Searching for Pugin, finding Lutyens, and walking by the river

A tranquil moment by the banks of the River Liffey on Easter Monday (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Patrick Comerford

The afternoon began with a search for yet another Pugin building. Although the chapel AWN Pugin designed for the Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham is the Pugin work nearest to where I live and work, I had yet to photograph it in my quest to capture and catalogue his major Irish works.

Two of us headed down to Rathfarnham, knowing we would face major problems trying to photograph the chapel. The abbey was closed in 1999, the lands have been sold off for the development of private housing and development, and in recent works the old Palliser house which formed the nucleus of the abbey and Pugin’s chapel have been closed off to the public.

Pugin’s chapel in Rathfarnham ... behind gates that are chained and padlocked (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The place looks as if it is about to fall into ruin. The front lawn is overgrown, and gates are chained and padlocked.

The main building on the site is Rathfarnham House, which was built in 1725 for William Palliser to the design of Edward Lovett Pearce. The house was inherited in 1768 by the Rector of Rathfarnham, the Revd John Pallister, and was bought around 1790-1795 by George Grierson III, the King’s Printer.

In 1821, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Murray, bought Rathfarnham House and 40 acres for £2,400, and Mother Teresa Ball and a small community moved to Rathfarnham a year later, renaming Rathfarnham House Loreto House.

That year, they established Loreto Abbey Boarding School, and Grange Road Primary School was set up in 1823. Between 1838 and 1840, a new chapel was built for the nuns according to designs of by the Dublin architect Patrick Byrne and AWN Pugin.

Pugin’s chapel in Rathfarnham dates from March to June 1839, the same time as his plans for Saint Michael’s Church, Gorey, Co Wexford, and Saint Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Pugin’s drawings for the church were prepared at the same time as his plans for Saint Michael’s Church, Gorey, Co Wexford, and Saint Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham. They all date from March to June 1839, and together they mark the end of the first phase of his career.

Although I was allowed through the gates to see the exterior of the chapel, unfortunately I was unable to see the interior, where Pugin’s design resembles the lantern of Ely Cathedral.

The Irish National War Memorial Gardens are characteristic of the simple dignity found of Sir Edwin Lutyens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

In conversation outside afterwards, I realised I had never visited the Irish National War Memorial Gardens in Dublin, which are dedicated to the 49,400 Irish soldiers who were killed in World War I (1914-1918), and also recalls the 300,000 or more Irishmen who fought in that war. The gardens were designed by another great British architect who worked in Ireland, Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens (1869-1944), are characteristic of his style of simple dignity.

From Rathfarnham we drove over to Islandbridge, where the gardens occupy about 8 ha on the south bank of the River Liffey, facing the Magazine Fort in the Phoenix Park.

The site, originally known as Longmeadows, was provided by the Irish Government in 1929, when it was proposed to lay out a public park at Government expense, with a Garden of Remembrance and War Memorial paid for from funds raised by a Memorial Committee. Work on laying out a linear parkway of about 60 ha, stretching from Islandbridge to Chapelizod, began in 1931 and took two years to complete. The Memorial Gardens were then laid out between 1933 and 1939.

These tranquil riverside gardens are characteristic of Lutyens and his style of simple dignity. They include a bridge over the railway, and a Great War stone surrounded by circular fountains. In turn, the fountains are enclosed by pairs of “book rooms” and pergolas, and below each pergola is a tiered sunken garden.

The “book rooms” are small limestone pavilions with sloping stone roofs and blank niches. Originally they held books designed by Harry Clarke – a leading figure in the Irish Arts and Crafts Movement better known for his stained-glass windows – and inscribed with the names of all the Irish war dead. The park rangers now have a facility in one of the pavilions to view and print any page from the 12-book memorial record.

The “Ginchy Cross” – a wooden cross fashioned on the style of a Celtic cross – is kept in the same pavilion. The wooden cross had been designed on a sheet of blotting paper by Major General WB Hickie, the commander of the 16th (Irish) Division, and was made from old oak beams by the divisional pioneer troops. It was originally erected on the Somme in a field between the villages of Guillemont and Ginchy. The two villages had been liberated by the 16th Irish with the loss of 240 officers and 4,090 men killed, wounded or missing.

Granite replicas of the cross were erected in 1926 at Guillemont and at Wytscheate in Belgium, while a third was erected in Thessaloniki in Greece, to commemorate the 10th (Irish) Division who fought in Gallipoli, Macedonia and the Middle East.

The gardens are a lesson by Lutyens in lassical symmetry and formality (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The gardens are a lesson in classical symmetry and formality and Lutyens’s concept for the Islandbridge site is outstanding among his many war memorials. His love of local material and the contrasting moods of the various compartments of the gardens testify to his creative genius.

Lutyens also planned a three-arch bridge over the River Liffey, linking the gardens with the Phoenix Park on the other side of the River. This bridge was planned for the central axis of the main lawn but was never built.

For many years, the memorial was beset by political problems, and the gardens were shamefully neglected for many years before being restored by the Office of Public Works in the 1980s. In 2006, the first fully official “opening and dedication” was attended by President Mary McAleese, the Taoiseach, government officials and representatives of the four main Churches.

Architect and landscape designer

Lutyens was a distinguished British architect and landscape designer, known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era designed many English country houses.

He is known best for his instrumental role in designing and building a section of the metropolis of Delhi, which would later on serve as the seat of the Government of India. In collaboration with Herbert Baker, he was also the main architect of several monuments in New Delhi. His many war memorials include the Cenotaph in Whitehall in London.

In Ireland, he had previously worked at Howth Castle for the Gainsford-St Lawrence family, at Heywood in Co Laois for the Hutcheson Poe family, and on Lambay Island, off the coast of Portrane in north Co Dublin, for Cecil Baring, later Lord Revelstoke, who bought Lambay Island in 1904 for £9,000 from Count James Considine, formerly of Portrane House.

Standing in the memorial gardens this evening, I thought of my grandfather, Stephen Edward Comerford, who had fought in Gallipoli and Thessaloniki in World War I and was sent home on sick leave in May 1916, just weeks after the Easter Rising had broken out. He married Bridget Lynders of Portrane in 1904, only a year after Baring bought Lambay Island, and they are buried in Saint Catherine’s old churchyard in Portrane, within view of Lambay Island.

A stroll by the boat clubs

The sun was shining, and rowers were out on the river in eights, in pairs and in single skulls (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

From the memorial gardens, we walked down to the banks of the River Liffey, where the sun was still shining, and rowers were out on the river in eights, in pairs and in single sculls.

Many rowing and boat clubs have their boathouses along this stretch of the Liffey, including the Dublin University, UCD, Neptune, Garda and Commercial clubs.

The Dublin University Boat Club dates back to 1836, and moved to Islandbridge in 1898 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The beginnings of Dublin University Boat Club can be found in the formation of the Pembroke Club at Ringsend in 1836. In 1847, it amalgamated with the fledgling University Rowing Club to become the Dublin University Rowing Club, the first Irish club to field a crew at Henley Royal Regatta. For the next 43 years it was by far the most successful Irish rowing club.

In 1881, a split in the DURC led to the formation of the Dublin University Boat Club. The next 17 years saw both a win at Henley, and the majority of important Irish rowing trophies being shared between these two clubs.

Old differences were put aside in 1898, and the two clubs amalgamated under the name of the Dublin University Boat Club. The familiar black and white hoops of the Trinity zephyr were retained from the boat club and adopted as the colours for the new club, and the club moved to Islandbridge, where it has had its home for over a century. Past members include many famous names, including Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula.

As we walked down the pathway on the southern bank of the river from Islandbridge towards Chapelizod, with willows dipping into the water, herons waiting patiently, and rowers making the best of the Easter Monday sunshine, the only human voices were those of the coaches, cycling up and down the pathways, encouraging and cajoling individuals, pairs and teams.

It was hard to imagine we were only 3 or 4 km the city centre. This could have been a quiet, undisturbed moment on the banks of Cam, a peaceful and tranquil place on the backs in Cambridge, and we could have lingered longer.

Χριστός ἀνέστη! Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη!

The Resurrection ... an Easter sermon in glass in the East Window in Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Patrick Comerford

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

May your heart be filled with the joy and love of the Risen Christ this Easter.

This morning, on Easter Day [24 April 2011], the Sung Eucharist with sermon will be celebrated in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, at 11 a.m., and the preacher is the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Dr Michael Jackson.

The setting is the Messe Solennelle by Jean Langlais, and the motet is Patrick Hadley’s “My beloved spake.”

Later in the day, Choral Evensong is sung at 3.30 p.m., with responses by Shephard, canticles from Charles Wood’s Evening Service in F, and the anthem is Gerald Finzi’s Lo, The full Final Sacrifice.

Archbishop Jackson was also the celebrant and preacher at the Easter Vigil last night. The setting was Zoltan Kodaly’s Missa Brevis and the motet was Easter by George Herbert (1593-1633) to the setting by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958):

Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise without delays,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise with him may’st rise
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part with all thy art.
The cross taught all wood to resound his name who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song pleasant and long:
Or since all music is but three parts vied and multiplied;
Oh let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.

The empty tomb ... a window in the gallery in Holmpatirck Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Meanwhile, the artist Adam Pomeroy has given three paintings to the cathedral on loan, which are on display in the Chapel of Saint Laud. The paintings depict three moments from the Passion of Christ. The works focus on the personal, human point of view, showing the real people described in the Gospels, rather than archetypes.

The paintings are “Judas,” “Golgotha,” and “The Resurrection.”

Adam Pomeroy is a figurative painter. His works include still-life, landscape and figure painting. He recently took part in group exhibitions in the gallery at Glór and at the Courthouse Gallery. His painting “The Annunciation” is on display in Ennis Cathedral.

Αγαπητοί φίλοι,
Καλή Ανάσταση και Καλό Πάσχα!

Waiting at the tomb on Holy Saturday (3)

The Taking down from the Cross

Patrick Comerford

Saturday 23 April 2011 (Holy Saturday):

Whitechurch Parish, Rathfarnham Co Dublin.

Reading 3: John 19: 38-42.

Reflection 3: TS Eliot, Journey of the Magi (1927).

We have just been considering how Candlemas is a link, a bridge between Christmas and Easter, between birth and death.

The same link between birth and death can be found in the Feast of the Epiphany, although it first it may be difficult to contemplate because of the way we have conflated our celebrations of Christmas and Epiphany.

The link, of course, has been popularised in folklore and popular celebrations through our notions of the Twelve Days of Christmas. But the link between Epiphany and Easter has been expressed poetically by TS Eliot in his poem, Journey of the Magi.

The Adoration of the Magi, by Peter Paul Rubens ... the Altarpiece in the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge

Eliot wrote this poem after his conversion to Christianity and his confirmation as an Anglican on 29 June 1927. The poem was published in 1930 in Ariel Poems, along with our earlier poem, A song for Simeon. Later, Eliot became churchwarden at Saint Stephen’s in Gloucester Road, London, and he remained a lifelong Anglo-Catholic.

The Journey of the Magi is a truly Anglican poem, for the first five lines are based on the 1622 Nativity Sermon of Bishop Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), who oversaw the translation and publication of the Authorised Version of the Bible 400 years ago in 1611, and who is buried by the High Altar in Southwark Cathedral.

It was Lancelot Andrewes who summarised Anglicanism in the dictum “One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general councils, five centuries and the series of Fathers in that period … determine the boundary of our faith.”

The Adoration of the Magi ... a window by Meyers of Munich in the south transept of Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

In his sermon on the Epiphany at Christmas 1622, “Of the wise men come from the East,” Andrewes opens with the words:

“It was no summer progress. A cold coming they had of it at this time of the year, just the worst time of the year to take a journey, and specially a long journey in. The ways deep, the weather sharp, the days short, the sun farthest off, in solstitio brumali, ‘the very dead of winter’.”

Eliot’s poem recalls the journey of Magi to Bethlehem from the point of view of one of the Wise Men. It picks up his consistent theme of alienation and a feeling of powerlessness in a world that has changed.

But, instead of a being a celebration of the wonders of the journey, the wise man in the poem recalls a journey that was painful and tedious. He remembers how a tempting, distracting voice was constantly whispering in their ears on that journey that “this was all folly.”

At first, it appears, the Wise Man from the East was not impressed by the new-born infant. But he came to realise that the incarnation changes everything, and he asks:

were we led all that way for
Birth or Death?

On the journey, they saw “three trees against a low sky” – a vision of the future Crucifixion. The Incarnation points to Cross. Without Good Friday and Easter Day, Christmas has no significance for us at all. The birth of Christ leads to the death of old superstitions and old orders.

The “running stream” may refer to the Baptism of Christ by John the Baptist in the River Jordan, which is an Epiphany moment.

The “six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver” recall both the betrayal of Christ by Judas for 30 pieces of silver, and the dice thrown for Christ’s garment at the foot of the cross.

The empty wineskins recall the miracle at the Wedding in Cana, which is also recalled at Epiphany time.

The early morning descent into a “temperate valley” evokes three significant Christian events: the nativity and the dawning of a new era; the empty tomb of Easter; and the Second Coming and the return of Christ from the East, dispelling darkness as the Sun of Righteousness.

In his old age, as he recalls these events, has the now-elderly Wise Man little left to do apart from waiting for his own death? A witness of historical change, does he manage to rise above his historical moment? With his material wealth and prestige, has he lost his spiritual bearings? Or has he had spiritual insights before his time?

The Adoration of the Magi ... a stained glass window in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Journey of the Magi – T.S. Eliot

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

King’s College, Cambridge ... John Rutter says the ideals of beauty and calm reverence he associates with King’s Choir “represent inspiration and hope in an often heart-breakingly cruel and disordered world” (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Music 3: Pie Jesu, John Rutter, the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, 3’ 32”.

Four our final musical reflection this evening, I invite us to listen to Pie Jesu, from John Rutter’s Requiem, and sung by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, directed by Stephen Cleobury and accompanied by the City of London Sinfonia.

The English composer John Rutter says the ideals of beauty and calm reverence he associates with King’s Choir “represent inspiration and hope in an often heart-breakingly cruel and disordered world.”

He has been director of music at Clare College, Cambridge, and is the founder of the Cambridge Singers. His compositions are chiefly choral, and include Christmas carols, anthems and extended works such as a Gloria, a Magnificat, and a Requiem. He is known in many circles in this country for his arrangement of the Wexford Carol.

Unlike most of Rutter’s work up to this point, his Requiem was not commissioned – a personal bereavement was the immediate reason for writing it.

Rutter’s Requiem was completed in 1985 and lasts about 40 minutes. It is a lyrical choral piece with an orchestral accompaniment, and contains many dissonant chords. Three of the pieces were written specially for King’s, and the full Requiem was first performed in 1985 in Dallas, Texas; movements 1, 2, 4, and 7 had been performed earlier in Sacramento, California. Rutter conducted both performances. The Lord is my Shepherd was first written in 1976 as a separate anthem.

The first movement consists of the Introit from the Requiem Mass (Requiem aeternam) and the Kyrie. The second movement, Out of the Deep, is based on Psalm 130, often used at Anglican funerals.

The third movement is the motet Pie Jesu. It begins with a lyrical soprano soloist singing with a very light accompaniment, with only a slight involvement by the chorus echoing the words: “Dona eis requiem, Dona eis sempiternam requiem.”

Pie Jesu is a motet derived from the final couplet of the Dies Irae and it is often included in musical settings of the Requiem Mass and funerals. Requiems by Cherubini, Fauré, Duruflé, Rutter, Jenkins and others include a Pie Jesu as an independent movement. Of all these, by far the best known is Pie Jesu from Fauré’s Reuiem. Saint-Saens said of it: “Just as Mozart’s is the only Ave verum corpus, this is the only Pie Jesu.”

The original text, derived from the Dies Irae sequence, is:

Pie Jesu Domine,
dona eis requiem,
dona eis requiem.

Pie Jesu Domine,
dona eis requiem sempiternam

Kind Lord Jesus,
grant them rest,
grant them rest.

Kind Lord Jesus,
grant them everlasting rest.

Later, Rutter composed his Mass of the Children after the sudden death of his son, Christopher, while he was a student at Clare College, Cambridge – where Rutter himself had studied.

He describes the Pie Jesu in his Requiem as a personal prayer to Christ. He translates the Latin text as:

Blessed Lord Jesus, grant them rest.
Blessed Lord Jesus, grant them eternal rest.

And so, we listen to our final piece of music this evening knowing that we can take our rest in Christ, who died, was buried, and rose again.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This is the third of three reflections for a service of readings, meditations, art poetry and music at the grave on Holy Saturday, 23 April 2011, in Whitechurch Parish, Rathfarnham, Co Dublin.

Waiting at the tomb on Holy Saturday (2)

The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, Andrea Mantegna, 1460, Staatliche Museen, Berlin

Patrick Comerford

Saturday 23 April 2011 (Holy Saturday):

Whitechurch Parish, Rathfarnham Co Dublin.

Reading 2: Matthew 27: 3-10.

Reflection 2: TS Eliot, A Song for Simeon (1928).

Our second painting this evening is The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, by Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506), a North Italian Renaissance painter, a student of Roman archaeology, and the son-in-law of Jacopo Bellini. The painting, painted by Mantegna in 1460, in tempera on wood, is 67 x 86 cm, and is now in the Staatliche Museen in Berlin.

Mantegna was born near Padua, but later worked in Verona, Mantua and Rome, and perhaps in Venice and Florence too. He died in Mantua in 1506. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective. For example, he lowered his horizons to create a sense of greater monumentality. His flinty, metallic landscapes and his somewhat stony figures show an almost sculptural approach to painting.

Andrea Mantegna, The Dead Christ (1490)

His The Dead Christ, painted thirty years after his Presentation, in 1490, and now in Milan, may have later influenced Hans Holbein’s painting, The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, which we have been looking at this evening, and shocked those who first saw it because of its brutal realism, achieved by foreshortening.

The subject of this earlier painting, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, is the story found in Luke 2: 22-40, where Mary and Joseph bring the Christ Child to the Temple in Jerusalem 40 days after his birth to dedicate him to God, according to the religious laws and traditions of the day.

As they brought the Christ Child to the Temple, they met Simeon, who had been promised “he should not see death before he had seen the Messiah of the Lord” (Luke 2: 26). In the Anglican tradition, we continue to use Simeon’s prayer in Evening Prayer and Choral Evensong as the Canticle Nunc Dimittis.

In his prophecy about the Christ Child, Simeon said this child would be a light for revelation to the nations. The prophetess Anna, who was in the Temple too, also offered her prayers and thanks to God when she saw the Child Jesus. But Simeon also warned Mary that a sword would pierce her heart.

In the Church calendar, this Gospel story is recalled on 2 February, the Feast of Candlemas, the feast that moves us from Epiphany to Lent – that bridges the seasons of Christmas and Easter.

I cannot help but hold together the twin images provided from Simeon’s words to the Mary who cradled the Christ Child in her arms as she brought him to the Temple and the same Mary who cradles the Man Christ in her arms when is taken down from the cross.

I cannot look at Mantegna’s painting of the Presentation, or a similar, contemporary painting in Venice by his brother-in-law, Giovanni Bellini, without thinking too of Michelangelo’s Pieta.

Michelangelo’s Pieta in Saint Peter’s Basilica, completed almost 40 years after Mantegna’s Presentation

In Mantegna’s painting of the Presentation, Simeon is handing the Christ Child back to Mary, wrapped in the swaddling clothes that look like the grave clothes in which is body is wrapped after the Crucifixion, the shroud that is pointed to by the middle finger of the dead Christ in Holbein’s painting.

In Mantegna’s painting, Mary holds and caresses the Christ Child, giving him a gentle kiss, just as she later holds his body taken down from the cross, gently weeping over him.

The Mary that must have wondered about the meaning of Simeon’s prophecies and promises about her son is soon reduced to weeping over his dead body.

How could she have known that death meant anything other than the end?

Could there be any hope after this?

We know there is. We live in the light of the Resurrection. The candles of Candlemas remind us why we have Christmas candles. There is no meaning to Christmas unless we understand the meaning of Good Friday. And Good Friday has no meaning unless we have Easter faith.

The Presentation of Christ in the Temple ... a stained glass window in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

That link between Christmas and Easter, enunciated by Simeon at Candlemas, is expressed with deep insight by TS Eliot (1888-1965) in his poem, A Song for Simeon, written in 1928, a year after he was baptised and confirmed an Anglican.

A Song for Simeon is spoken by an old man, the prophet Simeon in the Temple in Jerusalem. But Eliot also draws on a Christmas sermon in which Bishop Lancelot Andrewes spoke of: “Verbum infans, the Word without a word, the eternal Word not able to speak a word.” In Eliot’s words, the old man sees a faith that he cannot inhabit in “the still unspeaking and unspoken Word.”

There are several examples of prophetic imagery in A Song for Simeon:

Before the time of cords and scourges and lamentation …
Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow …

These refer to the scourging of Christ at his crucifixion and his mother weeping as he was crucified.

This poem starts with a winter scene:

Lord, the Roman’s hyacinths are blooming in the bowls and
The winter sun creeps by the snow hills;
The stubborn season had made stand.

In this poem, Eliot confines his comments on things of the past to four lines in the second stanza, and places his emphasis on the time that has been spent making an inner journey of faith:

I have walked many years in this city,
Kept faith and fast, provided for the poor,
Have given and taken honour and ease.

We are aware too, that Simeon is very old. He is hanging on, waiting for God’s promise, so that he can die:

My life is light, waiting for the death wind,
Like a feather on the back of my hand.

Three times in the poem, Simeon asks for peace. Is he referring to the peace that will come with his own death? Or the peace of Christ that passes all understanding? As Christians, we don’t believe that death is the end of our journey. Even before death, Eliot marks his baptism and confirmation as, if not the end of, then a triumph on, his spiritual journey. He has come to a place of faith, and now he is encouraged to continue on his spiritual journey.

The poem can be read as a song for Simeon to sing, or as a song to be sung for Simeon. We can imagine ourselves listening to Simeon’s prophetic voice, or imagine the voice of a poet singing on Simeon’s behalf or in his honour at a later age, from a viewpoint and with insights denied to Simeon himself.

In the Canticle Nunc Dimittis, the old Simeon in prayer in the Temple in Jerusalem prays: “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.” By contrast, Eliot’s speaker sings: “Lord, the Roman hyacinths are blooming in bowls.” This is not prayer at all. Instead, it sets an unexpected scene. The flowers, protected from the winter cold, are Roman, the property and pride of the pagans. Hyacinths were named after Hyacinthus, the youth killed by mistake by Apollo when his rival, Zephyrus, turned the flight of a discus.

The winter sun creeps by the snow hills as the speaker waits for the death wind. Pagan flowers and the pagan myth of a young man’s death flourish in the world of Eliot’s speaker and provide the language for speaking of life and death and life beyond.

Voices are heard from the Christian future, which the blind Simeon will not see. He is still waiting for the wind to blow, imagines only the death wind that will bear him away.

“Grant us thy peace” – the speaker evokes the Agnus Dei from the liturgy. Here we have a prayer for the peace that the Eucharist will offer, although Simeon will never share in the Eucharist.

In the first stanza, he tells of his own death.

In the second stanza, he speaks of the destruction of Jerusalem, decades later, by Rome’s armies. We are pointed towards New Testament images of the foxes that have holes, while the Son of Man has nowhere to rest; of the speaker’s descendants, in flight from Jerusalem from foreign faces and swords, and who will have to occupy the foxes’ homes.

In the third stanza, that flicker of light becomes a blaze of allusions. This Christ will tie cords to drive the traders from the Temple, will be whipped and scourged, and hear the lamentation of the weeping women of Jerusalem on the way to his death on a hill, above the “abomination of desolation,” and to his mother’s sorrow: Stabat mater dolorosa.

Simeon’s death is imminent, but far more is to come, for with the birth of this child a whole world is passing away, ages old and with no tomorrow.

In Nunc Dimittis, Simeon pleads: “Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.” But the word will be fulfilled in a faith and in an age that Eliot’s speaker can see only in prophecy.

Eliot capitalises “Thee” for the one and only time, as his speaker looks forward to the praise offered by the Church: “They shall praise Thee and suffer in every generation …”.

Simeon warns Mary: “A sword will pierce your own soul also.” But we might ask whether the heart, Eliot’s speaker says will be pierced is God’s own heart.

The weary speaker concludes by praying:

Let thy servant depart,
Having seen thy salvation.

At the very end of the poem, we seem to have arrived at the start of Nunc Dimittis. All that we have read so far is now seen in a new light, as a prelude to the canticle. The poet, now baptised, has the hope of a greater hope, having seen his salvation. He is tired of his former life, there is consolation as derision turns to glory. Baptised into the death of Christ, he has been born into new life.

The Presentation in the Temple ... a window by Catherine O’Brien of An Tur Glione in the south transept of Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

A Song for Simeon (TS Eliot)

Lord, the Roman hyacinths are blooming in bowls and
The winter sun creeps by the snow hills;
The stubborn season had made stand.
My life is light, waiting for the death wind,
Like a feather on the back of my hand.
Dust in sunlight and memory in corners
Wait for the wind that chills towards the dead land.

Grant us thy peace.
I have walked many years in this city,
Kept faith and fast, provided for the poor,
Have given and taken honour and ease.
There went never any rejected from my door.
Who shall remember my house, where shall live my children’s children
When the time of sorrow is come?
They will take to the goat’s path, and the fox’s home,
Fleeing from the foreign faces and the foreign swords.

Before the time of cords and scourges and lamentation
Grant us thy peace.
Before the stations of the mountain of desolation,
Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow,
Now at this birth season of decease,
Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,
Grant Israel’s consolation
To one who has eighty years and no to-morrow.

According to thy word.
They shall praise Thee and suffer in every generation
With glory and derision,
Light upon light, mounting the saints’ stair.
Not for me the martyrdom, the ecstasy of thought and prayer,
Not for me the ultimate vision.
Grant me thy peace.
(And a sword shall pierce thy heart,
Thine also).
I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me,
I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me.
Let thy servant depart,
Having seen thy salvation.

King’s College, Cambridge, King’s College Chapel and the corner of King’s Parade, Cambridge

Music 2: Nunc Dimittis, Herbert Howells, the Gloucester Service, the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, 4’ 35”.

Our second piece of music for reflection this evening is the Canticle Nunc Dimittis, from the Gloucester Service by Herbert Howells, and sung by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge.

Nunc Dimittis is the traditional Gospel Canticle of Night Prayer or Compline, just as Benedictus and Magnificat are the traditional Gospel Canticles of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer. And so, for Anglicans, Nunc Dimittis became a traditional canticle in Evening Prayer or Evensong in the Book of Common Prayer from 1662 on.

Settings for this canticle in the Anglican tradition include a plainchant theme by Thomas Tallis, and settings by William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Tomkins, Charles Villiers Stanford, Charles Wood and Herbert Howells.

The composer Herbert Howells (1892-1983) was born in Gloucestershire, and first studied the organ at Gloucester Cathedral with Sir Herbert Brewer, alongside Ivor Novello and Ivor Gurney. There he first met Ralph Vaughan Williams, who became his close friend and mentor. Howells later studied at the Royal School of Music under Stanford, Parry and Wood. During World War II, he was the acting organist at Saint John’s College, Cambridge.

His early upbringing inspired him to give the name The Gloucester Service to the service from which we hear this evening’s setting of this canticle. It was written in 1946, is richly nuanced and spiritually uplifting.

We listen to it this evening sung by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, conducted by Stephen Cleobury, recorded in 1991. The organist was the organ scholar, Christopher Hughes.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This is the second of three reflections for ‘A service of readings, meditations, art poetry and music at the grave’ on Holy Saturday, 23 April 2011, in Whitechurch Parish, Rathfarnham, Co Dublin.

Waiting at the tomb on Holy Saturday (1)

Hans Holbein the Younger (ca 1497-1543), The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb (ca 1521), Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel

Patrick Comerford

Saturday 23 April 2011 (Holy Saturday):

Whitechurch Parish, Rathfarnham Co Dublin.

Reading 1: Luke 16: 19-31.

Reflection 1: Hans Holbein the Younger, The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb (1521).

The German painter, Hans Holbein the Younger (ca 1497-1543), is best known for his portraits of Erasmus, Thomas More, Henry VIII and The Ambassadors, in which the cross is placed at the edge of the world.

He lived through the Reformation in Germany, Switzerland and England, and although he was relatively young when death came at the age of 49, his work is an important contribution to the beginning of modern art, with an almost photographic realism in his figures, in his perspective and in his use of colour.

His starkest and most gripping work is The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, the subject of our first reflection and meditation this evening as we think of Christ’s body laying in the tomb on this day, the day between his Crucifixion on Good Friday and his Resurrection on Easter Day.

Holbein the Younger was trained as a painter by his father, the German painter Hans Holbein the Elder (ca 1460-1524). At an early stage, Hans Holbein the Elder took his son to see Matthias Grünewald’s altar-piece in Isenheim, where Holbein the elder worked on a number of commissions.

By 1520, Hans Holbein the Younger was living in the Swiss city of Basel, at a time when the Lutheran Reformation was about to make a major impact on the life of the city.

Like many artists of the early Reformation period, he was fascinated with the macabre, and in common with the religious traditions of the 1520s, this work, The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, was intended to evoke piety.

Andrea Mantegna, The Dead Christ (1490)

Critics point out that this painting follows closely the intentions of Grünewald, who in his altar-piece in Isenheim set out to instil in the viewer feelings of both guilt and empathy. But Holbein may also have been influenced by Andrea Mantegna’s The Dead Christ (1490).

A 14th century Epitaphios in the Byzantine Museum in Thessaloniki

I am also inclined to believe too that the iconographic origins of this evening’s painting may be traced to Byzantine works, for in many ways Holbein has adapted to western styles the Orthodox iconography of the Epitaphios, the bier of Christ.

This painting, now on display in the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung in Basel in Switzerland, was painted by Holbein around 1521, at a time when the Lutheran Reformation was having a major impact in Basel. The painting is in oil and tempera on lime-wood, and is especially notable for its dramatic dimensions (30.5 cm x 200 cm).

It is said that Holbein used a body fished out of the Rhine as a model for this work. But we do not know his reasons for painting this work. Was it a predella for an altarpiece? Was it intended as a free-standing work? Was it made to fit in a sepulchral niche? We may wonder. But it is more wonderful to meditate on this work, and to think of what the artist was trying to get us to think about.

Above Hans Holbein’s ‘The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb’ angels bear a Latin inscription

Above the body, angels holding instruments of the Passion bear an inscription in brush on paper inscribed with the Latin words in capital letters: “Iesvs Nazarenvs. Rex. Iudaeorum” (“Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”). But the rest of the work is entirely naturalistic, relieved of any sacred symbols, and with no pointers to suggest the transcendent meaning of the event.

In the work itself, Holbein shows the dead Son of God after he has suffered the fate of an ordinary human. We have here a life-size, grotesque depiction of the stretched and unnaturally thin, decomposing body of Christ, lying in his tomb.

The French philosopher and atheist Michel Onfray admits that “entering this work is like entering a coffin to see what’s happening inside.”

Christ’s rigid limbs and his flesh, green and swollen around the wounds, indicate the start of the corruption of his body. His body is shown as long and emaciated. His face, hands and feet, as well as the wounds in his torso, are depicted as realistic dead flesh in the early stages of purification.

At first, all we see in a dead body, a corpse – motionless, as if so for all eternity. The bones of his body push against the flesh like spikes emphasising the hollowness of his ribcage. String-like muscles press against the lifeless yellow skin.

But look carefully at the face of Christ which is slightly tilted towards us. Onfray points to how his mouth and his eyes are stretched open. You might just be able to hear, at least in a virtual sense, the final breath. You might guess the presence of the Holy Spirit.

We see Christ seeing. We see what death has in store. He is staring at the heavens, while his soul is probably there already. “No-one has taken the trouble to close his mouth, or to close his eyes,” Onfray notices. “Or perhaps Holbein wants to tell us that, even in death, Christ still looks and speaks.

There are three signs that indicate that this body is body of the crucified Son of God: the wounds in his side, on his hand and on his foot.

There are no wounds on his forehead, no traces of the crown of thorns. Holbein paints the right side of Christ. His left side, the sinistra, is in the shadow of the tomb, in the shadow of death.

His hair spills over the stone block which has been covered with a white shroud. Oskar Batschmann and Pascal Griener suggest the strands of hair “look as if they are breaking through the surface of the painting.” His beard points up towards the low roof of this wooden, box-like tomb.

Christ’s right hand balances on the edge of the dishevelled shroud. Notice how the sign made by this hand is at the exact point that divides this work into two parts – right and left. All but his middle finger is curled inward and we can almost feel the pain the dying Christ felt as his life ebbed away.

Detail from Hans Holbein’s ‘The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb’ … is Christ’s middle finger pointing at the beholder, or pointing at his shroud?

Remarking on Holbein’s use of unflinching realism, Batschmann and Griener note that Christ’s raised, extended middle finger appears to “reach towards the beholder.”

Yes, the middle finger is outstretched, and the other fingers folded back into the palm. But could this be mistaken for a vulgar gesture?

Within traditional allegorical configuration, each finger has meaning. The hand represents the soul, the principle of life, while the fingers are used for spiritual exercises: the thumb, to give thanks; the index finger, to strive to reach the light; the ring finger, for suffering and regret, the little finger, to offer, to propose, to show, to present; and the middle finger, to examine, to weigh, a lesson in edification.

The extended middle finger in Holbein’s painting, at the epicentre of this work, is saying to us: “Look and conclude: examine.”

Examine what?

The middle finger acts as the punctum of the painting, the very tip, the flesh of the finger, marked by the nail like invisible writing.

It is the fingers of William Blake’s Ancient of Days pointing to the mystery of creation; it is the Finger of God pointing to humanity in Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel.

This is this painting’s lesson. And for Onfray, Christ’s finger is pointing to his shroud, saying: “See this shroud, it is the sign of the death of death if, and only if, you live as a penitent Christian, imitate the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

For five centuries, the painting has fascinated and captivated. The Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky was totally overwhelmed on first seeing it in 1867, so much so that his wife had to drag him away, fearing its grip on her husband might induce an epileptic fit. She wrote that he could never forget the sensation he experienced gazing at the painting, which continued to haunt him.

Two years later, Dostoevsky wrote The Idiot (1869), in which he refers to this painting many times. He thought it posed a terrible threat to faith in Christ, and Prince Myshkin, having viewed the painting in the home of Rogozhin, declares that it has the power to make the viewer lose his faith.

Yet, the Cambridge-educated writer and popular historian Derek Wilson, who has written a biography of Holbein and more recently a study of the King James Bible to mark its four-hundredth anniversary, says: “No other picture expresses more eloquently the faith of the Reformation, the Christocentric faith of many humanists, the faith of those for whom the Bible has become a living book.”

Later, we shall reflect on the death of Christ through the poetry of TS Eliot. At the end of East Coker, the second of his Four Quartets, Eliot says:

Home is where one starts from …
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter ...
…
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
… In my end is the beginning.

As I look at this painting of Christ I am reminded too of Eliot’s words at the end of Little Gidding, the last of his Four Quartets:

What call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from ...
…
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
…
And all shall we well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are infolded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

The shroud has been folded for the past twenty centuries, but this fabric still speaks today. Even in death, Christ still speaks today. Contrary to the impression this painting made on Dostoevsky, this work is far from the product of an atheistic mind. Rather, it is intended to convey the message of belief, that from the decay of the tomb Christ rose in glory on the third day.

Lichfield Cathedral … the Lichfield Cathedral Choir, directed by Philip Scriven, with Martyn Rawles on the organ, recorded Mozart’s ‘Ave verum corpus’ at Lichfield Cathedral in 2008 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Music 1: Ave verum corpus, words 14th century, music: WA Mozart (1791), sung by Lichfield Cathedral Choir, 2’ 59”:

As we think about Christ’s body in the grave, on that slab, on that shroud, we listen to our first piece of music, Mozart’s Ave verum corpus. The title of the hymn, Ave verum corpus, means “Hail, true body,” and is said to have originated in a poem first found in a 14th-century manuscript from the Abbey of Reichenau on the shores of Lake Constance.

As a hymn it has been attributed to Pope Innocent III, Pope Innocent IV, and Pope Innocent VI, and during the Middle Ages it was sung at the elevation of the host at the Eucharist following the words of institution.

This short hymn that has been set to music by many composers, including Mozart, William Byrd, Franz Liszt, Saint-Saens, Sir Edward Elgar, and many others.

This evening we listen to Mozart’s setting, composed in 1791, shortly before he died, for the celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi in the church in Baden, south of Vienna.

The Latin words are:

Ave verum corpus, natum
de Maria Virgine,
vere passum, immolatum
in cruce pro homine,
cuius latus perforatum
fluxit aqua et sanguine:
esto nobis praegustatum
in mortis examine.
O Iesu dulcis, O Iesu pie, O Iesu, fili Mariae.
Miserere mei. Amen.

In English, the hymn says:

Hail, true body, born
of the Virgin Mary,
who having truly suffered, was sacrificed
on the cross for mankind,
whose pierced side
flowed with water and blood:
May it be for us a foretaste [of the Heavenly banquet]
in the trial of death.
Oh dear Jesus, Oh merciful Jesus, Oh Jesus, son of Mary,
have mercy on me. Amen.

The version I invite you to listen to is sung by Lichfield Cathedral Choir, directed by Philip Scriven, with Martyn Rawles on the organ, and recorded at Lichfield Cathedral in 2008.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This is the first of three reflections for ‘A service of readings, meditations, art poetry and music at the grave’ on Holy Saturday, 23 April 2011, in Whitechurch Parish, Rathfarnham, Co Dublin.