Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is a time for reflection, repentance, renewal and reimagination

An Atlantic sunset seen near Milltown Malbay, Co Clare … Rosh Hashanah is a time for ‘Crossing the Bridge from the Particular to the Universal’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish New Year 5787, begins at sunset tomorrow evening (Friday 11 September 2026) and continues until nightfall on Sunday (13 September 2026).

Rosh Hashanah (ראש השנה‎) literally means ‘head of the year’. According to Jewish tradition, this holiday commemorates the creation of humanity and serves as a day of divine judgment. It is the first of the High Holy Days and begins the Ten Days of Repentance, culminating in Yom Kippur.

Rosh Hashanah is marked on the first two days of Tishrei, the seventh month in the Hebrew calendar. The central ritual is the sounding of the shofar or ram’s horn, and festive meals feature symbolic foods representing hopes for a sweet new year.

Rosh Hashanah is a time of introspection and atonement. The central theme and practice not only of Rosh Hashanah, but of the entire autumn holiday season, is teshuvah (תְּשׁוּבָה), a word commonly translated as ‘repentance’ but that more literally means ‘return’ or ‘turn around’.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the holiday that follows 10 days later, are intensely focused on teshuvah. Yom Kippur, which follows, begins at sunset on Sunday 20 September 2026 and ends at nightfall on Monday 21 September 2026. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holiest and most solemn day in the Jewish calendar, and marks the peak of the High Holidays.

Many Jews see this as a time to make amends or apologise to those they have wronged in the past year and resolve to do better in the year about to begin. One of the common practices of Rosh Hashanah is attending synagogue services and hearing the blowing of the shofar, or ram’s horn, the central mitzvah of the holiday. Another well-known practice is the Tashlich (תשליך) service, in which sins are symbolically cast into a natural body of running water.

The foods most associated with Rosh Hashanah are apples and honey, eaten as an expression of hope for a sweet new year. There is also a tradition of eating other symbolic foods at Rosh Hashanah meals, including pomegranates, dates, leeks and a fish head – all symbolic of a wish for the year to come.

On the second night of Rosh Hashanah it is customary to eat a new fruit, a symbol of newness. It is also customary to have big feasts on both nights of Rosh Hashanah and the many customary dishes include honey cake, brisket and tzimmes.

The traditional greeting on Rosh HaShanah is ‘shanah tovah umtukah’ (שָׁנָה טוֹבָה וּמְתוּקָה‎) which means ‘may you have a good and sweet new year’. This greeting is often shortened to ‘shanah tovah’ (שָׁנָה טוֹבָה‎), ‘a good year’.

A more formal greeting is ‘L’shanah tovah tikateivu v’teichateimu’ (לְשָׁנָה טוֹבָה תִּכָּתְבוּ וְתֵחָתֵמוּ‎), which means ‘a good year, and may you be inscribed and sealed (for blessing in the Book of Life)’. Another greeting is ‘tizku l'shanim rabot’ (תזכו לשנים רבות‎), which means ‘may you merit many years’.

Some people say ‘chag sameach’ (חג שמח‎), but strictly speaking chag sameach should only be on the three pilgrimage festivals, Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot.

Another traditional greeting for Ashkenazi Jews on both Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur is a Yiddish greeting, ‘gut yontif,’ ‘good holiday’. Sephardic Jews may offer a greeting in Ladino, ‘anyada bueno, dulse, i alegre’, ‘may you have a good, sweet, and happy new year.’

The foods associated with Rosh Hashanah, including apples, honey, pomegranates and dates, express hopes for a sweet new year

Yolanda Savage-Narva is the former vice president of Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (REDI) for the Union for Reform Judaism in the US. For more than 20 years, she worked with Tribal governments to strengthen public health systems, promoted pedestrian safety and advocacy, coining the phrase ‘walking is a civil right’ and worked on health equity. More recently, she was the executive director with Operation Understanding DC, promoting understanding, cooperation, and respect while fighting to eradicate racism, antisemitism and discrimination.

In a reflection written last year for Rosh HaShanah, she talked about the period between Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, as a timely opportunity for renewal, reflection, and repentance: ‘It gives us a chance to repair ourselves through tikkun atzmi by embracing the particular, so that we can do our part of repairing the world, tikkun olam by embracing the universal.’

She wrote how, as a Jew, she found herself yearning for the opportunity for reflection, repentance, renewal, and reimagination. She continued: ‘There are so many injustices in the world that I cannot point to just one or create a hierarchy in my heart about which atrocity is more inhumane’.

As a resident of Washington DC, she said, she has a front row seat to an occupied territory: ‘People of Latinx descent are afraid to leave their homes for fear of being captured like wild animals and shipped off to a country they know nothing about. As a resident of the United States, I am witnessing with horror the dismantling of every system imaginable: public health access; environmental protections; transportation infrastructure; and so many other initiatives that serve to protect the most marginalised in our society; the continued daily scourge of racism; the rise of antisemitism and all forms of hatred; and the rule of law are all in question. As a global citizen, I am watching with hopelessness and despair the continued loss of life from Gaza to Haiti to Ukraine and places in between.’

She asked how Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur could be used to think about how we contribute to the universal idea of the Divine spark in every human being: ‘How do we ensure that every human being knows and understands that this soil (our Earth) belongs to all of us and is our rightful home?’

She went on to make four suggestions:

‘First, we REFLECT by going inward. We explore those places inside of ourselves that have gone unchallenged. We commit, as individuals, to being a part of the universe that will bring justice and liberation. We must look into the mirror, challenge our assumptions and our biases, and add tools to our toolbox that will help us understand that the choices we make as individuals impact the sum of us.

‘Second, we REPENT. We learn from our mistakes and account for any harm we have had a hand in. We don’t stay there, but we do acknowledge what we have done to be hurtful, to not be helpful, when we could or should have.

‘Third, we RENEW by embracing the darkness. Darkness does not mean bad or evil in the way we have been taught by those that teach things. I see darkness as an opportunity for true transformation, true growth, true nourishment. What truly happens in darkness – at night we sleep, replenishing our body and mind, we collect our memories and store them for a future time. The soil provides nutrients that make things grow, a black hole; objects are transformed in a way that, if they could come back out, they would be different.

‘Fourth, we REIMAGINE. In the words of Muhammad Ali, “If the heart can conceive it, the mind can achieve it.” We are building from the ground up. There are a few things that we will be able to rebuild and most certainly will not be the same. Embrace the opportunity to reimagine and rebuild.’

In preparation for the High Holy Days, she implored readers not merely to read or hear the words from ancient text, but to ‘allow the words to embody our spirits and awaken our souls to the fact that, although we act as individuals, we are inextricably bound together to serve and honour all of humanity.’

She concluded: ‘The core Jewish principle from the Talmud that calls Jews to realise that, if we save one person, it is as if we have saved the world is fundamental. If we are all doing our part to save one person, we are, in fact, saving the world. When we see each individual soul as being made in the Divine Image (b’tzelem Elohim), we are embracing and crossing the bridge from the individual (particular) and the universal (all of humanity).’

The late Chief Rabbi, Lord (Jonathan Sacks), writing about Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, said: ‘Those who fully engage in the spirit of Rosh Hashanah emerge into the new year charged, energised, focussed, renewed, knowing that to be a Jew is to live life in the Presence of God, to sanctify life for the sake of God, and to enhance the lives of others – for where we bring blessings into other lives, there God lives.’

Walking by the shore by Giudecca in Venice … Rosh Hashanah is an opportunity for reflection, repentance, renewal, and reimagination (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The masks of Venice, in a time of quarantine and pandemic, exploring the old and new

Sitting by the Grand Canal on a balcony in the Hotel San Cassiano in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The city of Venice has been celebrating the 1600th anniversary of its founding. The celebrations began on 25 March 2021, and continue until at least 25 March 2022, highlighting the history, the culture and the qualities that have made Venice the unique place it is.

Tradition claims the first stone of the Church of San Giacomo di Rialto (also known as San Giacométo), was laid on 25 March 421, making it the oldest church in Venice. Historians, of course, do not agree on an exact date. But, from an early date, people were moving in and out of the Lagoon, and these first settlers were joined by people fleeing the Italian mainland and the attacks of the Barbarians.

I was back in Venice at the end of the year, celebrating some anniversaries and family milestones. Venice is celebrated for its elaborate and exotic masks during Carnival, in the weeks before Lent. But in those weeks immediately before Advent, everyone was wearing a facebmask, on the waterbuses, in the squares and narrow alley ways, in shops and even on gondolas.

***

Northern Italy was one of the first parts in Europe to suffer the dire consequences of letting the pandemic go unchecked. Venice is also the city that gives us the word ‘quarantine’ at a time of plague. The word quarantena in the Venetian dialect means ‘forty days.’ Between 1348 and 1359, the Black Death wiped out about 30% of the population of Europe. To prevent the spread of plague-related diseases, ships and people arriving in Venice spent 40 days in isolation to prevent the spread of plague-related diseases.

This was probably my sixth or seventh time to return to Venice. In mid-November, the tourists seem to be few in number, and it almost seemed we had the canals and the lagoon to ourselves. This time, I was staying in the Hotel San Cassiano, housed in the Ca’ Favretto, home of the 19th-century painter Giacomo Favretto.

The hotel is in the Santa Croce district, just a few minutes’ walk from the Rialto Bridge and market. Each morning and each evening, we sat on the balcony enjoying our own intimate views of the Grand Canal.

We visited Saint Mark’s once again, dined near Rialto Bridge, and spent a lengthy afternoon in the Ghetto. But in a city as old as this, no matter how familiar anyone may be with its sites, it is always good to visit somewhere new, and so we used our tickets on vaporetti to do some island hopping in the Lagoon.

A winter stroll on the beach on the Lido of Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Lunch on the Lido
with Byron and Goethe

One morning, we caught a vaporetto from Zattere, near Saint Mark’s Square, to the Lido, a long and narrow island, a thin strip of land, 11 km long and hardly 1 km wide, sheltering the city from the Adriatic Sea. Its beauty is celebrated in the poetry of Byron and Goethe, yet it is often missed by tourists.

The Lido is home to about 20,400 people and the Venice Film Festival takes place there in August and September. It developed in the 19th century as a tourist resort, with many 19th century villas in the Liberty style – the Italian version of Art Nouveau – and many grand hotels.

Arriving on the Lido, the first landmark seen by most visitors is the large green copper dome of Tempio Votivo, a war memorial built in 1925-1935 and designed by the architect Giuseppe Torres. This is the last major religious building in the lagoon, built to give thanks that Venice escaped World War I without major damage, especially during the bombing on 27 February 1918.

The graves in the new Jewish cemetery on Lido include the family of Adolfo Ottolenghi, Chief Rabbi of Venice, who was murdered in Auschwitz (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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During our morning on the Lido, we walked along the beach and visited the churches and the cemeteries. The old Jewish cemetery is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe and is a jewel of medieval art. It dates from 1386, when the Republic of Venice granted the Jewish community a small plot of uncultivated land.

The graves include those of the poet Sarah Coppio Sullam and leading figures in the cultural life of the ghetto in the 16th and 17th centuries. Elaborate sarcophagi from the 18th century, are more ornate in their decoration, decorated with rampant lions or crowned eagles, the seven-branched menorah, the Lion of Judah, Jacob’s ladder, ram’s horns and palm trees.

The graves in the new Jewish cemetery, which opened nearby at the end of the 18th century, include the family of Adolfo Ottolenghi (1885-1944), Chief Rabbi of Venice (1919-1944), who was murdered in Auschwitz, and Michelangelo Jesurum (1843-1909), the founder of lace manufacturing in Venice and Burano.

After a walk on the beach, we strolled back along the main street of Lido, Viale Santa Maria Elisabetta, known to everyone as Gran Viale. The street crosses the whole island, from the vaporetto stop to the sea. It is a mere 1 km in width, and is lined with hotels, shops and restaurants, and we had lunch on a quiet, but sun-kissed winter afternoon.

Ballet poms on the grave of the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev on Cimitero, the cemetery island of San Michele (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Among the living and
the dead on Cimitero

If the two Jewish cemeteries on the Lido are known to few tourists or visitors to Venice, I am sure too that few stop off at Cimitero, the cemetery island of San Michele, despite its proximity to the glass-making island of Murano.

If San Michele is not crowded by living tourists, it is certainly crowded by dead Venetians. Cimitero has been Venice’s cemetery since the early 1800s, when the occupying Napoleonic forces told the Venetians to start taking their dead across the water instead of burying them in Venice itself. There was a growing shortage of burial places in Venice, but it was also in the name of hygiene, and because of fear of the return of modern plagues.

Cimitero, with a large number of cypress trees and enclosed within high terracotta walls, was originally the two islets of San Michele and San Cristoforo della Pace, and the Monastery of Saint Michael (San Michele di Murano) was a centre of learning and printing. The monks there included the famous cartographer, Fra Mauro, who drew maps for European explorers.

The large church on the island, the Chiesa di San Michele in Isola, built in 1469, was the first Renaissance church in Venice and the first to be faced in white Istrian stone. But the monastery was suppressed under Napoleon, the monks were expelled in 1814, the two small islands became Venice’s major cemetery.

At one time, coffins were carried to the island on special funeral gondolas. The cemetery is wide and calm, with a series of large gardens, studded with cypress trees and cluttered with hundreds of thousands of tombs and graves. Some are lavishly monumental, with domes and sculptures and wrought-iron gates; many more are stacked high in modern terraces, like filing cabinets.

The graves of the writer Ezra Pound (right) and the violinist Olga Rudge (left), side-by-side (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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There are two smaller, separate graveyards for other Christians. In contrast to the formal, tended graves and gardens of graves in other parts of the cemetery, the Greci and Protestant sections have an atmosphere of rustic decay. Some tombstones are covered in moss, a few are leaning over, and some are collapsing.

The graves in the Greci or Greek Orthodox cemetery include the composer Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) and the Russian ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929). Venice has always had a sizeable Greek population, and here too are the graves of bishops, merchants and refugees who fled Smyrna in the 1920s.

In the Evangelisti or Protestant graveyard, we found the graves of the American poet, critic and fascist collaborator, Ezra Pound (1885-1972), who influenced the work of TS Eliot, James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway. Buried beside Pound is his mistress, the violinist Olga Rudge (1895-1996).

Here too are the graves of the Russian and American poet and essayist Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996), and the German painter August Wolf (1842-1915). Another gravestone is of Edward Douglas Guinness (1893-1983), a member of the banking branch of the family and a partner in Guinness Mahon.

Dusk turning to darkness on Giudecca, often described as ‘the real Venice’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Dusk on Giudecca,
‘the real Venice’

As dusk turned to darkness one evening, we strolled through the island of Giudecca, described by some travel writers as ‘the real Venice,’ and visited the landmark church of Il Redentore, designed by the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio (1508-1580).

Il Redentore is one of the pinnacles of Palladio’s career, and inside there is a rich collection of paintings, including works by Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese and Francesco Bassano.

The church was built in thanksgiving for the deliverance of Venice from a major outbreak of the plague in 1575-1576, when 46,000 people, or 25% to 30% of the population) died.

Canaletto painted the church many times, and every year the doge and senators walked across a specially built pontoon bridge from the Zattere to Giudecca to attend Mass in the church. The Festa del Redentore remains a major festival in Venice.

Venice is 1,600 years old, but it never goes out of date, and there is always something old and something new to uncover or discover.

Reflections on a vaporetto on the Grand Canal (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This two-page feature as first published in the Church Review (Dublin and Glenadlough) in January 2022

Praying in Ordinary Time 2021: 177, I Gesuati, Zattere, Venice

I Gesuati, the prominent church on the Fondamenta delle Zattere … covered in cladding and scaffolding at present (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the last week of Ordinary Time, the week before Advent. Before a busy day and a busy week begins, I am taking some time early this morning for prayer, reflection and reading.

Each morning in the time in the Church Calendar known as Ordinary Time, I have been reflecting in these ways:

1, photographs of a church or place of worship;

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

My theme on this prayer diary this week is seven more churches in Venice. Earlier in this prayer diary, I illustrated my morning reflections with images from churches in Venice: Saint Mark’s Basilica (20 June), Salute (21 June), Torcello (22 June), San Giorgio Maggiore (23 June), San Geremia (24 June), Santa Sofia (25 June) and San Michele and churches on Murano and Burano (26 June). While I was in Venice this month, I reflected on the synagogues in the Ghetto in Venice (7-13 November)

As part of my reflections and this prayer diary this week, I am looking at seven more churches I visited in Venice earlier this month. This theme continues this morning (22 November 2021) with photographs from I Gesuati, the prominent church on the Fondamenta delle Zattere, facing across the Giudecca Canal to Palladio’s great church of Il Redentore.

Inside Santa Maria del Rosario (Saint Mary of the Rosary), commonly known as ‘I Gesuati’ … designed by Giorgio Massari (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The Fondamenta delle Zattere is a long dock in the Dorsoduro area of Venice, overlooking the Giudecca Canal and looking across to the island of Giudecca and Palladio’s masterpiece, Il Redentore, which I described yesterday.

The pavement along the waterfront was completed in 1516, and stretches for 1.7 km, from San Basilio in the west to Punta della Dogana in east.

Zattere literally means rafts. One theory connects the name of Zattere to a naval battle in the year 810 between Venice and the Frankish army of Pepin, son of Charlemagne. The Venetians used flat boats as rafts and attracted the enemy into shallow waters. The boats of the Franks got stuck, became easy targets, and were defeated. The victory marked the complete independence of the Serene Republic, and so the Fondamenta delle Zattere received its name.

A second, less romantic theory, links the name to the use of this long coastline as the original point of arrival of goods such as salt, coal and wood, on rafts.

The Fondamenta delle Zattere is now a beautiful promenade with bars, restaurants and ice cream parlours. It is usually peaceful and sunny, with a panoramic view of the Giudecca Canal.

Santa Maria del Rosario (Saint Mary of the Rosary), commonly known as I Gesuati, is an 18th-century Dominican church on Fondamenta delle Zattere. The classical style building has a well-lit interior and is exceptional in preserving its original layout and Rococo decoration intact.

When I visited earlier this month, the church exterior was covered in cladding and scaffolding. But, inside the church is rich with sculpture and paintings, mainly created in a 30-year period. Building work began in 1725, the church was consecrated in 1743, and the last sculptural decoration was in place by 1755.

The church takes its name not from the Jesuits but from the Jesuates, a religious order formally known as the Clerici apostolici Sancti Hieronymi. They were founded in Siena in the 14th century and were presenct in Venice by 1390. The members were known as I poveri Gesuati (‘the poor Jesuates’) because they frequently called on the name of Jesus.

Despite their supposed poverty, the Jesuates acquired some wealth from donations and legacies and from privileges granted by the state, including a monopoly on the distillation of wine.

They began building a small church on land fronting the Zattere in 1493. The church was originally dedicated to Saint Jerome (San Girolamo) and later to Santa Maria della Visitazione (Saint Mary of the Visitation) and became known as the Church of the Visitation.

The order went into decline, however, and was suppressed by Pope Clement IX in 1668. A year later, their property was acquired by the Dominicans, who moved into the church in 1670.

The Dominicans decided by 1720 to build a new and larger church and first commissioned the architect Andrea Musato. But he died in 1721, and the new church was designed by Giorgio Massari, described as ‘the greatest Venetian architect of the first half of the 18th century’.

Massari’s design was inspired by his famous predecessors, in particular Palladio. The façade of the church was derived from the central portion of the façade of San Giorgio Maggiore, while the basic idea for the interior came from the Redentore.

The first stone was laid on 17 May 1726 in the presence of the Patriarch, Marco Gradenigo, the church was consecrated on 29 September 1743 and the work was finished with the completion of the last statue in 1755.

To support the weight of the façade, 270 piles had to be driven into the soil. Giant Corinthian pilasters support a heavy triangular pediment. The main entrance door, surmounted by a curved pediment with an inscription above, is flanked by four niches with large statues representing the four cardinal virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance. These statues were the work of four sculptors, Gaetano Susali, Francesco Bonazza, Giuseppe Bernardi Torretto, and Alvise Tagliapietra, in 1736-1737.

The new church was embellished with the work of the best-known painters and sculptors of the day. The decoration of the interior began in 1736, 10 years after building started. The decoration of the ceiling was entrusted to Giovanni Battista Tiepolo in 1737, and it was completed by 1739.

The three frescos in the ceiling depict the Glory of Saint Dominic, the Apparition of the Virgin Mary to Saint Dominic, and Tiepolo’s masterpiece representing the Institution of the Rosary. Other paintings on the ceilings were designed by Tiepolo but painted with help from assistants.

The paintings and sculptures in the nave include works by Tiepolo, Tintoretto, Giambattista Piazzetta, Sebastiano Ricci, Stefano di Sant’Agnese and Giovanni Maria Morlaiter, described as ‘the most brilliant interpreter of the rococo in Venetian sculpture.’

The ceiling was decorated by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo in 1737-1739 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Luke 21: 1-4 (NRSVA):

1 He [Jesus] looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; 2 he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. 3 He said, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; 4 for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.’

Inside I Gesuati … the basic idea for the interior came from Palladio’s Redentore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (22 November 2021) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for the Zambia Anglican Council, who continue to pioneer gender justice efforts in Zambia.

Three Dominican saints – Saint Catherine of Siena (left), Saint Rose of Lima (right) and Saint Agnes of Montepulciano (seated), with the Virgin Mary – an oil painting on canvas by Tiepolo (1739), installed in the church in 1748 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Three Dominicans saints – Pope Pius V, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Saint Peter Martyr – by Sebastiano Ricci, the first work commissioned for the new building (1732-1733) and one of the last works of the artist, who died in 1734 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

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

Looking out on Zattere and the Giudecca Canal from I Gesuati on a winter evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Praying in Ordinary Time 2021: 176, Il Redentore, Venice

Il Redentore, the Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore, is Andrea Palladio’s great church on the waterfront on Giudecca (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

This morning, we enter the last week of Ordinary Time. Today is the Feast of Christ the King or the Sunday before Advent. Later this morning (21 November 2021), I hope to preach at Morning Prayer in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, and to preside and preach at the Parish Eucharist in Sant Brendan’s Church, Kilnaughtin (Tarbert), Co Kerry.

Each morning in the time in the Church Calendar known as Ordinary Time, I have been reflecting in these ways:

1, photographs of a church or place of worship;

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

My theme on this prayer diary this week is seven more churches in Venice. Earlier in this prayer diary, I illustrated my morning reflections with images from churches in Venice: Saint Mark’s Basilica (20 June), Salute (21 June), Torcello (22 June), San Giorgio Maggiore (23 June), San Geremia (24 June), Santa Sofia (25 June) and San Michele and churches on Murano and Burano (26 June). While I was in Venice this month, I reflected on the synagogues in the Ghetto in Venice (7-13 November)

As part of my reflections and this prayer diary this week, I look at seven more churches I visited in Venice earlier this month. This theme begins today (21 November 2021) with photographs from Il Redentore, Palladio’s great church on the island of Giudecca.

Inside the Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore or Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, known as Il Redentore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore (Church of the Most Holy Redeemer), known as Il Redentore, was designed by Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio (1508-1580). It stands on the waterfront of the Canale della Giudecca, and dominates the skyline of the island of Giudecca. Canaletto painted the church many times, and inside there is a rich collection paintings, including works by Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese and Francesco Bassano.

The church was built as a votive church in thanksgiving God for the deliverance of Venice from a major outbreak of the plague in 1575-1576, when 46,000 people, or 25% to 30% of the population) died.

The Senate of Venice commissioned Andrea Palladio to design the church. The Senate wanted a church on a square plan, but Palladio designed a single nave church with three chapels on either side

The prominent position of the church on the Canale della Giudecca provided Palladio with an opportunity to design a façade inspired by the Pantheon of Rome and enhanced by being placed on a wide plinth.

Palladio required 15 steps to reach the entrance, a direct reference to the Temple in Jerusalem. Palladio’s own hope was that ‘the ascent (of the faithful) will be gradual, so that the climbing will bring more devotion.’

The cornerstone was laid by the Patriarch of Venice, Giovanni Trevisano, on 3 May 1577 and the church was consecrated in 1592. At the urging of Pope Gregory XIII, the church was put in the charge of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, and a small number of Friars reside in the monastery attached to the church.

Every year, the doge and senators walked across a specially built pontoon bridge from the Zattere to Giudecca to attend Mass in the church. The Festa del Redentore remains a major festival in Venice, on the third Sunday in July. A huge firework display on the previous evening is followed by a mass procession across the pontoon bridge.

Il Redentore has one of the most prominent sites of any of Palladio’s buildings, and is one of the pinnacles of his career. It is a large, white building with a dome crowned by a statue of the Redeemer.

A central triangular pediment on the façade stands above a larger, lower one. Palladio applied rigorous geometric proportions to his façades and this is reflected in Il Redentore. The overall height is four-fifths that of its overall width, while the width of the central portion is five-sixths of its height.

It has been suggested that there are some oriental influences in the exterior, particularly the two campanili that resemble minarets.

As a pilgrimage church, the building was expected to have a long nave. This was a challenge for Palladio, and the result is an eclectic building, in which the white stucco and grey stone interior combines the nave with a domed crossing in spaces that are clearly articulated yet unified. An uninterrupted Corinthian order makes its way around the entire interior.

Il Redentore includes paintings by Francesco Bassano, Lazzaro Bastiani, Carlo Saraceni, Leandro Bassano, Palma the Younger, Jacopo Bassano, Francesco Bissolo, Rocco Marconi, Paolo Veronese, Alvise Vivarini and the workshop of Tintoretto.

The sacristy has a series of wax heads of Franciscans made in 1710.

The Ascension of Christ, by the workshop of Tintoretto (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

John 18: 33-37 (NRSVA):

33 Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ 34 Jesus answered, ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’ 35 Pilate replied, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?’ 36 Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’ 37 Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’

Inside Il Redentore, with a glimpse out to the Canale della Giudecca (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (21 November 2021, Christ the King) invites us to pray:

‘The Lord is King, he is robed in majesty.’
King of kings,
We wonder in Your majesty.
May we worship You
For evermore.

The Scourging of Christ, by the workshop of Tintoretto (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Il Redentore seen on the crossing of the Canale della Giudecca from the Zattere … the two campanili resemble minarets (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

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

The waterfront below the steps of Il Redentore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)