Gospels in Art, Music and Literature, The Year C

By David Stancliffe

For all who wish to reflect on the Gospels for each major Sunday and festival, this ebook offers extra dimensions of art, poetry, literary excerpts and music with a commentary by David Stancliffe. These extra resources can inspire and broaden the imagination and understanding.

• Language: English
• Publisher: SPCK
• Release date: Nov 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9780281069507

David Stancliffe

David Stancliffe is a practising musician, conducting singers and period instruments in music ranging from the Monteverdi Vespers to the Bach Passions. As Bishop of Salisbury, he chaired the Liturgical Commission in the Church of England as it produced Common Worship, and as Provost of Portsmouth he presided over the completion and re-ordering of the cathedral. He has had a lifelong passion for Italy, for Romanesque art and architecture and his book The Lion Companion to Church Architecture (Lion, 2008) is illustrated by over 500 of his own photographs. For SPCK he wrote God’s Pattern (2003) and The Gospels in Art, Muic and Literature (2013-15).

Book preview

1

Advent to Presentation: the Incarnation

The First Sunday of Advent

M01UF001_C Advent 1 Christ in Majesty Soria.tif

Christ in Majesty

(Santo Domingo, Soria)

Photo © David Stancliffe

Download

Luke 21.25–36

The signs of the end time

‘There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.’

Then he told them a parable: ‘Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

‘Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.’

The reading in the Roman Catholic Lectionary is the same with a minor variation in length.

Other readings: Jeremiah 33.14–16; Psalm 25.1–9; 1 Thessalonians 3.9–13

Recommended music

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91): Requiem – Dies Irae

Click on the link to hear the music (click off as soon as it ends). If you do not subscribe to Spotify, you will be asked, on your first visit, to sign in and choose a password for free but advertisements might pop up. Spotify subscribers will not see the adverts.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Requiem in D minor, K. 626: Sequence No. 1: Dies Irae (Chorus)

Dies irae! Dies illa

The day of wrath, that day

Solvet saeclum in favilla:

Will dissolve the world in ashes:

Teste David cum Sibylla!

As foretold by David and the sibyl!

Quantus tremor est futurus,

How much tremor there will be,

Quando iudex est venturus,

when the judge will come,

Cuncta stricte discussurus!

investigating everything strictly!

Reading from literature

Time

Meeting with Time, slack thing, said I,

Thy sithe is dull; whet it for shame.

No marvell Sir, he did replie,

If it at length deserve some blame:

    But where one man would have me grinde it,

    Twentie for one too sharp do finde it.

Perhaps some such of old did passe,

Who above all things lov’d this life:

To whom thy sithe a hatchet was,

Which now is but a pruning knife.

    Christs coming hath made man thy debter,

    Since by thy cutting he grows better.

And in his blessing thou art blest:

For where thou onely wert before

An executioner at best;

Thou art a gard’ner now, and more,

    An usher to convey our souls

    Beyond the utmost starres and poles.

And this is that makes life so long,

While it detains us from our God.

Ev’n pleasures here increase the wrong,

And length of dayes lengthen the rod.

    Who wants the place, where God doth dwell,

    Partakes already half of hell.

Of what strange length must that needs be,

Which ev’n eternitie excludes!

Thus farre Time heard me patiently:

Then chafing said, This man deludes:

    What do I here before his doore?

    He doth not crave lesse time, but more.

(George Herbert (1593–1633))

Reflection

For many people, the Dies Irae is part of the dark world of All Souls Day. The scurrying strings of Mozart’s opening bars and the punch of the choir’s shouts warn us of the terrible chasm opening before us at the Day of Judgement; we know that Mozart wrote these bars just before death claimed him. But the Dies Irae was originally a sequence for Advent, and the ‘coming’ to which Advent refers was the coming of the King, the Messiah the world awaited, not just in the coming of the Christ-child at the festival of Christmas, but also at the end of time.

This dual sense of coming pervades the readings of the day, and focuses our minds on the ambivalence surrounding time. ‘Now is the time to awake out of sleep’, says St Paul in the letter to the Romans, and Advent is full of warnings to be ready. Ready for the King, as the tympanum at Soria readies those who enter the church and reminds us that, in many old lectionaries, the Gospel for Advent Sunday was the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

Does old Father Time with his scythe cut us down to size, or prune away fruitless growth to help the stock bear fruit? Are we alert to these ambiguities around the time of God’s coming, so that we are ready to say yes when he comes to us?

The Second Sunday of Advent

M01UF002_C 2nd Sunday of Advent.tif

John the Baptist Entering the Wilderness by Giovanni di Paolo

(National Gallery, London)

© Fine Art Images/Fine Art Images

Download

Luke 3.1–6

John’s proclamation in the wilderness

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

"Prepare the way of the Lord,

    make his paths straight.

Every valley shall be filled,

    and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

and the crooked shall be made straight,

    and the rough ways made smooth;

and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."’

The reading in the Roman Catholic Lectionary is identical.

Other readings: Baruch 5.1–9 or Malachi 3.1–4; Benedictus; Philippians 1.3–11

Recommended music

Edward Naylor (1867–1934): Vox dicentis

Click on the link to hear the music (click off as soon as it ends). If you do not subscribe to Spotify, you will be asked, on your first visit, to sign in and choose a password for free but advertisements might pop up. Spotify subscribers will not see the adverts.

Edward Woodall Naylor – Vox Dicentis: Clama

Vox dicentis: Clama; et dixi Quid clamabo?

A voice says, ‘Cry out!’ And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’

Omnis caro foenum, et omnis gloria eius quasi flos agri.

All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field.

Exsiccatum est foenum, et cecidit flos, quia spiritus Domini sufflavit in eo;

vere foenum est populus;

The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass.

Exsiccatum est foenum, et cecidit flos; verbum autem Domini nostri manet in aeternum.

The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever.

Super montem excelsum ascende, tu quae evangelizas Sion;

Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings;

exalta in fortitudine vocem tuam qui evangelizas Hierusalem;

exalta, noli timere. Dic civitatibus Iudae: Ecce Deus vester;

lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,

lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’

Ecce Dominus Deus in fortitudine veniet, et brachium eius dominabitur, ecce merces eius cum eo et opus illius coram illo.

See, the LORD God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.

Sicut pastor gregem suum pascet;

He will feed his flock like a shepherd;

in brachio suo congregabit agnos, et in sinu suo levabit;

fetas ipse portabit.

he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

(Isaiah 40.6–11)

Reading from literature

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rage at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

(Dylan Thomas (1914–53), from The Collected Poems, Orion, 2000, by permission of David Higham Associates)

Reflection

John the Baptist’s part in the scheme of things is ambivalent. He straddles the old world and the new: he has a place in the prophetic tradition as its last exponent, and is a forerunner of the new as Jesus’ cousin. Giovanni di Paolo’s painting John the Baptist Entering the Wilderness shows him both on the threshold, setting out from his orderly home, and also among the horrid rocks of the wilderness from where his voice booms out like an alpenhorn. This sense that he is hardly a person, just a voice – vox et praeterea nihil – is powerfully conveyed in Naylor’s ‘Vox dicentis’, as in Isaiah’s prophecy which today’s Gospel quotes.

This weird scarecrow of a signpost has no substance of his own, no significance apart from the function of pointing away from himself to reveal the one who is to come. That is the reality – chilling for those who need assurance that they themselves are important – acknowledged by Dylan Thomas’ poem, written as he watched his father die. We stand always on the threshold – between life and death; light and dark; the night and the day. Who will help us over the apparent gulf? Who will be the John the Baptist to our hesitant steps?

The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary: 8 December

(falls normally between the First and Second Sundays of Advent)

M01UF003b_A conceptionXIR 428033.tif

The Immaculate Conception Contemplated by St John the Evangelist by El Greco (Museo de Santa Cruz, Toledo)

© Museo de Santa Cruz, Toledo, Spain/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library El Greco: Conception

Download

Luke 1.26–38

Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.’ Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her.

Or:

Luke 1.39–47

Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’

And Mary said,

‘My soul magnifies the Lord,

    and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour . . .’

The reading in the Roman Catholic Lectionary is identical.

Other readings: Genesis 3.9–15, 20; Psalm 98.1–4 or Isaiah 7.10–14; Psalm 45.11–18; Galatians 4.4–7

Recommended music

Josquin des Prez (c.1450–1521): Inviolata a 12

Click on the link to hear the music (click off as soon as it ends). If you do not subscribe to Spotify, you will be asked, on your first visit, to sign in and choose a password for free but advertisements might pop up. Spotify subscribers will not see the adverts.

De Labyrintho – Inviolata, integra et casta (a 12)

Inviolata, integra, et casta es Maria,

quae es effecta fulgida caeli porta.

O Mater alma Christi carissima,

suscipe pia laudum praeconia.

Te nunc flagitant devota corda et ora,

nostra ut pura pectora sint et corpora.

Tu per precata dulcisona,

nobis concedas veniam per saecula.

O benigna! O Regina! O Maria,

quae sola inviolata permansisti.

Inviolate, spotless and pure art thou, O Mary

who was made the radiant gate of the King.

Holy Mother of Christ most dear,

receive our devout hymn and praise.

Our hearts and tongues now ask of thee

that our souls and bodies may be pure.

By thy sweet-sounding prayers

obtain for us forgiveness for ever.

O gracious queen, O Mary,

who alone among women art inviolate.

Reading from literature

Campanula

This morning, waking

But not yet remembering it was I

Who saw in my window white campanula stars

Against white mistiness

Curving like a shining hill upon the panes,

Remembered or discerned

A way of being those immaculate flowers

Were part of, once, some house

Of elegance and kindness, where I had been,

It seemed, or still remained, until the day

Opened the present and closed

That other time and place the flowers lingered in

A little longer than I. Another decade

It had been, or another life, whose ways

Were fine and clear as these

White visitants from a house of presences forgotten.

(Kathleen Raine (1908–2003), from The Collected Poems of Kathleen Raine, Golgonooza Press, 2000, by permission of the Literary Estate of Kathleen Raine)

Reflection

The shadowy bells of Kathleen Raine’s campanula have pre-echoes of existence – or are they ‘visitants from a house of presences forgotten’? The immaculate conception of Our Lady is a curious celebration – that the virgin mother must herself have been singled out in the mists of time before her own coming into the world – but it is one that the English reformers retained from the old calendar when so much else was swept away, and it has occasioned some marvellous art and music, even if it has also given rise to some more than usually tortuous theology.

When the annunciation comes directly to the girl, banished of course in the calendar to March, nine months before 25 December, her answer doesn’t appear to be fixed in the manner of the response to the divine commands in the old dispensation. Might it not quite genuinely be no as much as yes? What pre-safeguarding of the ‘inviolata, integra, et casta Maria’ is necessary? The answer lies in the adored, yet feared status of virginity. Integrity and purity could be guaranteed by virginity alone. Only the nun, who has chosen virginity to be ready for Christ alone, wears a wedding ring; something that is difficult to appreciate in these days when you can have your cake and eat it, and sex has become a recreational pleasure for most people rather than the ‘radiant gate’ to motherhood. So many tiers of pedestals, like the wedding-cake steeple of St Bride’s, Fleet Street, from which the bells ring out, certainly raise the game for virginity.

The Third Sunday of Advent

M01UF003a_3 Sunday of Advent.tif

John the Baptist’s Execution at Herod’s Feast

(north portal, Rouen Cathedral)

Photo © David Stancliffe

Download

Luke 3.7–18

The direct message of John the Baptist

John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our ancestor; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.’

And the crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?’ In reply he said to them, ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’ Even tax-collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’ Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’

So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

The reading in the Roman Catholic Lectionary is the same with a minor variation in length.

Other readings: Zephaniah 3.14–20; Isaiah 12.2–6 or Psalm 146.4–9; Philippians 4.4–7

Recommended music

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750): Cantata 132 – I Bereitet die Wege

Click on the link to hear the music (click off as soon as it ends). If you do not subscribe to Spotify, you will be asked, on your first visit, to sign in and choose a password for free but advertisements might pop up. Spotify subscribers will not see the adverts.

Johann Sebastian Bach – Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn, BWV 132: I. Aria. Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn (Soprano)

Gustav Leonhardt – Bach, JS: Cantata No. 132 Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn BWV132: I Aria – Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn [Boy Soprano]

Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn!

Prepare the ways, prepare the path!

Bereitet die Wege

Prepare the ways

Und machet die Stege

and make the footpaths

Im Glauben und Leben

in faith and in life

Dem Höchsten ganz eben,

smooth before the Highest.

Messias kömmt an!

The Messiah is coming!

Reading from literature

The Shepherd’s Song

He that is down needs fear no fall,

    He that is low no pride

He that is humble ever shall

    Have God to be his guide.

I am content with what I have,

    Little be it or much;

And, Lord, contentment still I crave,

    Because thou savest such.

Fullness to such a burden is

    That go on pilgrimage:

Here little, and hereafter bliss,

    Is best from age to age.

(John Bunyan (1622–88))

Reflection

The Gospel writer speaks of John’s straight talking as good news, though it can hardly have been received as such by many of his audience. The truth is often painful, and few are capable of taking it straight. King Herod knew that when John challenged his relationship with his brother’s wife, what he said was right as well as uncomfortable. But when he was in his cups, he was seduced by Salome’s dance and promised her anything she wanted. Keeping his promise meant delivering John’s head to the girl on a platter, and the sculpture on the north portal of Rouen Cathedral captures in strip cartoon form the whole incident, poised around the acrobatic and shapely Salome: it illustrates the strong reaction that John’s presence always provoked, in death as in life.

The first movement of Bach’s early cantata Bereitet die Wege (1715) quotes the well-known passage of Isaiah: ‘Prepare the way of the LORD’ (Isaiah 40.3), and its entwined vocal and oboe lines seem to chart a path that is endless till finally interrupted by the forceful statement: ‘Messias kömmt an’ – The Messiah is coming. Like John the Baptist’s head being borne into the dinner party on a serving dish, this musical plain speaking interrupts the music’s seductive thread. And that is the tenor of the plain-spoken John Bunyan, encouraging not just simplicity, but directness: ‘Here little, and hereafter bliss’. The plainness of the unvarnished truth, and the absolute immediacy of the choice facing everyone, is what John the Baptist’s Advent call offers.

The Fourth Sunday of Advent

M01UF004_C 4th Sunday of Advent.tif

The Visitation by El Greco

(Dumbarton Oaks Museum, Washington DC)

© SuperStock/SuperStock

Download

Luke 1.39–45 [46–55]

Elizabeth recognizes Mary’s pregnancy

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’

[And Mary said,

‘My soul magnifies the Lord,

    and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,

for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.

    Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

for the Mighty One has done great things for me,

    and holy is his name.

His mercy is for those who fear him

    from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm;

    he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

    and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

    and sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,

    in remembrance of his mercy,

according to the promise he made to our ancestors,

    to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’]

The reading in the Roman Catholic Lectionary is identical. The Revised Common Lectionary adds verses 46–55.

Other readings: Micah 5.2–5a; Magnificat or Psalm 80.1–7; Hebrews 10.5–10

Recommended music

Charles Villiers Stanford (1852–1924): Magnificat in G

Click on the link to hear the music (click off as soon as it ends). If you do not subscribe to Spotify, you will be asked, on your first visit, to sign in and choose a password for free but advertisements might pop up. Spotify subscribers will not see the adverts.

Charles Villiers Stanford – Morning, Communion and Evening Services in G Major, Op. 81: Magnificat in G Major, Op. 81

My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For he hath regarded: the lowliness of his handmaiden.

For behold, from henceforth: all generations shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty hath magnified me: and holy is his Name.

And his mercy is on them that fear him: throughout all generations.

He hath showed strength with his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek.

He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel: as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed, for ever.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

(Magnificat from evensong, BCP)

Reading from literature

I syng of a mayden

I syng of a mayden

that is makeles:

kyng of alle kynges

to here sone she chees.

He cam also stylle

wher his moder was

as dewe in aprylle

that fallyt on the gras.

He cam also stylle

to his moderes bowr

as dewe in aprille

that fallyt on the flour.

He cam also stille

wher his moder lay

as dewe in Aprille

that fallyt on the spray.

Moder and mayden

was neuer non but che:

wel may swych a lady

Godes moder be.

(Anonymous fifteenth-century Middle English lyric)

Reflection

The inherent strangeness of what was happening to Mary is brought out in the encounter with Elizabeth recorded in today’s Gospel. Mary has gone to see her kinswoman, and El Greco’s painting in Dumbarton Oaks of the two cloaked figures embracing on the doorstep captures the mysterious nature of this secretive meeting. Who knows what? Is Elizabeth the first person to recognize that Mary is pregnant?

The simplicity of Mary’s reaction and the trustfulness of her response to what is happening to her are underscored in Stanford’s Magnificat in G – where the solo boy’s voice, with its overtones of asexual innocence, soars above the vocal accompaniment, and the fluting arpeggios of the organ part have been fancifully compared to Mary’s spinning wheel. That is the kind of innocence that the April showers falling on the fresh growth of spring evoke in the early English poem, set as a carol by a variety of composers – Gustav Holst, Patrick Hadley, Benjamin Britten and Lennox Berkeley among them.

The key phrases from the encounters at the Annunciation and at the Visitation together with John’s magisterial summary of the Incarnation – The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us – form the narrative thread of the Angelus, prayed especially at noon:

The Angel of the Lord appeared unto Mary

And she conceived by the Holy Ghost.

Hail, Mary, full of Grace,