One of our favorite artists has a new, very beautiful, image
of our Lady, this time, Undoer of Knots. He did the lovely painting of Our Lady
of Seattle, a copy of which hangs in our chapel. Daniel says of the Undoer, he
used influence of styles from Persian, Mexican, Gothic and Northumbro- Irish
art.
Pictured with Our Lady are The Archangel Raphael and
Tobias and his dog.
Let Me Be To Thee As The Circling Bird
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Let me be to Thee as the circling bird,
Or bat with tender and air-crisping wings
That shapes in half-light his departing rings,
From both of whom a changeless note is heard.
I have found my music in a common word,
Trying each pleasurable throat that sings
And every praised sequence of sweet strings,
And know infallibly which I preferred.
The authentic cadence was discovered late
Which ends those only strains that I approve,
And other science all gone out of date
And minor sweetness scarce made mention of:
I have found the dominant of my range and state—
Love, O my God, to call Thee Love and Love.
Great Blue Heron- Holly Wach
Mother Felicitas’ son (a tenured professor at Dartmouth and
expert on Russian politics) was just here, and as usual gives us an update on
the on-going crises in the Ukraine. This reminded me that in the British music
magazine we receive from a neighbor (See Blog February 23), I found another
Ukrainian musician in this last month’s issue. In looking him up I found an
article from The Flute View from April 1, 2022.
DENIS SAVELYEV is flute player from Lviv. He was the first-prize winner of the 2017 NYFC Competition, “Rising Star'' at the 2021 Galway Flute Festival, and Young Artist of 2019 NFA. Denis began studying flute at the young age of five. After completing a combined Bachelor’s and Master’s degree at the ‘Gnessin Academy of Music in Moscow, he moved to the USA to pursue a MM and Professional Studies at the Mannes School of Music, The New School University, where he studied under Judith Mendenhall. He was later a member of The Orchestra Now, graduating from Bard College with a Master’s degree in Curatorial, Critical, and Performance Studies. Currently, Denis is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree at the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University in the studio of Marina Piccinini.
Denis has won multiple prizes, including the 1st Prize at the New York Flute Club Competition, the New Jersey Flute Society, and the 2nd Prize at the Young Artist Competition of the National Flute Association.
Orchestrally, he has worked with the Mariinsky Theater in
Vladivostok, as well as with Orchestra Now, the Manhattan Symphonie, and the
New York Symphonic Ensemble on its Japanese tour in 2016
He has performed at various international venues, including the Kennedy Center in Washington DC; Merkin Concert Hall, the Morgan Library, and the Metropolitan Museum in NYC; Lviv Philharmonic, Berlin Konzerthaus; Suntory Hall in Tokyo, as well as Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, under conductors such as Neeme Järvi, Fabio Luisi, Hans Graf, Gerard Schwarz (of Seattle), and Tan Dun.
In The Flute View, Denis expressed great worry and his sorrow at the state of
things in his home country. While he and his parents are safe in the USA, many
of his friends are not. He says he is usually a positive person, but watching
what is happening in The Ukraine, he is not always positive. But, he has hope that things will get better,
and feels the present situation has taught the country about unity and the importance
of freedom.
During Lent we presented many new martyrs of WWII. A special memorial chapel was created by St. John Paul II. In
1999, in preparation for the Great Jubilee of the year 2000, St. John Paul II
established a “Commission of NEW MARTYRS” to investigate Christian
martyrdom in the 20th century. The commission worked for two years on the
premises of St. Bartholomew’s Basilica, collecting some 12,000 files from all
over the world..
More than thirteen thousand testimonies were received by the commission, some of which were recalled on the occasion of the ecumenical prayer in memory of the witnesses to the faith of the 20th century, presided over by St. John Paul II at the Colosseum on May 7, 2000.
On that occasion John Paul II said:
“The generation to which I belong has known the horror of war, concentration camps, persecution. […] The experience of the Second World War and the years that followed led me to consider with grateful attention the shining example of those who, from the early years of the twentieth century until its end, experienced persecution, violence, death, because of their faith and their behavior inspired by the truth of Christ. And they are many! Their memory should not be lost, rather it should be recovered in a documented manner.”
St.
John Paul II decided that the Basilica of St. Bartholomew on Tiber Island
should become a memorial place for the “new witnesses of the faith” of the 20th
century. The proclamation was solemnly celebrated on October 12, 2002, in the
presence of Cardinals Ruini (Rome), Kasper (Germany) and George (Chicago), and the Orthodox Patriarch of
Romania Teoctist. A large icon dedicated to the Witnesses of the Faith of the
20th century was placed on the high altar.
In
2008 Pope Benedict XVI visited the Basilica and explained:
“Remember the Christians who fell under the totalitarian violence of Communism, Nazism, those killed in America, in Asia and Oceania, in Spain and Mexico, in Africa: we ideally retrace many painful events of the past century. So many fell while fulfilling the Church’s evangelizing mission: their blood mingled with that of native Christians to whom the faith had been communicated.”
Martyrs gather around the figures of Christ surrounded by Mary, John the Evangelist and John the Baptist as well as Apostles Peter, Paul and Andrew.
To the right and left
are seen as two great processions of witnesses to the faith: one symbolizes the
Christian East, the other the West. In these two large processions one recognizes
people like Dietrich Bonhöffer, Patriarch Tikhon of the Russian Orthodox
Church, Father Girotti (Italian Dominican, biblical scholar, who died in the
Dachau concentration camp where he preached for a long time).
Continuing downwards, one notices some destroyed buildings and Christians about to be killed; it is a reminder of the genocide of the Armenians and many eastern Christians in Turkey in 1915, a rupture of more than a thousand years of cohabitation in that land.
Also recalled are all the attempts at the actual annihilation
of the Christian presence, such as the one that took place in Albania: a priest
with a child in his hand is seen being killed (this is the memory of Father
Kurti, sentenced to death in 1972 only because he had secretly baptized a child
in the camp where he was held).
On the way up one
encounters a man dressed in gaudy clothes being beaten by two guards: this is
the public humiliation that was reserved for so many Christians before they
were killed, as a way of striking at their dignity, discrediting them in the
eyes of the people. Above, the frame shows a crowd about to be shot, in a
public execution, as happened at numerous turns in 20th century history. The
first picture below, on the other hand, remembers the many murdered, those
whose lives were suddenly cut short. One sees a bishop on the altar, it
is Bishop Romero, killed while celebrating the Eucharist. One recognizes, among
others, Msgr Gerardi, Don Giuseppe Puglisi, killed by the mafia in Sicily.
On the left instead, the
panels remind us how, in suffering, the life of the ‘new martyrs’ is a
testimony of love, stronger than hatred: to evil they have responded with good.
The first scene offers a vision of the Soviet Gulag on the Solovki islands: it
is a very old monastery, transformed by the regime into a detention camp, which
gathered mainly Christians. It shows two bishops, one young and one old,
pushing a wheelbarrow: it is the representation of a testimony given by a
survivor who in her diary recounted of two bishops, one old and Orthodox, the
other young and Catholic, who went to the extremely hard forced labor together,
so that the young man could help the old man. It is a sign of Christians
learning to love and help each other again in the suffering of persecution.
In the upper painting, from inside a prison, in Romania, one can identify the prisoners, each holding sheets of paper in their hands: these are parts of a single Bible (possession of which was forbidden by prison regulations), which the inmates had divided among themselves so that they could learn part of it by heart and recite it to the others, and thus not lose the precious treasure of the Word of God.
Moving up the iconic narrative, one encounters persecuted
Christians who nevertheless never ceased to feed the hungry, heal the sick,
love their suffering neighbors, and communicate the Gospel to all. One sees a
Christian welcoming a man dressed in the uniform that, in this icon, identifies
the persecutors: it is the sign of the readiness of the witnesses of faith to
forgive, to trust in the possibility for every man to change his own heart.
It is amazing how much is conveyed in this stricking icon, with the martyrs and others..
In April 2017 Pope Francis visited the Bascilica along with relatives and friends of some of the new martyrs:Karl Schneider, son of a pastor killed in a Nazi camp in 1939; Roselyne Hamel, sister of the Hamel murdered in France last year; Francisco Hernandez Guevara, a friend of William Quijano killed in 2009 in Central America for trying to offer an alternative to youth away from gangs.
Jesus to St. Faustina (1931)
On that day all the divine floodgates through which
graces flow are opened. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its
sins be as scarlet. My mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or of
angel, will be able to fathom it throughout all eternity. Everything that
exists has come forth from the very depths of My most tender mercy. Every soul
in its relation to Me will contemplate My love and mercy throughout eternity.
The Feast of Mercy emerged from My very depths of tenderness. It is My desire that
it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. Mankind will not
have peace until it turns to the Fount of My Mercy. (Diary of Divine
Mercy #699)
With our world in such a sorry state, we all wonder where
we are headed. And true to form, we hear more about the negative in our daily
news, than the good that is spreading. But in our seemingly dark world, the Light of Christ is shining.
One example of people’s thirst for this Light in
their lives is the program The Chosen, which has had more
viewers than any crowdfunded project. By
the end of 2022, 108 million people worldwide had watched at least part of one
episode.
Father Mike Schmitz’s podcast The Bible in
a Year has had over 500 million downloads. (While this podcast is
meant for all ages, I highly recommend it to teens having a difficult time).
Bishop Robert Barron’s book on the Eucharistic revival, This Is My
Body, has sold more copies than every celebrity memoir last year. And
it is not only Catholics who are being touched.
So rather than seeing the world through dark lenses
this Eastertide, see the Light that is coming through, giving us hope!
Kateryna Shadrina- Ukraine
If you were not risen,
Lord Christ, to whom would we go
to discover a radiance
of the face of God?If you were not risen,
we would not be together seeking your communion.
We would not find in your presence forgiveness,
wellspring of a new beginning.If you were not risen,
where would we draw the energy for following you
right to the end of our existence,
for choosing you again and anew?Brother Roger of Taize
EX- ABBOT PRIMATE NOTKER WOLF died unexpectedly at the age of 83 3 April 2024 while traveling from Rome to his Abbey. He was a German Benedictine monk, priest, abbot, musician, and author. He was a member of St. Ottilien Archabbey located in Bavaria, Germany, which is part of the Benedictine Congregation of Saint Ottilien. He previously was elected and served as the ninth Abbot Primate of the Benedictine Confederation of the Order of Saint Benedict. He was elected to his position as Abbot Primate in 2000 and ended his final term in 2016.
Abbot Notker Wolf was a practicing musician who recorded and played shows with his band Feedback. His band was often referred to as a Christian rock band, and he played guitar wearing a pectoral cross. He loved the chant and also played the flute. His passions included inter-religious dialogue, environmental issues, responsible immigration policies, and ethical leadership and management. He never retired but continued to write and travel, giving lectures. He was known for his happy disposition.
An American monk, Father
Gregory Polan Abbot of Conception Abbey in Missouri succeded
him as Abbot Primate.
