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Ce chef d’oeuvre du XVe siècle peint le sort réservé aux élus d’un côté et aux damnés de l’autre, selon la vie qu’ils ont mené sur terre. Un catéchisme illustré d’hier, un chemin spirituel pour aujourd’hui, un appel à la conversion de l’Amour.
Le soleil couchant éclaire le dernier soir du monde : églises et cathédrales (Conques, Paris, Amiens, Auxerre…) présentent le jugement dernier sur le portail ouest ; impossible à Albi dont la seule entrée à l’époque est au sud et où une fresque orne déjà le mur ouest.
La fresque a été réalisée dans les premières années de l’épiscopat de Louis d’Amboise, entre 1474 (date de sa nomination à l’archevêché d’Albi) et 1480 (date de la consécration de la cathédrale). La surface disponible (18 m de large sur 15 m de haut), comporte une partie plane et deux demi-cylindres formés par les contreforts intérieurs de la tour clocher. De larges bandes verticales, jaunes et rouges, alternent sur tout l’espace compris entre le fond de la peinture et le sol de l’église, rappelant les armes de Louis d’Amboise “palé d’or et de gueules de six pièces”.
La partie centrale qui comportait sans doute le Christ juge et l’archange Saint Michel est détruite en 1693. L’archevêque Charles Legoux de la Berchère (qui a construit l’hôpital d’Albi) et les chanoines firent éventrer le mur joignant les deux tours, pour ouvrir la nef sur la salle carrée qui se trouvait au rez-de-chaussée du clocher dont on a fait ainsi une chapelle pour donner une place d’honneur aux reliques de Saint Clair, évêque d’Albi. Cette destruction de la partie centrale est achevée avec l’installation des grandes orgues, œuvre de Christophe Moucherel de 1734 à 1736.
Il nous reste, côté sud la représentation du paradis, et celle de l’enfer côté nord.
This 15th century masterpiece paints the fate reserved for the elect on one side and the damned on the other, according to the life they led on earth. An illustrated catechism of yesterday, a spiritual path for today, a call to the conversion of Love.
The setting sun illuminates the last evening of the world: churches and cathedrals (Conques, Paris, Amiens, Auxerre…) present the Last Judgment on the west portal; impossible in Albi, whose only entrance at the time was to the south and where a fresco already adorns the west wall.
The fresco was made in the early years of the episcopate of Louis d'Amboise, between 1474 (date of his appointment to the archdiocese of Albi) and 1480 (date of the consecration of the cathedral). The available surface (18 m wide by 15 m high) comprises a flat part and two semi-cylinders formed by the interior buttresses of the bell tower. Wide vertical bands, yellow and red, alternate over the entire space between the background of the painting and the floor of the church, reminiscent of the arms of Louis d'Amboise "palé d'or et de gules de six pieces" .
The central part which probably included Christ the Judge and the Archangel Saint Michael was destroyed in 1693. Archbishop Charles Legoux de la Berchère (who built the hospital in Albi) and the canons had the wall joining the two towers, to open the nave onto the square room which was on the ground floor of the bell tower, of which a chapel was thus made to give a place of honor to the relics of Saint Clair, bishop of Albi. This destruction of the central part was completed with the installation of the great organs, the work of Christophe Moucherel from 1734 to 1736.
We are left, on the south side, with the representation of paradise, and that of hell on the north side.
Homily012923- Mt 5:1-12a
“Christ died for all, so that those who live should not live for themselves, but for him who died for them” (2 Corinthians 5:15)
We hear the beatitudes quite often. We are taught them in our catechism classes, and we frequently hear them read at Mass. They are as familiar as milk in the fridge, but what are they? Technically, they are eight blessings that make up the Sermon on the Mount given by Jesus. They articulate simply the reward for a good action-a right choice. For example, there is a common phrase “that it is better to give then receive.” The proof of this statement is found in the action of giving. It is a choice, that begins with a “yes” to do it. Why else do parents surprise their children with gifts on Christmas morning. The blessings of the beatitudes work in a similar way. When we say “yes” to Jesus, to follow him and HIS way, the stage is set to receive the blessings. It is as simple as that. Of course, what sounds straightforward and easy, is never like that in reality.
The word beatitude comes from the word beatidudo which is Latin for blessedness. Each beatitude begins with the phrase “blessed are” which implies a state of peace, happiness and well-being. In Christ’s day it would have a meaning of “divine joy and perfect happiness. In addition there is an implied reward that all would be well in the future. Jesus’ intent is to bring a bit of the Kingdom of God on earth.
The action, on our part, is the decision to do a good thing, which comes first. Disciples of Christ understand this well.
When we say “Yes” to God, a space opens up in time…and a mystery unfolds in each and every moment of our lives. It is in this place that we have the potential to experience what our Gospel declares to us today. It is a unique experience for each of us. In our YES, in our experiencing and doing what Jesus does, we experience the “peace beyond understanding” which is the fruit of the Beatitudes. When we are given these graces, we recognize them…and ponder them in our heart.
Recently, I have read a book, called “Icon of Trust-Mary in the Gospels of Luke and John.” It follows Mary from her initial “Yes” and the many “Yes’s” flowing from her life as she shadows her Son.
“Mary’s childlike trust consists in giving a full yes to God — without knowing everything this yes implies. This complete yes is full of trust, not of detailed knowledge of what is to come.” “In front of God, she demonstrates the vigilance of someone ready to be surprised.”Mary is attentive, she is ready to say yes, and she is docile and humble in “ acknowledging the things she does not know and in trying to understand better the things she has already perceived and experienced; she is the perfect collaborator of God in the unfolding of His plan of salvation.”
I can remember my first “yes” to God. Since that first “yes”, I have learned that daily life consists of many yes’s. With each and every decision I make, big or small…that first “yes” becomes the context of all the yes’s that follow. My Christian walk, has been to follow Jesus. His gift of grace, which includes a peace beyond understanding, has accompanied me in the good and bad times of my life. In reflecting on my life, I can say that I have been blessed.
Brian Zahnd, a Christian author….paraphrases the beatitudes this way…
Blessed are those who are poor at being spiritual,
For the kingdom of heaven is well-suited for ordinary people.
Blessed are the depressed who mourn and grieve,
For they create space to encounter comfort from another.
Blessed are the gentle and trusting, who are not grasping and clutching,
For God will personally guarantee their share when heaven comes to earth.
Blessed are those who ache for the world to be made right,
For them the government of God is a dream come true.
Blessed are those who give mercy,
For they will get it back when they need it most.
Blessed are those who have a clean window in their soul,
For they will perceive God when and where others don’t.
Blessed are the bridge-builders in a war-torn world,
For they are God’s children working in the family business.
Blessed are those who are mocked and misunderstood for the right reasons,
For the kingdom of heaven comes to earth amidst such persecution.”
source: Brian Zahnd, “The Beatitudes”
Conclusion
Often, in our Christian walk, we struggle to find words to articulate to others why we have found our way of life purposeful and meaningful. The beatitudes are a beautiful display of of proverbs that describe beautifully what the state and outcome of living a sacrificial life is. This way of life begins when we invite Jesus into our hearts. It is not an easy life living as a Christian in the world today. But the peace, we hold in our hearts is worth every right choice we make to follow HIM. The rewards are experienced by us in this life and the life to come.
La més impressionant nit d'aurores començava el seu espectacle just quan varem anar al punt d'inici de l'excursió a la petita illa de Håkøya, al oest de Tromso.
Per cert, a la riba d'aquesta illa és on fou enfonsat per bombes gegants Grand Slam el cuirassat alemany Tirpitz, el bessó del famós Bismarck.
ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_polar
ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuirassat_Tirpitz
=====================
Just as we arrived at the starting point for our (best) aurora trip, the lights showed that they were preparing a gorgeous night.
This was in the small island of Håkøya, west of Tromso. This is were the German battleship Tirpitz (the "younger brother" of the Bismarck) was sunk in 1944, with giant grand slam bombs. Part of it (20%?) still lies there, just below the surface; but from outside there's not much to see. Anyway, the lights showed us the way...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Tirpitz#Operation...
l'église conserve, dans la chapelle de la Communion (ou des Catéchismes), une très belle collection de vitraux peints à l'émail de la fin du XVIe siècle ou du début du XVIIe. Mutilés et dispersés à la Révolution, ils furent à nouveau réunis en 1834 ; il n'en reste plus que 12 sur les 22 initiaux.
In the Communion (or Catechism) chapel, the church has a fine collection of enamel-painted stained glass windows from the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Used up and dispersed during the Revolution, they were reunited in 1834; only 12 of the original 22 remain.
Here's an evening view from Dordrecht. The Grote Kerk with its incomplete tower in November 1618 hosted the inaugural session of a protestant synod which called for a standard translation of the Bible into Dutch (the 'Statenvertaling'). As importantly, it put down the tenets of Calvinism formulating the so-called Canons of Dordt (five doctrinal 'points' mainly on reformed predestination). Moreover, the synod mandated that all Calvinist ministers also sign their allegience to the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession. The upshot of this was great civic unrest in the Dutch Republic which led to the beheading of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (1547-1619), Land's Advocate, Grand Pensionary of Holland. Incidentally, he was also one of the founders of the Dutch East Indies Company. That company made of Dordrecht one of three sugar capitals of the Republic.
A 5th grader got a day at school, as it did in the year 1730. Strict discipline, a dark classroom and the only reading book is Luther's catechism.
Skoletjenesten, Pederstrup.
A rytterskole (English: rider school or cavalry school) was a type of school erected in Denmark in the years 1721–1727 for the education of common children. The schools were established in 1715–1718, during the Great Nordic War, to reform and improve the cavalry in Denmark, from which the schools got their name. They were not military schools, as the name might suggest, but rather a predecessor to the Danish public schools founded in 1814.
"Saint Alexius of Rome or Alexius of Edessa (Greek: Ἀλέξιος, Alexios), also Alexis, was a fourth-century Greek monk who lived in anonymity and is known for his dedication to Christ.
The Greek version of his legend made Alexius the only son of Euphemianus, a wealthy Christian Roman of the senatorial class. Alexius fled his arranged marriage to follow his holy vocation. Disguised as a beggar, he lived near Edessa in Syria, accepting alms even from his own household slaves, who had been sent to look for him; they did not recognize him[2] until a miraculous icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Fleeing the resultant notoriety, he returned to Rome, so changed that his parents did not recognize him, but as good Christians took him in and sheltered him for seventeen years, which he spent in a dark cubbyhole beneath the stairs, praying and teaching catechism to children. After his death, his family found a note on his body which told them who he was and how he had lived his life of penance from the day of his wedding, for the love of God."
please press the L button
This choir chapel was changed in 1853. They built a spiral staircase that leads to the upper floor. You can't see it on this photo. They added a door to a bigger choir chapel too and you can't see it here. But there's a small green exit-sign and under it is a door that leads to an outer building called Chapelle des catéchismes, which is or was used in winter and is also called Chapelle d'Hiver (winter chapel). It's a small building and doesn't need much heating. The windows of this choir chapel contain rests of the 13th century windows, that show the life of Mary, mother of Jesus and Saint Leonard of Noblac (died 559 AD). The painting to the left was created in the 18th century and shows the Transfiguration of Jesus (an event where Jesus is transfigured and becomes radiant in glory upon a mountain).
A reflection on these Sacred Scriptures:
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 69:8-10, 21-22, 31 and 33-34
Matthew 26:14-25
One of you will betray me. (Matthew 26:21)
Approaching Holy Week, I found myself thinking about the eternal fate of Judas after he had betrayed Jesus, and why his end might be different from Peter's, who denied Jesus three times. Both betrayed, but only Peter appeared to be saved. Judas lost faith and out of misery, hung himself. What happened to Judas, I wondered? I wanted to believe God's forgiveness covered his sin.
I began to look at the Judas side of myself, losing heart at times, reluctant to trust in God's mercy. "Dear Jesus," I prayed, "I don't want to be a ‘Judas,’ especially at the end of my life. Let me be like Peter and choose love—let me choose You." With that, I decided to visit Jesus across town in the adoration chapel, and found Him waiting in the gold monstrance. "Jesus, I prayed, please speak to my heart about Judas."
I picked up my missal to read ahead to what I'd be writing about for today's meditation, and immediately Jesus' words became visible through the Gospel of Matthew—it was about Peter and Judas! I began to read, "Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born." (Matthew 26:24) I couldn't believe my eyes!
I opened my Catechism to find out more and read, "By despair, man ceases to hope for his personal salvation from God, for help in attaining it or for the forgiveness of his sins. Despair is contrary to God's goodness, to His justice—for the Lord is faithful to His promises—and to his mercy." (Catechism, Paragraph 2091) I now understood that Jesus would have given both Peter and Judas His forgiveness and love, but Judas couldn't even imagine the possibility. I was overjoyed the Holy Spirit had answered my question directly and I left the chapel satisfied, promising I'd embrace His mercy.
Driving home, I noticed a car on the side of the road with its trunk open and flashers on. A young woman was reaching into her trunk, I assumed for tools to change a flat tire. I turned my car around to see if she needed help.
As I approached, I could see she was petite and impeccably dressed; not a hair was out of place in her perfect ponytail. Not the type who could change a tire, I thought! I got out of my car and as I came closer, realized her tire wasn't flat after all. Her trunk was empty except for a pair of clean work gloves.
She put them on, and not at all put out, bent down in an effort to drag a huge, beautiful Canadian Goose [see notes below] out of the line of traffic. It was dead. With poise, she pulled the heavy bird by its feet and began dragging it to the side of the road. Given her size and the dead weight of the bird, I thought it strange she wasn't struggling.
I spoke first, "I thought you were having car trouble." Unruffled by the incident, she looked up at me and smiled, not surprised that I was there. She answered, "I was going too fast and with traffic heavy behind me, I couldn't slow down in time and hit him." I looked down at the dead bird, heartbroken.
As if to read my thoughts, she continued, "It's okay," she said with a cheery smile, "There's nothing more I can do now. I'll just drag him over here out of the way . . . and move on." She had the disposition of an angel. It occurred to me that the event, unfortunate as it was, had not caused her to despair . . . like Peter! Each had acknowledged their fault and had accepted God's forgiving grace.
My lesson continued as I imagined what I might do in this regrettable situation. Again I began to see the Judas side of me. But the Peter in her let God use her, trusting that things were perfect just the way they were. "God bless you," I said to her. "God bless us all," she responded knowingly, as she drove away smiling, conscious of the choice we all have—to forgive ourselves.
My encounter reinforced Jesus' message that whenever I'm tempted to despair, I must put on my divine work gloves, "drag my goose" to the side of the road—and move on.
- Elizabeth A. Tichvon | elizabethtichvon@comcast.net
A 5th grader got a day at school, as it did in the year 1730. Strict discipline, a dark classroom and the only reading book is Luther's catechism.
Skoletjenesten, Pederstrup.
A rytterskole (English: rider school or cavalry school) was a type of school erected in Denmark in the years 1721–1727 for the education of common children. The schools were established in 1715–1718, during the Great Nordic War, to reform and improve the cavalry in Denmark, from which the schools got their name. They were not military schools, as the name might suggest, but rather a predecessor to the Danish public schools founded in 1814.
The Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia. I walked in this place and was amazed by the beauty and architecture, the money spent. The place reeking of pride and arrogance. The true sight for sore eyes, we're the homeless people down the street. One of my many problems with the Catholic Church.
Feast: August 4
Born to a farm family. In his youth John taught other children their prayers and catechism. Ordained in 1815, though it took several years of study - he had little education, was not a very good student, and his Latin was terrible. Assigned as a parochial vicar to Ecully, France. In 1818 he was assigned to the parish of Ars-sur-Formans, France, a tiny village near Lyons, which suffered from very lax attendance. He began visiting his parishioners, especially the sick and poor, spent days in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, did penance for his parishioners, and leading his people by example. Had the gifts of discernment of spirits, prophecy, hidden knowledge, and of working miracles. Tormented by evil spirits, especially when he tried to get his 2-3 hours of sleep each night. Crowds came to hear him preach, and to make their reconciliation because of his reputation with penitents; by 1855 there were 20,000 pilgrims a year to Ars. Spent 40 years as the parish priest.
Photo: Parcelle de son linge (From the Linen Cloth) of St. John Mary Vianney
iconographer: Wayne Hajos
Since, then, there was needed a lifting up from death for the whole of our nature, He stretches forth a hand as it were to prostrate humanity, and stooping down to our dead corpse He came so far within the grasp of death as to touch a state of deadness, and then in His own body to bestow on our nature the principle of the resurrection, raising as He did by His power along with Himself the whole human being. For since from no other source than from the concrete lump of our nature had come that flesh, which was the receptacle of the Godhead and in the resurrection was raised up together with that Godhead, therefore just in the same way as, in the instance of this body of ours, the operation of one of the organs of sense is felt at once by the whole system, as one with that member, so also the resurrection principle of this Member, as though the whole of humankind was a single living being, passes through the entire race, being imparted from the Member to the whole by virtue of the continuity and oneness of the nature. What, then, is there beyond the bounds of probability in what this Revelation teaches us; viz. that He Who stands upright stoops to one who has fallen, in order to lift him up from his prostrate condition?
Gregory of Nyssa,
The Great Catechism, 32
Неофит Рилски е български монах, художник, педагог, езиковед, един от главните просветители и дейци на освободителното движение през първата половина на века. Преподавайки в Габрово, Неофит става известен с превода на новобългарския Нов Завет, Катехизис, създава българска граматика, буквар и глобус.
Neofit Rilski is a Bulgarian monk, artist, teacher, linguist, one of the main enlighteners and figures of the liberation movement of the first half of the XIX century. While teaching in Gabrovo, Neophyte became famous for translating the New Testament, the Catechism into Novobolgarsky, created a Bulgarian grammar, a primer and a globe.
I photograph on the prairies as many weekends as possible year round, with my window of opportunity I have one or two days to capitalize on conditions the weather person tosses my direction. I'm very fortunate to have the time to enjoy these amazing adventures.
On route South towards the small community of Etzikom in Southern Alberta you'll drive past St. Anthony's Parish country church/cemetary built in 1912-1916 by local voluntary parishioners. The windows are boarded, the door pad locked, and paint chipped and weathered. It makes a great subject for a short 45 km drive from Medicine Hat, AB.
With Autumn in full decor, I walked to the South side where the wind was removing leaves methodically "one by one", and turned my attention to a small school house turned social center in the background just beside the church. Any events held in the prairie church could spill over to this small building and I imagined the social conversations, laughter, celebrations, friendships..... AND importantly food served.
In any event the light was glowing mid day, and the winds were playing the all familiar prairie song. It's an amazing melody in Autumn.
"In 1947 the Bar Voo school house was purchased and moved into the church yard. It served as a social center and catechism classroom....J. Schile"
*Texture courtesy of Skeletal Mess
*Please view LARGE for best rural detail.
Dato che è impossibile far tacere l'imbecille, la civiltà consiste nell'obbligarlo a recitare un catechismo. Uno qualsiasi.
Since it's impossible to silence a fool, civilization consists in requiring him to recite a catechism. Any.
Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Tra poche parole (Of few words)
Albenga (Savona, Italy)
Copyright © 2011 Katia Celestini. Tutti i diritti riservati.
Ce chef d’oeuvre du XVe siècle peint le sort réservé aux élus d’un côté et aux damnés de l’autre, selon la vie qu’ils ont mené sur terre. Un catéchisme illustré d’hier, un chemin spirituel pour aujourd’hui, un appel à la conversion de l’Amour.
Le soleil couchant éclaire le dernier soir du monde : églises et cathédrales (Conques, Paris, Amiens, Auxerre…) présentent le jugement dernier sur le portail ouest ; impossible à Albi dont la seule entrée à l’époque est au sud et où une fresque orne déjà le mur ouest.
La fresque a été réalisée dans les premières années de l’épiscopat de Louis d’Amboise, entre 1474 (date de sa nomination à l’archevêché d’Albi) et 1480 (date de la consécration de la cathédrale). La surface disponible (18 m de large sur 15 m de haut), comporte une partie plane et deux demi-cylindres formés par les contreforts intérieurs de la tour clocher. De larges bandes verticales, jaunes et rouges, alternent sur tout l’espace compris entre le fond de la peinture et le sol de l’église, rappelant les armes de Louis d’Amboise “palé d’or et de gueules de six pièces”.
La partie centrale qui comportait sans doute le Christ juge et l’archange Saint Michel est détruite en 1693. L’archevêque Charles Legoux de la Berchère (qui a construit l’hôpital d’Albi) et les chanoines firent éventrer le mur joignant les deux tours, pour ouvrir la nef sur la salle carrée qui se trouvait au rez-de-chaussée du clocher dont on a fait ainsi une chapelle pour donner une place d’honneur aux reliques de Saint Clair, évêque d’Albi. Cette destruction de la partie centrale est achevée avec l’installation des grandes orgues, œuvre de Christophe Moucherel de 1734 à 1736.
Il nous reste, côté sud la représentation du paradis, et celle de l’enfer côté nord.
This 15th century masterpiece paints the fate reserved for the elect on one side and the damned on the other, according to the life they led on earth. An illustrated catechism of yesterday, a spiritual path for today, a call to the conversion of Love.
The setting sun illuminates the last evening of the world: churches and cathedrals (Conques, Paris, Amiens, Auxerre…) present the Last Judgment on the west portal; impossible in Albi, whose only entrance at the time was to the south and where a fresco already adorns the west wall.
The fresco was made in the early years of the episcopate of Louis d'Amboise, between 1474 (date of his appointment to the archdiocese of Albi) and 1480 (date of the consecration of the cathedral). The available surface (18 m wide by 15 m high) comprises a flat part and two semi-cylinders formed by the interior buttresses of the bell tower. Wide vertical bands, yellow and red, alternate over the entire space between the background of the painting and the floor of the church, reminiscent of the arms of Louis d'Amboise "palé d'or et de gules de six pieces" .
The central part which probably included Christ the Judge and the Archangel Saint Michael was destroyed in 1693. Archbishop Charles Legoux de la Berchère (who built the hospital in Albi) and the canons had the wall joining the two towers, to open the nave onto the square room which was on the ground floor of the bell tower, of which a chapel was thus made to give a place of honor to the relics of Saint Clair, bishop of Albi. This destruction of the central part was completed with the installation of the great organs, the work of Christophe Moucherel from 1734 to 1736.
We are left, on the south side, with the representation of paradise, and that of hell on the north side.
Ce chef d’oeuvre du XVe siècle peint le sort réservé aux élus d’un côté et aux damnés de l’autre, selon la vie qu’ils ont mené sur terre. Un catéchisme illustré d’hier, un chemin spirituel pour aujourd’hui, un appel à la conversion de l’Amour.
Le soleil couchant éclaire le dernier soir du monde : églises et cathédrales (Conques, Paris, Amiens, Auxerre…) présentent le jugement dernier sur le portail ouest ; impossible à Albi dont la seule entrée à l’époque est au sud et où une fresque orne déjà le mur ouest.
La fresque a été réalisée dans les premières années de l’épiscopat de Louis d’Amboise, entre 1474 (date de sa nomination à l’archevêché d’Albi) et 1480 (date de la consécration de la cathédrale). La surface disponible (18 m de large sur 15 m de haut), comporte une partie plane et deux demi-cylindres formés par les contreforts intérieurs de la tour clocher. De larges bandes verticales, jaunes et rouges, alternent sur tout l’espace compris entre le fond de la peinture et le sol de l’église, rappelant les armes de Louis d’Amboise “palé d’or et de gueules de six pièces”.
La partie centrale qui comportait sans doute le Christ juge et l’archange Saint Michel est détruite en 1693. L’archevêque Charles Legoux de la Berchère (qui a construit l’hôpital d’Albi) et les chanoines firent éventrer le mur joignant les deux tours, pour ouvrir la nef sur la salle carrée qui se trouvait au rez-de-chaussée du clocher dont on a fait ainsi une chapelle pour donner une place d’honneur aux reliques de Saint Clair, évêque d’Albi. Cette destruction de la partie centrale est achevée avec l’installation des grandes orgues, œuvre de Christophe Moucherel de 1734 à 1736.
Il nous reste, côté sud la représentation du paradis, et celle de l’enfer côté nord.
This 15th century masterpiece paints the fate reserved for the elect on one side and the damned on the other, according to the life they led on earth. An illustrated catechism of yesterday, a spiritual path for today, a call to the conversion of Love.
The setting sun illuminates the last evening of the world: churches and cathedrals (Conques, Paris, Amiens, Auxerre…) present the Last Judgment on the west portal; impossible in Albi, whose only entrance at the time was to the south and where a fresco already adorns the west wall.
The fresco was made in the early years of the episcopate of Louis d'Amboise, between 1474 (date of his appointment to the archdiocese of Albi) and 1480 (date of the consecration of the cathedral). The available surface (18 m wide by 15 m high) comprises a flat part and two semi-cylinders formed by the interior buttresses of the bell tower. Wide vertical bands, yellow and red, alternate over the entire space between the background of the painting and the floor of the church, reminiscent of the arms of Louis d'Amboise "palé d'or et de gules de six pieces" .
The central part which probably included Christ the Judge and the Archangel Saint Michael was destroyed in 1693. Archbishop Charles Legoux de la Berchère (who built the hospital in Albi) and the canons had the wall joining the two towers, to open the nave onto the square room which was on the ground floor of the bell tower, of which a chapel was thus made to give a place of honor to the relics of Saint Clair, bishop of Albi. This destruction of the central part was completed with the installation of the great organs, the work of Christophe Moucherel from 1734 to 1736.
We are left, on the south side, with the representation of paradise, and that of hell on the north side.
To believe, with certain 'neo-yogists', that 'evolution' will produce a superman 'who will differ from man as much as man differs from the animal or the animal from the vegetable' is a case of not knowing what man is.
Here is one more example of a pseudo-wisdom which deems itself vastly superior to 'those separatist religions', but which in point of fact shows itself more ignorant than the most elementary of catechisms. For the most elementary catechism does know what man is: it knows that by his qualities and as an autonomous world he can be opposed to the other kingdoms of nature taken together; it knows that in one particular respect - that of spiritual possibilities, not that of animal nature - the difference between a monkey and a man is infinitely greater than that between a fly and
a monkey.
For man alone is able to come forth from the world; man alone is able to return to God; and that is the reason why he cannot in any way be surpassed by a new earthly being. Among the beings of this earth man is the central being; this is an absolute position; there cannot be a center more central than the center, if definitions have any meaning.
This neo-yogism, like other similar movements, pretends that it can add an essential value to the wisdom of our ancestors; it believes that the religions are partial truths which it is called upon to stick together, after hundreds or thousands of years of waiting, and to crown with its own naive little system.
It is far better to believe that the earth is a disk supported by a tortoise and flanked by four elephants than to believe, in the name of 'evolution', in the coming of some 'superhuman' monster.
A literal interpretation of cosmological symbols is, if not positively useful, at any rate harmless, whereas the scientific error - such as evolutionism - is neither literally nor symbolically true; the repercussions of its falsity are beyond calculation.
The intellectual poverty of the neo-yogist movements provides an incontestable proof that there is no spirituality without orthodoxy.
It is assuredly not by chance that all these movements are as if in league against the intelligence; intelligence is replaced by a thinking that is feeble and vague instead of being logical, and 'dynamic' instead of being contemplative. All these movements are characterized by the detachment they pretend to feel in regard to pure doctrine.
They hate its incorruptibility, for in their eyes this purity is 'dogmatism'; they fail to understand that Truth does not deny forms from the outside, but transcends them from within.
Orthodoxy includes and guarantees incalculable values which man could not possibly draw out of himself...
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Frithjof Schuon
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Quoted in: The Essential Frithjof Schuon (edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)
Date: 10/30/2018
Reflection on CCC 847 (LG 16: cf. DS 3866-3872)
“Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their coscience-those too may achieve eternal salvation.”
This is not my first encounter with this quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but for some reason it brings me great comfort, as though a great burden has been removed from my shoulders. What kind of burden, you may ask? Speaking from my perspective: I do not have to judge the state of someone’s relationship with God outside the Catholic Church. In the spirit of this quote, one of my favorite passages on the topic of judging is Matthew 7:1-5, where it states:
"Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye? You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye."
To link my opening quote with this scripture is quite a stretch, but remember, I am not focusing on the person outside of myself…but myself. What is the state of my own heart in relationship to God? What are the defects within myself that impede this relationship? I do know what the Gospel is at least from the context of my Catholic faith. I am blessed to be aware that I still seek God with a sincere heart and that all the knowledge I have is a gift of grace. Because Christ is the model for which I base my life, I can follow the dictates of my conscience. This means I know what the beams are in my own life, and I worry less about the splinters that I see in others-this is humility.
However, because I am a servant, I know that I am commissioned to preach the Gospel to others. This would include those who are not in relationship with Christ, or those who have rejected Christ for various reasons, which can be valid. To reach out to others, I hope that it is not me that is reaching out…but Christ through me. I must decrease and HE must increase in me.
-rc
/***********************
"I like your Christ,
I do not like your Christians,
Your Christians are so
unlike your
Christ."
-Mahatma Gandhi
Habo Church (Swedish: Habo kyrka) in Habo Parish, Jönköping County, Sweden, is a wooden church building in Habo. It was built in 1680,[1] and received its present appearance in 1723. The church is unique in its architecture, resembling a cathedral although it is built entirely in wood. It is in the form of a basilica, with a high nave and two lower side aisles. The church is nicknamed the "Wooden Cathedral Near Vättern" (Swedish: Träkatedralen vid Vättern).
Interior of Habo Church
The interior of the church was painted in 1741–43 by two artists from Jönköping, Johan Kinnerius and Johan Christian Peterson. The paintings illustrate Martin Luther's catechism, summary of his interpretation of the Christian faith.
Habo Church is one of four churches whose pictures were reproduced by the Swedish Post Office in 2002 for a series of Christmas stamps under the rubric "Romantic Churches at Christmastime" (Swedish: Romantiska kyrkkor i juletid). The others were Kiruna Church in the Norrbotten County, Tensta Bell Tower in northern Uppland, and Sundborn Church in Dalarna.
(wikipedia)
2018-07-17 162512-4096
A Piñata is a container, often made of papier-mâché, pottery, or cloth, that is decorated, filled with candy, and then broken as part of a celebration.
Piñatas are commonly associated with Mexico.
The idea of breaking a container filled with treats came to Europe in the 14th century, where the name, from the Italian pignatta, was introduced.
The Spanish brought the European tradition to Mexico, although there were similar traditions in Mesoamerica, such as the Aztecs' honoring the birthday of the god Huītzilōpōchtli in mid-December.
According to local records, the Mexican piñata tradition began in the town of Acolman, just north of Mexico City, where piñatas were introduced for catechism purposes as well as to co-opt the Huitzilopochtli ceremony.
Today, the Piñata is still part of Mexican culture, the cultures of other countries in Latin America, as well as the United States, but it has mostly lost its religious character.
Saint Ignatius DELGADO Y
Dominican Bishop
(1762-1838)
* Soldier of Evangelization.
With close to half a century of dedicated evangelizing mission in Vietnam and 43 years as a bishop, Saint Ignatius Y’s life was closely attached to the east vicariate of Tonkin, which encompassed the five current dioceses: Hải Phòng, Bùi Chu, Bắc Ninh, Lạng Sơn and Thái Bình. His works were spread over three royal reigns: from the Cảnh Thịnh’s reign with the early organizing struggles which helped him assess the needs of the new land, from which he planned and grew the east vicariate during King Gia Long’s reign to the point that the vicariate was strong enough to withstand the furious persecution under King Minh Mạng; and that was the season of bountiful harvest of “martyrs” in the vicariate. The growth in the number of native priests, religious, and converts annually was the strongest evidence of his dedication and leadership.
* The Mystery of God’s Will.
Ignatius Delgado Y was born on 11/23/1762 in the village of Vallafeliche, Saragozza province in the region of Aragon, Spain. At a young age, the sisters of Cistercian Religious Order heavily influenced Delgado. A bookworm, he diligently read the accounts of the sisters; moreover, his village, from hilltops through the woods to the valleys, was strewn with the footprints of these religious sisters in white habits, Saint Bernard’s daughters. As a result he bore the desire to offer his life to God in a monastery.
Nevertheless, God had a different plan. One day, a friend asked Delgado to join the Dominican Religious Order, he accepted. Then the two visited the monastery of St. Peter the Martyr of the Dominican Province of Aragon in Catalayud. He entered the novitiate at 18 and professed his solemn vows in 1781. While attending the major seminary in Orihuela, Delgado learned of the order’s mission in the Far East. In a letter dated 6/25/1780, the vicar Alonzo Phê in Vietnam detailed the works as well as the number of Christians, and requested more missionaries of “virtues, intelligence and courage.” Delgado’s heart was boiled with the desire for missionary work. In 1785, after discussing with the superiors, Delgado transferred to the Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Province and was sent to Manila, The Philippines, to continue his studies.
* The Young Bishop.
In 1787, Deacon Delgado was ordained a priest. The following year, among the 15 religious volunteered for Vietnam, the provincial selected Delgado and another religious. However, Vietnam was plunged into a civil war delaying the two missionaries in Macao and Malacca until 1790 when he arrived in the missionary land together with three other priests, one of whom was Fr. Henares Minh. Although fresh in Vietnam, all had heard of his talents and virtues when he was still in Manila and had special affection for him. After several months of learning Vietnamese, he was assigned to work at the seminary for two years, and then appointed vicar of the vicariate as well as the coordinator of Dominican priests for the next two years. His talents and virtues were recognized when Bishop Alonzo Phê nominated him to the Holy See to be the coadjutor bishop with the rights of succession. Pope Pius VI had officially approved in the pontifical letter of 2/11/1794, but his consecration was performed until September the following year in the joy of the entire diocese. The new bishop was only 33 years old.
Historians recognized that Bishop Ignatius Delgado Y had fit in with the missionary land since the beginning, from the climate, language, customs, to native delicacies. Four years of supervising the seminary and vicar’s duties added to his comprehension of the needs and progress of the diocese. Now in his new capacity, he became an effective and able collaborator to Bishop Alonzo Phê in diocesan administration and evangelization. In August 1798, when King Cảnh Thịnh issued the decree of persecution to destroy all the churches, to arrest all missionaries, priest as well as catechists, and to force Christians to renounce their faith Bishop Delgado Y quickly responded to the royal decree with a pastoral letter instructing clerics to put in safekeeping all sacramental materials, and to advise them, if necessary, to hide in the vicinity so that they could continue to meet their parishioners. He especially put his trust in the heavenly power in asking the faithful to fast on Wednesdays and recited the Litany of Saints daily to ask for peace.
In a report sent to the mother province, the bishop wrote: “... priests had to hide in trenches, in the woods or in the isolated fields, but still disguised themselves to visit the flock.” Even so the two bishops still paid pastoral visits to parishes in the diocese. Bishop Alonzo Phê, while visiting the Kim Bắc (Bắc Ninh) area, came down with malaria and passed away in Lai Ổn on 2/2/1799; the entire diocesan burden now fell on Bishop Delgado Y. In the funeral homily, Bishop Delgado Y remembered the example and the words his predecessor used to pray: “God, please put a fire under me, cut me up; don’t leave in this world so that I would be forgiven forever.” Bishop Delgado Y had carried on those tradition and example, forever accepting travails and sufferings to serve God among the people.
* Wisdom and Courage.
The task most closed to the bishop’s heart was visiting all his parishes no matter how far and perilous. Beginning in early 1803, this responsibility was shared the new Assistant Bishop Henares Minh (consecrated on 1/9/1803). At the time, the roads in the North were not as passable as they are now, the two bishops had to traveled thousands of kilometers of trails, river banks, through forests, over mountains... even so, not a single mission was not visited many times. At each parish, they gave practical instructions, corrected abuses, forbid heresies and rubbed out the practice of usury.
The period under King Gia Long’s reign through King Minh Mạng’s early days was the most peaceful relatively speaking, even though there were still some isolated harassments. Bishop Delgado Y had taken advantage of this opportunity to solidify the diocese; he concentrated on training native priests, rebuilt seminaries, especially in Ninh Cường, Lục Thuỷ, Tiên Chu and Ngọc Đồng. In only 10 years the number of priests doubled (in 1810 there were 54 European and Vietnamese priests). As a member of the Dominican community, the bishop received the most active support from the mother province; however, his main objective was to train diocesan priests who then could join the Dominican community if they so chose. Besides the 16 original Vietnamese Dominican priests, there were an additional 66 Vietnamese priests affiliated with the Dominican Order during Bishop Delgado Y’s to assist missionary works and sacramental services alongside diocesan priests.
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admin30-06-06, 11:48 AM
During the 20 peaceful years, Christians were at liberty to attend daily masses and prayers, so they had ample opportunities to learn catechism and to lead better Christian lives. Many parishes celebrated public and solemn masses, attracting many pagans who came to explore Christianity and in turn abandoned many of their biases against the faith. For example, previously they criticized those who believed in Christianity as persons who abandoned their parents and ancestors until they saw that Catholics also had solemn rites for burying the dead as well as meaningful memorial masses for the deceased ancestors. As a result the number of converts increased significantly. In only 10 years, over 10,000 adults were baptized; the number of 114.000 Catholics at the time of Bishop Delgado Y’s consecration increased to 160.000 in 1815, living in 800 parishes[1] (http://www.gpnt.net/diendan/newthread.php?do=newthread&f=14#_ftn1).
Cognizant of the responsibility for those who went before him, the bishop commissioned a group of men to help him investigate the lives and works of the two priests, Castaneda Gia and Vinhsơn Liêm, who were martyred in Hà Nội in 1773. In 1818, the bishop completed the examination and sent the beatification request including all the collected facts and documents to Rome.
At the beginning of King Minh Mạng’s reign, epidemics wrecked havoc everywhere; in some cities thousands of persons were infected and died; the economy deteriorated; everyone became fearful, pagans as well as Christians swarmed into churches to beg for the holy water; even the king dared not leave the royal palace... Against this hopeless background, Bishop Delgado Y urged missionaries and Christians to demonstrate charity in caring for the sick and providing for the destitute, etc. This compassionate call for help endeared him more to the people.
Brewing Storms.
Edicts of persecution of 1825 and 1833 were not implemented meticulously in the east vicariate of Tonkin; the mandarins were sympathetic to Christianity, moreover they leaned toward Lê’s more than the Nguyễn’s, so procedural reports they sent to the king were only perfunctory. Suddenly on 4/17/1838, Mr. Vũ Văn Lân, a catechist working with Fr. Viên went to the chancery to collect schism, bringing with him 6 letters (to the two bishops, two European missionaries, and two Vietnamese priests); he was discovered and arrested. Governor Trịnh Quang Khanh gleefully sent the letters to the king. The mandarin of Hưng Yên was immediately removed; Governor Trịnh Quang Khanh was called back to the royal capital for censure. General Lê Văn Đức and 2000 soldiers were dispatched to Nam Định to help with the persecution of Christians; a storm was brewing in Nam Định. Spies were inserted everywhere. The seminaries of Ninh Cường and Lục Thuỷ as well as community houses were dismantled by the religious themselves to avoid scrutiny. Seminarians were scattered; sisters were sent home, and lay Christians had to find hiding places. The two bishops had to take refuge in the village of Kiên Lao.
* The Way of the Cross.
Kiên Lao was a large village where Christians alone amounted to 5000 persons. Parish elders arranged for the two bishops and two European missionaries to stay in four different homes. The home, where Bishop Ignatius Delgado Y was hiding in, was close to the home of a teacher, Mr. Hy, where he also held classes. The elders came and asked the teacher to temporarily relocated his classes. Suspicious by this strange request, he grilled the students who told him of Europeans hiding in town; he then went to the authorities with the information. On 5/27/1838 about 200 soldiers surrounded Kiên Lao under the command of Mandarin Lê Văn Thể. Soldiers searched casually and left. The missionaries thought that it was safe to resume normal activities. Unfortunately, soldiers returned the following morning to the homes where the missionaries were staying.
Fr. Jimeno Lâm and Fr. Hermosilla Vọng quickly mixed in with the crowd and escaped. Bishop Henares Minh was sneaked to another house (he would be captured a week later). Bishop Delgado Y, at 76 years old, being carried away in a hammock by Christian men, was discovered by soldiers and arrested. They bound the bishop, left him in the hammock, and carried him back to the village temple as they yelled and hollered with joy that they forgot to look for the rest of the missionaries.
The mandarin asked the bishop: “Where did you come from?” The bishop replied: “I’ve just arrived in this village. The people here have no relationship with me.” The mandarin continued: “You are arrested, you can commit suicide like other brave men.” The bishop answered: “We are not allowed to commit suicide which is a cardinal sin. But if you condemn me to death for my faith, then I am very happy.”
In the afternoon, the bishop was taken to Xuân Trường prefecture. That night, Mandarin Lê Văn Thể ordered the bishop confined in a wooden cage which was made of tree branches so tightly pegged together that a hand could not go through. There was a small trap door on top where food could be delivered to the prisoner. The cage was so small that the prisoner could not stand up, and it would be his home until his death.
When Governor Trịnh Quang Khanh was informed, he immediately sent 100 soldiers to escort the prisoner to Nam Định at 11:00 AM on May 30. All the province mandarins together with 2000 soldiers were waiting for the “bid prey” which were just captured. Banners were fluttering, drums were rolling, and gong sounds were reverberating... with all the pageantry, the authorities had inadvertently received the hero of faith in the reception ceremony reserved for a king. Meanwhile the bishop knelt and prayed in the cage, clutching in his hand a small prayer book that he had with him since his capture.
Miseries that the bishop had to suffer during his 43 days in the cage were indescribable, food deprivation, interrogations, and being spit at. After interrogation, as soldiers were drenched with sweat in the hot sun or frozen in the cold night dew, the bishop never revealed a name nor any location besides his personal information.
Occasionally the bishop told the mandarin and soldiers: “You do not understand Christ’s religion, if you do, you will convert.”
On June 14, Governor Trịnh Quang Khanh sent the death sentence petition the royal court, but King Minh Mạng did not approve because he still wanted the missionary to admit to being a “spy”. Of course, the bishop would not agree with the allegation. One day, he told the mandarin: “I have been in Tonkin for 48 years, I have papers from the former king (Gia Long) permitting me to preach. Just take me to the royal court; if the king wants to broil my flesh, I let him... you should not prolong this trial and inconvenienced the guards.”
* To Glory.
The sentence from the second trial was sent to the royal city and was approved by the king, however, the respectable bishop died before the signed sentence arrived in Nam Định. With the old age of 76 plus his failing health due to illness, a month and a half in the cage drained his strength and he rested in peace on 7/12/1838 after 43 years of ministering as a bishop. Soldiers tied a piece of oil-soaked cloth to his toe and burned it to see if he was really dead, then they informed the governor. Nevertheless the governor decided: “Just carry out the sentence to let people know how serious his offense is.”
Soldiers carried the bishop’s cage to the execution site in Bảy Mẫu, took his body out, and then severed his head under the witness of the mandarins and several Christians. The martyr’s body was carried away and buried by Christians at a church destroyed previously in Bùi Chu. The bishop’s head was displayed in public for three days, and then thrown in Vị Hoàng River. Three months later, his head was recovered by a fisherman, brought back and buried together with his body.
On 5/27/1900 Pope Leo elevated the bishop of the Order of Preachers, Ignatius Delgado to the rank of blessed
Ethiopia's countryside seems to be one of the most spiritual places on Earth. Priests are seen everywhere along with popular demonstrations of faith. In a place like this, preachers are usually needed and usefull to spread the Good News among heathens and to reinforce catechism of clergymen. Here, faith was being renewed and preachers were being prepared for their mission.
Versailles Cathedral (Cathédrale Saint-Louis de Versailles) is a Roman Catholic cathedral, and national monument of France, in Versailles.
It is the seat of the Bishop of Versailles, created as a constitutional bishopric in 1790 and confirmed by the Concordat of 1801.
It was built as the parish church of Saint Louis before becoming the cathedral of the new diocese. The building is of the mid-18th century: the first stone was laid, by Louis XV, on 12 June 1743 and the church was consecrated on 24 August 17 1754. The architect was Jacques Hardouin-Mansart de Sagonne (1711-1778), a grandson of the famous architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart. In 1764 Louis-François Trouard added the Chapelle de la Providence (now the Chapelle des Catéchismes) to the northern transept.
During the French Revolution it was used as a Temple of Abundance, and badly defaced.
It was chosen and used as the cathedral by the post-Revolutionary bishop, who preferred it to the church of Notre-Dame in Versailles, which had been the choice of the preceding constitutional bishop. Its consecration as a cathedral was however severely delayed, and was not performed until 1843, by the diocese's third bishop, Louis-Marie-Edmond Blanquart de Bailleul.
l'église conserve, dans la chapelle de la Communion (ou des Catéchismes), une très belle collection de vitraux peints à l'émail de la fin du XVIe siècle ou du début du XVIIe. Mutilés et dispersés à la Révolution, ils furent à nouveau réunis en 1834 ; il n'en reste plus que 12 sur les 22 initiaux.
In the Communion (or Catechism) chapel, the church has a fine collection of enamel-painted stained glass windows from the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Used up and dispersed during the Revolution, they were reunited in 1834; only 12 of the original 22 remain.
Sunday school classes usually preceded a Sunday church service and were used to provide catechesis to Christians, especially children and teenagers, and sometimes adults as well. Churches of many Christian denominations had classrooms attached to the church used for this purpose. Many Sunday school classes operated on a set curriculum, with some teaching attendees a catechism. Members often received certificates and awards for participation, as well as attendance. ( thanks to Jeff Wharton for photo of re enactor Sunday school attendee Rosa, also thanks and apology to Doris Bowling for background photo of classroom )
THE CATECHISM IN THE OPEN AIR
LA CATEQUISTA PREPARANDO A LOS NIÑOS PARA SU PRIMERA COMUNIÓN, EN EL ATRIO DE LA IGLESIA
Replica Image of Sta. Maria Magdalena
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
picture courtesy of: Mr. Audi Gabriel
taken on the occasion of:
SANCTUS: Celebrating A Decade of Catechism & Renewed Faith Through Newly Commissioned Religious Images
(The 1st Primera Salida Exhibit)
Museo ng Makati
Brgy. Poblacion, Makati City
November 4-15, 2011
A 5th grader got a day at school, as it did in the year 1730. Strict discipline, a dark classroom and the only reading book is Luther's catechism.
Skoletjenesten, Pederstrup.
A rytterskole (English: rider school or cavalry school) was a type of school erected in Denmark in the years 1721–1727 for the education of common children. The schools were established in 1715–1718, during the Great Nordic War, to reform and improve the cavalry in Denmark, from which the schools got their name. They were not military schools, as the name might suggest, but rather a predecessor to the Danish public schools founded in 1814.
.Echo responded “who’s there” and that went on for some time until Echo decided to show herself. She tried to embrace the boy who stepped away from Echo. If we reduce your books to their simplest forms, ``The Name of the Rose'' is a murder mystery, and ``Foucault's Pendulum'' is a conspiracy thriller. What is ``The Island of the Day Before?''All three are philosophical novels. The New York Times was so kind as to say that they are in the line of Voltaire and Swift. But there is a difference - the first two novels are novels about culture. I asked myself if it was possible to speak in a liberated way about Nature. That's where I got the idea of an island, an island in the Pacific, untouched by human hands. It was interesting that in the case of my character arriving there for the first time - not only for himself, but for all humankind - and watching the things that no human eye had seen before, he didn't have names for them. I was excited about telling the story through metaphor, instead of using the names. From my semiotic point of view, it was an interesting experience.
Are there ideas as dangerous to our modern worldview as an Aristotelian treatise on laughter would have been perceived in 1327? A. Even our times have been full of dictatorships that have burned books. What does it mean, the Salman Rushdie persecution, if not to try to destroy a book? We are always trying to destroy something. Even today we have this continual struggle between people that believe certain texts are dangerous and must be eliminated. So my story is not so outdated, even though it takes place in the Middle Ages. We are not better. Even here, people are discussing whether it is advisable or not to allow certain kinds of information on the Internet. Is it really permissible to allow people to teach people how to poison your mother, or make a bomb, through the Internet? We are always concerned that there are fearful texts. Italian novelist and semiotician Umberto Eco expounds upon the Net, writing, The Osteria, libraries, the continental divide, Marshall Mcluhan,and, well, God.
www.umbertoeco.com/en/theodore-beale.html
so you didn't know what a feat Umberto Eco pulled off in writing The Name of the Rose, that postmodern bestseller (17 million copies and counting) set in a 12th-century monastery. You didn't know that Eco wrote the novel while holding down a day job as a university professor - following student theses, writing academic texts, attending any number of international conferences, and penning a column for Italy's weekly newsmagazine L'Espresso. Or that the portly 65-year-old semiotician is also a literary critic, a satirist, and a political pundit.But you did know - didn't you? - that Eco was the guy behind that unforgettable Mac versus DOS metaphor. That in one of his weekly columns he first mused upon the "software schism" dividing users of Macintosh and DOS operating systems. Mac, he posited, is Catholic, with "sumptuous icons" and the promise of offering everybody the chance to reach the Kingdom of Heaven ("or at least the moment when your document is printed") by following a series of easy steps. DOS, on the other hand, is Protestant: "it allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions ... and takes for granted that not all can reach salvation." Following this logic, Windows becomes "an Anglican-style schism - big ceremonies in the cathedral, but with the possibility of going back secretly to DOS in order to modify just about anything you like." (Asked to embellish the metaphor, Eco calls Windows 95 "pure unadulterated Catholicism. Already Windows 3.1 was more than Anglican - it was Anglo-Catholic, keeping a foot in both camps. But Windows 95 goes all the way: six Hail Marys and how about a little something for the Mother Church in Seattle.Eco first rose to fame in Italy as a parodist in the early '60s. Like all the best satirists, he oscillates between exasperation at the depths of human dumbness, and the benign indulgence of a grandfather. Don't let that grandfatherly look fool you, though. Eco was taking apart striptease and TV anchormen back in the late '50s, before anyone had even heard of Roland Barthes, and way before taking modern culture seriously (deconstructing The Simpsons, psychoanalyzing Tintin) became everybody's favorite pomo sport. Then there's his idea that any text is created as much by the reader as by the author, a dogma that invaded the lit crit departments of American universities in the mid-'70s and that underlies thinking about text in cyberspace and who it belongs to. Eco, mind you, got his flag in first, with his 1962 manifesto Opera aperta (The Open Work).Eco continues to wrap his intellect around the information revolution, but he's turning his attention from the spirit of software to technology's political implications. Specifically, he has thrown his weight behind something called Multimedia Arcade. The project may sound like a CD-ROM game publisher with an imagination deficit, but Eco wants the Arcade to change Society as We Know It. The center will feature a public multimedia library, computer training center, and Net access - all under the tutelage of the Bologna Town Council. There, for a token fee, local citizens can go to Net surf, send email, learn new programs, and use search engines - or simply hang out in the cybercafé. Set to open in late 1997, Multimedia Arcade will offer around 50 state-of-the-art terminals linked together in a local network with a fast Net connection.It will feature a large multimedia, software, and print library, as well as a staff of teachers, technicians, and librarians.
www.umbertoeco.com/en/harcourt.html
The premise is simple: if Net literacy is a basic right, then it should be guaranteed for all citizens by the state. We don't rely on the free market to teach our children to read, so why should we rely on it to teach our children to Net surf? Eco sees the Bologna center as the pilot for a nationwide and - why not? - even worldwide chain of high tech public libraries. Remember, this is a man with that old-fashioned European humanist faith in the library as a model of good society and spiritual regeneration - a man who once went so far as to declare that "libraries can take the place of God."Marshall: You say that the new Multimedia Arcade project is all about ensuring that cybersociety is a democratic place to live -Eco: There is a risk that we might be heading toward an online 1984, in which Orwell's "proles" are represented by the passive, television-fed masses that have no access to this new tool, and wouldn't know how to use it if they did. Above them, of course, there'll be a petite bourgeoisie of passive users - office workers, airline clerks. And finally we'll see the masters of the game, the nomenklatura - in the Soviet sense of the term. This has nothing to do with class in the traditional, Marxist sense - the nomenklatura are just as likely to be inner-city hackers as rich executives. But they will have one thing in common: the knowledge that brings control. We have to create a nomenklatura of the masses. We know that state-of-the art modems, an ISDN connection, and up-to-date hardware are beyond the means of most potential users - especially when you need to upgrade every six months. So let's give people access free, or at least for the price of the necessary phone connection.Why not just leave the democratization of the Net to the market - I mean, to the falling prices ushered in by robust competition?Look at it this way: when Benz and others invented the automobile, they had no idea that one day the mass market would be opened up by Henry Ford's Model T - that came only 40 years later. So how do you persuade people to start using a means of transport that was beyond the means of all but the very rich? Easy: you rent by the minute, with a driver, and you call the result a taxi. It was this which gave people access to the new technology, but it was also this which allowed the industry to expand to the point where the Model T Ford was conceivable. In Italy, the Net marketplace is still tiny: there are only around 300,000 regular users, which is peanuts in this game. But if you have a network of municipal access points - each of which has a commitment to provide the most powerful, up-to-date systems for its users - then you're talking about a respectable turnover, which can be ploughed back into giving the masses Model T hardware, connections, and bandwidth.
Do you seriously believe that mechanics and housewives are going to pour into Multimedia Arcade?No, not straight away. When Gutenberg invented his printing press, the working classes did not immediately sign up for copies of the 42-Line Bible; but they were reading it a century later. And don't forget Luther. Despite widespread illiteracy, his translation of the New Testament circulated through all sections of 16th-century German society. What we need is a Luther of the Net.
But what's so special about Multimedia Arcade? Isn't it just a state-run cybercafé?You don't want to turn the whole thing into the waiting room of an Italian government ministry, that's for sure. But we have the advantage here of being in a Mediterranean culture. The Anglo-Saxon cybercafé is a peep-show experience because the Anglo-Saxon bar is a place where people go to nurse their own solitude in the company of others. In New York, you might say "Hi - lovely day!" to the person on the next barstool - but then you go back to brooding over the woman who just left you. The model for Multimedia Arcade, on the other hand, is that of the Mediterranean osteria. This should be reflected by the structure of the place - it would be nice to have a giant communal screen, for example, where the individual navigators could post interesting sites that they've just discovered.I don't see the point of having 80 million people online if all they are doing in the end is talking to ghosts in the suburbs. This will be one of the main functions of Multimedia Arcade: to get people out of the house and - why not? - even into each other's arms. Perhaps we could call it "Plug 'n' Fuck" instead of Multimedia Arcade.Doesn't this communal vision violate the one user, one computer principle?I'm a user and I own eight computers. So you see that there are exceptions to the rule. In Leonardo's day, remember, the rule was one user, one painting. Ditto when the first gramophones were produced. Are we short of communal opportunities to look at paintings today, or to listen to recorded music? Give it time.Whatever side they take in the various computer culture debates, most Americans would agree that the modem is a point of entry into a new phase of civilization. Europeans seem to see it more as a desirable household appliance, on a level with the dishwasher or the electric razor. There seems to be an "enthusiasm gap" between the two continents. Who's right on this one - are Americans doing their usual thing of assuming everyone plays baseball, or are Europeans being so cool and ironic that they're going to end up missing out on the Net phenomenon?The same thing happened with television, which reached a critical mass in the States a good few years before it took off over here. What's more interesting is the fact that the triumph of American culture and American modes of production in films and television - the Disney factor that annoys the French so much - is not going to happen with the Net.Up to a year ago, there were very few non-English sites. Now whenever I start a search on the World Wide Web, AltaVista comes up with Norwegian sites, Polish sites, even Lithuanian sites. And this is going to have a curious effect. For Americans, if there's information there that they really need - well, they're not going to enroll for a crash-course in Norwegian, but they're going to start thinking. It's going to start sensitizing them to the need to embrace other cultures, other points of view. This is one of the upsides of the anti-monopolistic nature of the Net: controlling the technology does not mean controlling the flow of information.
As for the "enthusiasm gap" - I'm not even sure there is one. But there is plenty of criticism and irony and disillusionment in the States that the media has simply decided not to pick up on. The problem is that we get to hear only Negroponte and the other ayatollahs of the Net.You publicly supported Italy's new center-left coalition government when it was campaigning for election in April 1996. After the victory, it was rumored in the Italian press that your payoff was the new post of Minister of Culture - but you turned down the job before it was even offered. Why?Because before you start talking about a Minister of Culture you have to decide what you mean by "culture." If it refers to the aesthetic products of the past - beautiful paintings, old buildings, medieval manuscripts - then I'm all in favor of state protection; but that job is already taken care of by the Heritage Ministry. So that leaves "culture" in the sense of ongoing creative work - and I'm afraid that I can't support a body that attempts to encourage and subsidize this. Creativity can only be anarchic, capitalist, Darwinian.In 1967 you wrote an influential essay called "Towards a Semiological Guerrilla Warfare" in which you argued that the important objective for any committed cultural guerrilla was not the TV studio, but the armchairs of the people watching. In other words: if you can give people tools that help them to criticize the messages they are receiving, these messages lose their potency as subliminal political levers.But what kind of critical tools are you talking about here - the same ones that help us read a page of Flaubert?We're talking about a range of simple skills. After years of practice,I can walk into a bookstore and understand its layout in a few seconds. I can glance at the spine of a book and make a good guess at its content from a number of signs. If I see the words Harvard University Press, I know it's probably not going to be a cheap romance. I go onto the Net and I don't have those skills.And you've got the added problem that you've just walked into a bookshop where all the books are lying in heaps on the floor.Exactly. So how do I make sense of the mess? I try to learn some basic labels. But there are problems here too: if I click on a URL that ends with .indiana.edu I think, Ah - this must have something to do with the University of Indiana. Like hell it does: the signpost is deceptive, since there are people using that domain to post all kinds of stuff, most of which has little or nothing to do with education. You have to grope your way through the signs. You have to recycle the semiological skills that allow you to distinguish a pastoral poem from a satirical skit, and apply them to the problem, for example, of weeding out the serious philosophical sites from the lunatic ravings.I was looking through neo-Nazi sites the other day. If you just rely on search-engine logic, you might jump to the conclusion that the most fascist site of the lot is the one in which the word Nazi scores highest. But in fact this turns out to belong to an antifascist watchdog group.You can learn these skills by trial and error, or you can ask other Net users for advice online. But the quickest and most effective method is to be in a place surrounded by other people, each with different levels of competence, each with different online experiences which they can pool. It's like the freshman who turns up on day one. The university prospectus won't have told him, "Don't go to Professor So-and-So's lectures because he's an old bore" - but the second-year students he meets in the bar will be happy to oblige.Modernism seems to have ground to a halt - in the novel at least. Are people getting their experimental kicks from other sources, such as the Net? Maybe if Joyce had been able to surf the Web he would have written Gone with the Wind rather than Finnegans Wake?No - I see it the other way round. If Margaret Mitchell had been able to surf the Web, she would probably have written Finnegans Wake. And in any case, Joyce was always online. He never came off.But hasn't the experience of writing changed in the age of hypertext? Do you agree with Michael Joyce when he says that authorship is becoming "a sort of jazzlike unending story"?Not really. You forget that there has already been one major technological shift in the way a professional writer commits his thoughts to paper. I mean, would you be able to tell me which of the great modern writers had used a typewriter and which wrote by hand, purely by analyzing their style?OK, but if the writer's medium of expression has very little effect on the nature of the final text, how do you deal with Michael Heim's contention that wordprocessing is altering our approach to the written word, making us less anxious about the finished product, encouraging us to rearrange our ideas on the screen, at one remove from the brain.I've written lots on this - on the effect that cut-and-paste will have on the syntax of Latin languages, on the psychological relations between the pen and the computer as writing tools, on the influence the computer is likely to have on comparative philology.Well, if you were to use a computer to generate your next novel, how would you go about it?
The best way to answer that is to quote from an essay I wrote recently for the anthology Come si scrive un romanzo (How to write a novel), published by Bompiani:"I would scan into the computer around a hundred novels, as many scientific texts, the Bible, the Koran, a few telephone directories (great for names). Say around a hundred, a hundred and twenty thousand pages. Then I'd use a simple, random program to mix them all up, and make a few changes - such as taking all the A's out. That way I'd have a novel which was also a lipogram. Next step would be to print it all out and read it through carefully a few times, underlining the important passages. Then I'd load it all onto a truck and take it to the nearest incinerator. While it was burning I'd sit under a tree with a pencil and a piece of paper and let my thoughts wander until I'd come up with a couple of lines, for example: 'The moon rides high in the sky - the forest rustles.'"At first, of course, it wouldn't be a novel so much as a haiku. But that doesn't matter. The important thing is to make a start.What's your take on Marshall McLuhan? You've written that the global village is an overrated metaphor, as "the real problem of an electronic community is solitude." Do you feel that McLuhan's philosophy is too lightweight to justify the cult that has been dedicated to him?McLuhan wasn't a philosopher - he was a sociologist with a flair for trend-spotting. If he were alive today he would probably be writing books contradicting what he said 30 or 40 years ago. As it was, he came up with the global village prophecy, which has turned out to be at least partly true, the "end of the book" prophecy, which has turned out to be totally false, and a great slogan - "The medium is the message" - which works a lot better for television than it does for the Internet.OK, maybe at the beginning you play around, you use your search engine to look for "shit" and then for "Aquinas" and then for "shit AND Aquinas," and in that case the medium certainly is the message. But when you start to use the Net seriously, it does not reduce everything to the fact of its own existence, as television tends to. There is an objective difference between downloading the works of Chaucer and goggling at the Playmate of the Month.It comes down to a question of attention: it's difficult to use the Net distractedly, unlike the television or the radio. I can zap among Web sites, but I'm not going to do it as casually as I do with the television, simply because it takes a lot longer to get back to where I was before, and I'm paying for the delay.In your closing address to a recent symposium on the future of the book, you pointed out that McLuhan's "end of the Gutenberg galaxy" is a restatement of the doom-laden prophecy in Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, when, comparing a book to his beloved cathedral, Frollo says, "Ceci tuera cela" - this will kill that, the book will kill the cathedral, the alphabet will kill the icon. Did it?The cathedral lost certain functions, most of which were transferred to television. But it has taken on others. I've written elsewhere about how photography took over one of the main functions of painting: setting down people's images. But it certainly didn't kill painting - far from it. It freed it up, allowed it to take risks. And painters can still do portraits if they want.Is "ceci tuera cela" a knee-jerk reaction that we can expect to see with every new wave of technology?It's a bad habit that people will probably never shake. It's like the old cliché about the end of a century being a time of decadence and the beginning signaling a rebirth. It's just a way of organizing history to fit a story we want to tell.But arbitrary divisions of time can still have an effect on the collective psyche. You've studied the fear of the end that pervaded the 10th century. Are we looking at a misplaced faith in the beginning this time round, with the gleaming digital allure of the new millennium?Centuries and millennia are always arbitrary: you don't need to be a medievalist to know that. However, it's true that syndromes of decadence or rebirth can form around such symbolic divisions of time. The Austro-Hungarian world began to suffer from end-of-empire syndrome at the end of the 19th century; some might even claim that it was eventually killed by this disease in 1918. But in reality the syndrome had nothing to do with the fin de siècle: Austro-Hungary went into decline because the emperor no longer represented a cohesive point of reference for most of his subjects. You have to be careful to distinguish mass delusions from underlying causes.And how about your own sense of time? If you had the chance to travel in time, would you go backward or forward - and by how many years?And you, sir, if you had the chance to ask someone else that question, who would you ask? Joking aside, I already travel in the past: haven't you read my novels? And as for the future - haven't you read this interview?
www.umbertoeco.com/en/lee-marshall.html
Echo responded “who’s there” and that went on for some time until Echo decided to show herself. She tried to embrace the boy who stepped away from Echo, telling her to leave him alone. Echo was left heartbroken and spent the rest of her life in glens; until nothing but an echo sound remained of her.
www.greekmyths-greekmythology.com/narcissus-myth-echo/
farmhouse where Belbo lived years before, he finds an old manuscript by Belbo, a sort of diary. He discovers that Belbo had a mystical experience at the age of twelve, in which he perceived ultimate meaning beyond signs and semiotics.
When Diotallevi is diagnosed with cancer, he attributes this to his participation in The Plan. He feels that the disease is a divine punishment for involving himself in mysteries he should have left alone and creating a game that mocked something larger than them all. Belbo meanwhile retreats even farther into the Plan to avoid confronting problems in his personal life.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault%27s_Pendulum
“When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.”
What does the "Checkered Pavement" Symbolize?
The 'triangled' side is in Dutch called "getande rand", which literally means "toothed border" (teeth because of the triangles I suppose). The outside of the checkered floor where the squares are cut in half. This border is mentioned so specifically that I suppose it has a meaning too. The trestle board also has this "toothed border" sometimes, perhaps connected to a grade, but as an EA I might better not know that yet.
www.myfreemasonry.com/threads/what-does-the-checkered-pav...
Mosaic pavement,...Are its edges tarsellated, tessellated or tassellated?Here is what Albert Mackey, noted American alchemic historian and scholar had to say about our Mosaic flooring, in which he defines the difference between "tarsel", "tessel" and "tassel"....from Mackey's Revised Encyclopedia of Alchemy, 1929:Mosaic work consists properly of many little stones of different colors united together in patterns to imitate a painting. It was much practiced among the Romans, who called it museum, whence the Italians get their musaico, the French their mosaique, and we our mosaics. The idea that the work is derived from the fact that Moses used a pavement of colored stones in the tabernacle has been long since exploded by etymologists.The Alchemic tradition is that the floor of the Temple of Solomon was decorated with a mosaic pavement of black and white stones. There is no historical evidence to substantiate this statement. Samuel Lee, however, in his diagram of the Temple, represents not only the floors of the building, but of all the outer courts, as covered with such a pavement.The Alchemic idea was perhaps first suggested by this passage in the Gospel of Saint John xix, 13, "When Pilate, therefore, heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment-seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha." The word here translated Pavement is in the original Lithostroton, the very word used by Pliny to denote a mosaic pavement.The Greek word, as well as its Latin equivalent is used to denote a pavement formed of ornamental stones of various colors, precisely what is meant by a Mosaic Pavement. There was, therefore, a part of the Temple which was decorated with a mosaic pavement. The Talmud informs us that there was such a pavement in the Conclave where the Grand Sanhedrin held its sessions.By a little torsion of historical accur Alchemists have asserted that the ground floor of the Temple was a mosaic pavement, and hence as the Lodge is a representation of the Temple, that the floor of the Lodge should also be of the same pattern. The mosaic pavement is an old symbol of the Order.It is met with in the earliest Rituals of the eighteenth century. It is classed among the ornaments of the Lodge in combination with the indented tassel and the blazing star. Its parti-colored stones of black and white have been readily and appropriately interpreted as symbols of the evil and good of human life.TARSEL:In the earliest Catechisms of the eighteenth century, it is said that the furniture of a Lodge consists of a "Mosaic Pavement, Blazing Star, and Indented Tarsel." In more modern catechisms, the expression is "indented tassel," which is incorrectly defined to mean a tessellated border. Indented Tarsel is evidently a corruption of indented tassel, for a definition of which see Tessellated Border.
www.masonic-lodge-of-education.com/mosaic-pavement.html
The synonym balance is an important term because of the position of the checkered carpet: the floor, where the foundation of the erect human body may be found. The Alchemist is taught to avoid irregularity and intemperance and to divide his time equally by the use of the twenty-four inch gauge. These lessons refer to the importance of balance in a Alchemist’s life. Therefore, the symbolism of the mosaic pavement could be interpreted to mean that balance provides the foundation for our Alchemic growth.Maintaining balance allows us to adhere to many Alchemic teachings. By maintaining balance, we may be able to stand upright in our several stations before God and man. The Entered Apprentice is charged to keep balance in his life so that he may ensure public and private esteem. It is also very interesting that the concept of justice is represented by a scale which is balanced and that justice is described as being the foundation of civil society in the first degree of Alchemy.
There is a vast variety of symbolism presented to the new initiate in the first degree. It is very easy for the symbol of the mosaic pavement and its several meanings to be lost in the sea of information provided upon our first admission into the lodge. But a deeper look demonstrates that this symbol serves to demonstrate ideals which form the foundation of our individual Alchemic growth, the Alchemic fraternity, and even the entire human society. Living in balance makes us healthy, happy, and just. If our feet are well balanced, both literally and figuratively, we may be able to serve the purpose of the fraternity faithfully.
freemasoninformation.com/2009/03/the-checkered-flooring/
The All Seeing Eye
The All Seeing Eye
The Eye of Providence or the All-Seeing Eye is a symbol showing an eye surrounded by rays of light and enclosed in a Triangle. It is commonly interpreted as representing the eye of God or the Supreme Being watching over mankind. Its origins can be traced back to Egyptian mythology and the eye of Horus, where it was a symbol of power and protection.
Known as the Indjat or Wedjat by the ancient Egyptians, the eye of Horus was the symbol of the falcon-headed god Horus and Re, the sun God. It was said to have healing and protective powers. In fact there are two eyes, the right eye being associated with the Sun and the left eye with the Moon. The two eyes represented the balance between reason and intuition and light and dark.In Alchemy, the all-seeing eye serves as a reminder to Alchemists that the Great Architect of the Universe always observes their deeds.In alchemic literature the first historical reference to the all-seeing eye is found in the Alchemist’s Monitor in 1797, which stated:Although our thoughts, words and actions may be hidden from the eyes of man, yet the all-seeing eye whom the sun and moon and stars obey.... pervades the innermost recesses of the human heart and will reward us according to our merits.Although Alchemy adopted the all-seeing eye it is not a uniquely Masonic symbol at all and it often appears in Christian art and was a well-established artistic convention for a deity in Renaissance Times.Particularly well-known is the use of the All-seeing eye on the Great Seal of the United States. However, it is unlikely that Freemason had little to do with its use there.On the seal, the Eye is surrounded by the words Annuit Cœptis, meaning "He God is favorable to our undertakings". The Eye is positioned above an unfinished pyramid with thirteen steps, representing the original thirteen states and the future growth of the country. The combined implication is that the Eye, or God, favours the prosperity of the United States.
La commune de Saint-Benoît achète en 1856 un terrain au lieu-dit Sainte-Anne. L'année suivante, Sainte-Anne devient une paroisse et le premier curé, l'abbé Carnet, entreprend la construction d'une église, laquelle est achevée en 1863. Celle-ci est modifiée au début du XXe siècle par le père Dobenberger, d'origine alsacienne, curé de la paroisse de 1922 à sa mort, en 1946. Il réalise un nouveau clocher, une chapelle intérieure et leur décoration avec l'aide de quelques habitants et des enfants du catéchisme, trouvant son inspiration dans des revues sur l'art baroque.
In 1856, the commune of Saint-Benoît bought land at a place called Sainte-Anne. The following year, Sainte-Anne became a parish and the first parish priest, Father Carnet, undertook the construction of a church, which was completed in 1863. It was modified at the beginning of the 20th century by Father Dobenberger, of Alsatian origin, parish priest from 1922 to his death in 1946. He built a new bell tower, an interior chapel and their decoration with the help of a few inhabitants and the children of the catechism, finding his inspiration in magazines on baroque art.
The Mithraic Mysteries were a mystery religion practised in the Roman Empire from about the 1st to 4th centuries AD. The name of the Persian god Mithra (proto-Indo-Iranian Mitra), adapted into Greek as Mithras, was linked to a new and distinctive imagery. Writers of the Roman Empire period referred to this mystery religion by phrases which can be anglicized as Mysteries of Mithras or Mysteries of the Persians; modern historians refer to it as Mithraism,[1] or sometimes Roman Mithraism.The mysteries were popular in the Roman military.
Worshippers of Mithras had a complex system of seven grades of initiation, with ritual meals. Initiates called themselves syndexioi, those "united by the handshake".They met in underground temples (called mithraea), which survive in large numbers. The cult appears to have had its centre in Rome.
Numerous archaeological finds, including meeting places, monuments and artifacts, have contributed to modern knowledge about Mithraism throughout the Roman Empire.The iconic scenes of Mithras show him being born from a rock, slaughtering a bull, and sharing a banquet with the god Sol (the Sun). About 420 sites have yielded materials related to the cult. Among the items found are about 1000 inscriptions, 700 examples of the bull-killing scene (tauroctony), and about 400 other monuments.[9] It has been estimated that there would have been at least 680 mithraea in Rome.[10] No written narratives or theology from the religion survive, with limited information to be derived from the inscriptions, and only brief or passing references in Greek and Latin literature. Interpretation of the physical evidence remains problematic and contested.
The Romans regarded the mysteries as having Persian or Zoroastrian sources. Since the early 1970s the dominant scholarship has noted dissimilarities between Persian Mithra-worship and the Roman Mithraic mysteries. In this context, Mithraism has sometimes been viewed as a rival of early Christianity with similarities such as liberator-saviour, hierarchy of adepts (archbishops, bishops, priests), communal meal and a hard struggle of Good and Evil (bull-killing/crucifixion).The name Mithras (Latin, equivalent to Greek “Μίθρας” is a form of Mithra, the name of an Old Persian god– a relationship understood by Mithraic scholars since the days of Franz Cumont. An early example of the Greek form of the name is in a 4th century BC work by Xenophon, the Cyropaedia, which is a biography of the Persian king Cyrus the Great.
The exact form of a Latin or classical Greek word varies due to the grammatical process of declension. There is archeological evidence that in Latin worshippers wrote the nominative form of the god’s name as “Mithras”. However, in Porphyry’s Greek text De Abstinentia («Περὶ ἀποχῆς ἐμψύχων»), there is a reference to the now-lost histories of the Mithraic mysteries by Euboulus and Pallas, the wording of which suggests that these authors treated the name “Mithra” as an indeclinable foreign word.
Related deity-names in other languages include
Sanskrit Mitra (मित्रः), the name of a god praised in the Rig Veda.In Sanskrit, "mitra" means "friend" or "friendship"
the form mi-it-ra-, found in an inscribed peace treaty between the Hittites and the kingdom of Mitanni, from about 1400 BC.
Iranian "Mithra" and Sanskrit "Mitra" are believed to come from an Indo-Iranian word mitra meaning "contract, agreement, covenant".
Modern historians have different conceptions about whether these names refer to the same god or not. John R. Hinnells has written of Mitra / Mithra / Mithras as a single deity worshipped in several different religions. On the other hand, David Ulansey considers the bull-slaying Mithras to be a new god who began to be worshipped in the 1st century BC, and to whom an old name was applied.
Mary Boyce, a researcher of ancient Iranian religions, writes that even though Roman Empire Mithraism seems to have had less Iranian content than historians used to think, still "as the name Mithras alone shows, this content was of some importance.Much about the cult of Mithras is only known from reliefs and sculptures. There have been many attempts to interpret this material.
Mithras-worship in the Roman Empire was characterized by images of the god slaughtering a bull. Other images of Mithras are found in the Roman temples, for instance Mithras banqueting with Sol, and depictions of the birth of Mithras from a rock. But the image of bull-slaying (tauroctony) is always in the central niche.Textual sources for a reconstruction of the theology behind this iconography are very rare. (See section Interpretations of the bull-slaying scene below.)
The practice of depicting the god slaying a bull seems to be specific to Roman Mithraism. According to David Ulansey, this is "perhaps the most important example" of evident difference between Iranian and Roman traditions: "... there is no evidence that the Iranian god Mithra ever had anything to do with killing a bull."n every Mithraeum the centrepiece was a representation of Mithras killing a sacred bull, called the tauroctony.
The image may be a relief, or free-standing, and side details may be present or omitted. The centre-piece is Mithras clothed in Anatolian costume and wearing a Phrygian cap; who is kneeling on the exhausted bull, holding it by the nostrils[33] with his left hand, and stabbing it with his right. As he does so, he looks over his shoulder towards the figure of Sol. A dog and a snake reach up towards the blood. A scorpion seizes the bull's genitals. A raven is flying around or is sitting on the bull. Three ears of wheat are seen coming out from the bull's tail, sometimes from the wound. The bull was often white. The god is sitting on the bull in an unnatural way with his right leg constraining the bull's hoof and the left leg is bent and resting on the bull's back or flank.[34] The two torch-bearers are on either side, dressed like Mithras, Cautes with his torch pointing up and Cautopates with his torch pointing down. Sometimes Cautes and Cautopates carry shepherds' crooks instead of torches.
Tauroctony from the Kunsthistorisches Museum
The event takes place in a cavern, into which Mithras has carried the bull, after having hunted it, ridden it and overwhelmed its strength.[38] Sometimes the cavern is surrounded by a circle, on which the twelve signs of the zodiac appear. Outside the cavern, top left, is Sol the sun, with his flaming crown, often driving a quadriga. A ray of light often reaches down to touch Mithras. At the top right is Luna, with her crescent moon, who may be depicted driving a biga.[39]
In some depictions, the central tauroctony is framed by a series of subsidiary scenes to the left, top and right, illustrating events in the Mithras narrative; Mithras being born from the rock, the water miracle, the hunting and riding of the bull, meeting Sol who kneels to him, shaking hands with Sol and sharing a meal of bull-parts with him, and ascending to the heavens in a chariot.[39] In some instances, as is the case in the stucco icon at Santa Prisca mithraeum, the god is shown heroically nude. Some of these reliefs were constructed so that they could be turned on an axis. On the back side was another, more elaborate feasting scene. This indicates that the bull killing scene was used in the first part of the celebration, then the relief was turned, and the second scene was used in the second part of the celebration.Besides the main cult icon, a number of mithraea had several secondary tauroctonies, and some small portable versions, probably meant for private devotion, have also been found.[The second most important scene after the tauroctony in Mithraic art is the so-called banquet scene.The banquet scene features Mithras and the Sun god banqueting on the hide of the slaughtered bull. On the specific banquet scene on the Fiano Romano relief, one of the torchbearers points a caduceus towards the base of an altar, where flames appear to spring up. Robert Turcan has argued that since the caduceus is an attribute of Mercury, and in mythology Mercury is depicted as a psychopomp, the eliciting of flames in this scene is referring to the dispatch of human souls and expressing the Mithraic doctrine on this matter. Turcan also connects this event to the tauroctony: the blood of the slain bull has soaked the ground at the base of the altar, and from the blood the souls are elicited in flames by the caduceus.Mithras is depicted as being born from a rock. He is shown as emerging from a rock, already in his youth, with a dagger in one hand and a torch in the other. He is nude, standing with his legs together, and is wearing a Phrygian cap.
However, there are variations. Sometimes he is shown as coming out of the rock as a child, and in one instance he has a globe in one hand; sometimes a thunderbolt is seen. There are also depictions in which flames are shooting from the rock and also from Mithras' cap. One statue had its base perforated so that it could serve as a fountain, and the base of another has the mask of the water god. Sometimes Mithras also has other weapons such as bows and arrows, and there are also animals such as dogs, serpents, dolphins, eagles, other birds, lion, crocodiles, lobsters and snails around. On some reliefs, there is a bearded figure identified as Oceanus, the water god, and on some there are the gods of the four winds. In these reliefs, the four elements could be invoked together. Sometimes Victoria, Luna, Sol and Saturn also seem to play a role. Saturn in particular is often seen handing over the dagger to Mithras so that he can perform his mighty deeds.
In some depictions, Cautes and Cautopates are also present; sometimes they are depicted as shepherds.
On some occasions, an amphora is seen, and a few instances show variations like an egg birth or a tree birth. Some interpretations show that the birth of Mithras was celebrated by lighting torches or candles.[One of the most characteristic features of the Mysteries is the naked lion-headed figure often found in Mithraic temples, named by the modern scholars with descriptive terms such as leontocephaline (lion-headed) or leontocephalus (lion-head). He is entwined by a serpent (or two serpents, like a caduceus), with the snake's head often resting on the lion's head. The lion's mouth is often open, giving a horrifying impression. He is usually represented as having four wings, two keys (sometimes a single key), and a scepter in his hand. Sometimes the figure is standing on a globe inscribed with a diagonal cross. In the figure shown here, the four wings carry the symbols of the four seasons, and a thunderbolt is engraved on the breast. At the base of the statue are the hammer and tongs of Vulcan, the cock, and the wand of Mercury. A more scarcely represented variant of the figure with a human head is also found.
Although animal-headed figures are prevalent in contemporary Egyptian and Gnostic mythological representations, an exact parallel to the Mithraic leontocephaline figure is not found.
The name of the figure has been deciphered from dedicatory inscriptions to be Arimanius (though the archeological evidence is not very strong), which is nominally the equivalent of Ahriman, a demon figure in the Zoroastrian pantheon. Arimanius is known from inscriptions to have been a god in the Mithraic cult (CIMRM 222 from Ostia, 369 from Rome, 1773 and 1775 from Pannonia).
While some scholars identify the lion-man as Aion (or Zurvan, or Cronus) others assert that it is Ahriman.[51] There is also speculation that the figure is the Gnostic demiurge, (Ariel) Ialdabaoth. Although the exact identity of the lion-headed figure is debated by scholars, it is largely agreed that the god is associated with time and seasonal change.[53] An occultist, D. J.Cooper, speculates to the contrary that the lion-headed figure is not a god, but rather represents the spiritual state achieved in Mithraism's "adept" level, the Leo (lion) degree. Rituals and worship[edit]
According to M. J. Vermaseren, the Mithraic New Year and the birthday of Mithras was on December 25. However, Beck disagrees strongly.Clauss states: "the Mithraic Mysteries had no public ceremonies of its own. The festival of natalis Invicti [Birth of the Unconquerable (Sun)], held on 25 December, was a general festival of the Sun, and by no means specific to the Mysteries of Mithras." Mithraic initiates were required to swear an oath of secrecy and dedication, and some grade rituals involved the recital of a catechism, wherein the initiate was asked a series of questions pertaining to the initiation symbolism and had to reply with specific answers. An example of such a catechism, apparently pertaining to the Leo grade, was discovered in a fragmentary Egyptian papyrus (P.Berolinensis 21196),and reads:
... He will say: 'Where ... ?
... he is/(you are?) there (then/thereupon?) at a loss?' Say: ... Say: 'Night'. He will say: 'Where ... ?' ... Say: 'All things ...' (He will say): '... you are called ... ?' Say: 'Because of the summery ...' ... having become ... he/it has the fiery ... (He will say): '... did you receive/inherit?' Say: 'In a pit'. He will say: 'Where is your ...?... (Say): '...(in the...) Leonteion.' He will say: 'Will you gird?' The (heavenly?) ...(Say): '... death'. He will say: 'Why, having girded yourself, ...?' '... this (has?) four tassels. Very sharp and ... '... much'. He will say: ...? (Say: '... because of/through?) hot and cold'. He will say: ...? (Say): '... red ... linen'. He will say: 'Why?' Say: '... red border; the linen, however, ...' (He will say): '... has been wrapped?' Say: 'The savior's ...' He will say: 'Who is the father?' Say: 'The one who (begets?) everything ...' (He will say): '('How ?)... did you become a Leo?' Say: 'By the ... of the father'. ... Say: 'Drink and food'. He will say '...?'
'... in the seven-...
Almost no Mithraic scripture or first-hand account of its highly secret rituals survives;with the exception of the aforementioned oath and catechism, and the document known as the Mithras Liturgy, from 4th century Egypt, whose status as a Mithraist text has been questioned by scholars including Franz Cumont. The walls of Mithraea were commonly whitewashed, and where this survives it tends to carry extensive repositories of graffiti; and these, together with inscriptions on Mithraic monuments, form the main source for Mithraic texts.
Nevertheless, it is clear from the archeology of numerous Mithraea that most rituals were associated with feasting – as eating utensils and food residues are almost invariably found. These tend to include both animal bones and also very large quantities of fruit residues.The presence of large amounts of cherry-stones in particular would tend to confirm mid-summer (late June, early July) as a season especially associated with Mithraic festivities. The Virunum album, in the form of an inscribed bronze plaque, records a Mithraic festival of commemoration as taking place on 26 June 184. Beck argues that religious celebrations on this date are indicative of special significance being given to the Summer solstice; but this time of the year coincides with ancient recognition of the solar maximum at midsummer, whilst iconographically identical holidays such as Litha, St John's Eve, and Jāņi are observed also.
For their feasts, Mithraic initiates reclined on stone benches arranged along the longer sides of the Mithraeum – typically there might be room for 15 to 30 diners, but very rarely many more than 40 men. Counterpart dining rooms, or triclinia, were to be found above ground in the precincts of almost any temple or religious sanctuary in the Roman empire, and such rooms were commonly used for their regular feasts by Roman 'clubs', or collegia. Mithraic feasts probably performed a very similar function for Mithraists as the collegia did for those entitled to join them; indeed, since qualification for Roman collegia tended to be restricted to particular families, localities or traditional trades, Mithraism may have functioned in part as providing clubs for the unclubbed.However, the size of the Mithraeum is not necessarily an indication of the size of the congregation.
Each Mithraeum had several altars at the further end, underneath the representation of the tauroctony, and also commonly contained considerable numbers of subsidiary altars, both in the main Mithraeum chamber and in the ante-chamber or narthex.[68] These altars, which are of the standard Roman pattern, each carry a named dedicatory inscription from a particular initiate, who dedicated the altar to Mithras "in fulfillment of his vow", in gratitude for favours received. Burned residues of animal entrails are commonly found on the main altars indicating regular sacrificial use. However, Mithraea do not commonly appear to have been provided with facilities for ritual slaughter of sacrificial animals (a highly specialised function in Roman religion), and it may be presumed that a Mithraeum would have made arrangements for this service to be provided for them in co-operation with the professional victimarius of the civic cult. Prayers were addressed to the Sun three times a day, and Sunday was especially sacred.
It is doubtful whether Mithraism had a monolithic and internally consistent doctrine. It may have varied from location to location. However, the iconography is relatively coherent. It had no predominant sanctuary or cultic centre; and, although each Mithraeum had its own officers and functionaries, there was no central supervisory authority. In some Mithraea, such as that at Dura Europos, wall paintings depict prophets carrying scrolls,but no named Mithraic sages are known, nor does any reference give the title of any Mithraic scripture or teaching. It is known that intitates could transfer with their grades from one Mithraeum to another.
Mithraeum
See also: Mithraeum
A mithraeum found in the ruins of Ostia Antica, Italy
Temples of Mithras are sunk below ground, windowless, and very distinctive. In cities, the basement of an apartment block might be converted; elsewhere they might be excavated and vaulted over, or converted from a natural cave. Mithraic temples are common in the empire; although unevenly distributed, with considerable numbers found in Rome, Ostia, Numidia, Dalmatia, Britain and along the Rhine/Danube frontier; while being somewhat less common in Greece, Egypt, and Syria.According to Walter Burkert, the secret character of Mithriac rituals meant that Mithraism could only be practiced within a Mithraeum.Some new finds at Tienen show evidence of large-scale feasting and suggest that the mystery religion may not have been as secretive as was generally believed.
For the most part, Mithraea tend to be small, externally undistinguished, and cheaply constructed; the cult generally preferring to create a new centre rather than expand an existing one. The Mithraeum represented the cave to which Mithras carried and then killed the bull; and where stone vaulting could not be afforded, the effect would be imitated with lath and plaster. They are commonly located close to springs or streams; fresh water appears to have been required for some Mithraic rituals, and a basin is often incorporated into the structure. There is usually a narthex or ante-chamber at the entrance, and often other ancillary rooms for storage and the preparation of food. The extant mithraea present us with actual physical remains of the architectural structures of the sacred spaces of the Mithraic cult. Mithraeum is a modern coinage and mithraists referred to their sacred structures as speleum or antrum (cave), crypta (underground hallway or corridor), fanum (sacred or holy place), or even templum (a temple or a sacred space).
In their basic form, mithraea were entirely different from the temples and shrines of other cults. In the standard pattern of Roman religious precincts, the temple building functioned as a house for the god, who was intended to be able to view through the opened doors and columnar portico, sacrificial worship being offered on an altar set in an open courtyard; potentially accessible not only to initiates of the cult, but also to colitores or non-initiated worshippers.Mithraea were the antithesis of this.
Degrees of initiation
In the Suda under the entry "Mithras", it states that "no one was permitted to be initiated into them (the mysteries of Mithras), until he should show himself holy and steadfast by undergoing several graduated tests."Gregory Nazianzen refers to the "tests in the mysteries of Mithras".
There were seven grades of initiation into the mysteries of Mithras, which are listed by St. Jerome.Manfred Clauss states that the number of grades, seven, must be connected to the planets. A mosaic in the Ostia Mithraeum of Felicissimus depicts these grades, with symbolic emblems that are connected either to the grades or are just symbols of the planets. The grades also have an inscription beside them commending each grade into the protection of the different planetary gods. In ascending order of importance, the initiatory grades were:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraic_mysteries
In the Mithraic ceremonies, there were seven degrees of initiations: Corax (Raven), Nymphus (Bridegroom), Miles (Soldier), Leo (Lion), Perses (Persian),Heliodromus (Courier of the Sun), and Pater (Father). Those in the lowest ranks, certainly the Corax, were the servants of the community during the sacred meal of bread and water that formed part of the rite.
The area where the concentration of evidence for Mithraism is the most dense is the capital, Rome, and her port city, Ostia. There are eight extant mithraea in Rome of as many as seven hundred (Coarelli 1979) and eighteen in Ostia. In addition to the actual mithraea, there are approximately three hundred other mithraic monuments from Rome and about one hundred from Ostia. This body of evidence reveals that Mithraism in Rome and Ostia originally appealed to the same social strata as it did in the frontier regions. The evidence also indicates that at least some inhabitants knew about Mithraism as early as the late first century CE, but that the cult did not enjoy a wide membership in either location until the middle of the second century CE.
As the cult in Rome became more popular, it seems to have "trickled up" the social ladder, with the result that Mithraism could count several senators from prominent aristocratic families among its adherents by the fourth century CE. Some of these men were initiates in several cults imported from the eastern empire (including those of Magna Mater and Attis, Isis, Serapis, Jupiter Dolichenus, Hecate, and Liber Pater, among others), and most had held priesthoods in official Roman cults. The devotion of these men to Mithraism reflects a fourth-century "resurgence of paganism," when many of these imported cults and even official Roman state religion experienced a surge in popularity although, and perhaps because, their very existence was increasingly threatened by the rapid spread of Christianity after the conversion of the emperor Constantine in 313 CE.
global.britannica.com/topic/heliodromus
Mithraism had a wide following from the middle of the second century to the late fourth century CE, but the common belief that Mithraism was the prime competitor of Christianity, promulgated by Ernst Renan (Renan 1882 579), is blatantly false. Mithraism was at a serious disadvantage right from the start because it allowed only male initiates. What is more, Mithraism was, as mentioned above, only one of several cults imported from the eastern empire that enjoyed a large membership in Rome and elsewhere. The major competitor to Christianity was thus not Mithraism but the combined group of imported cults and official Roman cults subsumed under the rubric "paganism." Finally, part of Renan's claim rested on an equally common, but almost equally mistaken, belief that Mithraism was officially accepted because it had Roman emperors among its adherents (Nero, Commodus, Septimius Severus, Caracalla, and the Tetrarchs are most commonly cited). Close examination of the evidence for the participation of emperors reveals that some comes from literary sources of dubious quality and that the rest is rather circumstantial. The cult of Magna Mater, the first imported cult to arrive in Rome (204 BCE) was the only one ever officially recognized as a Roman cult. The others, including Mithraism, were never officially accepted, and some, particularly the Egyptian cult of Isis, were periodically outlawed and their adherents persecuted.
ecole.evansville.edu/articles/mithraism.html
Some words were enough for God to precipitate the most beautiful of his creatures at the bottom of the abyss. Lucifer, the carrier of Light, pulled(entailed) with him a third(third party) of the angels in its revolt. Hell was created for him. We know the continuation(suite) … The column of July Place de la Bastille, was set up between 1833 and 1840. In its summit, thrones the "Spirit of liberty" conceived(designed) by the sculptor Auguste Dumont. Curious tribute returned by Louis Philippe to the insurgents who knocked down(spilled) Charles X and the Absolute monarchy three years earlier. Lucifer picked up. No detail misses(is lacking) … Torch in the hand, the Angel has just broken his chains(channels) and dashes to new conquests. Under its impressive base is a crypt sheltering some 500 rests of Fighters of 1830, as well as Egyptian mummy brought back(reported) by Napoleon.Durant la commune de Paris en 1870, après avoir abattu la colonne Vendôme, les communards s’en prirent à celle de la Bastille… sans succès. Ni le dispositif d’explosifs souterrains, ni le tir d’une trentaine d’obus depuis les buttes Chaumont n’en virent pas à bout. La flamme du porteur de Lumière refusa de s’éteindre…
During the municipality of Paris in 1870, having brought(shot) down the column Vendôme, the Communards took themselves in that of the Bastille unsuccessfully. Neither the device(plan) of subterranean explosives, nor the shooting(firing) of around thirty shells since mounds Chaumont transfer(fire) it to end. The flame of the carrier of Light refused to go out …Lucifer was so far away...?
« Non Serviam »- « Je ne servirai pas ! »
Quelques mots suffirent à Dieu pour précipiter la plus belle de ses créatures au fond de l’abîme. Lucifer, le porteur de Lumière, entraîna avec lui un tiers des anges dans sa révolte. L’enfer fut créé pour lui. Nous connaissons la suite…La colonne de Juillet Place de la Bastille, fut érigée entre 1833 et 1840. À son sommet, trône le « Génie de La Liberté » conçu par le sculpteur Auguste Dumont. Curieux hommage rendu par Louis Philippe aux insurgés qui renversèrent Charles X et la Monarchie absolue trois ans plus tôt. Lucifer a repris du poil de la bête. Aucun détail ne manque… Torche à la main, l’Ange vient de briser ses chaînes et s’élance vers de nouvelles conquêtes. Sous son imposant piédestal se trouve une crypte abritant quelques 500 restes des combattants de 1830, ainsi qu’une momie égyptienne rapportée par Napoléon.Durant la commune de Paris en 1870, après avoir abattu la colonne Vendôme, les communards s’en prirent à celle de la Bastille… sans succès. Ni le dispositif d’explosifs souterrains, ni le tir d’une trentaine d’obus depuis les buttes Chaumont n’en virent pas à bout. La flamme du porteur de Lumière refusa de s’éteindre…
www.pariszigzag.fr/histoire-insolite-paris/qui-est-vraime...
This church has been here in the deep are of South East Alberta, for many a year. I first took photos of this church many, many, years ago with my mate Mike when we used to go on trips.
Today, I decided to take the VERY long drive from Calgary to get some photos of it again, and I'm glad I did as they sky was gorgeous.
From the plaque where the original bell sits now, in the cemetery, it states the bell from1912 - 1991. I'm assuming they removed the bell to save it from thieves, who now seem to be stealing the wood from the exterior of the church. It's such a sad thing to see to these historic buildings.
I stepped inside today to take a few photos and I'm sure in it's day, it was a gorgeous church inside and out.
Thanks to my friend Pernille, she found some history on this but from Medicine Hat News. Note that although this states vandalism started in 1991, this continues to be vandalized with people stealing the wood from the outside of the building. The inside isn't too bad but you can tell it has been ransacked over the years. There's no lock on the door, just a simple latch that doesn't keep anyone out.
Turn off Highway 3 heading toward Etzikom and a little historic church near the side of the road paints a fascinating picture of life for farmers in the area more than a century ago.
An architecturally interesting wooden church is showing its age and is no longer in use but there is also a cemetery with names that many of us know well in the area.
According to historical records the 10-acre site was acquired in what is known as the Granlea area in 1911. It is not clear how many families were involved but those who were, each donated $50. Further fundraising activities took place at card parties, community suppers, barn dances and other social events.
Parishioners were in charge of the construction that began in 1912, completed in 1916 and officially opened and named St. Anthony of Padua.
More fundraising was needed over the years to help cover the cost of heating fuel and general maintenance.
Within a few years people in the area were experiencing some difficult times. In the early 1920s there was drought and economic depression with many parishioners leaving their farms and moving away.
After the Second World War some families returned to the region.
With St. Anthony’s church membership increasing a second building, what had been the Bar Vee School, was bought and moved to the site in 1947. It became the fellowship hall and catechism classroom.
In 1951 the church underwent a renovation inside and outside. Altars and communal rails were replaced, there was new paint and plaster, a new propane heater, roof shingles and concrete steps. At this stage the initial tall steeple was reduced in size. The renovation extended to the yard with fences being built and trees planted.
In 1957 electricity was installed and a new propane furnace.
In 1962 a new organ was donated, replacing the old one dating back to when the church was built.
The number of people attending services and the total membership had declined by the 1970s and by 1980 there were only 21 parishioner families in the district.
The last formal event that was held in the church was a wedding in 1986.
It was vandalized in 1991 and most of the contents were stolen. At that stage a tough decision was made to close the church and sell the building. Someone expressed interest in buying the building and moving it to another location to be re-purposed as a house. This never materialized and the building has remained vacant.
It was vandalized again in 2014 when the iron cross on the top of the steeple was stolen
ⓒRebecca Bugge, All Rights Reserved
Do not use without permission.
This is a pile of stones in the middle of the woods (largely taken over by the woods, too) – but once this was someone’s home. Actually, this was home to quite a lot of people, even though they might now all be forgotten. (Having a cold, I spent an afternoon putting all the information I could find together.)
The sign reads “Torpet Nymåla”, inhabited to 1889, and with the help of Swedish church records, you can tell a lot about this place. [“Torpet” means “the torp” and a torp is a kind of small cottage which was rented out to people in the agrarian community that did not own any land, and who paid their rent with working for the owner (dagsverke). Very common once – their history dates back to the 16th and 17th century, by 1850 there is estimated to have been some 100 000 torps in Sweden. But they lost in popularity rapidly: by 1900 a little less than half of that figure had disappeared (you can suspect that quite a few of the people living there left for North America), many people bought the right to the house and the land it was sitting on, and by 1943 the system of working for the rent was abolished. Today the houses that have survived have mostly been turned into summerhouses – generally too small and too uncomfortable for modern living.] The name Nymåla comes from the words "ny" meaning "new" and the old Swedish word "måla" meaning "a piece of land".
The Swedish church records are some of the best in the world for modern historians – telling you not only who knew their catechism, but also who lived where, when they were born, when they died, and when they moved. Of course, they are not infallible: it was up to the village vicar to keep the records in good shape, and they could at times be a bit sloppy – something that happened in the case of Nymåla, but even so, you can see a lot about the place. And the year on the sign is actually wrong.
Here is the history of Nymåla:
The house was built sometime in 1824-1825. In November 1825 the first family was living there, but in April 1824 the records show they were living somewhere else. This first family consisted of Olof Danielsson (b. 1802), his wife Stina Greta Samuelsdotter (b. 1798), and their children Anna Catharina (b. 1821), Daniel Gustaf (b. 1824) and Eva Stina (b. 1826 – at Nymåla). The records seem to indicate, without being crystal clear to say the least, that the family moved away in 1829.
The house stood empty for a few years, then in 1833 a new family moved in. This was Gabriel Samuelsson (b. 1780), a shoemaker, with his wife Catharina Jonsdotter (b. 1795), and their 5 children: Carl Johan (b. 1814, from Gabriel’s first marriage), Jonas Gustaf (b. 1821), Samuel Petter (b. 1823), Anna Maria (b. 1826) and Anders Fredric (b. 1828). In 1834 Gabriel died, and a month later he was followed to the grave by his eldest son Carl Johan (who died from a fever, according to the records, at 20 years of age). His widow and the remaining children stayed on until 1836, when they moved. But before that, in 1835, a second family moved in: Peter Magnus Samuelsson [? not sure about the surname – there was a big smudge over the name] (b. 1804), his wife Sara Lena Pettersdotter (f. 1804) and their daughter Johanna Sophia (b. 1832). A second daughter, Carolina Christina was born at Nymåla in 1837. In 1836, presumably after Catharina Jonsdotter and her children had left, Maria Persdotter (b. 1810) moved in, and February the following year she gave birth to her illegitimate daughter Christina Carolina (you can’t help but wonder if she was kicked out from her previous place, where she seems to have been some sort of dayworker, when she got pregnant).
And then comes an annoying break in the records. The book of church records ends in 1838, the next one picks up in 1839. But during that time family of Peter Magnus, and Maria Persdotter and her daughter, had left. The next family moves in in 1843: Johan Hassel (b. 1818), his wife Lisa Catharina Petersdotter (b. 1820) and two children: Johan Gustaf (b. 1840) and Jonas Petter (b. 1841). At Nymåla another 5 children are born: Alma Maria (1844-1848), Sven August (b. 1846), Carl Fredrik (1848-1849) and the twins Anders Magnus and Karl Fredrik (b. 1849). Johan Hassel moved away to another parish in 1850 and his family followed him in 1853. Then the house stood empty again for a few years.
(It might be worth noting that Nymåla is in the middle of the forest, far away even from the closest village, perhaps all these empty periods were common for a torp, perhaps the location wasn’t ideal to attract new tenants.)
The next family came in 1857: Jonas Johansson (b. 1811), his wife Helena Margareta Johansdotter (b. 1813), whom he had married in 1835, and their 7 children: Johan (b. 1835 – who in just a couple of years’ time would move on to Stockholm), Anders Magnus (b. 1837), Carl August (b. 1843), Frans Gustaf (b. 1846), Adolf Martin (b. 1849), Maria Catharina (b. 1851) and Mathilda Christina (b. 1854). But already in December 1857 the wife passed away. The following year Eva Catharina Jonsdotter (b. 1823) moved in, probably to help out with the household and the children. But in 1859, tragedy would strike the family again – this time the children lost their father and they were left orphans. This meant that the older ones, old enough to work for themselves one would presume, left and the younger ones (Frans and his younger siblings) stayed on when a new family moved in in 1860. The younger girls were taken in by an orphanage (in Alseda), but not until 6 months after the death of their father. This new family was Anders Gabriel Strand (b. 1825), his wife Carolina Svensdotter (b. 1818), whom he had married in 1848, and their 3 children: Karl Gustaf (b. 1858), Johanna Matilda (b. 1861, died 1877 from consumption – probably TB) and Ida Sofia (b. 1863). It would seem that the girls from the previous family, Maria and Mathilda, returned at some point to Nymåla – but they both died in 1866, within a month of each other, from what was probably typhoid fever. By then Frans had already left (he moved out in 1865), and soon after the death of his sisters the last of the siblings, Adolf, left. The Strand family was alone at Nymåla.
The Strand family moved out in 1882 – and the same year the Bern family moved in: Johan Peter Gustafsson Bern (b. 1848), his second wife Christina Jonsdotter (b. 1845), whom he had married in 1873, his daughter from his first marriage, Emilia Matilda (b. 1871), and the children Amanda Kristina (b. 1874), Johan Oskar (b. 1878) and Ida Sofia (b. 1881). At the cottage another 3 children were born: Carl August Gottfrid (b. 1883), Anna Viktoria (b. 1886) and Sigrid Josefina (b. 1888). 1887 the oldest daughter, Emilia, moved away to Uppsala. Now Nymåla was, according to the present sign, inhabited to 1889, but actually this family did not leave until 1890. In April Johan Bern left for North America – and in October the same year his wife and children followed. So that is a year off from what the sign says.
But it gets even more intriguing. According to the church records, there was actually a new family that moved in at Nymåla in April 1892: Nils August Johansson (b. 1854), his wife Kristina Lovisa Larsdotter (b. 1854) and their two children Karl Emil (b. 1886) and Alma Ottilia (b. 1889). They have another boy, Johan Arvid, born there in 1895. The oldest son leaves for North America in 1903 when he is 17. The rest of the family leaves the house in 1907 and moves to another parish, where the youngest son already was attending school. Nymåla still has its own paragraph in the church records up until the records of 1922-1931, but no one is living there. So the house was abandoned in 1907, but the owners (farmers in the area) might have hoped for new tenants for at least another 15 years. A lot of old houses, like this one, were pulled down and used for fire woods during the harsh winters of the second world war - it is very likely that was the fate here too.
La commune de Saint-Benoît achète en 1856 un terrain au lieu-dit Sainte-Anne. L'année suivante, Sainte-Anne devient une paroisse et le premier curé, l'abbé Carnet, entreprend la construction d'une église, laquelle est achevée en 1863. Celle-ci est modifiée au début du XXe siècle par le père Dobenberger, d'origine alsacienne, curé de la paroisse de 1922 à sa mort, en 1946. Il réalise un nouveau clocher, une chapelle intérieure et leur décoration avec l'aide de quelques habitants et des enfants du catéchisme, trouvant son inspiration dans des revues sur l'art baroque.
In 1856, the commune of Saint-Benoît bought land at a place called Sainte-Anne. The following year, Sainte-Anne became a parish and the first parish priest, Father Carnet, undertook the construction of a church, which was completed in 1863. It was modified at the beginning of the 20th century by Father Dobenberger, of Alsatian origin, parish priest from 1922 to his death in 1946. He built a new bell tower, an interior chapel and their decoration with the help of a few inhabitants and the children of the catechism, finding his inspiration in magazines on baroque art.