COMERFORD WAY: Patrick Comerford’s online journal on Anglicanism, theology, spirituality, history, architecture, travel, poetry, beach walks ... and more
Christ the King … a carving on a family grave in the cemetery in the Lido of Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)
Let us pray:
‘One who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, is like the light of morning, like the sun rising on a cloudless morning’ (II Samuel 23: 3-4):
Heavenly Father,
Listen to our prayers for the world,
that those who rule and govern the nations of the world
may do so not through violence, coercion and subjugation,
but with mercy, peace and justice.
Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy.
‘Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him’ (Revelation 1: 7):
Lord Jesus Christ,
we pray for the Church,
that we may eagerly await your coming among us …
In our diocese we pray this morning for
the members of the Episcopal Electoral College,
that they may be guided wisely and think prayerfully
in their choice of a new bishop for this diocese.
We pray this morning for the Adare and Kilmallock Group of Parishes,
for their Rector, Canon Liz Beasley,
and the congregations of Saint Nicholas’ Church, Adare, Croom Church,
Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Kilmallock, and Saint Beacon, Kilpeacon.
In the Church of Ireland this month,
we pray for the Diocese of Cork, Cloyne and Ross
and for Bishop Paul Colton.
In the Anglican Cycle of Prayer,
we pray this week for the Church of Bangladesh,
and the Primate, Bishop Samuel Mankhin.
In our community,
we pray for our schools,
we pray for our parishes and people …
we pray for our neighbouring churches and parishes,
and people of faith everywhere,
that we may be blessed in our variety and diversity.
And we pray for ourselves …
Christ have mercy, Christ have mercy.
‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty’ (Revelation 1: 8):
Holy Spirit, we pray for one another …
We pray this morning for all in our dioceses who have been bereaved in the last year,
that the Lord may comfort them.
Throughout November in this group of parishes,
we remember with thanks all who have died in the past year,
including: Alan Fitzell; Arthur Gilliard; Ena Downes; Gill Killick; Joe Smyth; Kenneth Smyth; Linda Smyth;
We remember those who are remembered and mourned by parishioners this month, including:
Jack and Eileen Ryall …
Jack Shorten …
Marian Locke …
Lil Gilliard …
Alan’s sister Hazel …
Brendan Quinlan …
William, Kathleen and Dorothy …
Robert and Lynda Gardiner …
Kathy Casey-Byrne …
Mary Cagney (nee Shanahan) …
May their memories be a blessing to us.
We pray for all who are sick or isolated,
at home, in hospital …
Ruby … Daphne … Sylvia … Ajay …
Cecil … Pat … Mary … Ann … Vanessa …
We pray for those who feel pain and loss …
for those who are bewildered and without answers …
for those we love and those who love us …
for our families, friends and neighbours …
We pray for all who feel rejected and discouraged …
we pray for all in need and who seek healing …
and we pray for those we promised to pray for …
and we pray for one another and for ourselves …
Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy.
A prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary for Sunday:
‘The Lord is King, he is robed in majesty.’
King of kings,
We wonder in Your majesty.
May we worship You
For evermore.
Merciful Father …
The large sculpture of Christ the King by John Maguire above the entrance to the Church of Christ the King in Turner’s Cross, Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)
Sir Jacob Epstein’s figure, ‘Christ in Majesty,’ is raised above the nave on a concrete arch designed by George Pace (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen
The Christmas decorations, including trees and lights, are up in the streets and the shops in the city centre in Limerick. We are still more than a full calendar month away from Christmas Eve, but already the Shopping Centres would have us believe Christmas has arrived as shop owners and traders try to breathe a festive air into our lives.
They badly need that business this year, I suppose, after the experiences of last year.
Unlike some friends in England who have already got their first Christmas card, I have yet to receive one.
Despite the lights and the late nights, Christ is at the heart of Christmas, and that waiting for Christ, anticipating Christ, should be at the heart of the Advent season, which begins next Sunday (28 November).
Advent is the season of preparing for Christmas, and in the weeks before Advent we even prepare for Advent itself, with readings telling us about the Coming of Christ.
We have made Christmas a far-too comfortable story. It was never meant to be, but we have made it comfortable with our Christmas card images of the sweet little baby Jesus, being visited by kings and surrounded by adoring, cute little animals and hosts of fluffy white angels. The reality, of course, is that Christmas was never meant to be a comfortable story.
Christmas is a story about poverty and about people who are homeless and rejected and who can find no place to stay.
It is a messy story about a child born surrounded by the filth of animals and the dirt of squalor.
It is a story of shepherds who are involved in dangerous work, staying up all night, out in the winter cold, watching out for wolves and sheep stealers.
It is a story of trickery, deceit and the corruption of political power that eventually leads to a cruel dictator stooping to murder, even the murder of innocent children, to secure his own grip on power.
But these sorts of images do not sell Christmas Cards or help to get the boss drunk under the mistletoe at the office party.
That is why – in these weeks before Advent – we have readings that remind us what the coming of Christ into the world means, what the Kingdom of God is like, and how we should prepare for the coming of Christ and the coming of the Kingdom of God.
The promise of Advent is emphasised in the reading from the Book of Revelation: ‘Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him’ (Revelation 1: 7).
Marking the Sunday before Advent by crowning Christ as King helps us to focus on Advent from next Sunday, and Advent is supposed to be a time and a season of preparing for the coming of Christ.
Kings may not be a good role model in this part of Ireland or for people living in modern democratic societies where the heads of state are elected. Nor are the models of kingship in history or in contemporary society so good. It is worth asking some questions:
What do you think a good king or a good ruler – a good president or good prime minister – should be like?
Without descending into party politics or party favouritism, how do you think a good ruler should behave in the interests of his or her people?
Do you remember how, as children, we would play games like ‘three wishes’? If you had to make decisions for this country – indeed, if you had to make decisions for the future of the world – what three priorities would rise to the top of your list?
Our Psalm this morning (Psalm 132: 1-12) tells us of King David’s determination to build a house for God. God is asked to remember David’s diligence in finding a proper place for God’s sanctuary.
But, if I had the task of building a house for God, who would be welcome there? And who am I in danger of excluding?
In our second reading (Revelation 1: 4b-8), Saint John writes to the Church as if we are gathered before the throne of God, and reminds us that God has made us a kingdom and made us priests serving God, mediators between God and the rest of humanity.
Christ comes again at the end of the age as judge and king, he is the beginning and the end, the Alpha (Α) and the Omega (Ω), the sovereign over all, the one who was, and is, and is to come. Do my three wishes reflect his hopes and his love for humanity, for creation?
Our Gospel reading (John 18: 33-37), at the moment when Christ is on trial before Pilate, might, at first reading, seem a more appropriate reading for Holy Week than the week before Advent, a more appropriate preparation for Easter than for Christmas.
But at this stage, Pilate demands to know whether Christ is a King: ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ (John 18: 33).
And he answers: ‘My kingdom is not from this world … For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice’ (John 18: 36-37).
Christ comes not just as a cute cuddly babe wrapped up in the manger and under the floodlights of a front window in a large department store. We are also preparing for the coming of Christ as King.
In this reading, Christ rejects all dysfunctional models of majesty and kingship. He is not happy with Pilate trying to project onto him models of kingship that are taken from the haughty and the aloof, the daft and the barmy, or the despotic and the tyrannical.
As he is being tortured and crucified, his tormentors and detractors still try to project these models of kingship onto Christ as they whip him and beat him to humility, as they crown him with thorns and mock him, and finally as he is crucified for all the world to see.
What sort of a king did Pilate expect Christ to be?
Indeed, what does majesty and graciousness mean for you today?
If I had three wishes for my community, my country, my continent, my world, would they, in truth, reflect my own selfish interests and those of my own inner circle?
Or, in truth, would they reflect the values of Christ, the coming King whose reign is marked by justice and mercy, peace and love?
Would I be found among those who belong to the truth and listen to his voice?
And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
Christ the King … a stained glass window in Mount Melleray Abbey, Cappoquin, Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
John 18: 33-37 (NRSVA):
33 Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ 34 Jesus answered, ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’ 35 Pilate replied, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?’ 36 Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’ 37 Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’
‘Condemned’ … Christ before Pilate in Station 1 of the Stations of the Cross in the Chapel at Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, Pilate condemns Jesus to die (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Liturgical Colour: White (the Kingship of Christ)
The Collect:
Eternal Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven
that he might rule over all things as Lord and King:
Keep the Church in the unity of the Spirit
and in the bond of peace,
and bring the whole created order to worship at his feet,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Collect of the Word:
Everlasting God,
whose will is to restore all things
in your well-beloved Son, our Lord and King:
grant that the people of earth,
now divided and enslaved by sin,
may be freed and brought together
under his gentle and loving rule;
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Post-Communion Prayer:
Stir up, O Lord,
the wills of your faithful people;
that plenteously bearing the fruit of good works
they may by you be plenteously rewarded;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Post-Communion Prayer (Mission):
Eternal Giver of love and power,
your Son Jesus Christ has sent us into all the world
to preach the gospel of his kingdom.
Confirm us in this mission,
and help us to live the good news we proclaim;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Christ the King, surrounded by the Four Evangelists, saints and apostles above the West Door of Cobh Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)
Hymns:
6, Immortal, invisible, God only wise (CD 1) 263, Crown him with many crowns (CD 16) 321, Holy, holy, holy! Lord God almighty (CD 19)
Christ enthroned between two archangels, Saint Michael and Saint Gabriel, in the south apse in the Church of Santa Fosca in Torcello in the Lagoon of Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Il Redentore, the Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore, is Andrea Palladio’s great church on the waterfront on Giudecca (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)
Patrick Comerford
This morning, we enter the last week of Ordinary Time. Today is the Feast of Christ the King or the Sunday before Advent. Later this morning (21 November 2021), I hope to preach at Morning Prayer in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, and to preside and preach at the Parish Eucharist in Sant Brendan’s Church, Kilnaughtin (Tarbert), Co Kerry.
Each morning in the time in the Church Calendar known as Ordinary Time, I have been reflecting in these ways:
1, photographs of a church or place of worship;
2, the day’s Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
My theme on this prayer diary this week is seven more churches in Venice. Earlier in this prayer diary, I illustrated my morning reflections with images from churches in Venice: Saint Mark’s Basilica (20 June), Salute (21 June), Torcello (22 June), San Giorgio Maggiore (23 June), San Geremia (24 June), Santa Sofia (25 June) and San Michele and churches on Murano and Burano (26 June). While I was in Venice this month, I reflected on the synagogues in the Ghetto in Venice (7-13 November)
As part of my reflections and this prayer diary this week, I look at seven more churches I visited in Venice earlier this month. This theme begins today (21 November 2021) with photographs from Il Redentore, Palladio’s great church on the island of Giudecca.
Inside the Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore or Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, known as Il Redentore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)
The Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore (Church of the Most Holy Redeemer), known as Il Redentore, was designed by Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio (1508-1580). It stands on the waterfront of the Canale della Giudecca, and dominates the skyline of the island of Giudecca. Canaletto painted the church many times, and inside there is a rich collection paintings, including works by Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese and Francesco Bassano.
The church was built as a votive church in thanksgiving God for the deliverance of Venice from a major outbreak of the plague in 1575-1576, when 46,000 people, or 25% to 30% of the population) died.
The Senate of Venice commissioned Andrea Palladio to design the church. The Senate wanted a church on a square plan, but Palladio designed a single nave church with three chapels on either side
The prominent position of the church on the Canale della Giudecca provided Palladio with an opportunity to design a façade inspired by the Pantheon of Rome and enhanced by being placed on a wide plinth.
Palladio required 15 steps to reach the entrance, a direct reference to the Temple in Jerusalem. Palladio’s own hope was that ‘the ascent (of the faithful) will be gradual, so that the climbing will bring more devotion.’
The cornerstone was laid by the Patriarch of Venice, Giovanni Trevisano, on 3 May 1577 and the church was consecrated in 1592. At the urging of Pope Gregory XIII, the church was put in the charge of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, and a small number of Friars reside in the monastery attached to the church.
Every year, the doge and senators walked across a specially built pontoon bridge from the Zattere to Giudecca to attend Mass in the church. The Festa del Redentore remains a major festival in Venice, on the third Sunday in July. A huge firework display on the previous evening is followed by a mass procession across the pontoon bridge.
Il Redentore has one of the most prominent sites of any of Palladio’s buildings, and is one of the pinnacles of his career. It is a large, white building with a dome crowned by a statue of the Redeemer.
A central triangular pediment on the façade stands above a larger, lower one. Palladio applied rigorous geometric proportions to his façades and this is reflected in Il Redentore. The overall height is four-fifths that of its overall width, while the width of the central portion is five-sixths of its height.
It has been suggested that there are some oriental influences in the exterior, particularly the two campanili that resemble minarets.
As a pilgrimage church, the building was expected to have a long nave. This was a challenge for Palladio, and the result is an eclectic building, in which the white stucco and grey stone interior combines the nave with a domed crossing in spaces that are clearly articulated yet unified. An uninterrupted Corinthian order makes its way around the entire interior.
Il Redentore includes paintings by Francesco Bassano, Lazzaro Bastiani, Carlo Saraceni, Leandro Bassano, Palma the Younger, Jacopo Bassano, Francesco Bissolo, Rocco Marconi, Paolo Veronese, Alvise Vivarini and the workshop of Tintoretto.
The sacristy has a series of wax heads of Franciscans made in 1710.
The Ascension of Christ, by the workshop of Tintoretto (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)
John 18: 33-37 (NRSVA):
33 Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ 34 Jesus answered, ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’ 35 Pilate replied, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?’ 36 Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’ 37 Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’
Inside Il Redentore, with a glimpse out to the Canale della Giudecca (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)
The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (21 November 2021, Christ the King) invites us to pray:
‘The Lord is King, he is robed in majesty.’
King of kings,
We wonder in Your majesty.
May we worship You
For evermore.
The Scourging of Christ, by the workshop of Tintoretto (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)
Il Redentore seen on the crossing of the Canale della Giudecca from the Zattere … the two campanili resemble minarets (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)
In Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel in Padua … the Deposition of Christ from the Cross (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)
Patrick Comerford
The Scrovegni Chapel in Padua is one of the most important, self-contained works of art in Western Europe. Its interior frescoes form one complete cycle, and this is the work of the Italian painter and architect Giotto di Bondone (ca 1267-1337), known generally as Giotto.
Giotto has been described as ‘the most sovereign master of painting in his time.’ He was born in Florence in the Late Middle Ages, and worked in the Gothic and early Renaissance period. His work marks a decisive break with the Byzantine style, prevalent at the time, and he initiated the Western art of painting as we know it today.
One morning last week, I took the train from Venice to Padua, primarily to see Giotto’s decoration of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, which is undoubtedly his masterpiece. He completed his decoration of the chapel between 1303 and 1305 with a fresco cycle depicting the Life of the Virgin and the Life of Christ. This work is regarded as one of the supreme masterpieces of the Early Renaissance.
These frescoes are works of great narrative force and the have had a powerful influence on the development of European art. They mark the beginning of a revolution in mural painting and influenced fresco technique, style, and content for a whole century.
Giotto later designed the campanile or bell tower of Florence Cathedral in 1334. But there are few certainties about his life, although it is generally agreed he painted the frescoes in the Upper Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi.
In Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel in Padua … the Raising of Lazarus from the Dead (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)
The Scrovegni Chapel or Cappella degli Scrovegni is close to the Augustinian monastery or Monastero degli Eremitani in Padua, and both the chapel and the monastery are now part of the complex of the Museo Civico of Padua.
It is said the affluent banker Enrico Scrovegni of Padua commissioned the Scrovegni Chapel in 1303, hoping this deed would spare his dead father, Reginaldo, a usurer, from the eternal damnation that had been wished on him by Dante in his Inferno.
There are strict limits on the number of visitors allowed inside the chapel at any one time, and I had to spend 15 minutes before my visit in a decontamination chamber, during which a video presentation told the story of the chapel and Giotto’s frescoes.
Once inside the chapel, my visit was also limited to 15 minutes.
Giotto and his team covered all the internal surfaces of the chapel with frescoes, including the walls and the ceiling. The nave is 20.88 metres long, 8.41 metres wide, and 12.65 metres high. The apse area is composed of a square area (4.49 meters deep and 4.31 meters wide) and a pentagonal area (2.57 meters deep).
The largest element is the extensive cycles showing the Life of Christ and the Life of the Virgin Mary. The ‘Doom Wall’ at the east end or rear of the church has a large depiction of the Last Judgment. There are also monochrome panels in grisaille showing the Vices and Virtues.
In Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel in Padua … Christ enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)
The church was dedicated to Santa Maria della Carità on the Feast of the Annunciation, 25 March 1303, and consecrated on 25 March 1305. Much of Giotto’s fresco cycle focuses on the life of the Virgin Mary and celebrates her role in the story salvation.
The chapel is also known as the Arena Chapel because it was built on land bought by Scrovegni beside the site of the Roman arena in Padua in 1300. There he built his luxurious palace, and built the chapel beside it as his family’s private oratory and as a funerary monument for himself and his wife.
Scrovegni commissioned Giotto to decorate the chapel. Giotto had previously worked for the Franciscans in Assisi and Rimini, and was then working on the Basilica of Saint Anthony in Padua.
Giotto was about 36 or 38 when he worked on Scrovegni’s chapel with a team of about 40 collaborators. They calculated that 625 work days (giornati) were necessary to paint the chapel. A ‘work day’ meant that portion of each fresco that could be painted before the plaster dried and was no longer ‘fresh’ (fresco in Italian).
In January 1305, the Augustinian friars from the nearby Church of the Eremitani complained to the bishop that Scrovegni had not respected an original agreement and was transforming his oratory into a church with a bell tower, producing unfair competition with their church.
Perhaps because of this complaint, the apse and the wide transept of the chapel were demolished. Both can be seen on a model of the church in the fresco of the Last Judgment. The apse was the section where Scrovegni planned to have his tomb in the apse, and Enrico and his wife, Jacopina d'Este, were buried in the significantly reduced apse.
An unknown artist known as ‘The Master of the Scrovegni Choir’ worked at the chapel about 20 years after Giotto's work was completed. His work in the chapel includes two episodes from the Passion – the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and the Flagellation of Christ – and six monumental scenes on the side walls of the chancel that depict the last period of the Virgin Mary’s earthly life.
In Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel in Padua … the Cleansing of the Temple (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)
Did Dante inspire Giotto? A posthumous portrait of Dante is included in the Paradise section of the frescoes.
Did Giotto follow a theological programme based on the work of St Thomas Aquinas or is his work wholly Augustinian?
Did Scrovegni insist that Giotto excluded any references to usury in the frescoes? Dante condemns Scrovegni’s father, Reginaldo, as a usurer in Canto 17 of the Inferno, but this was a few years after Giotto completed the chapel.
Many scholars also point out how Giotto has made a number of theological mistakes. For example, they say he placed Hope after Charity in the Virtues series, and that he did not include Avarice in the Vices series, perhaps because of the usual representation of Enrico Scrovegni as a usurer. However, Avarice, far from being absent in Giotto's cycle, is portrayed with Envy, which is placed facing the virtue of Charity, to indicate that Charity is the exact opposite of Envy. Charity crushes Envy’s money bag under her feet, while on the opposite wall red flames burn under Envy’s feet.
Giotto covered the whole surface of the chapel, including the walls and the ceiling, with frescoes. His cycle is organised along four tiers, each depicting episodes in Sacred History. Each tier is divided into frames, each forming a scene. The chapel is asymmetrical in shape, with six windows on the longer south wall, and this shape determined the layout of the decoration.
Giotto’s cycle recounts the story of salvation, beginning high up on the lunette of the triumphal arch, with God the Father instructing the Archangel Gabriel to make the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary.
The narrative continues with the stories of Joachim and Anne and the stories of the Virgin Mary, followed by scenes of the Annunciation and the Visitation.
The stories of Christ are placed on the middle tier of the south and north walls. The scene of Judas receiving the money to betray Christ is on the triumphal arch.
The lower tier of the south and north walls shows the Passion and Resurrection.
The last frame on the north wall shows the Pentecost.
The fourth tier begins at ground level with the monochromes of the Vices (north wall) and the Virtues (south wall).
The west wall (counter-façade) presents the Last Judgment.
In Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel in Padua … The west wall presents the Last Judgment (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)
The vault presents the eighth day, the time of eternity, God’s time, with eight planets – the tondos which enclose the seven great Biblical prophets along with Saint John the Baptist – and two suns that show God and the Madonna and Child; while the blue sky is studded with eight-point stars symbolising infinity.
The bottom tiers of the side walls feature 14 personifications in grisaille, representing single figures of Vices on the north wall and Virtues on the south wall. Each virtue and vice is embedded within a mirror-like marble frame, and they also represent the seventh day, the time between Christ’s birth and the Last Judgment.
The chapel was originally connected with the Scrovegni palace, which was built on what remained of the foundations of the elliptical ancient Roman arena. The palace was demolished in 1827 and its materials were used to build two condominiums on the site. The chapel was bought by the City of Padua in 1881, the condominiums were demolished, and work began on restoring the chapel.
A full-scale restoration of Giotto’s frescoes began in June 2001 under the direction of Giuseppe Basile. The chapel reopened to the public in its original splendour in March 2002. Earlier this year (2021), the chapel was declared part of the Unesco World Heritage Site of the 14th-century fresco cycles that includes eight buildings in the city centre of Padua.
