Rest a while

“Make yourself at home.”

How often have I said those words to another?

How often have I had those words said to me?

They are words of welcome.

They are words of hospitality.

They are words of openness.

They are words of generosity.

This Sunday’s Gospel (Lk. 10:38-42) recounts for us a visit of Jesus to the house of Martha and Mary.

Much is made of the interaction between the sisters and most homilists I have heard spend endless minutes siding with one or the other, or in an attempt at reconciling each to the other.

In doing so, the person of Jesus might well be overlooked!

The Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer has a painting of today’s Gospel scene.

The painting is titled, “Christ in the house of Martha and Mary.” (1655) and hangs in the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh.

It is the largest and one of the earliest surviving paintings by Vermeer. It is also his only known work of a biblical subject.

I encourage you to spend some time with this work by Vermeer and notice the relaxed poise in which the artist has painted the figure of Jesus (Christ).

As you gaze at this figure, recite the mantra quietly and reflectively, “make yourself at home”

In the context of acting, “bit players” refer to actors who have very small, often uncredited, roles in films, television, or theatre productions. These roles typically involve minimal dialogue (or none at all) and are considered supporting parts rather than leading or even supporting roles.

However, at times these “bit players” can hold a vital clue in the unfolding of the story.

For example, the café worker who notices that the gentleman sits in the same seat by the window on a Monday and Thursday and reads the morning paper.

This person turns out to be a spy.

Or the bus conductor who remembers the same individual routinely catches the 8.15am bus and suddenly does not appear.

Or, again, the gardener working next door who notices the absence of milk being delivered.

In today’s Gospel (Lk 10: 25 – 37) known for generations as ‘The Parable of the Good Samaritan’ there are two ‘bit players’ – a priest and a Levite.

The 1890 painting of this parable by the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh follows an earlier painting by the French painter Eugène Delacroix.

The Delacroix painting has evidence of one ‘bit player’ while Van Gogh has the two – the priest and the Levite.

In each of these paintings the ‘bit players’ are overwhelmed by the energy at the forefront of the canvas.

A study of each of these paintings shows the figures walking away, all we see is their back.

Our Gospel story tells us the person robbed was left half-dead. Those who passed by couldn’t tell whether the person was dead or alive.

Both the priest and the Levite were Temple officials. As such they could not risk contracting impurity by touching a corpse. It was better that they remain aloof (“crossing to the other side” vv.31, 32) and preserve their purity at the cost of their obedience to God’s law of love.

Their Temple service appears to have little impact on their personal lives!

I suggest the story is not so much about when I have helped another in need but rather when have I not in order to preserve my own purity.

Natural beauty can do it to us.

Deep within Fiordland National Park lies Milford Sound, with its magical combination of mountain peaks, ink-dark waters and superb dramatic forest-clad cliffs.Standing under the majestic towering presence of Tāne Mahuta, in the Waipoua Forest.

Or it may be the sun rising through the horizon as we sit with a morning coffee.
Music can do it also. The exquisite harmony of voices achieved in the duet “Là ci darem la mano” from Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, or “Au fond du temple saint” the famous duet from Georges Bizet’s opera, Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers).

The thunderous volley of canon fire that concludes the 1812 Overture by the composer Tchaikovsky surely awakens concert goers as if they were one!
Art too has a similar inclination as the stars twinkle at the observer from Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, or the feel of the touch of the father’s hands in Rembrandt’s ‘The Return of the Prodigal Son’.

The uncouth among us describe it as being “gob smacked”, the more cultured or refined describe the experience as being “stopped in my tracks” or, alternately, as being “blown away.”

Each of these English idioms are used to describe an experience of wonder, awe, shock, surprise. Each frequently has an emotional reaction as a part of the experience.

Imagine then: I am wandering through the Art Gallery known as Museo del Prado in Madrid, turn a corner and I am, (being uncouth) “gob-smacked”
On display is a painting with the title “The Virgin nursing the Child” (or to give it its original title , ‘ The Madonna with the Jesusknaben at the chest.’)
In our language today we call it ‘breastfeeding’.

Painted in c.1530 by the Dutch Renaissance artist, Marinus van Reymerswaal the painting is 61cm high by 46cm wide and depicts the Virgin nursing the Child in a domestic interior. It is a representation of an image of the tender relationship between a mother and her child.

The artist has depicted a bare breasted Mary with the infant Jesus fully latched onto her nipple. (and by the looks of his chubby frame he has latched on to said nipple on many occasions!)

This iconography known as The Madonna Lactans (the Nursing Mother) already appeared in the early fifteenth century and was used especially for images intended for private devotion.

This iconography was increasingly abandoned by artists following a decision by the Council of Trent (1545 – 1563) regarding the appropriateness of certain religious representations.

Had those present at this Council (all men) not read this morning’s First Reading from the prophet Isaiah?

“That you may suck and be satisfied
from her consoling breast,
that you may drink deeply with delight
from her glorious bosom.” (Is. 66:11)
What, I suggest, is a superlative image for individual spirituality.

And don’t we refer to our Church as ‘Mother Church.” Much of the Church’s energy is about going out – evangelisation. Perhaps we need “latch on” before ‘going out’. Before we can walk and talk, we need “suck and drink deeply with delight.” (Is 66:11)

 

Whoever thought of celebrating Saints Peter and Paul together?

St Peter never left home, and St Paul never stayed home!

St Peter said yes, and then he said no!

St Paul said no, and then he said yes.

The occasion they did meet, they argued!

The Dutch artist, Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), created a painting titled “Woman Holding a Balance “(1662-63). Johannes Vermeer, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

In the painting, Vermeer has depicted what discreetly appears to be a young pregnant woman holding an empty balance before a table on which stands an open jewellery box, the pearls and gold within spilling over. A blue cloth rests in the left foreground, beneath a mirror, and a window to the left — unseen save its golden curtain — provides light. Behind the woman is a painting of the Last Judgment featuring Christ with raised, outstretched hands.

Might our celebrating of St. Peter and St. Paul be an invitation to us “to hold in balance” the seemingly opposite parts that reside within me and within my Church.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author wrote a novel titled “Death Comes For The Archbishop”. The book was initially published in 1927.

In that book, there is a quote that might be for the Saints Peter and Paul feast day: “They had not room in their minds for two ideas.”