JESUS IN THE WINEPRESS

 

CHRIST in the WINEPRESS (or  the mystical winepress) is a motif in  Christian iconography showing Christ standing in a winepress, where Jesus Himself becomes the grapes in the press. It derives from the interpretation by St. Augustine where he exhorted his congregation to imitate Christ, ‘the first grape’, by stepping ‘into the winepress’ and being ‘ready for the pressing’. Other early theologians and doctors of the Church, such as St. Gregory the Great, followed suit. This visual image is found in Christian art between about 1100 and the 18th century, as well as in religious literature.

The Jesuit Robert Southwell saw the Passion in the winepress image in his poem "Christ's Bloody Sweat”,

                                                 Fat soil, full spring, sweet olive, grape of bliss,

That yields, that streams, that pours, that dost distil,
Untilled, undrawn, unstamped, untouched of press,
Dear fruit, clear brooks, fair oil, sweet wine at will!
Thus Christ unforced prevents in shedding blood

                                                    The whips, the thorns, the nails, the spear, and rood.       

Isaiah, 63, where verse 3, taken as spoken by Christ, says "I have trodden the winepress alone", and wine-stained clothes are mentioned. This passage was closely echoed in Apocalypse 19, where verse 15 reads: "He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty", and the clothes are also soaked, this time with blood. 

Another passage was Apocalypse 14:19–20:  And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs."

The idea of Christ as both the treader and the trodden wine is found in St Gregory the Great: "He has trodden the winepress alone in which He was Himself pressed, for with His own strength He patiently overcame suffering.

The "mystic winepress" was common in hymns and sermons of the late medieval period, but rarer in the visual arts. Most examples are from north of the Alps, and representations in stained glass seem to have been popular. In England, where little wine was made, they were probably very rare.

 Interestingly to note, the famous text by Julia Ward Howe of the first verse of The Battle Hymn of the Republic (1861):

   Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;

    He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of                                        wrath  are stored;

    He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

    His truth is marching on.

This is also reflected in the title of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath(1939) -one of my all time favorite movies).  .

.

While we relate to Christ as the Vine (and we the branches), the image of the Mystical Winepress, is today virtually forgotten.  The only contemporary images I could find was Ethiopian 1978 by Alemayehu Bizuneh, in his “Hunger Canvas" and some paintings on glass by Romanians.

IMAGES:Top:   German   C. 1490 

Left;   Austrian   C.1400 

Rt.    Netherlandish  16^th C.

Left:  Preraphaelite  John Roddam Stanhope  1860

Rt.    A. Bizuneh- Ethiopia        1978

Bottom two:  Romanian on glass

SMALLNESS

 

        Here I am,

                                           Cradling the future in my hands,

                                           Not as though I were responsible,

                                           Not hoping to manipulate it,

                                           Simply grateful to have held it,

                                           To be old enough to recognize it

                                                          in what he is.

 

                                           Awestruck

                                           That so vulnerable a tiny parcel

                                           Could contain so many hopes,

                                           Unfold so much potential,

                                           Attract and reflect such great love.

 

                                           Keep holding up that blue-veined head

                                           That wants to see,

                                                          to know,

                                                          to matter.

                                           It needs a little help yet.

                                           Marvel at those fingers,

                                           Works in perfect miniature,

                                           That one day will create beauty . . .

 

                                           But look!

                                           They already have

                                           Clutched deep in my soul

                                           A still point of grace.

 

                                           And I am overcome

                                                          By smallness.

 

                                                            Oblate Rob Wilson 2021

(Painting:  Graham Braddock)

MAN OF SORROWS

 

The Pensive Christ which we saw in our last Blog has a similar depiction in  MAN OF SORROWS (the Latin term Christus dolens ("suffering Christ"), a biblical term, is paramount among the prefigurations of the Messiah identified by the Bible in the passages of Isaiah 53* (Servant songs) in the Hebrew Bible. It is also an iconic devotional image that shows Christ, usually naked above the waist, with the wounds of his Passion prominently displayed on his hands and side, often crowned with the crown of thorns and sometimes attended by angels. It developed in Europe from the 13th century and was especially popular in Northern Europe.

The image continued to spread and develop iconographical complexity until well after the Renaissance, but the Man of Sorrows in its many artistic forms is the most precise visual expression of the piety of the later Middle Ages, which took its character from mystical contemplation rather than from theological speculation.

 The various versions of the Man of Sorrows image all show a Christ with the wounds of the Crucifixion, including the spear-wound. Especially in Germany, Christ's eyes are usually open and look out at the viewer; in Italy the closed eyes of the Byzantine epitaphios image, originally intended to show a dead Christ, remained for longer. For some the image represented the two natures of Christ – he was dead as a man, but alive as God. Full-length figures also first appear in southern Germany in wall-paintings in the 13th century, and in sculpture from the beginning of the 14th.

Other elements that were sometimes included, in distinct sub-forms of the image, included "Instruments of the Passion", the cross, a chalice into which blood poured from Christ's side or other wounds (giving an emphasis on the Eucharist), angels to hold these objects or support a slumped Christ himself (Meister Francke shows both roles below), and mourners or worshippers. 

Together with the Pietà, it was the most popular of the Andachtsbilder-type images of the period.

While there are many examples from the Middle Ages, we have few from more modern times.  The 19^th C found examples in the Retable from from Mexico  and fewer from our own day.

* Isaiah 53 : He is despised and rejected of men, a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.  Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.  But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed.

Images:  

Top left-  German  woodcut  c. 1465

 Mid right- Meister Francke  c. 1430 

 Mid left-  19th C. Mexico - Anonymous

  Bottom right- James B Janknegt - USA

"GOD IN NEED"

 

Before I entered the Abbey, I lived in Germany, starting in Cologne (Koln) where I attended the art school.  I stayed in a large house run by sisters for working women.  I could see the great Cathedral out my window and often made a visit.  A particular wooden statue never failed to grab my attention.  Locals called it “God in Need”. For years I looked for that image, under that title, but could never find it, until a few weeks ago- and as often happens, by accident.

The Pensive Christ (German: Christus im Elend – 'Christ in Distress' or Christus in der Rast; Polish: Chrystus Frasobliwy – 'Worried Christ'; Lithuanian: Rūpintojėlis) is a subject in Christian iconography depicting a contemplating Jesus, sitting with His head supported by His hand with the Crown of Thorns and marks of His flagellation.

It is, therefore, a picture of Jesus shortly before his crucifixion, although more an "andachtsbild"  (a German term often used in English in art history for Christian devotional images designed as aids for prayer or contemplation)  or devotional subject that is not intended to show an actual moment in the narrative of the Passion of Christ. 

The Pensive Christ is much more common in sculpture than in painting, where the similar Man of Sorrows is more often depicted (in this Jesus is shown with the wounds of the crucifixion).

The first known depictions of the Pensive Christ occur in northern German sculptures from the latter half of the 14th century, taking a pose already found in paintings of the preparations for the crucifixion, where Jesus sits in thought as the soldiers work to raise the cross.

Before this, the pose had been used for the figure of Job in Distress, according to typology, one of the prefigurements of Christ.  Art historians link its appearance with the Devotio Moderna (Latin for "modern devotion"), which stressed the human nature of Jesus, a model for the faithful to follow.

 The image became especially popular in Silesia and Pomerania, and then Poland and Lithuania, where it became strongly entrenched in folk art wood carvings by dievdirbiai (Lithuanian folk carvers).

 Dating back to the late fourteenth century, this iconographic type shows Jesus sitting on a stone, bent over, supporting his head with one hand while resting the other on his knee. Sometimes he is crowned with thorns, sometimes not, but either way he bears an expression of exhaustion and grief and is thus associated with the Passion.

 Although the image first appeared in northern Germany, it is now most commonly associated with Lithuania, where the figure is called Rūpintojėlis (pronounced roo-pinto-YAY-lis): “the One Who Worries,” or “the Brooding One.” (“The Pensive Christ” is not a strict translation, but that is the name that has gained favor in the English-speaking world; “Christ in Distress” is another.)

As Christianity spread throughout Lithuania in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, so did images of Rūpintojėlis, as the wandering woodcarvers (dievdirbiai) of native folk culture carved him into hollowed-out tree trunks wherever they went. Today he is found not only at crossroads and in forests but in churches, homes, cemeteries, and shops.  

Lithuanians relate the figure to their own passion as a people, especially since having had endured persecution under the Soviet regime, including mass deportations to Siberian labor camps and other remote parts of the Soviet Union in the 1940s and ’50s. About 60 percent of the roughly 130,000 Lithuanian deportees either died in the camps or were never able to return to their homeland—a tragedy still mourned by Lithuanians each year on June 14, the date of the first major deportation (in 1941), which they call the “Day of Sorrow.”

Others were executed as political prisoners. For these victims of repression, the Pensive Christ represents a God who identifies with the suffering of humanity. Perhaps He contemplates not only His own unjust treatment and death but also the countless injustices waged against others throughout time. And He weeps.

 

Images:

       Top left-   Koln Cathedral

          # 2 right:  Liebieghaus Museum- German          

 # 3 left  Boden Museum Berlin  - German

 #4 & 5  Lithuanian

 

 

 

ANOTHER POEM FOR SPRING

For a Musician Who Does Not Hear the Silences

                            I heard the forest grow this morning

                            And supposed you would have suffered it as silence.

                            Unused to hearing at this frequency,

                            Could you have missed the love songs of birds filling unseen nests                                                                                          above?

                            Would you fathom the last whisper of the fluttering cherry blossom

                                           in its movement to a new measure of fertility?

                            Might you sway to the breathing of this moisture-moving planet

                                           pulsing in the bent and breezy tree crowns?

                            I sense the rhythm of newly unrolled leaves sucking in the sunlight

                                           of their nourishment.

                            The whole is throbbing, moving, singing . . . .

 

                            I wish you could hear it through my ear buds.

                                                   

                                                            Oblate Rob Wilson , 2021

                       

MARCHING IN HABIT

We don’t often hear of religious who are Black, and especially those who marched alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma- in full habit.

SISTER MARY ANTONA EBO was an American hospital administrator, civil rights activist and Franciscan Sister of Mary.  in Selma she was quoted as saying, "I'm here because I'm a Negro, a nun, a Catholic, and because I want to bear witness."

She was born Elizabeth Louise "Betty Lou" Ebo was born in Bloomington, Illinois, in 1924,  the daughter of Daniel Ebo and Louise Teal Ebo. She lived at the McLean County Home for Colored Children with her two older siblings from 1930 to 1942, after her mother's death and her father's unemployment during the Great Depression.

She was hospitalized for long periods of her childhood, once for an infected thumb requiring amputation, and later with tuberculosis.

In 1944, she was the first black student to graduate from Holy Trinity High School. She converted to Roman Catholicism in 1942, and trained as a nurse the St. Mary's (Colored) Infirmary School of Nursing in St. Louis.

As a Catholic nun, she pursued further education, earning a bachelor's degree in medical record library science from Saint Louis University in 1962, and two master's degrees, one in hospital executive development (1970) from Saint Louis University, and one in theology of health care (1978) from Aquinas Institute of Theology. From 1979, she held a chaplain's certificate from the National Association of Catholic Chaplains.

 

She was one of the first three black women to join the Sisters of St. Mary in 1946, and became Sister Mary Antona when she took her final vows in 1954. She worked in medical records at Firmin Desloge Hospital from 1955 to 1961,[ and was director of medical records at St. Mary's Infirmary from 1962 to 1967.

 In 1967, she was named executive director of St. Clare's Hospital in Baraboo, Wisconsin, the first African-American woman to be head of an American Catholic hospital. In 1974 she was named executive director of the Wisconsin Conference of Catholic Hospitals.[ She worked at Catholic hospitals in Madison, Wisconsin, and at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. From 1992 to 2008, she was a pastoral associate at St. Nicholas Church in St. Louis.

With encouragement from her mother superior, Sister Mary Antona and five other nuns joined the Martin Luther King's march in Selma in 1965, wearing their orders' full habits. 

Her presence, along with that of the other sisters, was deeply encouraging to the marchers. Andrew Young, a civil-rights leader who would one day be famous in public service, told the marchers upon the sisters’ arrival at the staging spot of Brown A.M.E. Chapel, in Selma, “Ladies and gentlemen, one of the great moral forces of the world has just walked in the door.”

Her story was included in the documentary Sisters of Selma: Bearing Witness for Change (2007).

 In 1968, Sister was a founder of the National Black Sisters' Conference, and president of the conference from 1980 to 1982. In 1989, she received the conference's Harriet Tubman Award for service and leadership. She served on the Human Rights Commission of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, and was a member of the Missouri Catholic Conference on Social Concerns.

In 1999, she received the Eucharist from Pope John Paul II, in a group of congregants including Rosa Parks, when the pontiff visited St. Louis. In 2013 she attended a commemoration of the 1965 march and cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge with Congressman John Lewis.  In 2014, in her nineties, Sister Mary Antona gave a message at a prayer service in Ferguson following the death of Michael Brown Jr.

Sister Mary Antona Ebo died in 2017, aged 93, at the Sarah Community, a retirement home in Bridgeton, Missouri, after 71 years in religious life.

Sister Antona Ebo has left a lasting impact on social justice and civil rights as a whole, especially i to African-American society and to the Church..

BIRDS BEFORE THE SNOW FLEW IN

 

                                                        Red breasted sapsucker

Last week we mentioned that Feb. 12-15  was the International (GBBC) Great Backyard Bird Count.  How we looked forward to this!  Jim and I had planned to do Saturday and Sunday together, but Thursday got an update on our local weather, so I called Jim that night and said we had better go tomorrow. 

Friday turned out to be chilly and dark but we had an excellent day, finding 47 species.  We even ate our picnic lunch in the warm car with his wife Gigi.  We were glad we  pushed our days ahead,  as we had on Saturday the heaviest snow in many a year, mainly attacking the coastline. It snowed for two solid days giving us perhaps a foot and a half.  Sunday afternoon the sun came out, just in time to set, but not before Jim and I spotted more birds.

While it was not the greatest number of species spotted on Shaw at this annual count (top 68) it was good for so few hours put in.

World numbers- in spite of cold weather in so many lands exceeded past years:

 176 countries participated

  267,866 individuals participated

  6,208 species were observed

For us the highlights of the day (and night) were 2 Great-horned Owls, 2 Red- breasted Sapsuckers  and 33 Varied Thrush (highest count on any given day was 8). *

* These special birds (cousins of the Robin) nests in Alaska, Yukon Territory, and mountains in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. They prefer moist conifer forests,  Moving to lower elevations during the winter where they can be often seen in towns and orchards and thickets, or they might even migrate to California. Seen in flocks during winter of up to 20 birds, they fly eastward in winter, showing up in just about any state, then returning to the west coast for breeding.

Our next major count is in May-  Migration Day, but we don’t think we will wait that long!