Eve
A generous art historian has introduced me to a painting by Joakim Skovgaard (1856-1933) of which you can here see a detail. It is at once faithfully Biblical and timelessly existential. It is Biblical in so far as it portrays the almost amicable conversation between Eve and the serpent as we find it related in Genesis 3. The tempter, in this account, gives no brusque commands to the woman. Instead he delicately subverts her perception, and so her judgement. He does this by gaining her attention and trust, speaking soft, flattering words. Often enough this is how temptation insinuates itself. It seems so innocuous, even somehow kind, surrounded (as the serpent in this canvas) by peacefully fluttering butterflies. So seductive can temptation’s voice be that we forget to look it in the face. Had Eve looked into her interlocutor’s eyes, would she have believed that his intention coincided with her flourishing?
Shoddy History
We tend to assume it is AI that will corrupt our sense of historical processes and contingencies. The fear is not unfounded. But shoddy, biased scholarship also has much to answer for. I am shaken to read, in a single issue of the TLS, the accounts of two serious historians (Robert Tombs and Felipe Fernández-Armesto) denouncing the work of their colleagues as well below par, ‘so self-indulgent, so partisan, so ignorant, so poorly written and so carelessly checked’. Tombs analyses what he presents as a rough-shod ride over historical truths determinedly pursued by the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Church Commission; Fernández-Armesto reviews with exasperation (‘I opened the book expecting instruction and entertainment, I closed it in despair’) ‘A New History of the New World’. The latter remarks: ‘We should be wary of wallowing in self-righteous judgements of the past: they will be visited on us in return.’
A Single Melody
On a journey this afternoon, I found myself in an airport lounge listening with tears in my eyes to the pope’s homily from this morning’s Mass of Inauguration: ‘In this spirit of faith, the College of Cardinals came together for the Conclave; assembling from a variety of background stories, from different itineraries, we placed in God’s hands our desire to elect a new successor to Peter, a bishop of Rome, a pastor able to safeguard the rich patrimony of Christian faith while at the same time looking far ahead, so to go out and encounter the questions, anxieties, and challenges of today. Accompanied by your prayers we were sensitive to the work of the Holy Spirit, who managed to tune the diverse instruments of music so that the chords of our hearts vibrated with a single melody.’ He went on to summon us all from discord to concord. May we heed that call.
The full text of the Holy Father’s homily is here.
La Resurrezione
One of the joys of Eastertide is to listen to Handel’s oratorio La Resurrezione. It is a youthful work: the composer was 23 when it was first performed in Rome on Easter Sunday 1708, with an elite orchestra led by Corelli. As Graham Abbott has written, ‘It is in fact an unstaged opera on a religious subject, with a text by Carlo Sigismondo Capece, secretary to the Queen of Poland, who was exiled in Rome.’ Capece strikingly set the Christian drama with reference to both apocryphal and pagan traditions, showing forth Christ’s Easter victory as the culmination of even implicit hopes. This is a lovely recording. My favourite, though, is this, conducted by Minkowski, with Jennifer Smith singing gloriously in the role of Maria Maddalena.
Catholic
During the past eight days, attempts to predict what will be Pope Leo XIV’s priorities, method of government, and style have been legion. The lucidest, most helpful statement I have read so far appeared yesterday in an essay published by Daniel Capó in The Objective:
‘His own biography speaks to us, moreover, of a man who is truly Catholic in the sense of universal: North American and Peruvian, a scholar and a missionary, a mathematician and a canonist, a past superior of the Augustinian Order and a Vatican Prefect, a polyglot and a diplomat. Someone with this curriculum is unlikely to yield to the temptation of engaging in a culture war that is as divisive as it is, often enough, histrionic.’
Leo XIV
‘I am’, said our Holy Father this evening, addressing us for the first time as pope, ‘a son of St Augustine’ — of Augustine, that supremely intelligent, compassionate, yet uncompromising prober of the human condition, who knew how to orient hearts and minds towards God in such a way that his words resound still with undiminished power. Prosper of Aquitaine held Augustine forth, too, as an example of those ‘strong figures who could tame the unjust powers of the world and protect otherwise helpless communities from the ravages of war’. As another such instance he cited Leo the Great, who turned Attila away from northern Italy in 452 relying ‘on the help of God, who one should know is never missing from the labours of the pious.’ Augustine and Leo, consummate theologians, men of prayer and courage, orderers of chaos, keen readers of the signs of the times: these are the patrons of a new papacy. Long life to Pope Leo XIV!
Interessant rapport
A Review of evidence and best practice in the field of paediatric gender dysphoria published today chimes with a growing global consensus. It concludes: ‘A central theme of this Review is that many U.S. medical professionals and associations have fallen short of their duty to prioritize the health interests of young patients. First, there was a rapid expansion and implementation of a clinical protocol that lacked sufficient scientific and ethical justification. Second, when confronted with compelling evidence that this protocol did not deliver the health benefits it promised, and that other countries were changing their policies appropriately, U.S. medical professionals and associations failed to reconsider the “gender-affirming” approach. Third, conflicting evidence—evidence that challenged the foundational assumptions of the protocol and the professional standing of its advocates—was mischaracterized or insufficiently acknowledged. Finally, dissenting perspectives were marginalized, and those who voiced them were disparaged. While no clinician or medical association intends to fail their patients—particularly those who are most vulnerable—the preceding chapters demonstrate that this is precisely what has occurred.’ Cf. this statement from the Norwegian Council of Catholic Bishops produced in 2022.
Ut i været
‘Vinden blåser dit den vil, du hører den suser, men du vet ikke hvor den kommer fra, og hvor den farer hen.’ (Jn 3.8).
Hører du vinden suse uten å vite hvor den kommer fra eller hvor den farer hen, er det fordi du sitter innendørs, bak doble vinduer, med saueskinnstøfler og en god kopp te. Vil vi leve et åndelig liv, er det første som skal til at vi går ut i været.
Disiplene gjenkjente Jesus først som Guds Sønn midt i en storm so voldsom at de var skrekkslagne (Mt 14.22-33). Det er verd å tenke på ofte.
Klegg
“Todos, todos, todos” tilsvarer nok Guds hensikt. Velger vi oss så helheten på hans premisser, etter Kristi bud, for å være der hvor han, altets og alles Opphav, er? Dét er spørsmålet.
Filosofen Sokrates kalte seg selv en klegg hvis oppgave gikk ut på å drive samtidens athenere ut av uforstyrret selvgodhet. Pave Frans har hatt noe klegg-aktig ved seg. Det har ikke alltid vært bekvemt å ha med ham å gjøre. Han har utfordret oss, presset oss til å søke klarhet, i ulike sammenhenger, om hva ting handler om, for så å ta ansvarlige valg, for å leve troverdig som kristne. Nå har denne Herrens tjener fullført sitt jordeliv. For en bør han har båret!
Via Crucis
Jeg husker hvordan jeg for drøyt tredve år siden stod i en platebutikk i Cambridge og høre et fabelaktig opptak av Liszts Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude fremført av Stephen Hough. Jeg kjøpte CD’en henført. Liszts sakrale, kontemplative stykker for klaver har altså geleidet meg gjennom mye av livet; men jeg hadde aldri hørt hans Via Crucis før jeg kom borti Leif Ove Andsnes’ nyslupne plate. Tolkningen er suveren. Musikken er essensiell, tilbakeholden. Ofte høres den ikke ut som Liszt, men autentisk er den, uttrykk for siste fase av komponistens liv – han var 68, og vigslet til kleriker, da verket ble fullført. Liszts Via Crucis ble uroppført i Budapest på Langfredag i 1929. Jeg lytter til den i dag etter å ha feiret Kirkens Pasjonsliturgi. Jeg lytter ærbødig, og finner trøst.
Martin Pollack
A note in the FAZ this week made me conscious of the legacy of the Austrian historian and Polonist Martin Pollack. I was struck by the way he predicted, a decade ago, much of today’s European political reality, an outcome almost bound to follow, he maintained, if we stayed hellbent on making decisions based on an ‘unhappy mixture of arrogance and ignorance’. I read Christoph Ransmayr’s noble obituary of Pollack from January this year. Then two long drives gave me time to listen to some of Pollack’s lectures and public conversations: a fascinating one on the ‘Myth of Galicia‘; another on living with ‘The Long Shadow of a Sinister Past‘; a lively interview with Markus Müller-Schinwald; and a podium discussion with Timothy Snyder on the ‘East-Europeanisation of politics‘ (the last two items are in German). Though my acquaintance is recent, this exposure to Pollacks’ learned, humane perspective makes me appreciate what Paul Ingendaay meant when he wrote: ‘We’d have a pressing need for courage like his here and now.’
Light Tills the Ground
El Greco’s View of Toledo has occupied me for quite a while, but I had seen it only in reproductions and on the internet. When last week I found myself, amazed, in the Met’s Fifth Avenue gallery before the actual canvas, I was stirred by the sheer power of it. Rilke saw the painting in Paris in 1908, and wrote to Rodin, whose secretary he was, describing how ‘splintered light tills the ground, turning it over, tearing into it and bringing up here and there pale green meadows behind the trees standing like insomniacs.’ It is wonderful that a work of art can, in this way, enable a community of response, enabling a peal of thunder that resounded over a Spanish countryside well over 400 years ago to give us goosebumps still.
Nugax
Til Laudes i dag gir Kirken oss følgende utrop blant forbønnene: ‘Libera nos a malo nosque a fascinatione nugacitatis, quae bona obscurat, defende’. Setningen lar seg ikke lett oversette i hele sin pregnante kraft. Uttrykket ‘fascinatio nugacitatis’ kommer fra Vulgata-oversettelsen av Visdommens Bok, vers 12, kapittel 4 og har satt dypt preg på kristen bevissthet. På latin henviser «nugax» til noe trivielt og frivolt, eller til en frivol, triviell person. «Nugacitas» står for overfladisk tidsfordriv, en tendens som trekker oss bort fra alvor og målrettet innsats; som distraherer oss og får oss til å tenke at, nå, ingenting er så viktig; som forfører oss med underholdning og mulighet for umiddelbar tilfredsstillelse. Tendensen synes uskyldig, men i virkeligheten tjener den til, slik bønnen uttrykker det å, «overskygge det gode». Den roter til selve kategoriene godt og ondt. Så er den til syvende og sist heller ingen kilde til egentlig glede. «Nugacitas» er vår tids popkultur i et nøtteskall. Det er modig motkulturelt å be om å «beskyttes» mot den. Vi kalles til å sette vesentlige grenser. I et Pascal-fragment står det: «Fascinatio nugacitatis. For at lidenskapen ikke skal skade oss, bør vi handle som om vi kun hadde åtte dager igjen å leve.»
Freedom & Constraint
Offering Mass this morning, I was struck by the offertory prayer: ‘Be pleased, O Lord, we pray, with these oblations you receive from our hands, and, even when our wills are defiant, constrain them mercifully to turn to you.’ We recoil at the notion of anything, even divine agency, constraining our will; yet at the same time we ascertain that our spontaneous will does not necessarily serve our thriving. It can even happen that our will is divided against itself: ‘For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do’ (Romans 7.19). To ask God, the supremely Beloved, freely to constrain my will is to step outside the constraints of subjective unfreedom manifest in dictates of unfree, perhaps disordered preference, thereby to learn to love.
Order
In an article in The New Statesman this week Bruno Maçães reflects on the tendency in global politics to break structures down for destruction’s sake or, at most, to engender a tabula rasa for an imagined brave new world. What has happened to the principle of order in public discourse? ‘The idea of order’, he writes, ‘is a valuable one because it expands the mind. It forces us to step outside our own perspective, to look for balance and impartiality in a broader horizon where others have their place too.’ The trouble is that now ‘there seems to be no order worth preserving’. The assumption is widespread. It accounts for much anxiety, much anger. Even the most casual grasp of history shows that such an assumption cannot sustain society. It fragments, disorders. Catholic theology has the valuable concept of tranquillitas ordinis enunciating an aspiration to concord, the communion of intelligent hearts. It’s time to blow the dust off it, not just to propound it but to demonstrate it in micro-societies. Deafened as we are by inflated rhetoric, stunned by virtual fantasy, the real renewal of the polis will, based on sound concepts, be experiential.
Spirit of the Beehive
Victor Erice’s film The Spirit of the Beehive is older than I. Learned disquisitions have been written about it, essays situating it in a cultural, political context marked by the Spanish Civil War. Rarely have I been so haunted by a movie. Rarely have I seen one so carefully constructed with an attention at once analytical and poetic. Destinies and relationships play out within a collective, implicit wound. It cannot be spoken. The couple under whose roof the drama is enacted never exchange a word, simply call each other’s names as if blindly seeking each other in thick fog. The performance of the two young sisters is remarkable. There is a disturbing scene with a cat suggesting that a legacy of violence, though silenced, breeds violence even in the innocent. The bees moving up and down in a closed environment with not a fragment of pollen to be found know not the futility to which they are condemned. This is a film to make one wise, or at least a little wiser.
Bruckner
There’s a sequence in the recording of Celibidache’s rehearsal for his 1992 performance of Bruckner’s Seventh with the Berlin Philharmonic in which the maestro three times shouts, ‘Viola!’ as if his life, no, as if the structure of the universe depended on it. Bruckner’s music does call for careful balance. This very equilibrium, and Bruckner’s habit of working in repeated patterns, can make it difficult to listen to recordings – at least that is what I find. But to hear Bruckner live! One is transported into a beneficent universe, conscious of a richness of sound as elaborate, often as daring, as Wagner’s or Mahler’s, yet ordered and put to a high purpose. Stepping back onto the pavement this evening after hearing a compelling account of Bruckner’s Third I was filled with peaceful happiness. I felt as if I were somehow emerging from a liturgical act, moved to give thanks.
Europa
For noen år siden, på besøk i biblioteket til Strahov-klosteret i Praha, så jeg dette bildet og fotograferte det. Jeg noterte meg hverken kilde eller datering, men jeg tenker på det ofte. Mange av oss kunne nok med god grunn ha ting å utsette på fysiognomien, på enkelte kroppsdelers plassering: Ja, Skandinavia, like Storbritannia og Irland, er bokstavelig amputert.
Det får være som det vil. Det som teller er at man engang kunne tenke seg Europe som én kropp subtilt, elegant definert av organiske forbindelser. Igjen og igjen har kontinentet revet seg selv i filler, overgitt brodermord. Men allikevel vedblir drømmen om helhet, sterkt nok til å realiseres fra tid til annen.
Vil vår tid bli en sånn tid?
Håp under frost
Etter messen i Tromsøs Karmel i dag morges, gav nonnene meg juleroser plukket fra innunder snøen i deres klausur. Disse tøffe, sta, subersive små blomstene står i miniatyr for naturens vidunderlige evne til å fornye seg. Selv i vinterfrost hvor alt synes dødt, vokser nytt liv frem. Ingen klimatiske prøvelser, ingen menneskelig dumhet kan stanse det. I en tid som dette, når verden som sådan synes vinteraktig, er dette botaniske bildet en kilde til håp og fred. I Selma Lagerlöfs diktning er julerosen et tegn på at himmelsk salighet og jordisk glede kan oppstå hvor øyet kun ser jordsmonn gjennomsyret av urett. Måtte det sannelig skje.
A Topical Letter
On 27 November George Weigel published an open letter to JD Vance. It is worth re-reading now. Weigel, ‘speaking as one Catholic and one patriot to another’ wrote: ‘If our country is to experience a new birth of freedom rightly understood, it will be in part because our leaders remind us of what Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature,” rather than salting the wounds of our animosities.’ He then said: ‘It is unworthy of a serious American public official to say that he or she really doesn’t care what happens to Ukraine. Why? Because crass indifference to injustice and suffering is ignoble. And because what happens in Ukraine is directly related to our national security and to world peace.’
You can find the complete text here.
Boléro
A careful reader of Chastity, noting in particular the section suggesting that ‘perhaps no form of concrete human enterprise grants a premonition of the body’s possible ascent towards transcendent beauty more clearly than dance’, recently sent me a ‘footnote’ remarking on ‘Torvill and Dean dancing on ice to Ravel’s Bolero at the 1984 ice-skating world championships, when they gained perfect marks from all the judges, an unheard-of achievement. Art, through discipline and music, sets the body free and lifts those present to heaven, don’t you think?’ I do, but didn’t know this performance, so sought it on the Olympic Channel. It is jaw-dropping and wonderful. Watch it here.
Karl V
I 1556 trakk Karl V, tysk-romersk keiser, seg tilbake. Begivenheten er myteomspunnet. Karl, en av verdens mektigste herskere, flyttet til Yuste, et kloster i Extramadura, hvor han fisket, gikk på jakt og red sin hest nesten inn i sine gemakker; på samme tid førte han et tilbaketrukket, botferdig, bedende liv, med utsikt mot munkenes høyalter fra sitt soveværelse. Bare tanken på at absolutt makt faktisk kan være relativ, underlagt et høyere gode, et høyere håp, utfordrer oss – et nyttig emne til betraktning akkurat nå. August von Platen-Hallermünde skrev i et dikt som dramatiserer Karls ankomst i Yuste: «Hodet som nå bøyer seg for saksen/var kronet med mangt et diadem.» Tonsuren er nok en legende. Men bildet forblir påtagelig nært, udødelig. Diktets tyske tekst finnes her.
Merkelig
«Det skjer ikke ofte», skriver Tracey Rowland avvæpnende, «at jeg innehar en posisjon som er på moten», for så å si at hun gleder seg over å ha selskap med (annen) betydelig prominens som «anbefaler å la kristendommen gjenfinne sin merkelighet». Dét det gjelder, er følgende: en voksende, kollektiv innsikt om at troens sak ikke tjenes av en pastoral strategi som vil tilpasse den moderne kultur. Ja, er den noen gang blitt tjent slik? Det er på tide å vektlegge, nok en gang, forskjellen katolsk kristendom utgjør hermeneutisk, ontologisk, etisk, estetisk. Rowland konkluderer med å si: «Det naturliges gjennomsyring av det overnaturlige er ikke banal eller kjedelig, ikke et uttrykk for borgerlig konformisme. For katolikker står den for salighet; for ikke-troende, for noe fascinerende merkelig og annerledes – og dette er hva vi trenger nå, som alternativ til en nitrist materialistisk kosmologi.» Det er vel verd å lese hele essayet, som du finner her.
Hvor er du?
Leksjonaret gir oss i dag lesningen fra 1. Mosebok 3 hvor Gud konfronterer mennesket etter syndefallet. Etter å ha brutt Guds bud, gjemmer Adam seg blant trærne og dekker seg så godt han kan med materie. Han, skapt til å skue mot Gud og til å opprettholdes av visjonen, utholder nå ikke tanken på å bli sett. Når han gjemmer seg, er det en spontan respons, ikke en følge av fordømmelse. En gammel midrash mener at Guds spørsmål, «Hvor er du?», ble stilt av omtanke for Adam, for å gi ham tid til å samle seg, til å ta ansvar. Gud, den allvitende, trengte ikke opplysning om hvor han befant seg. Her lærer vi noe viktig. I følge den tyske eksegeten August Dillmann, er spørsmålet, «Hvor er du?», «kallet som, etter enhver synd, gjenlyder i menneskets indre øre når det prøver å bedra seg selv, eller andre, i forhold til sin synd.» Er jeg ennå mottagelig for spørsmålet, følsom for min fremmedgjorthet fra Gud, fra meg selv?
Alfabetisering
Blodsbrødrene Kyrillos og Methodios er forbilder på misjonsiver. De forlot sitt hjemland for å vitne i fremmede strøk om nytt liv i Kristus. De utviste de kristne dyder i heroisk grad. I tillegg tjente de kulturens sak. Vi kaller fremdeles alfabetet brukt av de østslaviske språk ‘kyrillisk’ etter Kyrillos, en fremragende lingvist. Kanskje vil man si at den kulturelle arven er tilfeldig? Kyrillos’ anliggende var å oppskrive liturgiske tekster samt formidle en oversettelse av Skriften. Men derved la han nettopp grunnlaget for kultur. I Vesten i dag, mangler vi et felles språk. Samfunnet er atomisert. Vi sliter med å snakke sammen, derfor bryter vold ut. Vi skal ikke undervurdere alfabetiserings-oppgaven vi som kristne har foran oss i dag. Vi har det eneste adekvate redskap. Kristus, Guds evige Ord, er ikke bare Alfa og Omega, men også alle de andre bokstavene imellom. I ham finner vi det vi trenger for å begripe oss selv og livene vi lever.
