Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30 (Vigil) Patrick & Nora Lardner, (Anniv).
11.00: Teddi Molloy, (Anniv) & Bridget Lenihan (Month's Mind).
6.30: Martin Ryan, Abbeygate St., (Anniv.)

AS I WAS SAYING.....

The Galway Arts Festival kicks off tomorrow. The city will be like no other for the next two weeks, bursting at the seams with entertainment and life. I have referred more than once before to the great chasm that divides the artistic world from the ecclesiastical world.

For the first time ever, the Augustinian Church figures as a festival venue this year. It is entirely appropriate that this should happen. The church has been described as the "Mother of the Arts." The artists (especially -but not only- the visual artists) in several periods of western history did find the church to be a patron. Michelangelo was famously supported by popes and other princes of the church in the production of his greatest paintings. By the nineteenth century, however, patronized religious painting had become essentially trivialized. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation period saw a decline in the role of painting in the church. Protestant theology came to be defined in terms of confessions, and Roman Catholic theology, reacting as the "Counter-Reformation," came to define itself also in words in the form of defensive statements, such as the conciliar documents of Trent and subsequent councils.

In these circumstances, the artist was no longer permitted to contribute to religious imagination by the creative work of painting. Instead, his role was confined to that of a partisan propagandist. By the nineteenth century, religious art had become, by and large, 'official art' and had been reduced to the level of mere illustration. In effect, the Church turned its back on the artistic imagination.

However, God was not left without witnesses! The urge to create religious statements artistically did not end. The power of the gospel still gripped artists 'outside the system'. Consequently, a great body of 19th and 20th century religious art was produced outside official religious circles. Examples of this are to be found in the works of an outrageous character named Paul Gauguin. His "Jacob Wrestling With the Angel." is recognised as a work of great power. The scene is in a Breton field, and costumed maidens, with their characteristic bonnets, surround the field in which the angel wrestles with Jacob. Cows graze nearby in bucolic indifference. Gauguin painted himself in the right-hand corner, a witness to his own struggle. What are we to make of this? In the vivid brightness of a Breton summer day, Gauguin is saying that the decisive moment of faith happens wherever we live and work in our time, and not in some distant time, or in some 'holy space'. The Angel of the Lord wrestling with each of us Jacobs is not an abstract idea but a mundane event.

The painter is an artist who attempts to translate to canvas (or in some other medium) something of the power of his perception of the world. The painting may not have specifically religious to reveal something of the grandeur and misery of the human spirit. The story is told that someone seeing the famous French painter, Auguste Renoir, painting in a field, approached the painter and making small talk, asked, "With what do you mix your paints?" And the artist turned and said, "With brains, madame." The artist who paints religious themes in ways that are religiously powerful might well say, "I mix my paints with faith." But any artistic effort that uplifts the human spirit gives glory to God and pleasure to mankind. Enjoy the festival.

-Dick Lyng

12 BARS

12 bars with no one drinking,
you say you'll never find;
but when I tell you what I mean
perhaps you'll change your mind.

12 bars with no brass railing,
no shiny polished tops,
no tables or no glasses,
no swamper with their mops.

12 bars with no one dancing,
bathed in the tinted light
12 bars that make a lonely sober night.

12 bars with no one drinking,
you say you'll never find;
but when I tell you what I mean
perhaps you'll change your mind.

these 12 bars made of hard cold steel
have made my short life hell.
12 bars across my cell.

By: Jack Schuyler

Posture in Church

Just to remind you again of the recently introduced regulations on 'Posture in Church'. We are operating the system a full two months now. It is working quite well, I believe. People seem to have acquired the essential skill (and it sure is a skill) of leaving down the kneelers without frightening the life out of the rest of the congregation. Of course those in the front seats have no option but to either stand up or sit down. Kneeling there is out of the question. So it will do us no harm to refresh our minds on what was actually introduced originally! It's easy enough to forget these matters.

Obviously, we will have to make exception (in the case of kneeling) with those people in our two front rows. As you see, great emphasis is placed on standing as the normal posture throughout the greater part of the Mass. Standing expresses the readiness for action of an Easter people lifted up to greet its risen Lord. The 'common' practice will also apply on weekdays.

If it so happens that you find any of these regulations a burden, have the good sense to ignore them. The heavens will not fall (yet!).

Items of Some Interest

"There is no art to find...."

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