07 November 2023

Daily prayers in the Kingdom Season
with USPG: (3) 7 November 2023

The Cattedrale di San Zeno, or Cathedral of Saint John, in Pistoia with its Pisan-Romanesque façade (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

In this time between All Saints’ Day and Advent Sunday, we are in the Kingdom Season in the Calendar of the Church of England, and the week began with the Fourth Sunday before Advent (5 November 2023).

The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (7 November) remembers Saint Willibrord of York (739), Bishop, Apostle of Frisia.

Before today begins, I am taking some time for prayer and reflection early this morning.

In recent prayer diaries on this blog, my reflections have already looked at a number of Italian cathedrals, including the cathedrals in Amalfi, Florence, Lucca, Noto, Pisa, Ravenna, Saint Peter’s Basilica and Saint John Lateran, Rome, Siena, Sorrento, Syracuse, Taormina, Torcello and Venice.

So, this week, my reflections look at some more Italian cathedrals, basilicas and churches in Bologna, San Marino, Pistoia, San Gimignano, Mestre, Sorrento and Ravello.

Throughout this week, my reflections each morning are following this pattern:

1, A reflection on an Italian cathedral or basilica;

2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

The Piazza del Duomo or Cathedral Square in Pistoia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Cattedrale di San Zeno or Cathedral of Saint John, Pistoia:

One day, when I insisted in using my poor and limited Italian to buy train tickets in Tuscany, I ended up in Pistoia instead of Viareggio. But for this mistake, I might not have visited Pistoia and the Cattedrale di San Zeno, or Cathedral of Saint John, with its beautiful Pisan-Romanesque façade that is crowned with a lunette by Andrea della Robbia.

Pistoia is about 30 km west and north of Florence. In the centre of the city, the Duomo di Pistoia in the Piazza del Duomo is dedicated to Saint Zeno of Verona and is the seat of the Bishop of Pistoia.

There may have been a smaller cathedral in Pistoia as early as the fifth century, when Pistoia already had a bishop. A cathedral is first mentioned in the year 923. A document in the reign of Emperor Otto III refers in 998 to an old Christian building, so the cathedral was probably first built in the 10th century. The Pisan-Romanesque façade was inspired by other churches in Pistoia, including San Bartolomeo and San Jacopo.

The cathedral was damaged by fire in 1108 and was probably rebuilt over the next few decades, as an altar in the cathedral was dedicated to Saint James the Great by the bishop, Saint Atto, in 1145.

Another fire damaged the cathedral again in 1202. The aisles were covered with vaults in 1274-1275 and a new altar was begun in 1287. An earthquake in 1298 caused further damage. A statue of Saint Zeno by Jacopo di Mazzeo was placed in the west front in 1336.

The façade was rebuilt in 1379-1440 with the addition of three tiers of loggias and a portico. Andrea della Robbia, who was commissioned in 1504 to decorate the archivolt of the portico, created a festoon with plant themes and the coat of arms of the Opera di San Jacopo, as well as of the lunette with bas-reliefs over the central portal, depicting the Madonna with the Christ Child and Angels. He finished the works in 1505.

Inside, the cathedral has a nave and two side aisles, with a presbytery and crypt. Restoration work in 1952-1999 returned the church to its original lines. The mediaeval choir was demolished in 1598-1614, the side chapels were modified and the original apse was replaced by a Baroque tribune surmounted by a dome designed by Jacopo Lafri, while the main aisle was covered by new cross vaults. The ceiling was also decorated, and paintings were added there and in the main chapel.

A statue of Saint James the Great by Andrea Vaccà was added to the façade in 1721. The mediaeval mullioned windows, replaced by Baroque windows, were restored in 1952-1966, and the vaults over the aisle were removed.

The nave and the aisles are separated by columns, and have vaults and wooden truss covers respectively. The right aisle was once occupied by the Chapel of Saint James (San Jacopo), built by Bishop Atto in the mid-12th century to house the relics of Saint James brought from Santiago de Compostela.

The Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament is also known as the Chapel of San Donato from a painting of the Madonna enthroned between Saint John the Baptist and Saint Donatus (ca 1475-1486). The painting was commissioned from Andrea del Verrocchio by the heirs of Donato de’ Medici, but was completed by Lorenzo di Credi. The bishop next to the Madonna has been identified as Saint Zeno. In the middle is the Assumption of the Virgin by Giovan Battista Paggi (1590-1600). The tomb of Donato de’ Medici (1475), Bishop of Pistoia, is attributed to Antonio Rossellino.

The Crucifix Chapel has the silver altarpiece of Saint James. It was begun in 1287, took two centuries to erect, was completed by Brunelleschi, and was moved to its present place in 1953. Pace di Valentino, a Sienese goldsmith, created some of the figures surrounding Saint James. Giglio Pisano executed the large silver statue depicting Saint James Enthroned (1349-1353), commissioned as a thanksgiving after the Black Death in 1348.

The two side antependia, made by Leonardo di Ser Giovanni and Francesco Niccolai in 1361-1371, depict Old Testament stories and stories of Saint James,. Other works include the Apostles, Saint Eulalia, Bishop Atto, Saint John the Baptist and Salome by Piero d’Arrigo Tedesco (1380-1390), another Christ in Majesty with Saint Anthony the Abbot, Saint Stephen and the cusp by Nofri di Buto and Atto di Piero Braccini (1394-1398).

There are innumerable important works of art in the south and north aisles, the presbytery, apse and nave. The pulpit was designed by Giorgio Vasari (1560). The Chapel of the Last Judgment houses fragments of a fresco by Giovanni da Ponte (1420-1425), recently identified as a depiction of Dante’s Inferno. The counter-façade houses the Arch of Saint Atto. The baptismal font was designed by Benedetto da Maiano (1497).

The crypt holds the tombs of many past Bishops of Pistoia, and the side walls are decorated with monuments to many more past bishops, including Alessandro di Medici who became Pope Leo XI but had a short reign of only 26 days.

The former bishops’ palace beside the cathedral is now a museum. The 14th century octagonal Baptistry, facing the west door of the cathedral, has distinctive green-and-white marble stripes.

The 14th century octagonal Baptistry in Pistoia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 28: 16-20 (NRSVA):

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’

The bell tower beside the west front of the cathedral in Pistoia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 7 November 2023):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Community Health Programmes’. This theme was introduced on Sunday.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (7 November 2023) invites us to pray in these words:

Let us pray for the Church of Bangladesh, comprised of the Dioceses of Dhaka, Kushtia and Barisal.

The Palazzo dei Vescovi or Bishops’ Palace in Pistoia is now a museum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect:

God, the Saviour of all,
you sent your bishop Willibrord from this land
to proclaim the good news to many peoples
and confirm them in their faith:
help us also to witness to your steadfast love
by word and deed
so that your Church may increase
and grow strong in holiness;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Holy Father,
who gathered us here around the table of your Son
to share this meal with the whole household of God:
in that new world where you reveal
the fullness of your peace,
gather people of every race and language
to share with Willibrord and all your saints
in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

The façade of the cathedral was rebuilt in 1379-1440 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

The Church of San Giovanni Fuoricivitas or San Giovanni Evangelista Fuorcivitas in Pistoia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

‘Love conquers all, is able
to transcend everything
and anything, because love
is the quintessence of life’

‘Love is the most powerful force there is, because it has no limits’ … street art on Red Cross Way, close to the ‘Boot and Flogger’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

A popular posting circulating on social media for many years, claims that Albert Einstein’s daughter Lieserl, donated 1,400 letters written by her father to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in the late 1980s, with the proviso that their contents should not be published until two decades after his death.

Among the letters is what is supposed to be Albert Einstein’s letter to his daughter Lieserl regarding the ‘universal force’ of love.

Katharine Rose, a contributor to Huffpost, wrote eight years ago how her searches in the Hebrew University’s online archives, including the Albert Einstein Archives, and in the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein failed to yield any results. She also found that Lieserl was born with a mental handicap and died of scarlet fever in 1903 when she was nearly two years old. Katharine Rose became convinced that the letter was, indeed, fabricated.

Dr Diana Kormos-Buchwald, a professor of physics and the history of science at the California Institute of Technology, is the director and editor of the Einstein Papers Project, which has published the Digital Einstein Papers, making 5,000 documents spanning Einstein’s first 44 years of his life available online.

Referring to the letter circulating on social media, she has written: ‘This document is not by Einstein. The family letters donated to the Hebrew University – referred to in this rumour – were not given by Lieserl. They were given by Margot Einstein, who was Albert Einstein’s stepdaughter. Many of those letters were published in Volume 10 of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein in 2006 and in subsequent volumes, in chronological order.’ The supposed letter on the ‘universal force’ of love is not among them.

The question of who is behind the letter on the ‘universal force’ of love remains a mystery. But, as Katharine Rose wrote on Huffpost in 2015, ‘It's a beautiful read, offering a universal message that speaks to the essence of the human condition and our incessant yearning to believe in love's conquering force.’

In the letter said to have been written to his daughter Lieserl, Einstein supposedly says:

‘When I proposed the theory of relativity, very few understood me, and what I will reveal now to transmit to mankind will also collide with the misunderstanding and prejudice in the world.

‘I ask you to guard the letters as long as necessary, years, decades, until society is advanced enough to accept what I will explain below.

‘There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation to. It is a force that includes and governs all others, and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us.

‘This universal force is LOVE.

‘When scientists looked for a unified theory of the universe they forgot the most powerful unseen force.

‘Love is Light, that enlightens those who give and receive it.

‘Love is gravity, because it makes some people feel attracted to others.

‘Love is power, because it multiplies the best we have, and allows humanity not to be extinguished in their blind selfishness. Love unfolds and reveals.

‘For love we live and die.

‘Love is God and God is Love.

‘This force explains everything and gives meaning to life. This is the variable that we have ignored for too long, maybe because we are afraid of love because it is the only energy in the universe that man has not learned to drive at will.

‘To give visibility to love, I made a simple substitution in my most famous equation.

‘If, instead of E = MC2, we accept that the energy to heal the world can be obtained through love multiplied by the speed of light squared, we arrive at the conclusion that love is the most powerful force there is, because it has no limits.

‘After the failure of humanity in the use and control of the other forces of the universe that have turned against us, it is urgent that we nourish ourselves with another kind of energy …

‘If we want our species to survive, if we are to find meaning in life, if we want to save the world and every sentient being that inhabits it, love is the one and only answer.

‘Perhaps we are not yet ready to make a bomb of love, a device powerful enough to entirely destroy the hate, selfishness and greed that devastate the planet.

‘However, each individual carries within them a small but powerful generator of love whose energy is waiting to be released.

‘When we learn to give and receive this universal energy, dear Lieserl, we will have affirmed that love conquers all, is able to transcend everything and anything, because love is the quintessence of life.

‘I deeply regret not having been able to express what is in my heart, which has quietly beaten for you all my life. Maybe it’s too late to apologise, but as time is relative, I need to tell you that I love you and thanks to you I have reached the ultimate answer!

‘Your father, Albert Einstein’

‘My heart … has quietly beaten for you all my life’ … street art at the railway arches at Stoney Street and Winchester Walk, close to Southwark Cathedral and Borough Market (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)