WOMEN IN THE UKRAINE

Last week Pope Francis  offered special prayers for the people of the Ukraine in their present crises: “Please, no more war. I invite you to pray for peace in Ukraine and to do so often.”

“Let us ask the Lord insistently that this land may see fraternity flourish and overcome wounds, fears, and divisions.”He asked not to forget the more than five million people who died in Ukraine during World War II.

 

“Think that more than five million were annihilated during the time of the last war. They are a suffering people; they have suffered hunger, they have suffered so much cruelty and they deserve peace.”

To my mind, some of the most inspiring religious art today comes out of the Ukraine and is done by women, who truly express the plight of the suffering, yet glorious Christ.

According to John Kohan,  women have always been anonymous icon-makers, but “the new freedom to pursue individual styles and sign pieces has simply brought them out of the shadows and won them long-denied recognition.”

Their art visualizes the tie between medieval iconography and contemporary interpretations of the sacred. Their works have shared origins not only in Ukrainian spiritual culture but in their own lived experiences. 

These female artists are representative of the eastern European sacred art renaissance sparked by the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  The first of these is IVANKA DEMCHUK.

Ivanka was born in 1990 in Lviv. In 2012 she graduated  with a BA from the Lviv National Academy of Arts, Department of Sacred Art and in 2014  she received her MA degree.  She has had many art exhibitions in the Ukraine as well as Poland.

 

Perhaps the most prolific and my favorite is  LYUBA YATSKIV who was born in 1977 in Lviv, Ukraine. From 1991 to 1996 she studied in Trush Lviv State College of Decorative and Fine Arts, at the department of textile art. From 1996 to 2002 studied National Academy of Arts in Lviv, department of sacral art and since 2002 has been a lecturer there.

 Her icons are very balanced with poised forms and colors, but despite this harmony, one  feels great dynamism in her works, as if they move. They certainly move the soul. We learn to see Christ and His Mother in new ways.

Her major creative works have included: A series of Icons for the St. Faith, Hope, Love, and Sophia Chapel in Kotsiubynske, Kyiv region; Icons of the Iconostasis for the Church of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin of the Krekhiv Monastery of the Order of St. Basil the Great; Icons of the Sovereign tier for the St. John the Baptist Chapel in Lviv; and Icons of the Iconostasis for the St. Andrew Church in Dobromyl, Lviv region

In 2015 she secured a major commission to decorate the interior of the newly built Church of Sophia, Wisdom of God, on the campus of Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv.

May these women inspire all to greater prayer for a lasting peace for their people.  

BENEDICTINE ICONOGRAPHER

 

I am always on the lookout for Benedictine authors and artists. Here is one who lives not so far- as the eagle flies- from us. Mount Angel Abbey  is located at the eastern edge of the beautiful Willamette Valley, about an hour's drive south of Portland. It is a sister to Conception Abbey in Missouri which has the Printery.

BROTHER CLAUDE LANE, OSB is the full-time iconographer of this Benedictine Abbey. He has been drawing and painting since childhood. He entered Mount Angel in 1972 and made his vows in 1974.

In 1985, Abbot Bonaventure encouraged him to try iconography. He has written over a hundred icons. Unlike most iconographers who exactly copy outlines provided by ancient tradition, Brother Claude prefers to follow the style of classic iconography while creating original images from multiple sources of inspiration.

He draws upon Roman Catholic concepts in his art in addition to Orthodox ones.

Brother Claude was instrumental in the establishment of the Mount Angel Abbey Iconography Institute, an annual week-long training experience for iconographers since 1986.

                                                    St. Benedicta of the Cross- Edith Stein

Left: St. Teresa and Jesus

EXPRESSING THE GRIEF OF A NATION

 

“Milev was the first and only one to paint Bulgarian rural Christianity. In his painting are our souls, our manners, our hopes, our sharp profiles and rounded backs, our hard long fingers that grip the kaval  (flute) or ax hard.
In Ivan Milev I had what the civilization of Occitania (the region of Western & Southern Europe  where Occitan was historically the main language spoken)  gave me as a whole: the prayer in the cathedral and the flowering tree in the fields.“               Vladimir Svintila (Bulgarian author)

Our Mothers are Always Dressed in Black

The end of last year, I came across an amazing artist I had not heard of who had quite an influence on future generations of Eastern artists, in spite of having died at the age of 30. He is regarded as the founder of the Bulgarian Secession and a representative of Bulgarian modernism, combining symbolism,  Art Nouveau and expressionism  and icons in his work.

IVAN MILEV was born on February 19, 1897, into the family of shepherd Milyu Lalev, from the village of Shipka in Bulgaria.

 In 1917–1918, he fought as a soldier in World War I. Also in 1918, the same year that he finished high school in his hometown, he arranged an exhibition in Kazanlak.  He spent three years in the village of Gorski Izvor, Haskovo Province, teaching in the primary school in order to save money for art school. These years were extremely formative and significant for his work as his sensitive spirit was exploring the beliefs and legends of simple villagers. 

In 1920, he was admitted to the National Academy of Arts in Sofia, where he had three one-man exhibitions.

In the summer of 1923, he visited Turkey, Greece and Italy with a group of fellow students. He was introduced to the achievements of the Italian Renaissance and the Italian Baroque in Rome, Naples, Florence and Venice. In 1926, he graduated in set decoration from the National Academy and worked for the Ivan Vazov National Theatre as a stage designer.

Afterwards he became an independent freelance painter and illustrator and he also painted frescoes. Generally living in poverty, Ivan had a brief 18-month marriage to opera singer Katya Naumova; their daughter Mariya Mileva eventually became an architect. Ivan died of influenza in Sofia 1927.

Regarded as one of the great masters of tempera and watercolor painting in Bulgarian art, van often created socially loaded works. He  explored social themes, religion and mysticism and his sensitive spirit  explored the beliefs and legends of simple villagers. 

Most of his life he lived in poverty, but that didn’t kill his creative spirit, on the contrary- the poor people, the villagers are a constant subject of his work. He painted them  as if merging with their beliefs and values, to observe and absorb their way of living. But he was after all the son of a shepherd.       (Painting to right: Madonna of the Field)

My favorite, "Our Mothers are Always Dressed in Black"  deals with the national theme of sorrow. To Ivan, the Bulgarian mother, both humanly and symbolically in the form of the land, is the epitome of suffering. After the wars, it was the mother who had lost most of all and the artist often depicted her grief-stricken.

Although the women’s faces are blank, their gestures, almost ritual in character, convey a sense of unbearable grief.

Ivan ’s “Crucifixion”  is one of his most expressive paintings, conveying a mystical and deeply emotional atmosphere. The  three women dressed in black are standing and crouching before the crucifixion in a crammed chapel, identified by the icons of two Orthodox saints hanging on the wall.  This work was painted just after another violent event in Bulgarian history - a Communist bombing of St Nedelya church during a general’s funeral. The black-clad women in the painting are thus alluding to the perpetual grief and death in the country and the resignation that these entail, but also to the endurance and endless piety of the simple folk at the face of calamity.

WOMEN OF FAITH - FROM THE USA TO ITALY

An American priest we have known for years, was pastor of  a church in the Umbrian town of Terni, Italy.  The town suffered extensive damage from World War II bombing, since it was a center of armament production. Through the decades, much of the town has been restored.  Yet one large church stood alone in need of major renovation, the Church of the Immaculate Conception.  In 2017, Don Giovanni saw potential in the church.

With the help of others, Dom Giovanni felt this church would bear witness to women whose faithfulness  was recorded in the Bible, the Torah, and the Quran. After all, the Church is dedicated to the greatest of women. The women selected for the project  are united in their faith in God, the Holy One, revered and worshiped in the religions of Abraham. 

The purpose of the project is to ignite discussion about what these women of faith reveal regarding the “genius of women.” This phrase comes from St. John Paul II’s 1997 book, The Genius of Women. What role does God desire that women exercise to bring about the kingdom here on earth? For far too long the true gift of women to the life of faith and the life of the Church has been underemphasized. Attention is needed to bring into full consciousness the feminine “genius of women”, WOMEN of FAITH.

 

                                  Sarah                               Eve                               Hagar

The women selected are Eve, Hagar, Sarah, Ruth, and Naomi; the woman in the Song of Songs; the Samaritan woman; Mary, the mother of Jesus; friends Martha and Mary; women disciples at the Last Supper; and of course Mary Magdalene. It was decided to  portray these women in the ancient medium of fresco, which is found in so many old churches in Italy.

Interestingly enough, the fresco artist chosen to portray Women of Faith is from the USA, Mark Balma, of Minneapolis, Minnesota.  He is considered the finest fresco artist in the world today as well as a portraiture artist.

This artist is known for his deep spirituality, a devotion to prayer, a passion for his work, and the strength and energy to stand for hours at a time on scaffolding high above open space.

The preliminary sketches of the 10 panels were complete, and sacks of plaster awaited the start of the project  when  the coronavirus pandemic swept the world in  fear. Mark, who has dual US and Italian citizenship, found it now impossible to get his art to Terni. So how could Mark create frescoes in Minneapolis for walls almost 5,000 miles away? By using an ancient Greek technique. 

The Greeks didn't want to send skilled artisans far from Athens as travel in ancient times could be long and risky. So they learned to paint frescoes using lime-based paint on muslin sail-cloth which could be rolled up and delivered to a distant site.   

Mark  learned this technique, when studying in Florence under the fresco artist Pietro Annigoni. A friend offered Mark the use of an undeveloped atrium in a new building, the MoZaic Building in Minneapolis, to work on the art pieces.

When a panel is complete, it will be removed from its frame and rolled for transport. Panels will be shipped to Terni when the pandemic loosens its grip on the world. Immaculate Conception Church will remain a place of worship as it awaits its adornments of faith.

 Don Giovanni says of the project: “Art and beauty are two forms of communication that humans have always used. I believe these new frescoes have a unique potential to bring a message of love, peace, joy, and fullness to this and future generations. They will give beauty and a sense of completion that this building has never seen and new life to a church . . . in desperate need of repair and love.

In the time of confusion in which we live, when old values seemed to have disappeared, we find ourselves in need of knowing more fully God’s will for our lives. We propose this study of biblical women as an attempt to reveal further the will of God.” In this place of meditation, visitors will find solace and direction as they reflect on the women who nurtured the churches of antiquity.”

 

                                           Photo- Dave Hrbacek- "The Catholic Spirit"- Minneapolis

The frescoes are more than exquisite art. They are visible prayers that will reach from a church once destroyed by bombs into a world pleading for peace. The women’s stories expressed in Scripture and tradition offer hope and direction for living in the 21st century. Each panel contains a message for God’s people today. In meditating on each biblical story, seekers may gain a deeper understanding of the will of God.

The project invites people of various faiths to visit Immaculate Conception Church in person, virtually, or through printed material, to worship and discover their shared faith in the God of all. The faith that joins these women of Abrahamic faiths is more powerful and uniting than the differences of culture they experience. Don Giovanni expresses that hope: “Our prayer is that the images of Sarah and Hagar with Abraham will allow us to believe that an interreligious dialogue is possible between Hebrews, Christians, and Muslims. 

HOLY YOUTH

 To start the New Year,  we have some young lay people who are being considered for sainthood, from around the world.

Servant of God Jean-Thierry Ebogo (1982-2006) was a Cameroonian seminarian who suffered from a terribly painful cancer but said, “I only want to be healed so that I can become a priest.” Shortly after he entered the Discalced Carmelites, a soccer injury led to the discovery of a malignant tumor that forced the amputation of his right leg. By the next year, the cancer had spread throughout his body. Brother Jean-Thierry was taken to Italy for treatment, but it was too late. He was given permission to make his vows early and did so in his hospital room, his mother by his side; he died only a month later, just shy of his 24th birthday. 

 

Servant of God Floribert Bwana Chui Bin Kositi (1981-2007) was a young Congolese customs officer who resisted government corruption by refusing to take bribes. Floribert graduated with a degree in economics and became engaged, but at his job he was pressured to ignore the contamination of certain food shipments and even offered a bribe of $3,000. Floribert refused, saying to a friend, “Money will soon vanish. But what about those people, if they had those products? What would happen to them? Do I live in Christ or not? Do I live for Christ or not? That’s why I can’t accept that money. It’s better to die than to accept that money!” For his refusal, he was abducted, tortured, and murdered.

Servants of God Basman Yousef Daud (1982-2007) and Gassan Isam Bidawed (1984-2007) were subdeacons in the Chaldean Catholic Church of Mosul, Iraq. They were traveling with Servant of God Ragheed Aziz Ganni (a Chaldean priest) and Servant of God Wahid Hanna Isho and his wife. The group was returning after Fr. Ganni had celebrated Sunday Mass, in defiance of terrorist threats. The car was pulled over and the group was ordered to convert to Islam. When they refused, the four men were murdered, leaving Isho’s wife to tell the story.

 Servant of God Pierangelo Capuzzimati (1990-2008) was a serious and intelligent Italian boy who fought leukemia for four years before dying at 17. During his illness, he was unable to attend school but still dead set on learning. Though he had a tutor for Greek and Latin, he was self-taught in all other subjects and continued to impress his teachers with the work he sent in up until his death.

Servant of God Anne-Gabrielle Caron (2002-2010) was a shy but passionate little French girl, the daughter of a naval officer and a classics professor. At 7 she was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma; for a year and a half she suffered with joy and generosity but also spoke honestly of her fear of dying. Still, she asked God to give her the suffering of the other children in the hospital; she died at eight and half.

Servant of God Giulia Gabrieli (1997-2011) was a cheerful and exuberant Italian girl who loved shopping, traveling, and listening to pop music. She had a devotion to Blessed Chiara Luce Badano, which gave her great consolation when she was diagnosed with cancer. At first, Giulia was understandably angry and depressed about her diagnosis, spending whole days crying. But soon she was given great joy in the knowledge that God was with her; her joyful suffering inspired many in the two years before her death.

 

Servant of God Darwin Ramos (1994–2012) was a Filipino child born into devastating poverty. Darwin and his sister spent their days picking through the trash, but his muscles became weak when he was around 5 and he ultimately lost the ability to walk and was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. At that point, Darwin’s father set him to begging (though Darwin was ashamed) until a group that worked with street children invited Darwin to come live with them at a home for children with disabilities. There, Darwin’s constant joy was evident to each person he met. He never lamented the disease that was slowly killing him, instead calling it his mission, and the way in which he would learn to love and trust God. He died at 17. His last words? “A huge thank you. I am very happy.”

 

Servant of God Chiara Corbella Petrillo (1984-2012) was a young Italian wife and mother. After a tumultuous courtship, she and her husband found great peace through the sacrament of marriage. Early in their marriage, though, they lost two children, both within an hour of birth. Still they rejoiced to discover they were pregnant with a third child, and were even more delighted to discover that he was healthy. But while pregnant, Chiara was diagnosed with a cancer that soon spread throughout her body. Dressed in her wedding gown, she died two weeks after giving birth to her son.

 

NEW SAINTS IN 2022

 

Pope Francis said yesterday that it takes saints to reform the Church and for this each Catholic is called to a deeper “second conversion.”

“It is the Holy Spirit who forms and reforms the Church and does so through the Word of God and through the saints, who put the Word into practice in their lives,” Pope Francis said Jan. 15.

As my readers know, this site is heavy on new saints of the Church, as I feel we all need the example of  people in our own times. Some lead holy lives from early childhood, but many come to sanctity with great struggles in the lives.

In this new year we will present  more saints to be models for us in our everyday life, with its joys and sufferings.  Their life experience might not be identical to ours, but something that we can relate to. In studying the lives of the saints may we all be inspired.

Striving for holiness means trying to become the particular saint that God created us to be: responding to the challenges of our own time, using  our own talents and admitting our own limitations and weaknesses.

To quote Thomas Merton: There is only one thing for anybody to become in life.   There’s no point in becoming spiritual – the whole thing is a waste of time.  What you came here for is to become yourself, to discover your complete identity to be you. But the catch is that of course our full identity as monks and Christians is Christ.   It is Christ in each of us…   I’ve got to become me in such a way that I am the Christ that can only be the Christ in me.  There is a Louis Christ that must be brought into existence and hasn’t matured yet. It has a long way to go. 

The question is, what is our own path to holiness? As (soon to be canonized) Charles de Foucauld said,  “Which is my road to heaven?”

 

THE LONE MONK - HOPE IN DARKNESS

                                                    Monk by the Sea- Caspar Friedrich

Even though  this painting will run through text, it needs to be seen in the largest form possible, to see the monk  and the sea.  Having come out of two strange and terrible weeks, including the first of the New year, I think this painting sums up where we are now -  facing   a vast unknown, but not without hope.

The broad expanses of sea and sky emphasize the meager figure of the monk, standing before the vastness of nature and the presence of God.  The scene is solemn and still, giving us a feeling of gloom and uneasiness, yet captivating.  One asks, what is this monk doing there, what is he thinking? 

The monk looks vulnerable and alone, yet the light in the sky perhaps is a sign of coming good weather.  And a hope for good things to come. A sign of the presence of God in our lives. 

The artist is Caspar David Friedrich  (1774 - 1840), a German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes, which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic ruins. His primary interest was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic and anti-classical work seeks to convey a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich's paintings characteristically set a human presence in diminished perspective amid expansive landscapes, reducing the figures to a scale that, which is certainly seen in the above painting..

The painting below, Seashore by Moonlight, also gives us the eerie feeling of darkness and aloneness, yet there is a light in the distance, which gives hope, as does Christ, who bring us Light into our dark world.

 As Caspar Frederich said, “a painter should paint not only what he sees before him, but also what he sees within himself.” Good thought for all of us in these dark winter days.

90th BIRTHDAY IN THE MONASTERY

 

                                                                         Dr. He Qi

Tomorrow we celebrate Epiphany, or Little Christmas, or the Three Kings, which, whatever one calls it, marks the end of the Christmas season. We will also celebrate the 90th birthday of Mother Felicitas (see Blog  July 1, 2017).  She wrote “The Chord of Longing”, her autobiography.  

She can run circles around most of us who are so much younger!  We wish her a blessed day. 

Giving violin lesson to James

BLESSED 2022

 

In his address on New Year’s Day, the Holy Father said: “The new year begins under the sign of the Holy Mother of God, under the sign of the Mother. A mother’s gaze is the path to rebirth and growth. We need mothers, women who look at the world not to exploit it, but so that it can have life. 

At the beginning of the New Year, then, let us place ourselves under the protection of this woman, the Mother of God, who is also our mother. May she help us to keep and ponder all things, unafraid of trials and with the joyful certainty that the Lord is faithful and can transform every cross into a resurrection.

Mary’s pensiveness … is the expression of a mature, adult faith, not a faith of beginners. Not a newborn faith, it is rather a faith that now gives birth.

For spiritual fruitfulness is born of trials and testing. From the quiet of Nazareth and from the triumphant promises received by the Angel – the beginnings – Mary now finds herself in the dark stable of Bethlehem. Yet that is where she gives God to the world.

How can she hold together the throne of a king and the lowly manger? How can she reconcile the glory of the Most High and the bitter poverty of a stable? Let us think of the distress of the Mother of God. What can be more painful for a mother than to see her child suffering poverty? It is troubling indeed.

We would not blame Mary, were she to complain of those unexpected troubles. Yet she does not lose heart. She does not complain, but keeps silent. Rather than complain, she chooses a different part: For her part, the Gospel tells us, Mary ‘kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.

She shows us that it is necessary: it is the narrow path to achieve the goal, the cross, without which there can be no resurrection. Like the pangs of childbirth, it begets a more mature faith.

“Happy New Year! Let us begin the new year by entrusting it to Mary, the Mother of God.

The new year begins with God who, in the arms of his mother and lying in a manger, gives us courage with tenderness. We need this encouragement. We are still living in uncertain and difficult times due to the pandemic.

Many are frightened about the future and burdened by social problems, personal problems, dangers stemming from the ecological crisis, injustices and by global economic imbalances. Looking at Mary with her Son in her arms, I think of young mothers and their children fleeing wars and famine, or waiting in refugee camps. There are so many of them.”

Pope Francis said that the thought of Mary holding Jesus in the stable is a reminder that “the world can change and everyone’s life can improve only if we make ourselves available to others.”