Saint Bernardine’s Church, Buckingham, includes some of the best examples of post-Vatican II church architecture and art

Saint Bernardine’s Church on Chandos Road … an excellent example of the collaboration of George Mathers, Angela Godfrey and Dom Charles Norris (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

During my visits to Buckingham this week, I visited Saint Bernardine’s Church, the Roman Catholic Parish Church on Chandos Road, almost opposite the Royal Latin School and close to the Chandos Road campus and the Medical School of the University of Buckingham, which is spread across three sites.

At first sight, the church looks like a large 1970s suburban house, squeezed between the other, older buildings on Chandos Road. I almost passed the church by, as there is little about its outside appearance to indicate that this is a church, apart from the entrance doors. To the left of the entrance is a garage door, the wall to the right is faced in stone, and above is a prominent mansard-type slate roof with four dormer windows, lighting ancillary rooms over the entrance lobby.

But the church is a treasure trove of post-Vatican II ecclesiastical architecture, designed by George Mathers and includes some of the finest of 1970s church art and fittings, including doors and an altar by Angela Godfrey, dalle de verre windows by Dom Charles Norris, striking Stations of the Cross by Martin Hughes, and a crucifix by Stephen Foster.

The story of Saint Bernardine’s Church goes back almost a century and a half to 1892 when a Belgian Franciscan friar, Father Thaddeus Hermans, arrived in Buckingham on the Feast of the Ascension to open a college for men wishing to become Franciscans.
He rented a cottage in Elm Street, where he said the first Mass, before moving to 9 Chandos Road, which as laid out in 1853 to link Buckingham railway station with the town centre, and there he set up his first chapel. He later obtained a permanent site on London Road and by the end of 1895 he had built a Franciscan school and college.

The college was placed under the patronage of Saint Bernardine, a Franciscan saint, and so the parish of Saint Bernardine grew up around the college. Few Catholics were living near Buckingham at the time, but in 1900 the registers record 12 Baptisms. The college chapel was blessed and opened for public worship in 1912.

Inside Saint Bernardine’s Church, Buckingham, looking towards the liturgical east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Bernardine of Siena (1380-1444) was born at Massa Maritima near Siena in Tuscany into the noble degli Albizzeschi family. While studying in Siena in 1400 he offered to help in the hospital to deal with many plague victims. He joined the Franciscans on his 22nd birthday in September 1402, and was ordained a priest in 1404. For 12 years he led a deeply spiritual life.

A sermon he preached during a visit to Milan marked the beginning of his missionary life throughout Italy, sometimes preaching many times a day. His success was said to be remarkable, and ‘Bonfires of the Vanities’ were held at places where he preached, with people throwing mirrors, high-heeled shoes, perfumes, locks of false hair, cards, dice, chess pieces and other frivolities to be burned.

However, he was also of a strict, moral temper, preached fiery sermons against many classes of people, characterised some women as ‘witches’, and called for ‘sodomites’ to be ostracised or removed from the human community.

Bernardino is regarded today as being a major protagonist of Christian antisemitism. In Orvieto in 1472, he blamed the poverty of local Christians on Jewish usury, and his calls for Jews to be banished and isolated from their wider communities led to segregation. His listeners often used his words to reinforce actions against Jews, and his preaching left a legacy of resentment on the part of Jews.

Yet Pope Pius II called him a second Paul. At different times, he turned the offer to become bishop of Siena, of Ferrara, and of Urbino He led the revival of discipline among the Franciscans and from 1438 to 1442 he was Vicar-General of the order. He was canonised in 1450 and his feast day is 20 May.

Inside Saint Bernardine’s Church, Buckingham, looking towards the liturgical west (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

As the Catholic parish in Buckingham expanded after World War II, the friars opened Mass centres in many neighbouring towns and villages, including Brackley. But circumstances changed, the college closed in 1968, and the buildings were sold to Buckingham County Council. The friars continued to use the chapel until the parish could build its own church, and eventually the decision was taken to build onto the new friary on Chandos Road where the friars had set up their first chapel.

The new church was designed by the architect George AJ Mathers (1919-2015) of Williams and Mathers, Cheltenham, and was built by Pollard and Sons, Buckingham. Mathers is best-known for his Grade II listed Marychurch in Old Hatfield, Hertfordshire.

George Mathers was born in 1919 in London. His father was a postal worker. He studied architecture at the Northern Polytechnic, now the University of North London, and during his student years he became a Roman Catholic and a pacifist. As a conscientious objector he was expelled from the polytechnic and jailed in Wormwood Scrubs. There he met Paul Mauger, a Quaker architect, a prison visitor who had been a conscientious objector in World War I. Mauger offered him a job, but Mathers was jailed for a second time for his pacifism before joining Mauger on a permanent basis, eventually becoming a partner.

Maters began working for Paul Mauger designing council housing and other public buildings. His career as a church architect began when he was asked to design a convent chapel in 1957. He set up his own practice in mid-Hertfordshire with Barrie Thomas in 1960, and was commissioned to design Saint Bartholomew’s Church, St Albans (1963), and the circular Marychurch, Old Hatfield (1970).

Saint Bartholomew’s Church, St Albans, was the first church in the Diocese of Westminster built in the round, shortly before the liturgical reforms of Vatican II. There, Mathers brought in the sculptor Angela Godfrey, who had recently graduated from King’s College, Newcastle upon Tyne, to design the altar.

Perhaps the most notable church by Mathers is the round Marychurch in Old Hatfield, which was grade II listed in 2013 – a rare achievement for a living architect. Here again Mathers worked with several notable artists, including Dom Charles Norris and Dom Paulinus Angold, who contributed the dalle de verre glass, and Angela Godfrey, who designed the welded steel screen and font.

Mathers lived for much of his life in Ware, Hertfordshire, before moving to Cheltenham. He retired when he was 94 and died aged 96 in 2015.

The front door by Angela Godfrey with the ‘IHS’ logo associated with Saint Bernardine’s preaching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Mathers worked closely on Saint Bernardine’s Church, Buckingham, once again with Angela Godfrey and Dom Charles Norris, and with the Cheltenham artist Martin Hughes.

The front door is made from resin and filled with sand to give it a more solid feel. The altar front is of a similar design. Both were designed by Mathers and were made by Angela Godfrey.

Angela Godfrey, whose first commission after graduating had been from Mathers for the altar in Saint Bartholomew’s Church, St Albans, also worked with Richard Hurley (1932–2011), one of the leading church architects in Ireland interpreting the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms, reordering churches in Hoddesdon, Harrow Weald, Maidstone, and Ballyporeen, Co Tipperary. She designed the bishop’s throne and Paschal candle for Saint Mel’s Cathedral, Longford, when it was rebuilt by Hurley. Her prize-winning ‘Gilpin’s Bell’ (1994) is a large street sculpture in Edmonton.

Her entrance doors at Saint Bernardine’s include a high-relief grip representation of the IHS monogram with rays, traditionally associated with images of Saint Bernardine.

Angela Godfrey also made the altar in Saint Bernardine’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

From the low entrance lobby of the church, the levels drop down into the main space, consisting of a single space, with a raised clerestory on the south side lighting the south wall and a long monopitch roof down to the north side. The boarded roof is supported by thick laminated raking trusses, which in turn is carried on laminated posts towards the low north side.

The north and east walls are plastered and painted, and the north wall is faced in painted concrete blocks. At the west end, a door leads into the sacristy and presbytery and some of the former external exposed stonework of the presbytery is retained as a feature.

The furnishings of the church include a reredos or crucifix and tabernacle surround on the east wall by Stephen Foster. The reredos replaced a painted Crucifixion, possibly by Martin Hughes, who painted the dramatic mural Stations of the Cross on the north wall.

On the south wall under the eaves are panels of coloured dalle de verre glass, from the workshop of Dom Charles Norris at Buckfast Abbey, Devon.

The Stations of the Cross on the north wall were painted by Martin Hughes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Martin Hughes, then a young artist, painted the Stations of the Cross on the north wall. He first painted miniatures and from these he took photographic slides that he then projected onto the wall. This allowed him to quickly and accurately reproduce the Stations of the Cross.

Hughes lived in Cheltenham for most of his life, and in the 1970s and 1980s, he combined commissions producing a series of murals for churches throughout England with creating the album cover for Traffic’s ‘When the Eagle flies’. He worked in a variety of mediums, including acrylic, pastel, charcoal, pen and ink, and emulsion. His commissions included shops, restaurants, hair salons and night clubs, as well as fresco and paint effects in people’s homes. The characters in his work included fictional fantasy figures, mystic and ethereal, from Greek mythology to Shakespeare’s plays.

Hughes may also have painted a Crucifixion above the High Altar that was influenced by Salvador Dali’s ‘Christ of Saint John of the Cross’ and that has since been replaced.

Around the same time as he was working in Buckingham, Hughes also worked in 1974 in the new Sacred Heart Church in Northampton, also designed by Mathers. There Hughes completed the Stations of the Cross there in only four weeks, sometimes working through the night and even sleeping in the church.

Hughes was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2015 and died in June 2015. His daughter Naomi Hughes described him as ‘a free spirit’, saying: ‘Murals were his thing and walls were his canvas.’

Martin Hughes who painted the Stations of the Cross died in 2015 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Dom Charles Norris (1909-2004), then a 75-year-old Benedictine monk, made the dalle de verre stained glass windows on the south wall. Dom Charles was born Louis Charles Norris and studied at the Royal College of Art in the 1920s. He entered Buckfast Abbey in 1930 and began to work as a stained glass artist in 1933. He worked with a team of monks to rebuild the abbey, including the east window in dalle de verre.

Pierre Fourmaintraux is said to have brought the dalle de verre technique to Britain before joining James Powell and Sons, later Whitefriars Glass Studio, in 1956. He trained Dom Charles Norris in this technique, and Norris became one of its most prolific British proponents.

In addition to his work at Buckfast Abbey, Dom Charles also had an association with the workshop at Prinknash Abbey and with Aylesford Priory in Kent. From 1949, Aylesford Priory was a creative hub, attracting artists such as Adam Kossowski, Philip Lindsey Clark, Michael Clark, and Dom Charles Norris.

Many of the internal features and furnishings in Saint Bernardine’s Church came from the earlier college chapel in Buckingham (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Father Christopher Ulyatt OFM, the then Parish Priest in Buckingham, and Colonel Bill Sharpe, an active parishioner, oversaw building the new church designed by Mathers. Bishop Charles Grant of Northampton blessed the new church on 26 October 1974. Father Christopher had died two weeks earlier and never got to enjoy the end results of his labours.

The building project created a substantial debt. However, a later parish priest, Father Phelan Daniel O’Leary OFM, worked to clear the debt and the church was consecrated in August 1982. The parish formally became part of the Diocese of Northampton in 1989.

Many of the internal features and furnishings in Saint Bernardine’s Church came from the earlier college chapel in Buckingham, including statues of Saint Anthony, Saint Francis and Saint Bernardine, the font, the church bell, the organ and the organ pipes, the pews and the octagonal stone font (1946). The statue of Our Lady was donated by a later parish priest, Monsignor John Ryan, in 1993 in memory of Ernie Taylor in recognition of his work in the church.

Stephen Foster designed the Calvary, based on the cross at San Damiano, and the tabernacle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

To celebrate the Millennium, Stephen Foster, a sculptor specialising in wooden carvings, was commissioned to design the Calvary or reredos and the tabernacle. The Calvary depicts Christ ascending from the Cross, closely resembles the original Crucifix of Saint Damiano that inspired life and ministry of Saint Francis of Assisi. The Calvary is made from 10 panels and its design is similar to the triptych in Northampton Cathedral. The Tabernacle surround also reflects features of the Calvary design and is made of wood and decorated in gold leaf.

The wall behind the statue of Our Lady has painted vertical features, suggested by Stephen Foster and similar to those in the design of the Calvary.

The Royal Latin School, facing Saint Bernardine’s Church, moved to Chandos Road in 1907 from the mediaeval Chantry Chapel in Buckingham, which I was discussing last night (5 November 2025). Meanwhile, Buckingham University acquired the former friary and school in 1977. The Franciscan Building on the Verney Park site was converted into residences, a library, language laboratories and tutorial and lecture rooms.

• Father Bosco Gunturu is the Priest-in-Charge of Saint Bernardine’s Church. Sundays Masses are: 5:30 pm (Saturdays, Vigil Mass) and 11 am (Sunday mornings). Weekday Masses are 9:20 (Tuesday to Thursday, and Saturday), 10 am (Fridays) and 7 pm (Wednesdays and Fridays).

The Royal Latin School moved to Chandos Road in 1907 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayers in Advent with Leonard Cohen and USPG: (8) 10 December 2023

‘And I’ll dance with you in Vienna’ (Leonard Cohen) … Fiaker and Fiaker drivers in Vienna feature in the operas of Johann Strauss II and Richard Strauss (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the countdown to Christmas in the Church since last Sunday, with the beginning of Advent and the first day in a new Church Year. Today is the Second Sunday of Advent (10 December 2023).

I am in Lichfield this weekend, on a short retreat, with time for personal prayer and reflection, following the cycle of daily prayer and the liturgy in the cathedral. Later this morning, I intend being at the Eucharist in Lichfield Cathedral. But, before this day begins, I am taking time early this morning for prayer and reflection.

Throughout Advent this year, my reflections each day include a poem or song by Leonard Cohen. My Advent reflections are following this pattern:

1, A reflection on a poem or song by Leonard Cohen;

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

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

The Jewish Museum in Vienna issued a statement in 2016 saying ‘Leonard Cohen, the 20th-century prophet of the past, is dead, but his voice lives on’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Songs and Poems of Leonard Cohen: 8, ‘Take This Waltz’:

The Tales from the Vienna Woods is a waltz by the composer Johann Strauss II (1825-1899), written just over a century and a half ago, in 1868. Although Strauss was baptised in the Roman Catholic Church, he was born into a prominent Jewish family. Because the Nazis had a particular penchant for Strauss’s music, they tried to conceal and even deny the Jewish identity of the Strauss family.

However, the stories of Vienna’s Jews cannot be hidden, and many of those stories from Vienna are told in the exhibits in the Jewish Museum in its two locations, at the Palais Eskeles on Dorotheergasse and in the Misrachi-Haus in Judenplatz. These stories celebrate a culture and a community whose stories should never be forgotten.

Leonard Cohen’s posthumous album, Thanks for the Dance, was released on 22 November 2019. Many of the lyrics are infused with his Jewish spirituality, which deepened as he got older but always had a place in his poetry and his songwriting.

When Cohen died seven years ago, on 7 November 2016, the Jewish Museum in Vienna issued a statement saying ‘We mourn the death of Leonard Cohen. The man with the deep and commanding voice can now be heard only on recordings … Leonard Cohen, the 20th-century prophet of the past, is dead, but his voice lives on.’

His voice and songs had featured that year in the museum’s exhibition, Stars of David: The Sound of the 20th Century, which closed on 16 October, just three weeks before he died. The lyrics of the first verse of Hallelujah were displayed at the start of the exhibition:

Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Leonard Cohen left his mark in Vienna. After a concert in the city in 1976, he visited the Arena, a concert venue that was being occupied at the time, and gave an additional concert.

With his description of the Arena as the ‘best place in Vienna,’ he gave the young protesters his support and backing as they demanded to liberate the city from the dusty traces of fascism, persecution, and the extermination of the Jewish population. They felt he had backed their opposition to the small-minded ‘reconstruction’ of Vienna after World War II, and to the self-imposed silence that covered everything.

Cohen returned to Vienna many times, and in 1984, he said of local audiences: ‘In Vienna, there’s a certain value placed on vulnerability. They like to feel you struggling. They’re warm, compassionate.’

A few years later, he wrote a song about Vienna, ‘Take This Waltz’, based on the poem ‘Pequeño Vals Vienés’ (‘Little Viennese Waltz’), written in New York in the early 1930s by the Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca (1898-1936).

In this song, released in 1988 on the album I’m Your Man, Cohen’s fascination for the morbidity of Vienna came to the fore once again, but with a coolness that is impossible to emulate:

There’s a concert hall in Vienna
Where your mouth had a thousand reviews.
There’s a bar where the boys have stopped talking,
They’ve been sentenced to death by the blues.
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture
With a garland of freshly cut tears?
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
Take this waltz, it’s been dying for years.

The lyrics are actually a translation, or rather an interpretation, of Lorca’s poem, ‘Pequeño Valz Vienes,’ but Cohen altered it slightly to fit the context and rhythm of his song.

The poem is about Lorca’s doomed relationship with Salvador Dalí¬ and was written in his period of deep depression followed by creative and spiritual rebirth during a year long trip to New York and Cuba. It is a poem of frustrated, closeted love that ends in a prophecy of martyrdom, as seen in the myth of Hyacinth or in Lorca’s obsession with the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian.

Lorca frequently predicted that he too would be martyred, and he was shot by one of Franco’s ‘black squads’ on 19 August 1936 at the start of the Spanish Civil War. His grave has never been found, despite the efforts of the Dublin-born writer Ian Gibson and other writers and historians.

In Leonard Cohen’s interpretation of this poem, the Biblical imagery includes a reference to ‘All your sheep and your lilies of snow,’ drawn perhaps from images in the Song of Solomon:

‘Tell me, you whom my soul loves,
where you pasture your flock,
where you make it lie down at noon’ – Song of Solomon: 1: 7

I am a rose of Sharon,
a lily of the valleys. – Song of Solomon: 2: 1

Of course, there is no reference to or description of snow in Song of Solomon. But the reference could represent the purity described in the book.

Perhaps ‘Take This Waltz’, as Leonard Cohen reworks and rewrites it, is a reflection on a love affair that begins in Vienna, a city known for its beauty and mystery. The narrator speaks of the beauty of Vienna and the sadness that can be found there, as even in its lakes there are doves dying as if from a broken heart.

The narrator describes in poetic terms the memories that linger in his mind and the feelings of overwhelming love for the person to whom he gives the song’s title, a ‘waltz’ in this case, living and dying in the times of their love affair. He uses the metaphor of a ‘clamp on its jaws’ to represent how, even when it hurts, love is rooted in us too deeply to let go.

Later in the song, the narrator uses vivid imagery of hallways without love, of children’s laughter in an attic, and Hungarian lanterns in the mist to evoke more of the emotion and scars left over from intense love. The speaker urges his loved one to take the waltz, take the waltz, take this waltz it’s yours now – despite the fact that it might be filled with pain, regret, and sadness.

Ultimately, the lyrics suggest that love holds within it the possibility of those fleeting moments of joy, even when it is not enough to keep a relationship together. The lyrics encourage us to embrace the moments of love that we can find, no matter how difficult the aftermath may feel.

‘Take This Waltz’ was originally released on the 50th anniversary of Lorca’s murder in 1986 as part of the Federico García Lorca tribute album, Poets in New York, for which Ian Gibson wrote the sleeve notes, and as a single.

The song was later included in Cohen’s 1988 studio album I’m Your Man, in a slightly re-arranged version, with the addition of violin and Jennifer Warnes’s duet vocals, both absent from the 1986 version.

‘Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture / With a garland of freshly cut tears?’ (Leonard Cohen) … the Jerusalem Steps in Vienna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Leonard Cohen, Take This Waltz:

Now in Vienna there’s ten pretty women
There’s a shoulder where Death comes to cry
There’s a lobby with nine hundred windows
There’s a tree where the doves go to die
There’s a piece that was torn from the morning
And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws

Oh I want you, I want you, I want you
On a chair with a dead magazine
In the cave at the tip of the lily
In some hallways where love’s never been
On a bed where the moon has been sweating
In a cry filled with footsteps and sand
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take its broken waist in your hand

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
With its very own breath of brandy and Death
Dragging its tail in the sea

There’s a concert hall in Vienna
Where your mouth had a thousand reviews
There’s a bar where the boys have stopped talking
They’ve been sentenced to death by the blues
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture
With a garland of freshly cut tears?
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz it’s been dying for years

There’s an attic where children are playing
Where I’ve got to lie down with you soon
In a dream of Hungarian lanterns
In the mist of some sweet afternoon
And I’ll see what you’ve chained to your sorrow
All your sheep and your lilies of snow
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
With its ‘I’ll never forget you, you know!’

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz …

And I’ll dance with you in Vienna
I’ll be wearing a river’s disguise
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,
My mouth on the dew of your thighs
And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
With the photographs there, and the moss
And I’ll yield to the flood of your beauty
My cheap violin and my cross
And you’ll carry me down on your dancing
To the pools that you lift on your wrist
Oh my love, Oh my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz
It’s yours now. It’s all that there is

‘There’s a shoulder where Death comes to cry’ (Leonard Cohen) … the Holocaust Memorial in Vienna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 1: 1-8 (NRSVA):

1 The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

2 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,

‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
3 the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight”,’

4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’

‘John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’ (Mark 1: 4) … Saint John the Baptist in a window in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 10 December 2023, Advent II):

The theme this week in the new edition of ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘The Faith of Advent.’ This theme is introduced today:

The second week of Advent allows us to prepare our hearts in faithful waiting, a chance for us to explore what our faith means to us.

Read Luke 1: 26-38

The story of Mary is a great example of faith. She was open to God’s word and obedient to His will. She did not desire proof, for she believed God could bring His plans to fruition. However, the passage tells us that she was troubled. Understandably so. Her fear is based on her physical limitations. She just wanted to know how.

So many of us can let fear – the whys and the what-ifs – take over in our lives. Can we follow Mary’s example this Advent and allow our faith to contain curiosity on how things may happen but believe firmly that God will do exactly what He promises? Can we trust in the assurance that our faith is rooted in God’s promise that He gave His Son so that we may have life at its fullest.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (10 December 2023, Advent II, Human Rights Day) invites us to pray in these words:

We prepare our hearts to receive you, O Lord,
and open our hearts to receive one another.

Saint John the Baptist (right) with Christ and the Virgin Mary in a window in Saint Mary’s, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect:

O Lord, raise up, we pray, your power
and come among us,
and with great might succour us;
that whereas, through our sins and wickedness
we are grievously hindered
in running the race that is set before us,
your bountiful grace and mercy
may speedily help and deliver us;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit,
be honour and glory, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Father in heaven,
who sent your Son to redeem the world
and will send him again to be our judge:
give us grace so to imitate him
in the humility and purity of his first coming
that, when he comes again,
we may be ready to greet him
with joyful love and firm faith;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
purify our hearts and minds,
that when your Son Jesus Christ comes again
as judge and saviour
we may be ready to receive him,
who is our Lord and our God.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow



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

Is God revealed in space as we reach out to the universe?

Christ Pantocrator in the dome of Saint George’s Church in Panormos, east of Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Thursday 13 May 2021,
The Ascension Day

11 am: The Festal Eucharist,

Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton

Readings: Acts 1: 1-11; Psalm 47; Luke 24: 44-53

There is a link to the readings HERE

Salvador Dali: The Ascension (1958)

Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

The astronaut Michael Collins died last month (28 April 2021) at the age of 90.

By then, many people had forgotten the name of Michael Collins. While Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were walking on the moon on 20 July 1969, Michael Collins became the most solitary person in the universe, orbiting the moon alone, inside Apollo 11 and out of touch with ground control 240,000 miles away.

Michael Collins was born in Rome in 1930 while his father, General James Collins, was based in the Italian capital.

Because he was not born in an American town or city, when Michael Collins returned to the earth, without ever walking on the moon, there was no hometown parade in any American town to honour him.

But by then Collins was used to being on his own – in space or on earth. Collins later recalled his first space mission on Gemini 10 in 1966, and how he spent almost an hour and a half on spacewalks, once ‘gliding across the world in total silence, with absolute smoothness; a motion of stately grace which makes me feel God-like as I stand erect in my sideways chariot, cruising the night sky.’

Today, on Ascension Day, one of the 12 great feasts of the Church, celebrated on the 40th day of Easter, we remember Christ being taken up, ascending into his glory, and completing the work of our redemption.

On this day, we celebrate the completion of the work of our salvation, the pledge of our glorification with Christ, and his entry into heaven with our human nature glorified.

On this day we see the completion of Christ’s physical presence among his apostles and the consummation of the union of God and humanity. On this day, Christ ascends in his glorified human body to sit at the right hand of the Father.

The Ascension is the final visible sign of Christ’s two natures, divine and human, and it shows us that redeemed humanity now has a higher state than humanity had before the fall.

That is the theological explanation, in a nutshell. But how do you image, imagine, the Ascension?

When we believed in a flat earth, it was easy to understand how Christ ascended into heaven, and how he then sat in the heavens, on a throne, on the right hand of the Father. But once we lost the notion of a flat earth as a way of explaining the world and the universe, we failed to adjust our images or approaches to the Ascension narrative; ever since, intelligent people have been left asking silly questions:

When Christ went up through the clouds, how long did he keep going?

When did he stop?

And where?

Standing there gaping at the sky could make us some kind of navel-gazers, looking for explanations within the universe and for life, but not as we know it. In our day and age, the idea of Christ flying up into the sky and vanishing through the great blue yonder strikes us as fanciful.

Or is there, instead, a holier vision, glimpsed by Michael Collins, of God caring for the universe?

I think again of Michael Collins ‘gliding across the world in total silence, with absolute smoothness; a motion of stately grace which makes me feel God-like as I stand erect in my sideways chariot, cruising the night sky.’

During a radio blackout during that space mission, Buzz Aldrin would recall, ‘I read the words which I had chosen to indicate our trust that as man probes into space we are in fact acting in Christ. I sensed especially strongly my unity with our church back home, and with the church everywhere. I read: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me”.’ (John 15: 5).

Our view of the universe, our understanding of the cosmos, shapes how we image and think of God’s place in it, within it, above it, or alongside it. And sometimes, the way past any outdated understandings of the universe were used to describe or explain the Ascension now make it difficult to talk about its significance and meaning to today’s scientific mind.

And yet, as the astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders entered into a lunar orbit on Apollo 8 on Christmas Eve 1968, they took part in a live television broadcast, showing pictures of the Earth and the moon as seen from their spacecraft.

They ended the broadcast with William Anders saying, ‘For all the people on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send you.’

They then took turns in reading from the Book of Genesis, beginning with ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ and concluding with ‘and God saw that it was good.’

Frank Borman concluded, ‘God bless all of you – all of you on the good Earth.’

Less than a year later. returning from that first landing on the moon, Buzz Aldrin took part in a television broadcast the night before splashing down. During the broadcast, the second man to set foot on the moon read Psalm 8: 3-4: ‘When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou has ordained; What is man that thou art mindful of him? And the Son of Man, that thou visitest him?’

As Buzz Aldrin pointed out, God reveals himself in space as humanity reaches out to the universe. ‘There are many of us in the NASA programme who do trust that what we are doing is part of God’s eternal plan for man.’

Michael Collins was from an Irish family and was raised an Episcopalian. In his prayers in Washington National Cathedral at the memorial service for his colleague Neil Armstrong in 2012, Michael Collins thanked God for his friend and colleague ‘who with courage and humility first set foot upon the moon.’

And he prayed: ‘Following his example, save us from arrogance, lest we forget that our achievements are grounded in you.’

Having witnessed the earth from afar, he became a serious and active advocate of ecology, spending time and energy on trying to save the world. He described himself as a perpetual optimist.

The Ascension is a divine promise that those of us who are perpetual optimists have not misplaced that optimism. When we consider God’s works in the heavens, the work of his hands in the moon and the stars, as Buzz Aldrin said, ‘we are in fact acting in Christ.’

And, when we contemplate the majesty of God’s work in the universe, we may think to join in that prayer of Michael Collins, ‘save us from arrogance, lest we forget that our achievements are grounded in you.’

Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

The Ascension depicted in a window in Holy Trinity Abbey Church, Adare, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Acts 1: 1-1:

1 In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning 2 until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over the course of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. 4 While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. ‘This’, he said, ‘is what you have heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ 7 He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ 9 When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 While he was going and they were gazing up towards heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. 11 They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’

The Ascension Window in the North Transept (Jebb Chapel), Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 24: 44-53 (NRSVA):

44 Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you – that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46 and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.’

50 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. 52 And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 53 and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

The Ascension (1885) by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, a Pre-Raphaelite window in Saint Philip’s Cathedral, Birmingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Liturgical Colour: White, or Gold.

The Greeting (from Easter Day until Pentecost):

Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Penitential Kyries:

God our Father,
you exalted your Son to sit at your right hand.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Lord Jesus,
you are the way, the truth and the life.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Holy Spirit, Counsellor,
you are sent to be with us for ever.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

The Collect of the Day:

Grant, we pray, Almighty God,
that as we believe your only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ
to have ascended into the heavens;
so we in heart and mind may also ascend
and with him continually dwell;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Introduction to the Peace:

Jesus said, Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.
I do not give to you as the world gives (John 14: 27, 28)

Preface:

Through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who after he had risen from the dead ascended into heaven,
where he is seated at your right hand to intercede for us
and to prepare a place for us in glory:

Post Communion Prayer:

God our Father,
you have raised our humanity in Christ
and have fed us with the bread of heaven.
Mercifully grant that, nourished with such spiritual blessings,
we may set our hearts in the heavenly places;
where he now lives and reigns for ever.

Blessing:

Christ our exalted King
pour on you his abundant gifts
make you faithful and strong to do his will
that you may reign with him in glory:

Dismissal: (from Easter Day to Pentecost):

Go in the peace of the Risen Christ. Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thanks be to God. Alleluia! Alleluia!

The Ascension depicted in the East Window by Marion Grant (1951) in the Church of Saint George the Martyr in Southwark (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Hymns:

259, Christ triumphant, ever reigning (CD 16);
634, Love divine, all loves excelling (CD 36).



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

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.

How Salvador Dali came to see Perpignan as the ‘centre of the universe’

‘Dalí en Levitation’ on the place de Catalogne and facing towards the train station in Perpignan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

During my visits to Perpignan this week, I enjoyed the statue of the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, Dalí en Levitation, outside FNAC on the place de Catalogne and facing towards the city’s train station, la Gare de Perpignan.

The statue, which was put in place last year [2017], was originally created in 2000 by the two artists, Sabine et Eric, known as ‘Les Pritchards.’ It was inspired by Dali’s 1965 painting, Le mystique de la gare de Perpignan, and was originally placed on the roof of the station.

Dalí en Levitation shows the artist sitting on a high red chair at the entrance to Perpignan, 3.6 metres wide and 2.3 metres high. He is facing towards train station, which he proclaimed the centre of the universe, his arms open wide, welcoming visitors to the Catalan capital.

Sooner or later, everyone changes trains at Perpignan. But the railway station in Perpignan held special significance for Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), who had proclaimed it to be the ‘Centre of the Universe’ after he experienced a vision of cosmogonic ecstasy there in 1963: ‘On 19 September 1963, standing in the railway station at Perpignan ... I had a precise vision of the constitution of the universe.’

For Dalí, the station in Perpignan became a place of genuine sanctity, a pivot of the cosmos that offered a unique perspective on the entire universe.

Two years later, Dalí completed his celebrated Le mystique de la gare de Perpignan in 1965. It is a huge oil painting on canvas, measuring 296 cm x 406 cm, and now hangs in the Museum Ludwig in Cologne.

Dalí's 1965 homage to Perpignan is a surrealist adventure, and before and after working on the painting he paced the platforms of the station, taking photographs and measurements, concluding in 1966 that the measurements of the earth – and indeed the weight of God – are mirrored in the structure of Perpignan station.

Perpignan is just 22 minutes by fast train from Figueres, the Catalan town where Salvador Dalí was born and died. And just as Shakespeare has promoted Verona, so Dalí has become a great commercial asset in promoting Perpignan. In appreciation, the city council renamed the square in front of the station, Place Salvador Dalí.

Salvador Dalí faces the Gare de Perpignan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The building, which opened in 1858, is a handsome but typical example of the style of stations built at that time throughout southern France. The sign inside the station welcomes travellers to the ‘Gare de Perpignan: Centre du Monde’ – which is a modest claim compared to Dalí’s proclamation that this is the centre cosmique de l’univers.

The painting shows the railway station of Perpignan, but with various additions that are examples of surrealism. La Gare de Perpignan encompasses several artistic techniques. There are several axes of symmetry, and a lot of emphasis is placed on the use of colours to depict light in various effective ways. Earthly colours such as dark brown and yellow are used, and different gradients of these two colours are used throughout the painting.

The sacrifice of the son is imaged in the form of Christ on the Cross, with his crown of thorns, floating in the centre of the composition. The bleeding wound of Christ is associated with the farmer’s fork on the right, thrust into the ground.

Dalí is represented twice in the vertical axis: he appears in the light at the centre of the image, seen from below, floating with arms spread, and again at the top of the painting.

At the bottom of the painting lies a calm sea with a boat, an ancient symbol of the passage from life to death and of the Church, reinforcing the theme of Christ’s sacrifice. Above the sea, a woman seen from the back watches these scenes, immobile, and recalling the helplessness of man facing death, symbolised not only by the bloody wounds of Christ, but also by Dalí, who is spread-eagled and seems to fall into nothingness.

At the top centre of the painting, a train emerges from nowhere and is a reminder of the railway station in Perpignan.

The left side of the painting shows the embodiment of positive values: the couple on the bags of wheat represent labour, and the man in a meditative pose embodies respect. The right of the image shows the embodiment sins and suffering: the man and woman represent lust and the woman represents mourning.

The two figures flanking the far left and right sides are inspired by The Angelus, a well-known religious painting by the French artist Jean-François Millet.

‘Le mystique de la gare de Perpignan’ (1965) by Salvador Dalí

Art for Lent (45): ‘Christ of Saint John of the Cross’ (1951), by Salvador Dalí

‘Christ of Saint John of the Cross’ (1951), by Salvador Dalí

Patrick Comerford

Today, on Good Friday [18 April 2014], we have the climax of Holy Week, the readings in the Revised Common Lectionary for today are: Isaiah 52: 13 to 54: 12; Psalm 22; Hebrews 10: 16-25 or 4: 14-16, 5: 7-9; and John 18: 1 to 19: 42.

John 18: 1 to 19: 42

1 After Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to a place where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. 2 Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, because Jesus often met there with his disciples. 3 So Judas brought a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. 4 Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, ‘For whom are you looking?’ 5 They answered, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ Jesus replied, ‘I am he.’ Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. 6 When Jesus said to them, ‘I am he’, they stepped back and fell to the ground. 7 Again he asked them, ‘For whom are you looking?’ And they said, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ 8 Jesus answered, ‘I told you that I am he. So if you are looking for me, let these men go.’ 9 This was to fulfil the word that he had spoken, ‘I did not lose a single one of those whom you gave me.’ 10 Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus. 11 Jesus said to Peter, ‘Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?’

12 So the soldiers, their officer, and the Jewish police arrested Jesus and bound him. 13 First they took him to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year. 14 Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it was better to have one person die for the people.

15 Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, 16 but Peter was standing outside at the gate. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out, spoke to the woman who guarded the gate, and brought Peter in. 17 The woman said to Peter, ‘You are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ 18 Now the slaves and the police had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing round it and warming themselves. Peter also was standing with them and warming himself.

19 Then the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. 20 Jesus answered, ‘I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. 21 Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said to them; they know what I said.’ 22 When he had said this, one of the police standing nearby struck Jesus on the face, saying, ‘Is that how you answer the high priest?’ 23 Jesus answered, ‘If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?’ 24 Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.

25 Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They asked him, ‘You are not also one of his disciples, are you?’ He denied it and said, ‘I am not.’ 26 One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, ‘Did I not see you in the garden with him?’ 27 Again Peter denied it, and at that moment the cock crowed.

28 Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters. It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the headquarters, so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover. 29 So Pilate went out to them and said, ‘What accusation do you bring against this man?’ 30 They answered, ‘If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.’ 31 Pilate said to them, ‘Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law.’ The Jews replied, ‘We are not permitted to put anyone to death.’ 32 (This was to fulfil what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death he was to die.)

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.’ 38 Pilate asked him, ‘What is truth?’

After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, ‘I find no case against him. 39 But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover. Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?’ 40 They shouted in reply, ‘Not this man, but Barabbas!’ Now Barabbas was a bandit.

1 Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. 3 They kept coming up to him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ and striking him on the face. 4 Pilate went out again and said to them, ‘Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.’ 5 So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, ‘Here is the man!’ 6 When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.’ 7 The Jews answered him, ‘We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.’

8 Now when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever. 9 He entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, ‘Where are you from?’ But Jesus gave him no answer. 10 Pilate therefore said to him, ‘Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?’ 11 Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.’ 12 From then on Pilate tried to release him, but the Jews cried out, ‘If you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor.’

13 When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat on the judge’s bench at a place called The Stone Pavement, or in Hebrew Gabbatha. 14 Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover; and it was about noon. He said to the Jews, ‘Here is your King!’ 15 They cried out, ‘Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!’ Pilate asked them, ‘Shall I crucify your King?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but the emperor.’ 16 Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.

So they took Jesus; 17 and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. 18 There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. 19 Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.’ 20 Many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. 21 Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, ‘Do not write, “The King of the Jews”, but, “This man said, I am King of the Jews”.’ 22 Pilate answered, ‘What I have written I have written.’ 23 When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. 24 So they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.’ This was to fulfil what the scripture says,

‘They divided my clothes among themselves,
and for my clothing they cast lots.’

25 And that is what the soldiers did.

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ 27 Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

28 After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfil the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ 29 A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

31 Since it was the day of Preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the sabbath, especially because that sabbath was a day of great solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed. 32 Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out. 35 (He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth.) 36 These things occurred so that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘None of his bones shall be broken.’ 37 And again another passage of scripture says, ‘They will look on the one whom they have pierced.’

38 After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. 39 Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. 40 They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. 41 Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. 42 And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

The artist and the painting

My choice of a work of Art for Lent this Good Friday morning is ‘Christ of Saint John of the Cross,’ painted by Salvador Dali in 1951. This painting is in oil on canvas, measures 205 cm × 116 cm and can be seen in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow.

This painting by Salvador Dalí depicts Christ 0n the cross in a darkened sky floating over a body of water complete with a boat and fishermen. Although Dalí depicts the crucifixion, this painting shows no nails, no blood, and no crown of thorns. Dalí once said he was convinced in a dream that these features would mar his depiction of Christ, and in that dream he was shown the importance of depicting Christ in the extreme angle we see in this painting.

The painting is known as the ‘Christ of Saint John of the Cross’ because Dalí based his design on a drawing by the 16th century Spanish Carmelite friar and mystic Saint John of the Cross.

The composition of Christ is also based on a triangle and circle: the triangle is formed by Christ’s arms; the circle is formed by his head. The triangle refers to the Trinity. While the circle represents, in Dalí’s own words, “the very unity of the universe, the Christ!”

It is different from any other image of the crucifixion. The angle of the view describes the hanging pain of this method of execution, but hides the ordinarily clichéd facial expressions normally seen on representations of the Crucifixion.

In 2009, the Guardian art critic, Jonathan Jones, described it as “kitsch and lurid,” but said this painting is “for better or worse, probably the most enduring vision of the crucifixion painted in the 20th century.”

The painting was bought for Glasgow Corporation in the early 1950s for £8,200, and went on display at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in 1952. In 1961, a visitor attacked the painting with a stone and tore the canvas with his hands. It was successfully restored over several months. In 2006, it was selected in a poll as Scotland’s favourite painting.

Collect:

Almighty Father,
Look with mercy on this your family
for which our Lord Jesus Christ
was content to be betrayed
and given up into the hands of sinners
and to suffer death upon the cross;
who is alive and glorified with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Tomorrow: ‘The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb’ (1521), by Hans Holbein the Younger.