reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches

And here we hae the ministering Angels of the Portinari altar piece. Except for the front angle who wears the cope of an assisting priest, the other angles in this group are vested as deacons for High Mass. Their attitude is that of sacred ministers who approach the Body of Christ on the Altar. Here, the approach the body of the infant Christ in exactly the same attitude. The border or the Angles’ cope reads: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy).

Noticeably, all the ministers for High Mass are depicted except one – the Priest. He is not depicted because he is Christ. There is no altar for the Altar is Christ. The is no offering for Christ is the offering. Thus summing up the idea of Christ being Priest, Altar and Victim.

The shepherds in the Portinari Altar Piece:

These are the most realistically depicted shepherds ever painted up to the time of van der Goes. They represent humanity, warts and all. According to St. Luke’s Gospel (2:9ff), it was to them that the angles first announced the birth of the Saviour. They were the first to be surrounded by the glory of the Lord

And of the their heads:

Adn this is likely be oe of the sources behind Hugo van de Goes Portinari Altar piece: the Homily of Gregory the Great preached in the Basilica of Our LAdy in Rome on CHristmas day ante 604 explaining the connection between Bethlehem Beth Lechem) or the House of Bread and Christ and the Eucharist.:

HOMILIA VIII.
Habita ad populum in basilica beatae Mariae Virginis, in die Natalis Domini.
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LECTIO S. EVANG. SEC. LUC. II, 1-14.
In illo tempore, exiit edictum a Caesare Augusto, ut describeretur universus orbis. Haec descriptio prima facta est a praeside Syriae Cyrino. Et ibant omnes ut profiterentur, singuli in suam civitatem. Ascendit autem et Joseph a Galilaea de civitate Nazareth, in Judaeam in civitatem David, quae vocatur Bethlehem, eo quod esset de domo et familia David, ut profiteretur cum Maria desponsata sibi uxore praegnante. Factum est autem, cum essent ibi, impleti sunt dies ut pareret. Et peperit filium suum primogenitum; et pannis eum involvit, et reclinavit eum in praesepio, quia non erat ei locus in diversorio. Et pastores erant in regione eadem, vigilantes et custodientes vigilias noctis super gregem suum. Et ecce angelus Domini stetit juxta illos, et claritas Dei circumfulsit illos, et timuerunt timore magno. Et dixit illis angelus: Nolite timere. Ecce enim evangelizo vobis gaudium magnum, quod erit omni populo, quia natus est vobis hodie Salvator, qui est Christus Dominus, in civitate David. Et hoc vobis signum: Invenietis infantem pannis involutum, et positum in praesepio. Et subito facta est cum angelo multitudo militiae coelestis exercitus, laudantium Deum, et dicentium: Gloria in altissimis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.
Quia, largiente Domino, missarum solemnia ter hodie celebraturi sumus, loqui diu de Evangelica lectione non possumus. Sed nos aliquid vel breviter dicere Redemptoris nostri nativitas ipsa compellit. Quid est quod nascituro Domino mundus describitur, nisi noc quod aperte monstratur, quia ille veniebat in carne, qui electos suos ascriberet in aeternitate? Quo contra de reprobis per Prophetam dicitur: Deleantur de libro viventium, et cum justis non scribantur (Psal. LXVIII, 29). Qui bene etiam in Bethlehem nascitur: Bethlehem quippe domus panis interpretatur. Ipse namque est qui ait: Ego sum panis vivus, qui de coelo descendi (Joan. VI, 41, 52). Locus
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ergo in quo Dominus nascitur, domus panis antea vocatus est, quia futurum profecto erat ut ille ibi per materiam carnis appareret, qui electorum mentes interna satietate reficeret. Qui non in parentum domo, sed in via nascitur, ut profecto ostenderet, quia per humanitatem suam quam assumpserat quasi in alieno nascebatur. Alienum videlicet non secundum potestatem dico, sed secundum naturam. Nam de potestate ejus scriptum est: In propria venit (Joan. I, 11). In natura etenim sua ante tempora natus est, in nostra venit ex tempore. Qui ergo aeternus permanens temporalis apparuit, alienum est ubi descendit. Et quia per prophetam dicitur: Omnis caro fenum (Isai. XL, 6), factus homo, fenum nostrum vertit in frumentum, qui de semetipso ait: Nisi granum frumenti cadens in terram mortuum fuerit, ipsum solum manet (Joan. XII, 24). Unde et natus in praesepio reclinatur, ut fideles omnes videlicet sancta animalia, carnis suae frumento reficeret, ne ab aeternae intelligentiae pabulo jejuna remanerent. Quid autem est quod vigilantibus pastoribus angelus apparet, eosque Dei claritas circumfulget, nisi quod illi prae caeteris videre sublimia merentur, qui fidelibus gregibus praeesse sollicite sciunt? Dumque ipsi pie super gregem vigilant, divina super eos gratia largius coruscat.
2. Regem vero natum angelus nuntiat, ejusque voci angelorum chori concinunt, et congaudentes clamant: Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. Prius quippe quam Redemptor noster nasceretur per carnem, discordiam cum angelis habuimus, a quorum claritate atque munditia per primae culpae meritum, per quotidiana delicta longe distabamus. Quia enim peccando extranei eramus a Deo, extraneos nos a suo consortio deputabant angeli cives Dei. Sed quia nos cognovimus Regem nostrum, recognoverunt nos angeli cives suos. Quia enim coeli Rex terram nostrae carnis assumpsit, infirmitatem nostram illa jam angelica celsitudo non despicit. Ad pacem nostram
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angeli redeunt, intentionem prioris discordiae postponunt; et quos prius infirmos abjectosque despexerant, jam socios venerantur. Hinc est enim quod Loth (Genes. XIX, 1) et Josue (Josue V, 15) angelos adorant, nec tamen adorare prohibentur; Joannes vero in Apocalypsi sua adorare angelum voluit, sed tamen idem hunc angelus ne se debeat adorare compescuit, dicens: Vide ne feceris, conservus enim tuus sum et fratrum tuorum (Apoc. XXII, 9). Quid est quod ante Redemptoris adventum angeli ab hominibus adorantur, et tacent, postmodum vero adorari refugiunt, nisi quod naturam nostram, quam prius despexerant, postquam hanc super se assumptam conspiciunt, substratam sibi videre pertimescunt? Nec jam sub se velut infirmam contemnere ausi sunt, quam super se videlicet in coeli Rege venerantur. Nec habere dedignantur hominem socium, qui super se adorant hominem Deum. Curemus ergo, fratres charissimi, ne qua nos immunditia polluat, qui in aeterna praescientia et Dei cives, et angelis ejus aequales sumus. Vindicemus moribus dignitatem nostram, nulla nos luxuria inquinet, nulla nos turpis cogitatio accuset, non malitia mentem mordeat, non invidiae rubigo consumat, non elatio inflet, non ambitio per terrena oblectamenta dilaniet, non ira inflammet. Dii etenim vocati sunt homines. Defende ergo tibi, o homo, contra vitia honorem Dei, quia propter te factus est Deus homo, qui vivit et regnat in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Portinari Altar Piece

House of David, tympan of the entrance door showing the Harp of King David and the abbreviated inscription

While Panofsky only mentions two abbreviated inscriptions, Praxiteles believes that a third abbreviated inscription is to be found in the lower left hand corner of the tympan which cannot be read because obscured by the ante standing building. However, the final letter may be an “X” for “Christus” from which we can infer that it is preceded by an “I” for “Iesus”.

Furthermore, while Panofsky mentions that the letters on the upper part of the tympanum are “PNSC”, Praxiteles thinks that this is incorrect. The letters “PNS” are centred on the top of the shield annd are in a clear script quite unlike the “C”. This “C” Praxiteles is inclined to think is a loop carved in the panel and probably has another on the opposite side which is not visible.

In this scheme of things the ttmpan should read: PNS + Harp + IX +MV

This should then give us : Patriarcha Noster Sanctus [Our Holy Patriarch or Father] + Harp [= David] + IX [= Iesus Christus] + MV [= Maria Virgo].

The expression “Sanctus Patriarcha Noster” is used by St. Ambrose in explicit reference to King David .

The kneeling posture of Our Lady in the Portinari Altar Piece is practically similar to van der Goes other great Nativity, the Berlin Nativity, and representes an iconographic manner of depicting this subject proper to the school of Ghent.

In the Berlin Nativity, the face of Our Lady is taken to represent the passage in St. Luke’s Gospel wheich says that “she treasured all these things [that had been said of the Christ Child by the prophet Simeon] and pondered them in her heart”

On the other hand, the face of Our Lady in the Portinari Altar piece is taken to represent the tristesse of Mother of Sorrows who already knows at the birth of Christ what he has come into the for and how that would be accomplished.

The Portinari Altar Piece.

The hovering Angel wearing a cope the edges of which have a sequence of pictures repeating the Mandelion or the Holy Face

The Portinari Altar Pece:

@Praxiteles wrote:

The kneeling posture of Our Lady in the Portinari Altar Piece is practically similar to van der Goes other great Nativity, the Berlin Nativity, and representes an iconographic manner of depicting this subject proper to the school of Ghent.

In the Berlin Nativity, the face of Our Lady is taken to represent the passage in St. Luke’s Gospel wheich says that “she treasured all these things [that had been said of the Christ Child by the prophet Simeon] and pondered them in her heart”

On the other hand, the face of Our Lady in the Portinari Altar piece is taken to represent the tristesse of Mother of Sorrows who already knows at the birth of Christ what he has come into the for and how that would be accomplished.

It is well to recall, and the depictions of the Nativity of Our Lord on both the Portinari altarpiece and the Berlin Nativity do remind us, that the Incarnation was ordered to the Passion and Death of Our Lord. Simeon prophesied this to Our Lady upon her Presentation of Christ in the Temple forty days after His birth (celebrated originally as the Hypapante or Encounter between Christ and Simeon on 2 February, but also known through history as Candlemas Day, Purification of the BVM, and now, since 1970, Presentation of the Lord).

Devotion to the Sorrows of Our Lady emerged around the beginning of the fourtheenth century under the influence of such Rhenish mystics of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) as Henry Suso (1295/1300 – 1366).

One ought to distinguish among various lists of the Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin.
An early list of Mary’s sorrows during the course of the Passion of Christ from His arrest to His burial corresponds to the seven canonical hours of the daily Office – the Church’s public prayer (matins/vigils or readings, lauds, prime, tierce, sext, none, vespers, compline). This list includes the sorrows that Our Lady suffered during the course of Christ’s Pasion:
Jesus is arrested and struck;
Jesus is led to Pilate to be judged;
Jesus is condemned to death;
Jesus is nailed to the cross;
Jesus gives up His spirit and dies on the cross;
Jesus is taken down from the cross;
Jesus is wrapped in the shroud and laid in the sepulchre.

Another list of Our Lady’s Sorrows includes the infancy and childhod of Christ:
The prophecy of Simeon: “a sword shall pierce thine own soul too”;
The slaughter of the Holy Innocents and the flight to Egypt;
Jesus is lost in Jerusalem;
Jesus is arrested and judged;
Jesus is crucified and dies on the cross;
Jesus is taken down from the cross;
Jesus is wrapped in the shroud and laid int he tomb.

The fourteenth century, marked by outbreaks of the Black Death (1347-50; 1358-60; 1373-75) witnessed a rise in meditations, prayers, and poems that took as their focus the Sorrows of Mary. The image of the sorrowful Mother Mary holding on her knees the broken, bruised, and bleeding Body of Christ (The Pieta) captured the popular imagination.

It was a parish priest of Flanders, John de Coudenberghe, who began to promote the devotion to the Seven Sorrows that has come down to the present day:
The prophecy of Simeon (Lk 2:34-35);
The Flight into Egypt (Mt 2:13-21);
The Loss of Jesus for Three Days in Jerusalem (Lk 2:41-50);
The Ascent to Calvary (Jn 19:17);
The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus (Jn 19:18-30);
The Descent from the Cross (Jn 19:39-40);
The Burial of Christ in the Sepulchre (Jn 19:40-42)

This devotion, resting on distinctly biblical images and scenes, inspired the formation of a Confraternity of Our Lady of Sorrows. This set of Sorrows remains the characteristic object of devotion of the Servite Order (est’d 1256) and of the Congregation of Holy Cross (est’d 1937).

Many today are familiar with the five sorrowful mysteries of the Marian Rosary:
The agony in the graden;
The scourging at the pillar;
The crowning with thorns;
The carrying of the cross;
The crucifixion and death of Christ.

Traditionally Latinate (French, Italian, Spanish) spirituality and devotion focus on the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Medieval English Marian piety, on the other hand, emphasised the joys of the Blessed Virgin Mary (or “Blissful Maiden Mary”). Examples of this include the devotion to Our Lady of Walsingham, with its focus on the Annunciation, and that of Our Lady of Glastonbury, with its focus on the Nativity of Christ in honour of which the Glastonbury Thorn still blossoms at Christmas – it even made the transition to the Gregorian calendar!!)
In the West, starting in the eleventh century, the joy of Mary began to be celebrated in private devotion by the recitation of two anthems inspired by Byzantine prayer: Gaude, Dei Genetrix (Rejoice, Mother of God), and Ave Maria (Hail Mary):

Rejoice, Mother of God, Virgin Immaculate.
Rejoice, Thou who didst receive joy from the Angel.
Rejoice, Thou who didst conceive the brightness of eternal Light;
Rejoice, O Mother.
Rejoice, O Holy Mother of God and Virgin;
All creation extols Thee.
Mother of Light, pray for us.

Around the end of the eleventh century, each Gaude began to be paired with a joyful event of the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The five main liturgical feasts furnished the list of five joys:

Annunciation, Nativity of Christ, Passion-Resurrection of Christ, Ascension of Christ, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary;

In the twelfth century, the Adoration of the Magi and the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Day expanded the Virgin’s joys from five to seven, corresponding to the liturgical hours of the day (mentioned above) and the days of the week.

By the thirteenth century, the Franciscan missionary preacher St Bernardine of Siena (1444) and his followers promoted the Garland of delights or Chaplet of the 72 Hail Marys in honour both of the seven joys of Mary (Annunciation, Visitation, Birth of Christ, Adoration ofthe Magi, Finding in the Temple, Resurrection, Assumption) and the years of Our Lady’s life on earth.

The thirteenth century (1225-50) saw likewise the meditations on the Fifteen Joys of Mary by Stephen of Sallai (York).. The chief influences here are sacred Scripture, the sacred liturgy, and the works of st Bernard. Note the Christocentricity of the fifteen joys. Each joy presents a meditation, then a Gaude or joy addressed to Mary, then finally a reqiest followed by a Hail Mary. The fifiteen joys are divided into three groups of five:

Misery of the sinful world dispelled by Mary;
Holy life of Mary, who drew us to the Son of God;
The Archangel greets the Virgin Mary;
God the Father sends His Son in the flesh;
Mary visits and greets Ellizabeth and helps her.

A pause recalls the excellence of the Virgin Mary, in whose womb Jesus dwelt for nine months;

The virginal birth and Mary’s joy at home with Jesus;
The Magi visit from the Orient;
Mary presents the Infant Jesus in the Temple to God the Father;
The life of the Child Jesus during which “Mary treasures all these things and pnders them in her heart.
The signs of Jesus, the first of which when He changes water into wine.

A pause recalls the joys of Mary in witnessing all that jesus did from His Baptism to His Passion;

The Son of God offers Himself to the eternal Father on the altar of the cross;
Mary learns of the Resurrection of Jesus and sees her risen Son;
The glorious Ascension of the Lord;
The company of disciples wait in prayer and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit;
the completion of the Blessed Virgin’s joys inthis life and her assumption into heaven by her Son.

Dom Andre Wilmart OSB edited the text of the Fifteen Joys of Mary.

A simplified but highly popular form of the Fifteen Joys of Mary formed part of the Book of Hours (since the end of the fourteenth century in France), one of the most widely copied prayer books of the Middle Ages.

Readers are encouraged to consult the pertinent articles on the Sorrows and the Joys of Mary by J. Laurenceau in The Dictionary of Mary, revised and expanded ed. with complete references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (New Jersey: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1997, 1985), pp. 443-447 and 216-221.

St Malachy’s Belfast

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7156755.stm