawing in of the satellite to God?

Image 2: A theological interpretation of America’s favorite sport. Like the image of the rocket, there are captions. The scene is set in “Catholic Church Stadium.” The Christians are in the home dugout pitted against “other,” situated in the away dugout. Jesus is, quite obviously, the pitcher, and the Holy Spirit is the catcher. Spongebob makes another appearance here, as an outfielder. As was the case with the last image, in this one he is also a believer. More questions, of course. First, what precisely is Jesus throwing to the Holy Spirit? Second, who’s on third? Seriously, I can’t tell. Third, who’s up to bat first?

In case you’re wondering, these were not the only two images in which Spongebob made an appearance, although my fascination with him would certainly imply as much. He was actually in almost all of them, strangely.

Andrew of Crete and the Immaculate Conception

The focus of my research, the Protevangelium of James, is often cited as the earliest expression of Mary’s Immaculate Conception. As a consequence of my research, I have been reading many Patristic homilies on Mary, some of which speak of her birth and childhood.

Today, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, I decided it may be fitting to share one. This is from an eighth-century homily, the Canon on the Nativity, by St. Andrew of Crete (translated by Luigi Gambero in Mary and the Fathers of the Church, 394):

Let all creation dance; let David dance as well, for from his line and his seed arose the branch that will bear the Flower, the Lord and Redeemer of all…

Anna was sterile and barren, but not childless in God’s eyes. For from all eternity, she was predestined to be the mother of the chaste Virgin, from whom the Creator was to come forth in the form of a servant.

Unsullied Lamb, who alone, from your womb, gave Christ the wool of our nature, we all celebrate your birth from Anna with songs.

Stigmata and Christian Apocryphal Literature

I spent the majority of yesterday composing a written statement for a fellowship application. Part of this process involved reflecting on the past 10 years of my life – where I’ve been, what I’ve done, what I’ve studied, and how all of those things have contributed to my present research interests. Self-reflection can be fun, and it forces you to remember things that you’ve long since forgotten.

As I was trying to come up with an answer regarding why I chose to study Christian apocryphal literature, I decided it might be helpful to think about the first time I even heard about Christian apocryphal literature. The answer, which I did not include in my written statement (because it’s stupid), made me chuckle.

During my senior year of high school, I watched a movie called Stigmata. It had just been released. The movie tells the story of a young woman who becomes possessed by the spirit of a dead stigmatic priest. The young woman receives the stigmata, speaks in foreign tongues, and leads an investigator from the Vatican on a wild goose chase to find a lost gospel that the Church was attempting to suppress. The “lost gospel” in Stigmata is none other than the Gospel of Thomas, discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945. At one point in the movie, a priest describes it as “an Aramaic scroll from the 1st century, discovered near the cave of the dead sea scrolls outside Jerusalem. Alameida [the dead stigmatic priest] and I concluded that it is a gospel of Jesus Christ. In his own words: Aramaic.” At the end of the movie, the following text pops up: “In 1945 a scroll was discovered in Nag Hammadi, which is described as ‘the secret sayings of the living Jesus.’ This scroll, the Gospel of St. Thomas, has been claimed by scholars around the world to be the closest record we have of the words of the historical Jesus.”

In retrospect, it’s not a good movie, but my young mind was absolutely enthralled at the time. I remember talking with a friend of mine afterward about how something needs to be done about the Church’s attempts to suppress truth like this…we were both really concerned.

I chuckled to myself as I recalled this experience, as it truly is the first time I became aware that there were “gospels” outside of the New Testament. Like many uninformed viewers of the movie, I assumed in my ignorance that what Stigmata claimed about the Gospel of Thomas was true, and I continued to assume that it was true until I heard otherwise (and I seem to recall embarrassing myself in an undergraduate NT course). Of course, there is little truth in what Stigmata claims about Thomas: it is a codex, not a scroll; it is written in Coptic, not Aramaic; it is from the second century, not the first; it was not found near the Dead Sea (Nag Hammadi is over 200 miles removed); some scholars (you know who you are) consider it to be “the closest record we have of the words of the historical Jesus,” but they are a minority. What’s more, the Dead Sea Scrolls were not isolated to one cave, but were spread out among among eleven!

I suppose this memory is useful, if only to remind us about how much garbage there is floating around about the “lost gospels.”

Anyway, hope you enjoyed my rant for the day.

Enchiridion Biblicum Online

For those interested, I was just made aware that the Enchiridion Biblicum, comprised entirely of Catholic documents pertaining to the study of Scripture, is available online, in English, for free. This is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in theological exegesis, especially in a Catholic context. Not sure how long it’s been up, but it’s new to me!

Find it here.

The Verbosity of George Tyrrell

As part of my preparation for qualifying exams, I’ve been working through numerous works of George Tyrrell, an English Jesuit who was excommunicated in the early 20th century for his affiliation with the “Modernist” movement in the Catholic Church. I will likely dedicate a more substantial post to him at some point, but until that happens, I wanted to share with you an example of Tyrrell’s penchant for run-on sentences.

Abandoning the idea of revealed theology as incoherent, we have therefore to inquire as to the true relation between theology and revelation, that is to say, between that philosophical construction of the other world which has been built up from the data of general experience by the reflection and labour of the understanding, and which belongs to the unity of the whole system of our organised knowledge, and that other construction of the same world which has been more or less instinctively created out of materials supplied by popular beliefs, sentiments, traditions, and views in obedience to the requirements of the religious life, and which is the spontaneous mental self-embodiment of the collective religious experience of whole peoples and communities.

From George Tyrrell, Scylla and Charybdis, 228.