A brief thought on the use of icons by RCs
All right, I think I'm better now. Sorry for the tantrums earlier.
In (as my late wife, Carolyn would have said) an abrupt and graceless change of subject, through the kindness of The Young Fogey, I happened to read this posting of Tantum Ergo, where Timotheus indicates that renaissance and modern RC devotional art may have departed from its Byzantine and iconological roots. I would like to have commented on Timotheus' weblog, but apparently the weblog moderators there have restricted comment to their members. I thus have no choice save to remain silent, or to make my comments here. Therefore:
Certainly by buying Eastern icons Catholics are breaking from their cultural past, which is part of the problem we face today: loss of identity, in the liturgy and every other aspect of Catholic religious life (except in traditionalist chapels, Deo gratias).
I would rather say that by venerating and maybe even inscribing and otherwise using icons, Catholics are returning to their cultural past.
If I read the article aright, Timotheus asserts that Catholic devotional art went off the tracks when it left its iconological tradition for a more pictoral or representational practice in the Renaissance. I agree there.
I disagree, however, as regards the quotation above. I believe Dorothy L. Sayers put it well when she attacked the saying: "You can't turn back the clock." Her repost is my own in this context: If you mean, you can't go back to the past, then you are correct; but if you mean that you can't correct an error, then you are wrong. Wise men do so every day.
I personally feel that the veneration and correct use of icons at home and in Catholic worship is a corrective to the current efforts at liturgicide in much of modern RC worship. It also may be what His late Holiness, John Paul the Great, authorized when he suggested that the faithful "breath with both lungs of the Church", that is, live devotionally and spiritually in both the East and the West.
Finally, I think it possible for devotional art in RC worship to be both representational and appropriately spiritual. Two examples would be Salvador Dali,
and John Nava:
posted by Bernard Brandt at 6:01 AM
5 Comments:
First, let me say Merry Christmas to you and your family.
I agree with your post. I don't see how venerating icons is watering down the western tradition. I think (as you point out) it is simply breathing with both lungs. Just because East and West have been at war for a 1000 years doesn't make it right. I can't imagine the early Church fathers denying a good practice just because it developed in the East (or the West, since we need not forget that many Eastern Christians lament the "dangerous western innovations" like statues).
When I was a high school student, one of my theology teachers (who was RC) kept several icons in his classroom. They were set up on a small table with a tablecloth and votive candles, which he lit at the beginning of each class as he said a prayer.
He told us that the style of the icons is such that the viewer of the icon is "seen" by the figure or figures in the icon, and that the icons are small windows into heaven.
I always loved the idea that my classmates and I were watched over by God and the saints as we engaged in our daily work and study. Far from watering down RC identity, I believe that this teacher's use of icons gave a group of young people a tangible, visible connection with a common belief shared by both the East and the West -- that we are constantly observed by God!
I'm jumpin' in this rather late, but...
Old altar pieces in the west often resemble iconography.
What about the Cross of San Damiano (the St. Francis cross)? Looks like an icon to me.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help is an icon.
So's Our Lady of Czestochowa.
Or Our Lady of Vilnius.
Or Our Lady of Guadelupe, for that matter. (The second icon not made w/ human hands??)
Plus, if the Lord didn't want the west to learn from the East, he wouldn't have given Latins the Divine Mercy devotion, which includes 1)the Jesus prayer, 2)the Trisagion, and 3) it's own icon.
i think this is probably a long shot. but does anyone have the bib reference for the quote from the Pope about breathing out of both lungs the east and the west?
thanks if anyone even sees this entry
does anyone know where I can find the bib reference for the quote from the pope about breathing out of both the east and west lung?
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