National Gallery, Episode 4 | Infancy | Saint John the Baptist: From Birth to Beheading | ...

Birth of John the Baptist, 24 June 2015  

Mass Intro. Fr. Mark   

Today we
celebrate the birth of John the Baptist.
Whenever family and friends gather at the birth and baptism of a child,
the thought is not far away: 'What will this child turn out to be?'  It is as much a prayer as a question: a prayer
that the little one, like John the Baptist, will grow up to be a witness to
Christ and a messenger and a true light of his gospel to others*.

We were that child once.  We need the
Christ that John the Baptist witnessed to and to become witnesses to him
ourselves.

1.        Lord Jesus, you are the One whom all
Israel awaited

            and whom John the Baptist
announced.

2.        Christ Jesus, you are the
Saviour of the World.

3.        Lord Jesus, you are our hope of
new life and resurrection.

Conclusion
to Pr of Faithful

Loving Father, you heard the prayer of Elizabeth and Zachary and gave them the
birth of a son.  Hear our prayers that
our lives may become a sign of joy and hope for the world, through Christ our
Lord**.

COMMENT:  

   We had, below, the National Gallery,  Video of the Infancy of John the Baptist.
The contact kept evading me.
So we have the screen copies, and even the more powerful revealing SUBTITLES.   
All a demonstration...     
2nd COMMENT:

Learning hear about Domenico Cavalca who wrote a life of John the Baptist, points for further search!

 

Episode 4 | Infancy | Saint John the Baptist: From Birth to Beheading | National Gallery, London   

 

The National Gallery 

4,676

  

 

Published on 24 Jun 2014

The Bible reveals very little about the childhood of John the Baptist. In the 14th century however, a Dominican friar called Domenico Cavalca wrote a biography of the saint that filled in the gaps. This work's popularity inspired Italian Renaissance artists to represent new episodes from his life and to show the infant Baptist in the company of the Christ Child.

Art historian Jennifer Sliwka and theologian Ben Quash look at Leonardo da Vinci's, 'The Virgin of the Rocks', about 1491/2-9 and 1506-8, Bronzino's 'The Madonna and Child with Saints', probably about 1540 and Garofolo's 'The Holy Family with Saints', about 1520

'John the Baptist: From Birth to Beheading' is a series of 10 films sharing the highlights of the collaborative MA course taught by Dr Jennifer Sliwka, Howard and Roberta Ahmanson Fellow in Art and Religion at the National Gallery and Professor Ben Quash, Director of the Centre for Arts and the Sacred, King's College London.

    


Other connection

   Preview | Saint John the Baptist: From Birth to Beheading | National Gallery, London  

++++++++++ 

Domenico Cavalca wrote a life of John the Baptist

     

Ss. Peter and Paul, Essay

Saint Peter and Saint Paul, apostles - Solemnity 29 June 2015

Night Office Readings,

"Saint Peter and Saint Paul"
by Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652)
[www.wikiart.org/]

SAINTS PETER AND PAUL 29 June 2015

From the Letters of Paul to the Galatians 1:15 – 2:10.

Responsory: John 21:15-16

MAGNIFICAT.com ESSAY

The Feast of Saints Peter and Paul

_______ Jennifer Hubbard ________

He will create beauty from the ashes. I know this. From the depths of my soul, I know this. Still, there are times I insist on doing it my way. I do it my way until an assault­ing blow leaves me on my knees wondering if this is when he stops gluing together the pieces of my brokenness into something anew. I cry out to him and he pulls me into the shelter of his arms. With a gentle whisper he reminds me:

My grace is enough for you: my power is at its best in weakness (2 Co 12:9).

He assures me of his promise through the example of Saints Peter and Paul. Through them, he teaches me his glory has no boundaries and love no limit.  

Without hesitation, Peter lays down his nets and steps off the boat when Jesus calls. Peter's love is deep-rooted and indisputable. And still, the beloved Peter denies him. Yet, with his faults and cracks, Peter is the rock he uses to build the Church.

And Paul-Paul spat venom at believers and stood to watch while they were beaten and bruised. And still he draws Paul close. He opens Paul's eyes and places his cloak over his shoulders. Paul surrenders completely to his will and in the darkest hours, from the smallest of confines, proclaims his glory.

Just as with Peter and Paul, he has a purpose for my weakness. He reveals his love for me, assures me he will never leave, and restores the broken pieces of my life into a beautiful mosaic.

Jennifer Hubbard resides in Newtown, CT. The younger of her two children, Catherine Violet, was a victim of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

Birthday of St. John the Baptist. | National Gallery, Saint John the Baptist: From Birth to Beheading |

     COMMUNITY CHAPTER SERMON - Fr. Raymond
below.      
Preview | Saint John the Baptist: From Birth to Beheading | National Gallery, London

 

The National Gallery 

4,664

  

2,470

 

Published on 24 Jun 2014

John the Baptist has been painted by some of the most famous artists in the National Gallery from Piero della Francesca and Leonardo to Caravaggio and Puvis de Chavannes. But who was he and why has he been so important to artists and patrons over the centuries?

Over a series of 10 films the art historian Jennifer Sliwka and theologian Ben Quash share the highlights of their collaborative MA course between the National Gallery and King's College London, to explore the life of one of the greatest figures in Biblical history and one of the most represented saints in art.

       
Youtube Video

COMMENT:
12th Week Ord Time
Wednesday 24th  
On the Solemnity of the Birthday of St. John the Baptist, it is the 56th anniversary of Ordination of Priesthood. The 1959 souvenir cards long gone. The motto words of Psalm 26(27):4, remain at heart.
There is one thing I ask of the Lord
for this I long,
to live in the house of the Lord,
all the days of my life,
in the savour of the sweetness of the Lord,
to behold his temple. [Ps. 26:4, Grail 1963]

http://www.athanasius.com/psalms/psalms1.html#27 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The most interesting subject for the Birthday of St. John of the Baptist in the Leonardo Charcoal Cartoon for the Virgin and Child with St. Anne and the Infant St. John (Burlington House, London).

COLORPLATE 33

Painted 1499-1501

BURLINGTON HOUSE CARTOON (VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. ANNE), detail

Charcoal heightened with white on brown paper

National Gallery, London

The face of the Virgin in the Burlington House Cartoon accords with the type Leonardo had established seventeen years before in the Virgin of the Madonna of the Rocks in the Louvre (colour plate 18), yet it betrays the deep changes these long years had wrought in his art and that the other Madonna of the Rocks, the London version, first began to reveal. Something of that sweet harmony and well-being have survived, but now the face is that of a mature woman and is suffused with feelings and compassion that arc the direct result of an emotional and human concern with the actions of the children. Realistic behaviour has replaced elusive ethereality. The Virgin's head is voluminous and its structure more systematically defined than in Leonardo's earlier work. Moreover, the slight incline of the head is no longer a convention, as it was in the Madonna of the Rocks, but the result of a conscious movement. However, she still has the force of an idealized and universal presence.

The contrast between St. Anne's strange face and the pleasantly candid one of the Virgin could not be more striking. The older woman's narrow, deep set eyes, her deliberately compressed lips, and her curious mannered smile give the face an animation and a seer-like wisdom befitting one who attempts to communicate to a contented Virgin the dreadful knowledge of her son's future sacrifice. Leonardo's persistent search into the realm of the inner mind has given him access to emotions and psychological states that have now a mystical substance, which acts to expand upon and enrich the mere human condition.

Professor Wasserman

Leonardo

 COMMUNITY CHAPTER SERMON - Fr. Raymond

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Fr. Raymond ....
To: Donald ....
Sent: Tuesday, 23 June 2015, 10:47
Subject: ST JOHN BAPTIST

 

ST JOHN THE BAPTIST

When we call St John the Baptist the Precursor of the Lord we immediately think of the way he prepared the way for the Lord’s coming.  We think of: The example of his ascetic life; and we think of his fearless preaching; a preaching that was to cost him his life.  But there is another way, and perhaps a much more important way in which he prepared for the Lord’s coming.  This was not so much by what he did, or by what he said, great as these things were,  but it was also by the very fact of just who he was, and by what he represented in  God’s great plan for the accomplishment of the world’s salvation;  God’s great plan for the preparation of his people; to enable them recognise and accept the Messiah when he came.

Jesus hints at this when he says of John: “Of men born of women there has risen none greater than John the Baptist”.  In these words Jesus proclaims to all the world that the Person of John was the climax of all that the Old Testament was meant to be. John was its ultimate and perfect fulfilment.  Sanctified in the womb, he stands in the Old Testament in something the same kind of way as Mary, sanctified at her conception, does in the New.  As Mary is the ultimate fulfilment of the New Testament children of God, so John is the ultimate fulfilment of the Old Testament children of God.  God’s plans were never frustrated by man’s infidelities in the Old Testament.  The Old Testament was not a failure.  John the Baptist brought it to its perfect fulfilment.  -  “look!  There is the Lamb of God!” He cried.  At that moment the thousands of years of Old Testament History were shown to be fulfilled.

This link between the Old Testament and the New is seen dramatically proved and  portrayed for us in the strikingly parallel stories of the Annunciation and the Birth, the Passion and the Death, of John and of Jesus, side by side in the Gospel stories.

So when Jesus tells us that there has risen no man greater than John he is not saying necessarily that John is greater than Abraham or Moses, let alone his Blessed Mother.  He is rather saying that John’s greatness is not so much a personal one as one of his role and office in the history of salvation.  Jesus then goes on to speak of you and me, the children of the New Testament.  We are all greater than John, he says, and this in so far as it is a greater destiny to know just who and what the Messiah is and to be a part of his kingdom than it is to be the greatest of the prophets who could only look forward to some dim distant future coming.

This greatness of John, then, as the personification of the ultimate fulfilment of the Old Testament means that the whole of the Old Testament is one great preparation for the coming of Christ.  All its wonderful stories, all its great characters are meant to illustrate, in one way or another the person and mission of Christ.  If we stick to the New Testament only then we cannot fathom the full depth of the mystery of Christ;  We will miss so much of the meaning to be drawn from the beautiful and powerful imagery of the Old Testament as it gradually infolds for us the heights and the depths of the riches of Christ.

Therefore when St Jerome gave us his famous saying that “ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ” he was not referring to the Gospels only but also to the whole of the Old Testament as well, right from the Book of Genesis through to the Baptist himself who straddles both Testament like a great Colossus.

Sancta Maria Abbey: http://www.nunraw.com.uk (Website)     

Blogspot :http://www.nunraw.blogspot.co.uk, Doneword :http://www.donewill.blogspot.co.uk    |domdonald.org.uk,   Emails: nunrawdonald@yahoo.com, nunrawdonald@gmail.com

Luisa, prayer is one single point. Chrysostom, prayer was very short

COMMENTS:

"Christ and Paul com­manded us to make our prayers short, and to say them frequently, at brief intervals". (Sr. John Chrysostom).

"Prayer is a Single Point such that in Praying for Oneself, One Prays for All".    (Luisa Piccarreta).

TUESDAY, TWELFTH WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME, YEAR I

A READING FROM THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL

(Hannah’s barrenness and her prayer: 1 Samuel 1:1-19)

There was a certain man of Ramathaim-zophim of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. He had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. And Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.....    

Tuesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time Year I 

A READING FROM THE HOMILIES
ON HANNAH BY ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

As Hannah continued praying in the presence of the Lord, says Scripture, Eli watched her mouth. The writer bears witness here to ­two virtues in the woman: her perseverance in prayer and her attentiveness. He refers to the first by saying, She continued, and to the second by adding, in the presence of the Lord; for we all pray, but not all of us pray in the presence of the Lord. Though our bodies may be in an attitude of  prayer and our mouths babbling some pious formula, can we really claim to be praying in the presence of God when our minds are wandering hither and thither in home and market-place? Those people pray in the presence of the Lord who pray with complete recollection; who, having no worldly attachments, have removed from earth to heaven and banished all human preoccupations, just as this woman did then. Recollecting herself completely and concentrating her mind, she called upon ­God in her deep distress.

But why does Scripture say she continued praying when actually her prayer  was very short? She made no long speeches, she did not spin out her plea to great length, but spoke few and simple words. What then could the writer have meant by saying, She continued? Surely he meant that she said the same thing over and over again; she spent a long time ceaselessly repeating the same words. That ­indeed is how Christ also commanded us to pray in the Gospels. When he told his disciples not to pray like the Gentiles and not to use empty repetitions, he also taught them the right way to pray, showing them that it is not a multiplicity of words but mental ­alertness that wins us a hearing.

Why then, you may ask, if  prayer should be brief, did Christ tell them a parable to show that it should be continuous? There was a widow, he said, who by her persistent requests, by her going to him again and again, overcame a cruel and inhuman judge who neither feared God nor regarded other people. And why does Paul also urge us to keep praying, to pray without ceasing? Is it a contra­diction to tell us not to make long speeches, and yet to pray continually?

No; there is no contradiction – God forbid! The two commands are in complete agreement. Christ and Paul com­manded us to make our prayers short, and to say them frequently, at brief intervals. For if you spin out your words to any length you are often inattentive, and so give the devil freedom to approach and trip you up and divert your mind from what you are saying. But if you pray continuously and frequently, repeating your prayer at brief intervals, you can easily remain recollected and fully alert as you pray. That indeed is just what this woman did, not making long speeches but drawing near to God frequently, at brief inter­vals. That is true prayer, when its cries come from the depths of one’s being.

St John Chrysostom, De Anna, Sermon 2.2; (Bareille 8:419-21); Word in Season +++++++++++++++++++.

    

18 May 2015

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Dom Donald's Blog: 

Adoration 'my heart as I said my prayers'

Book of Heaven, Luisa Piccarreta, Vol. 7. 

May 30, 1907. 

Effectiveness of prayer. Prayer is a Single Point such that in Praying for Oneself, One Prays for All. As I was in my usual state, I saw blessed Jesus for a short time, and I ...

      “My daughter, prayer is one single point, and while it is one point, it can grasp all other points together.  So, whether the soul prays for herself alone or for others, she can obtain by supplication just as much.  Its effectiveness is one.”

Sancta Maria Abbey: http://www.nunraw.com.uk (Website)
Blogspot :http://www.nunraw.blogspot.co.uk, Doneword :http://www.donewill.blogspot.co.uk    |domdonald.org.uk,   Emails: nunrawdonald@yahoo.com, nunrawdonald@gmail.com

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