Blog by-the-Sea

A Museum of Carmelite Art and Architecture

In its mid-April e-newsletter, the Discalced Carmelite curia includes an article titled A Carmelite Museum in Andalusia (Spain), in which the order's curia encourages Carmelite communities that have a "notable artistic patrimony" to consider placing it on public display.   The article particularly mentions the website of a Discalced Carmelite Monastery in Antequera, Malaga, Spain, founded in 1632.  The monastery has opened a museum for its works of art, some of them centuries old. 

The website allows an online virtual tour.  Start here.  Choose "Visita Virtual al Museo" and then click on each of the options under that heading, starting with "Entrada al Museo."  Some options have only one page of photos.  For others, such as the entrance ("entrada"), there are several pictures that you can click on.  For the entrance, for example, there are 3 photos of the exterior and one of the beautiful interior with its characteristic blue and white Spanish tile, woods, and architecture -- a work of art in itself.

On a related them, there is an earlier post here called Art, Detachment and the Beauty of God about the importance of religious art in the present day Church and in the views of Discalced Carmelite saints St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila.

Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. on Art and Nature that Moves Us

At Ignatius Insight:

"In the very fact that we can be moved, we find a hint of the everlastingness to which we somehow belong by virtue of what we are."

- Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., "On Being Moved."  Read all.

Art, Detachment, and the Beauty of God

Art and Truth

In a chapter titled “Wounded by the Arrow of Beauty,” in Pope Benedict XVI's book On the Way to Jesus Christ (meditations written while he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), he wrote about hearing a Bach concert conducted by Leonard Bernstein in Munich.  Following one great aria, he and Lutheran Bishop Hanselmann, sitting next to him, looked at each other and said, “Anyone who has heard this knows that the faith is true.”   

The Pope described the totality of true beauty in the paradox presented in the two antiphons for Psalm 45 in the Liturgy of the Hours for Lent and Holy Week, in Evening Prayer for Monday of Week II in the four-week Psalter.  The antiphon for Lent (“Yours is more than mortal beauty; every work you speak is full of grace”) is the same antiphon used the rest of the year, drawn from third verse of the Psalm (“You are the fairest of the children of men and graciousness is poured upon your lips.”)  The antiphon for the same Psalm in Holy Week, paradoxically, is “He had neither beauty, nor majesty, nothing to attract our eyes,” drawn from Isaiah 53:2.  The contrast points to the beauty of the truth of Christ’s suffering.  “Beauty is knowledge,” the Holy Father wrote, “indeed, a higher form of knowing, because it strikes man with the truth in all its greatness.”

Art as Motivation toward the Transcendent

In the Final Document of its Plenary Assembly, in 2006, the Pontifical Council for Culture drew from the first volume of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s The Glory of the Lord, in which von Balthasar spoke of the value of beauty compared with the good which “has lost its power of attraction” and the proofs of truth which “have lost their conclusive character.”

Drawing from von Balthasar and other sources, the Council for Culture stated:

“The way of beauty replies to the intimate desire for happiness that resides in the heart of every person.  Opening infinite horizons, it prompts the human person to push outside of himself, from the routine of the ephemeral passing instant, to the Transcendent and Mystery, and seek, as the final goal of the ultimate quest for wellbeing and total nostalgia, this original beauty which is God Himself, creator of all created beauty.”

St. Edith Stein observed the truth of such art in Finite and Eternal Being, mentioning “the artist, who penetrates through the purely external and factual to the primordial archetype” who “can present more of the truth than the historian who remains within the limited circumference of external data.”  The work of such artists who remain within the bounds of tradition, she said, “will be truer even in the sense of historical truth than the work of a historian who does not penetrate beyond the surface of external facts.”  The historian presents facts, while the artist presents the essence of what a subject should have been and was destined to be.  Although artistic truth is bound to the human work of the art itself, its existents have transcendental truth.

St. John of the Cross wrote of the importance of art in The Ascent of Mt. Carmel.  He contrasted art as a path to the transcendent with a more materialistic and worldly view of art in which some people would look at the art for its value as material wealth, or for the honor given to the artist.  In Chapter 35 of Book 3 of The Ascent, he wrote of “delightful spiritual goods,” in which he included the “motivating goods” of “statues, paintings of saints, oratories, and ceremonies.”

St. John spoke of works of art as “vital to the divine worship and necessary to move the will to devotion.”  He said that “we should always take advantage of them in order to be awakened from our lukewarmness.” However, he also warned that “many rejoice more in the painting and ornamentation than in the object represented.”  He thus encouraged that our focus should be on the devotion to which such art draws us, rather than on “the elaborateness of the workmanship and its ornamentation.”

The message of St. John of the Cross is that contemplatives should always look at religious and liturgical art such that we are drawn by the art’s transcendent motivation toward an experiential knowledge of the divine, rather than looking at it with materialistic eyes.

The Pope, similarly, in On the Way to Jesus Christ, contrasted the Christian view of beauty with “two fires” to be opposed: (1) the “cult of the ugly” which sees the beautiful as a deception and sees only what is cruel and vulgar as true, and (2) “deceptive beauty” that gives rise to “a desire for possession” as when Eve in Genesis saw the fruit of the tree as beautiful.

Both St. John of the Cross and the Council for Culture considered art’s effect of drawing people toward the divine depicted in it. God who draws us toward the transcendent is in our inner selves, drawing us toward friendship and union with Him, toward the divine.

Our True Desire Is for the Beauty of God

God is who and what we truly desire, and the artistic truth of religious art serves its purpose when it guides us toward God and into contemplation of the divine.

The Council of Culture wrote, “For the believer, beauty transcends the aesthetic and finds its archetype in God.” All Christian artwork, they said, leads along a path that reveals the meaning, origin and end of our terrestrial journey, a passage that “becomes real in Jesus Christ, who is Himself ‘the way, the truth and the life,’ (Jn 14, 6) the ‘complete truth.’ (Jn 16, 13)”

St. Catherine of Genoa’s The Spiritual Dialogue ascribed these words to the Soul:

“The beauty and goodness and joy of created things
are means for knowing and enjoying things divine.
(Once it had tasted those joys, however, it asked itself:
And yet, what must heavenly things be like?)

Ultimately, what we enjoy is not the art itself, but rather a taste of the divine.  When art has motivated us toward that joy, the object of the art itself may no longer serve its purpose for the moment.  The transcendent toward which it motivates us will always surpass the work of art that drew us there.

Art and Detachment

Art thus serving the purpose of drawing us toward the divine, we may consider whether the art itself ever becomes unnecessary.  The answer is no.  While devotion to God, and detachment from material things, can enable someone to accept the loss of a work of art that has been meaningful to them, we never reach a point where we no longer need art at all.

In The Ascent of Mt. Carmel, St. John of the Cross said that people who direct their devotion to God and the saints depicted in Church art do not need many images.  Instead, they “seek the living image of Christ crucified within themselves,” and when works of art are taken from them (as would have happened to many people in his era, when churches were stripped of art during the Reformation), “they remain calm.”  They are not attached to the object of art itself, but rather to God and to spiritual things depicted in the art, and those are not taken from them.

Yet such detachment does not reach a point where we have no more need for art.  In the same era, his fellow Discalced Carmelite founder, St. Teresa of Avila, explained in Relation V that she had learned from the Lord that it was wrong to deprive herself or her nuns of artwork as the Protestants did:

“I had read in a book that it was an imperfection to possess pictures well painted,— and I would not, therefore, retain in my cell one that I had; and also, before I had read this, I thought that it was poverty to possess none, except those made of paper,— and, as I read this afterwards, I would not have any of any other material.  I learnt from our Lord, when I was not thinking at all about this, what I am going to say: ‘that this mortification was not right. Which is better, poverty or charity?  But as love was the better, whatever kindled love in me, that I must not give up, nor take away from my nuns; for the book spoke of much adorning and curious devices—not of pictures.  What Satan was doing among the Lutherans was the taking away from them all those means by which their love might be the more quickened; and thus they were going to perdition.  Those who are loyal to Me, My daughter, must now, more than ever, do the very reverse of what they do.’”

Thus, she and St. John of the Cross both supported the need for art and its motivation toward the transcendent.  Living the beatitudes and even the monastic vow of poverty never reaches a point where a person should abandon art.  Detachment from the object can enable people to accept the loss of a particular picture or statue, as a lost object of value, and a contemplative may want fewer items, but that does not mean we should deprive ourselves of the motivating value of art.

Art and Evangelism

The proper use of beauty as a pathway to the transcendent has an evangelistic aspect, which has been seen in the recent Vatican Masses at which Pope Benedict XVI has presided.  His view of the evangelistic value of beauty is seen in On the Way to Jesus Christ.  There, mentioning that icons and great works of Christian art lead us “on an interior way, a way of transcendence,” he added:

“I have often said that I am convinced that the true apologetics for the Christian message, the most persuasive proof of its truth, offsetting everything that may appear negative, are the saints, on the one hand, and the beauty that the faith has generated on the other.  For faith to grow today, we must lead ourselves and the persons we meet to encounter the saints and to come in contact with the beautiful.”

The use of beauty in local parishes can similarly become a means of leading parishioners and those who may visit at Christmas, Easter, or an occasional wedding or memorial service, to contemplate the transcendent.  Whether or not parishes are designed, and parish art selected, to look contemporary, a high priority should be the choice of art and architecture that reflect the transcendent, and the beautiful that draws people to contemplate the beauty of God and heavenly things.

Beauty as a Statement of Faith

I think the use of beauty as a statement of faith might also affect our selections of clothing and religious jewelry that we wear to Mass, and the rosaries we use in churches and other public places.  St. John of the Cross pointed out that every rosary works the same way regardless of the expense of the materials.  That makes the greatest sense in the context of consecrated religious life, in which the rosaries may be seen only by other cloistered nuns and friars, and in which the greatest evangelistic impact may result from living ordered lives of simplicity and poverty.

Outside of that context, other factors might also affect the selection of rosaries and religious jewelry, and even the clothing we wear to Mass.  All of those things can reflect a worshipful reverence for God.  They reflect our priorities, in a context in which the money spent on a rosary may be viewed in comparison with what we spend on other things.  Without becoming materialistic, a layperson could communicate the artistic beauty that reflects the transcendence of the beauty of God, in the choice of a beautiful Bible, jewelry, rosary and other items that other people see.

In all of this, the beauty of a life lived in relationship with Christ Himself is what we should most seek, and what we want others to see in us.  Where the art in our environment serves that purpose in our lives, in our prayer and in the choices we make, we are living contemplatively and evangelistically in relationship to beauty.

Oggiono, Italy

From the reader who sent me the picture of Marco d'Oggiono's Assumption pollitico, posted on Friday, here is a photo of the village of Oggiono, Italy, where Marco d'Oggiono was born and where the pollitico is still found in a parish church:

The Assumption (Pollitico by Marco d'Oggiono)

- This is a pollitico by Marco di Oggiono showing Our Lady in the Asumption, ca. 1525, from Santa Eufemia Parish in Oggiono, Italy, where artist Marco di Oggiono was born (sent by a reader from Oggiono).  For another painting by Marco d'Oggiono, see this earlier post.
 

Fra Angelico

February 18 is the memorial of Fra Angelico.  This painting by Fra Angelico depicts St. John the Baptist and St. Dominic.

Timothy Verdun: Sacred Art Viewed in Liturgical Context

Sandro Magister posted an article yesterday titled "An American in Florence Rewrites Italian Sacred Art."  His article discusses a 3-volume set of books by Timothy Verdun, an art historian favored by Benedict XVI.  The first 2 volumes of Verdun's work, titled "L'Arte Christiana in Italia", go through the year 1600.  The final volume, from 1600 to the present day, is scheduled for release in 2007.  What is different about Verdun's view of the art, as Magister explains, is that he views it in its liturgical context.  As Magister explains:

"A solely aesthetic analysis of Christian art is misleading. Christian art is not made for the museums, but for the liturgy. An altar screen can be understood only if it is viewed together with the Eucharist celebrated on that same altar."

Photos from the Getty

I should have a group of photos from the Getty Museum in a sidebar gallery some time this evening.  All are from the North Building.  Photography is not allowed in the special exhibits, such as the one they have now of icons from Mt. Sinai.  In the Getty's collections, photography is allowed, but only without flash and without a tripod.

This picture is of a small corpus of Christ from Italy, around 1600, made of fruitwood.

What I Learned by Photographing Statues

In between Christmas Eve 2005 and Lent 2006, I took 3 sets of photographs of Church of the Nativity in Rancho Santa Fe, California.  Some of the photos are in the sidebar gallery ("Christmas at Church of the Nativity" and "More Photos of Church of the Nativity").  This post is about the meditative process of photographing statues at the parish where I worship almost every week.  The photos shown in this post are thumbnails.  Click on the photo to see it full size.  Those taken with high density film will then be larger than the others.

Church of the Nativity has beautiful artwork, old and new, and it has been repeatedly photographed by professional photographers and students of photography.  For a look at a couple of professional photographs elsewhere on the web, take a look at the "objects" section under "design on the website of Renzo Zecchetto Architects.  There are photos there of the crucifix and the statue of St. Joseph with candles, both of which include Zecchetto's mix of antique and contemporary artwork. 

Sculptor Max DeMoss's own website does not presently include photos of his work at Nativity, but it does include professional photos of some of his other church art, from St. Jean Vianney Catholic Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles.

A photo of DeMoss's station 12 from Nativity's Stations of the Cross appears on Nativity's website, which shows the statue from a different angle from the one I used for the photo I posted here of the same station.  The photo on the parish website is from a fascinating angle, partly because of the shadows, perhaps suggesting the hour of 3:00 p.m., the time of the death of Christ on the cross.

Depicting a Three-Dimensional Artform in Two Dimensions

Photographing statues necessarily involves choices, sacrificing one thing in favor of another, because it necessarily depicts a three-dimensional work of art in two-dimensional form.  I had to give up an entire dimension, so I had to lose something in the process.

I hoped to add something by depicting each statue from a point of view that added something, that gives the photo value even to people who have already seen the statue.  For my photo of Station 12 (photo #1), I found Mary's profile a compelling depiction of her grief at the crucifixion.  More recently, I used the photo in a  post with a quote from St. Edith Stein about Mary at the foot of the cross.  However, in the process of taking the photo from that direction, I almost completely lost the view of St. John, who is behind the two women, consoling the Blessed Virgin.  In photo #2 shown here of the same station, you can see all three figures at the foot of the cross, but the background is distracting, and there is no one figure whose grief draws immediate attention as I thought the picture of Mary did in the first. 

The choices were not always easy or obvious, and the choices I made were not necessarily the same that someone else might have made after giving the matter just as much thought -- or even much more.   There is a matter of deciding what is most important, and the process is one of  meditation.  It is not much different from the process of meditating on Scripture.  What strikes me, what has something to say to me in my life, may be different from what strikes someone else.  The choices made tell something about the statue, something about the sculptor, and something about the photographer.  And in that process, the meditation itself can change the one doing the meditating, as all art that is truly good art tells something about life and reaches something within us and can, and should, change us.

In the photo of the same statue shown on the parish website, taken from yet another angle, all of the individual figures can be seen, with the attention drawn more to the cross itself and the shadows.  A different focus is given on the same statue, as a great song sung by a different singer.  Two Christians meditating on the same Scripture passage can, in much the same way, see different life applications in it and walk away from it remembering different phrases, different verses, as the ones that struck them most deeply.  It is an interaction between the subject and the observer, and a different final work entailed in the blend.

Walking around the station, looking at each figure individually, it is possible to consider more fully each one of them and what is depicted.  Walking around it and thinking about which direction to photograph it from includes that meditation, looking at each face, each profile, and then having to make a choice.

The stations are places for meditation.  In Max DeMoss's stations, you can see whelps and cuts on Jesus' back, details that you cannot see unless you look at Jesus from the back, and sometimes looking at the statue itself from the back instead of looking at the station from the front.  Photo #3 here, station 7, was taken looking toward Jesus' torn back, choosing one of several figures showing him falling on the way of the cross, and choosing to show his back rather than his face in order to show the wounds.  The stations, and DeMoss's bronze Madonna inside the church, all are beautiful seen from several different angles, and not just looking at the statues from directly in front of them. 

Depicting Motion in a Still Form

Some of the stations show Jesus in several different positions, as when he fell.  There is motion in the statues, as they show him beginning to fall, falling, and having fallen, in several different small statues assembled together in the one station.  Photo #4, station 9, is an example of that.  It is not possible to show all of the various positions in one photograph because some are behind the others.  Instead, it was necessary to decide which view was most compelling as a still shot of what has motion as a statue, trying to show some of that motion in the photograph as well.  There are other ways of showing motion, using exposure timing and other techniques.  With a statue, the motion is created partly by the artist and partly by simply moving around the sculpture, moving your eyes from figure to figure within the sculpture. 

With a photograph in mind, I had to move around the sculpture until something struck me more than the other views, until I saw something I thought was worth remembering, and then try to capture that one view in a two-dimensional moment in time.

The Men on the Way of the Cross

Another problem with choosing views that showed how beautifully DeMoss depicted the women on the way of the cross is that it distracts from the powerful depiction of the men.  Station 13 (Photo #5) shows the men taking Jesus' body down from the cross.  It is powerful as seen from the walkway where the stations are located, but I stood on the grass to take this photo of the other side of the statue.  Only from there can you see the love with which one of the men touches his feet as he helps the others take Jesus' body down for burial.  Similarly, the more noticeable side of station 14 shows the women waiting at the entrance to the tomb, while the other side (photo #6)  shows the men inside preparing Jesus' body for burial as they laid Him in the tomb.  Showing both gave me 15 photos for 14 stations, but the hidden view of the men -- not as readily visible as we walk down the walkway toward our chapel -- was worth seeing.

A Madonna to Flatter the Virgin

The Madonna, at the Mary altar (photo #7), also cast by DeMoss, is my favorite work of art at Nativity -- maybe just a slight favorite over the very old bronze statue of Jesus on the crucifix.  That should come as no surprise to anyone who sees how often I use photos of both of those statues here.  There is a similar Madonna at St. Jean Vianney Catholic Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, shown on DeMoss's website.  Ours is thinner, and her dress looks more modern.

A year or two ago, when I was still fairly new as a parishioner there, we had a visiting priest, an author, who gave a series of talks and mentioned one evening that he thought thin, young depictions of Mary might send the wrong message to young women in an age when we already put too much emphasis on physical beauty.  He said that, by the time of the crucifixion, Mary actually was probably a short, pudgy, middle aged Jewish woman.

He may have been correct, but the thought popped into my head of a short, pudgy, middle-aged Jewish Mary sitting in the pew behind me, leaning forward and whispering in my ear, "Well, I think it looks exactly like me!"  And I realized then that there was something I understood about short, pudgy, middle-aged women that perhaps a monk would not have considered.  When I realized that Mary could have thought the statue was flattering, and could have accepted it as an honor to herself, it never bothered me again.

Mary's Face and Hands in Iconography

Like the stations, the Madonna is very three dimensional.  One of my favorite photos shows just her face, looking at her from the front of her face (photo #10), and another shows her face and hands (photo #8).  "In iconography, Mary’s face and hands reveal her contemplation and constant pondering of God’s will and her openness and resignation (open hands) to accepting His will for her life." So said the Sisters of Saint Basil in Uniontown Pennsylvania in their News of the East about a pilgrimage in 2002.

Inviting Us to Prayer

Viewed from one direction, both hands seem to be reaching out, in this "openness and resignation."  From another, her right hand seems to be almost at her side, open, while the left hand reaches out to someone standing nearby.  In a photo taken from the nave recently (photo #9), she seems to be reaching out to two young girls together sharing the kneeler near her, as if inviting them to prayer.  Candles are lit.  All of the candles were probably lit that morning, as we sometimes run out of unlit candles by the end of Sunday morning Masses.

Art that Becomes a Part of the Faith of the Worshipper

The presence of the people makes an enormous difference to church art.  It is a very different thing to see art that has become a part of the lives of the parishioners who see this particular depiction of Jesus and that particular depiction of Mary every week, or even every day, so that it becomes a part of our own faith as it affects the way we think of Jesus and Mary.

A statue in Catholic or Orthodox Church art is really a different artform from a statue meant to be seen for its own sake.  Church art is meant to be seen for its impact on the faith of the viewer, on the viewer's love for the Lord.  It only has that impact when it is taken into the life of a congregation.  That is true not only for lesser known works of art, but even for the major ones.   The Pieta of St. Peter's Basilica, for example, has an impact on the lives of people from all over the world who visit there that differs from the impact of statues in museums and other less personal, less intimate environments.  Our statue of Mary looks like one of us from a distance.  Seen in profile against the light of the stained glass window (photo #11), she looks almost like part of our parish, the person you might go to if someone ran out of wine at a wedding.

The Artist as Father of His Art

I also wondered about the process by which a sculpture goes from being an artist's artistic creation to being a parish's view of Jesus or Mary.  At some point, it seems to me, the artist becomes something like a father, or even a father of the bride, as the creation he worked lovingly to create becomes someone else's picture of the Lord or of His Mother.  In time, the impact of the artwork on those people who live with it from day to day, whose faith is impacted by it, must become greater than the impact of the artwork on the artist.  That does not really happen with art in museums or commercial buildings, and probably not with most art in private homes.  It does happen with art in churches.  In time, the emotional identification that the congregation has with the statue in a church may become a stronger connection than the emotional identification that the artist had as he or she created the art.

It is a different thing to create a work of art for the purpose of letting it go, and letting it impact the hearts and faith of others, perhaps at some point even more than it reflects the heart and faith of the artist, and perhaps in ways that the artist never imagined.  In trying to let my own meditation on the statues show through the photographs, one of my hopes was to be able to convey that impact as well as the beauty of the statue in itself.  Beyond that, in writing this post about the process -- not a post by a professional photographer but rather a post by a parishioner who took photos of the statues I know from the parish where I worship -- I hope to share a little bit about the process of meditation and about the value of art in churches.  If you would like to see the stations together with quotations and Scriptures that I chose to go with them, in order from Station 1 to Station 14, there is such a post under the category "Lent" (see sidebar).

Photos: (1) Station 12, (2) Station 12, (3) Station 7, (4) Station 9, (5) Station 13, (6) Station 14, (7 through 11) Mary.

The Nativity of the Virgin

"Thy nativity, virgin Mother of God, has brought joy to the whole world; for from thee has come forth the Sun of justice, Christ the Lord, Who putting away cursing bestowed blessing, and by overcoming death obtained for us life eternal."

The feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is September 8. 

The picture is  The Nativity of the Virgin by Andrea di Bartolo, ca. 1400.  It is used with the permission of the National Gallery of Art.

Hurricane Katrina: One Year Later

This past Sunday, Catholic parishes in the U.S. collected money to help with the uninsured portion of the Hurricane Katrina losses of Catholic churches, schools and religious houses in Mississippi and Louisiana, as discussed in this previous post. 

At our parish, we were also treated to a gallery of photographs of the Hurricane Katrina area, taken by photographer Kimberly Pitt.  The photographs can also be seen in two photo essays on her website.  They include one essay of varied Hurricane Katrina photographs and another specifically of photos of Our Lady of the Gulf.  The photo shown here is one of her photographs in the "Hurricane Katrina" gallery, showing a statue of Our Lady where it was found after the hurricane.  This photo was taken September 14, 2005.

Our Lady of the Gulf is a Catholic parish in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, a city on Saint Louis Bay and about 60 miles from New Orleans.  Before the hurricane, Bay St. Louis was known for its community of artists living by the sea.  The parish website for Our Lady of the Gulf has photos of the church before the hurricane.

Please go to Kim's website and enjoy her very moving photographs of the hurricane area, as well as the other striking photos in her online collection.

August 29, 2006 is the one-year anniversary of the date when the hurricane made landfall in Louisiana.  August 27 is the one-year anniversary of the date when it hit Florida, killing 11 people.  The disaster is being remembered on both dates this year, particularly as August 27 fell on Sunday.

The photo shown here is used by permission from Kimberly Pitt.

Two Recent Articles about Church Art

Intermountain Catholic News has an article today titled "Artist Transformed" about sculptor Eileen Doktorski.  Doktorski, a professor of sculpture at Utah State University, began to create crucifixes after her husband deserted her and her young daughter without saying good-bye, leaving her with an unwanted, painful divorce.  The article quotes her as saying:

“I saw in the cross someone else’s suffering, and it took me out of my own,” she said. “It gave me a place where I could cry, and it deepened both my spirituality and my feeling of interconnectedness with others and with the world.”

The article has several wonderful photographs of Doktorski and her work.  The story was reprinted in Catholic Online, but only the original in Intermountain Catholic News has all of the photographs.  Another quote:

“I feel a greater interconnection to all of humanity and the universe when I am moved and inspired by great works of art. I feel my own spirituality and understanding of God is best expressed through my art.”

On August 14, 2006, Catholic News Service posted an article titled "Stained glass windows help artists, viewers connect with faith", about stained glass artist Debora Coombs of Readsboro, Vermont.  Coombs, who was raised Anglican in the U.K., hopes to prompt reflection by her windows.  A quote:

"I don't have authority to teach about the faith, but I can ... offer something that allows the viewers the opportunity to reflect and connect with their own faith."

That article also mentioned Hiemer & Company Stained Glass Studio of New Jersey, which began with George Hiemer's work in the 1890's and early 1900's.  The studio is currently run by Hiemer's great-granddaughter Judith Hiemer Van Wie, and her  husband James Van Wie.

One of Coombs' projects is St. Mary's Cathedral of Portland, Oregan.  There is a gallery of her work on a new Coombs Criddle website.  There are good photos of the windows on page about the cathedral.  The Hiemer & Company website has photos of their work and a page about the process of creating a stained glass window.

Picture: Detail from "Sermon on the Mount" stained glass window by Debora Coombs.  The photo is copyright protected and used by permission of Debora Coombs.

Stations of the Cross

Station 1: Jesus is condemned to death.

"And they laid hands on him and seized him.  But one of those who stood by drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear.  And Jesus said to them, 'Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me?  Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me.'  But let the scriptures be fulfilled."  (Mar 14:46-49 RSV)

"Where is the strength of Christ?  'Horns are in his hands, there is his strength hid.'  Indeed horns are in his hands, because his hands were nailed to the arms of the cross.  But what strength is there in such weakness, what height in such lowliness?  What is there to be venerated in such abjection?  Surely something is hidden by this weakness, something is concealed by this humility.  There is something mysterious in this abjection.  O hidden strength: a man hangs on a cross and lifts the load of eternal death from the human race; a man nailed to wood looses the bonds of everlasting death that hold fast the world.  O hidden power: a man condemned with thieves saves men condemned with devils, a man stretched out on the gibbet draws all men to himself.  O mysterious strength: one soul coming forth from torment draws countless souls with him out of hell, a man submits to the death of the body and destroys the death of souls."  (St. Anselm of Canterbury, "Meditation on Human Redemption" from Prayers and Meditations) 

Station 2: Jesus carries his cross.

"Then Jesus told his disciples, 'If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.  For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?  Or what shall a man give in return for his life?'" (Matt. 16:24-26)

"Holiness is not the luxury reserved for a few favourite persons.  All are invited to be holy.  I think only holiness will be able to overcome evil and all the sufferings and miseries of the people, and of our own lives.  Because we too have to suffer, and suffering is a gift of God if we use it in the right way.  The cross must be there, so let us thank God for this." (Bl. Teresa of Calcutta, The Joy in Loving: A Guide to Daily Living, pg. 342.

Station 3: Jesus falls the first time.

"For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not."  (Isa. 53:2-3 RSV)

"He who follows Me, says Christ our Saviour, walks not in darkness, for he will have the light of life.  These are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by them we are admonished to follow His teachings and His manner of living, if we would truly be enlightened and delivered from all blindness of heart.

"Let all the study of our heart be from now on to have our meditation fixed wholly on the life of Christ, for His holy teachings are of more virtue and strength than the words of all the angels and saints.  And he who through grace has the inner eye of his soul opened to the true beholding of the Gospels of Christ will find in them hidden manna." (St. Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, Chapter 1)

Station 4: Jesus meets his afflicted mother.

"And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, 'Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also) that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.'" (Luke 2:33-35 RSV)

"She herself stands at His side like the Church, and assists in His work of redemption like its prototype, the Mother of God, in whom it has its origin.  The complete surrender of her entire life and being is to live and work with Christ; but that means also to suffer and die with Him -- that fruitful death from which springs the life of grace for all humanity." (St. Edith Stein, "Church, Woman, Youth", from Essays on Woman.

Station 5: Simon helps Jesus carry his cross.

"And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus." (Luke 23:26 RSV)

"Never omit carrying a corsage of the holy sufferings of Christ on the Altar of your heart, gathering the flowers in the morning in the flowering meadow of the divine mysteries undergone for our salvation by the Son of God.  In that way you will always keep burning the fire of holy love."  (St. Paul of the Cross, Letter 525 to Thomas Fossi, March 16, 1748, Vol II, The Letters of St. Paul of the Cross.

Station 6: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink?  And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee?  And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?'  And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.'"  (Matt. 25:37-40)

"A Christian is never alone... If you feel abandoned, it is because you do not want to look at that Christ who is passing so close to you... perhaps with the Cross." (St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way of the Cross, Station 6.

Station 7: Jesus falls the second time.

"Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; and we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.  But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Isa. 53:4-6 RSV)

"Have great love for trials and think of them as but a small way of pleasing your Bridegroom, who did not hesitate to die for you.

"Bear fortitude in your heart against all things that move you to that which is not God, and be a friend of the Passion of Christ." (St. John of the Cross, Sayings of Light and Love)

Station 8: Jesus speaks to the holy women.

"And there followed him a great multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented him.  But Jesus turning to them said, 'Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.  For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never gave suck!'  Then they will begin to say to the mountains, 'Fall on us'; and to the hills, 'Cover us.'  For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?'"  (Luke 23:27-31 RSV)

"My Jesus, laden with sorrows, I weep for the offenses I have committed against You, because of the pains they have deserved, and still more because of the displeasure they have caused You, Who have loved me so much. It is Your love, more than the fear of hell, which causes me to weep for my sins. My Jesus, I love You more than myself; I repent of having offended You. Never permit me to offend You again. Grant that I may love you always; and then do with me what You will."  (St. Alphonsus Liguori, A Scriptural Way of the Cross with Meditations)

Station 9: Jesus falls the third time.

"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.  By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?  And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth." (Isa. 53:7-9 RSV)

"[F]or when we have many things to do, when we are persecuted and in trouble, when we cannot have much rest, and when we have our seasons of dryness, Christ is our best Friend; for we regard Him as Man, and behold Him faint and in trouble, and He is our Companion; and when we shall have accustomed ourselves in this way, it is very easy to find Him near us, although there will be occasions from time to time when we can do neither the one nor the other.

"For this end, that is useful which I spoke of before: we must not show ourselves as labouring after spiritual consolations; come what may, to embrace the cross is the great thing. The Lord of all consolation was Himself forsaken: they left Him alone in His sorrows.  Do not let us forsake Him; for His hand will help us to rise more than any efforts we can make; and He will withdraw Himself when He sees it be expedient for us, and when He pleaseth will also draw the soul forth out of itself, as I said before."  (St. Teresa of Avila, The Life, Chapter 22)

Station 10: Jesus is stripped of his garments.

"Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus to the praetorium, and they 'gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe upon him, and plaiting a crown of thorns they put it on his head, and put a reed in his right hand.  And kneeling before him they mocked him, saying, 'Hail, King of the Jews!'  And they spat upon him, and took the reed and struck him on the head.  And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe, and put his own clothes on him, and led him away to crucify him."  (Matt. 27:27-31 RSV)

"The sick are to be admonished, to the end that they may keep the virtue of patience, to consider incessantly how great evils our Redeemer endured from those whom He had created; that He bore so many vile insults of reproach; that, while daily snatching the souls of captives from the hand of the old enemy, He took blows on the face from insulting men; that, while washing us with the water of salvation, He hid not His face from the spittings of the faithless; that, while delivering us by His advocacy from eternal punishments, He bore scourges in silence; that, while giving to us everlasting honours among the choirs of angels, He endured buffets; that, while saving us from the prickings of our sins, He refused not to submit His head to thorns; that, while inebriating us with eternal sweetness, He accepted in His thirst the bitterness of gall; that He Who for us adored the Father though equal to Him in Godhead, when adored in mockery held His peace:  that, while preparing life for the dead, He Who was Himself the life came even unto death.  Why, then, is it thought hard that man should endure scourges from God for evil-doing, if God underwent so great evils for well-doing?  Or who with sound understanding can be ungrateful for being himself smitten, when even He Who lived here without sin went not hence without a scourge?"  (Pope/St. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Care, Part III, Chapter XII)

Station 11: Jesus is nailed to the cross.

"And when they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on the right, and one on the left.  And Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.'" (Luke  23:33-34 RSV)

"You are quite willing to have a cross, but you want to choose it yourself; you would have it common, corporal, and of such and such a sort.  What is that, my well-beloved daughter?  Ah! no, I desire that your cross and mine be entirely crosses from Jesus Christ.  And as to the imposition of them, and the choice, the good God knows what He does and why He does it: for our own good, no doubt."  (St. Francis de Sales, Letter to Jane de Chantal, from Thy Will Be Done: Letters to Persons in the World)

Station 12: Jesus dies on the cross.

"So the soldiers did this.  But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.  When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, 'Woman, behold your son!'  Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!'  And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home." (John 19:25-27 RSV)

"These created things should have and could have been obedient to their own Lord and maker, and not to the creature who was misusing them.  But the most profound, most faithful, and totally extraordinary humility of this most high and majestic God deflates and confounds our pride-filled nothingness!  The very author of life, who alone is, wished to be annihilated and made subject to all creatures, even the insensible ones, so that you, who were dead and had become insensible to divine realities, might have life through his humility and abasement.  And you, O man, who were nothing, know that he, who alone is, has loved you with a love so pure and so faithful that solely out of love for you he wished to be annihilated, in order to give you most perfect being." (Bl. Angela of Foligno, The Book of the Blessed Angela (Instructions), Instruction XXII.

Station 13: Jesus is taken down from the cross.

"Now there was a man named Joseph from the Jewish town of Arimethea.  He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, who had not consented to their purpose and deed, and he was looking for the kingdom of God.  This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.  Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud, and laid him in a rock-hewn tomb, where no one had ever yet been laid."  (Luke 23:50-53 RSV)

"Pierce, O most sweet Lord Jesus, my inmost soul with the most joyous and healthful wound of Thy love, and with true, calm and most holy apostolic charity, that my soul may ever languish and melt with entire love and longing for Thee, may yearn for Thee and for thy courts, may long to be dissolved and to be with Thee. Grant that my soul may hunger after Thee, the Bread of Angels, the refreshment of holy souls, our daily and supersubstantial bread, having all sweetness and savor and every delightful taste. May my heart ever hunger after and feed upon Thee, Whom the angels desire to look upon, and may my inmost soul be filled with the sweetness of Thy savor; may it ever thirst for Thee, the fountain of life, the fountain of wisdom and knowledge, the fountain of eternal light, the torrent of pleasure, the fullness of the house of God; may it ever compass Thee, seek Thee, find Thee, run to Thee, come up to Thee, meditate on Thee, speak of Thee, and do all for the praise and glory of Thy name, with humility and discretion, with love and delight, with ease and affection, with perseverance to the end; and be Thou alone ever my hope, my entire confidence, my riches, my delight, my pleasure, my joy, my rest and tranquility, my peace, my sweetness, my food, my refreshment, my refuge, my help, my wisdom, my portion, my possession, my treasure; in Whom may my mind and my heart be ever fixed and firm and rooted immovably. Amen." (St. Bonaventure, Prayer after Communion)

Station 14: Jesus is laid in the sepulchre.

"And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus . . . . And he bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud, and laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a stone against the door of the tomb.  Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid."  (Mark 15:42-43, 46-47 RSV)

“'But Joseph went, and begged the body.'  This was Joseph, who was concealing his discipleship of late; now however he had become very bold after the death of Christ. For neither was he an obscure person, nor of the unnoticed; but one of the council, and highly distinguished; from which circumstance especially one may see his courage.  For he exposed himself to death, taking upon him enmity with all, by his affection to Jesus, both having dared to beg the body, and not having desisted until he obtained it.  But not by taking it only, nor by burying it in a costly manner, but also by laying it in his own new tomb, he showeth his love, and his courage.  And this was not so ordered without purpose, but so there should not be any bare suspicion, that one had risen instead of another.

“'And there was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre.'  For what purpose do these wait by it?  As yet they knew nothing great, as was meet, and high about Him, wherefore also they had brought ointments, and were waiting at the tomb, so that if the madness of the Jews should relax, they might go and embrace the body.  Seest thou women’s courage? seest thou their affection? seest thou their noble spirit in money? their noble spirit even unto death?"  (St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew, Homily LXXXVIII)

Photos: The bronze stations of the cross shown here were cast by Max DeMoss for Church of the Nativity, Rancho Santa Fe, California, and were photographed there on February 26, 2006.  You can also see them in the photo album in the right column of this blog.

Art from the Era of St. Willigis

Images of Some of the Artwork from the Era of St. Willigis:

The Feast Day of St. Willigis is February 23.  An earlier post mentions the churches built under his direction when he was the archbishop of Mainz, and his motto "By Art to the Knowledge and Service of God."  Today's post shows some of the artwork from his era, which was a time of renaissance in Church art and music.  I have also added several quotations from letters written to Archbishop/Saint Willigis from the Letters of Gerbert of Aurillac.

The artwork shows some eastern influence that had reached the region by way of Italy.  It also might give a different view of the late tenth century to some people who think of it only as the "Dark Ages".  For an earlier post on this blog about the musical advances in chant around the year 1,000, go here.

Photo:  Saint Foy of Conques, IXth or Xth century, gold on wood, photo from University of Miami School of Architecture Page.

Photo: The ivory madonna of Mainz, Xth century, now on exhibit in the Landesmuseum of Mainz.  It may have been originally from Trier. 

"Advise me, father, for even if I possess no merits in the sight of Your Majesty, my affection has not been absent, nor will I fail in achievement if fortune should smile as formerly. . . . Thus you alone will bear my burden because I have not cared to communicate with my friends the princes until I should try what could be done through him [Willigis] whom I judge most influential."

- Gerbert of Aurillac, letter to Archbishop Willigis, written for Archbishop Adelbero, June 26, 984.  Letter No. 42, as translated by Harriet Lattin, Letters of Gerbert of Aurillac

Photo: Church of St. Michael, Hildesheim, Germany (founded by Saint/Bishop Bernward in 996, completed ca. 1010) from this Hildesheim tourism website

"In a noteworthy speech you declared holy friendships and close fraternal association to be as sweet as they are useful, and you have deemed me worthy, both now and for the future, to be an associate and companion in the Divinity's great reward.  For what else is true friendship except the especial gift of the Divinity?"

-  Gerbert of Aurillac, letter to Archbishop Willigis, September 21, 997, Letter No. 228 as translated by Harriet Lattin.

Photo: Golden Madonna of Essen, ca. Xth century, from the Diocese of Essen Website

"In great constancy must we work, father, in order to maintain a plan of peace and leisure. . . . [B]ecause not for nothing has the Divinity bestowed on you knowledge and power, indicate to us in safe replies what you approve in these suggestions, and wherein you think contrariwise, as well as what persons favor your ideas and what ones disagree with you."

- Gerbert of Aurillac, letter to Archbishop Willigis, March 17, 984, Letter No. 35 as translated by Harriet Lattin.

By Art to the Knowledge and Service of God

This coming Thursday, February 23, will see the feast days of two saints that particularly interest me.  One of them is Polycarp, the disciple of St. John who in turn influenced St. Irenaeus.  The other is Willigis, who was the archbishop of Mainz in the late tenth century.  I will have some posts about Polycarp later in the week.  Since I want to post on Polycarp then, I will go ahead and post a couple of things about Willigis before then. 

The "Saints of the Day" page for February 23 has information about both of them here.  The Catholic Encyclopedia page about St. Willigis is here.

Besides having an interest in the history of the late tenth and early eleventh century, my thinking about Willigis is influenced by the time I spent in Mainz several years ago.  St. Willigis was the archbishop of Mainz who built the two cathedrals there, although little is left from his construction. 

The primary cathedral (St. Martin's, the one most often called the Cathedral of Mainz or the "Mainzer Dom") was built under Archbishop/Saint Willigis from 1000 to 1009, and then burned to the ground on the day when it was to be consecrated.  Willigis decided to rebuild, but he did not live to see it finished.  Most of the present building was constructed between 1100 and 1239, and there is Gothic construction that is more recent still.  A map of the interior, in one of the booklets I purchased in Germany, shows which parts of the present day cathedral were built in different centuries.  There is one wall of St. Gotthard's Chapel -- the wall closest to the cathedral -- that dates back to that early construction, parts of two towers at the other end of the church, and a little more, that dates back to 1009.  Outside of the cathedral is a statue of St. Boniface, the English-born missionary who was called the first archbishop of Mainz, although the city was not officially an archdiocese until after Boniface's death.

At the time of that trip, my thinking was that I could buy better pictures than I could take with my own camera, so I did not carry a camera around with me much.  As a result, the pictures I have here were all borrowed from the internet (sources are listed below).  One of them is from the home page of someone in Germany who had a nice gallery of pictures he took of his country.  Another is from a website in a language that I cannot read at all.  The other pictures are from websites of the City of Mainz and what appears to be an educational site featuring Mainz for February.
 

Mainz is, by the way, a pleasant place to spend a vacation.  Not far from the Frankfurt airport, Mainz has an old town area of shops and restaurants where the local people spend relaxing week-ends, as well as important historic sites and museums.  Gutenberg lived there, and the Gutenberg museum houses handwritten manuscripts from before the age of the printing press, two original Gutenberg Bibles, and a collection of Bibles and other books printed in eras since then along with printing presses from over the centuries.  Mainz is also close to Bingen, Worms, and other areas with Catholic historic places, and the people are very friendly and welcoming.  While Rome is a terrific place to see things from the Early Church and the Renaissance, Mainz is a better place to see things from the middle ages, and there is quite a lot to see.

In its day, the Archdiocese of Mainz was one of the most important positions in the Church and Empire.  And yet, today, it is no longer an archdiocese at all, but rather a diocese. And the city is no longer a massively important city politically, but more or less a pleasant suburb of Frankfurt.  People live there or spend week-ends there, and they take the commuter trains into Frankfurt to work.

But back to Willigis.  His slogan was "By art to the knowledge and service of God" and he built two cathedrals, along with much else that he did. 

St. Willigis was the son of a wheelwright, one of a handful of people in his day who rose from a background of little to great prominence. Gerbert of Aurillac was another.  While Gerbert and Willigis were allies in support of Emperor Otto III, Gerbert was later called upon to judge between Archbishop/Saint Willigis and Bishop/Saint Bernward of Hildesheim in a dispute about the jurisdiction over a convent of Gandersheim.  As the pope deciding between a bishop and archbishop, Pope Gerbert (Sylvester II) decided in favor of Bishop Bernward, and Archbishop Willigis later acknowledged that the decision had been right.  Both Willigis and Bernward were later considered saints, and both have saints' days today.  Both were known as supporters of the arts.  St. Bernward's memorial is November 20.   Gerbert was never beatified or canonized although his intellectual influence remains.

The lesser of the two churches called cathedrals in Mainz is the Church of St. Stephan's, which a mile or two away from the center of Mainz.  The original St. Stephan's was founded in about 990 under Archbishop Willigis.  The present day Church of St. Stephan's was built, from about 1290 to 1340, on the foundation of the tenth century church, and then burned during World War II.  The exterior walls now look the same as the exterior walls in photographs that show the flames shooting out of all the windows of the medieval masterpiece during the war.  But the interior, rebuilt after the war, still has a new church feel to it.  While the Mainzerdom (St. Martin's) is full of monuments, stained glass from past centuries, and artwork collected over 1,000 years, almost to the point of being overwhelming, St. Stephan's is starkly beautiful, nearly bare, so much so that I almost felt like I could smell the new construction.  It did not smell like a medieval church. 

One of the sad things about the destruction is that the people in that part of Germany were among those who most ardently opposed Hitler.  I don't think Americans, on the whole, have the same understanding of the cost of war as Europeans who have grown up seeing those places and the photographs of the damage. 

However, St. Stephan's now has the distinction of being the only church in Germany where the Jewish artist Marc Chagall designed a stained glass window.  There are several such churches in France, including the beautiful window in the Cathedral of Reims, but the only one in Germany is in Mainz.  While Chagall's window in Reims is remarkable for the artist's ability to make his window fit into a church where it is surrounded by much older stained glass windows, Chagall could work with a nearly blank slate in Mainz.  The burned cathedral had no windows.  He chose the artist who designed the other windows to complement his. 

From the interior, it looked to me almost like a church that had been built to go with the windows, almost as if the building and the windows had been designed at the same time.  It is one of those remarkable things about Chagall's ability to fit together the old and the new that the windows do not look out of place amid much older architecture. 

St. Willigis is buried in St. Stephan's.  St. Willigis's love of art and of architecture make the church an even more fitting location for the twentieth century artists' work.  It is a stark, blue and relatively quiet place of beauty (even as other tourists mill around), standing on a tenth century foundation where lies a saint who was known as a perfect bishop in his day. 

By comparison to St. Stephan's, St. Martin's was loud, a church with an active congregation in the middle of the city center, next to the theater where the Mainz Ballet performs, the center of civic life and tourism, a short walk from the shops and restaurants that attract week-end visitors.  If St. Stephan's is a place of visual beauty, St. Martin's is a place of sound, with tourists milling around and talking, the complexity of massive monuments and windows dedicated to bishops and archbishops from many centuries, organ music, and other musical performances. 

After looking at everything, I slipped behind the door marked for silent prayer only and found another retreat from tourist Mainz and week-ender Mainz to the saints and their medieval city: St. Gotthard's Chapel.  At one time, it was the private chapel of the archbishop of Mainz, one of the most powerful people in the medieval Catholic Church and in the Holy Roman Empire.  Now, it is the chapel reserved for silent prayer, where the reserved host is kept. 

The Romanesque crucifix above the altar in St. Gotthard's Chapel was made in 1070 a.d.  It is perhaps the oldest work of art now in the cathedral, at least the oldest one whose date was mentioned in any of the brochures and books that I found.  None of the artwork now in either church appears to date back to the days of St. Willigis.  Fires, wars, and centuries of deterioration have taken their toll.  Bits and pieces of things from the era of St. Willigis can be found, or replicas of them can be found, here and there: the jeweled cover of a book of the Gospels at the Gutenberg museum (a gift from Emperor Otto III to a monastery) and a delicately beautiful reliquary at the Cathedral of Worms (a gift from the Empress Theophanu, the wife of Otto II).  But most of the artwork that St. Willigis loved is now gone. 

In its place are still two beautiful cathedrals and a love of Catholic art and music, and places to pray that still have just enough connection with those medieval saints whose names have been nearly forgotten in present day America.

Photos (from the top): Mary and Jesus from the Marc Chagall Window (Lise Mikkelsen); interior of St. Stephen's (Projekt Databroadcast Schulfernsehen); exterior of St. Martin's Cathedral (Stefan Pressler); exterior of St. Martin's (Projekt Databroadcast Schulfernsehen); statue of St. Boniface of Devon/Mainz from outside of St. Martin's (City of Mainz Website); altar of St. Gotthard's Chapel at St. Martin's Cathedral (City of Mainz Website); Crucifix from St. Gotthard's Chapel (City of Mainz Website).