Sandy Curnow Reflection

In generations past, Catholics had a missal with which to follow the intricacies of the Latin Mass.  Mercifully, since the 1960s few of the laity could understand any of the Latin, the Second Vatican Council saw us praying the Mass in our own languages; and the missal together with some of  its arcane explanations became no longer relevant.  As a result, how many in the congregation today register the mandated colour of the priest’s vestments, or who would notice the saint of the day in the Lectionary?

Since the Reformation, if not before, the place of saints has been a sticking point in the Church.  Too often their role was over-emphasised.  At the outset they were local people in local areas informally celebrated for their virtue.  It was probably sensible that the local bishop got involved – and from there the process became more formal.  Then the concept went for Roman authentication; today canonisations can be spectacular events.

If you look closely at the annual cycle of Masses in the Lectionary, there are a range of saints’ feast days offered for daily celebration.  But what possible relevance do most of them have in today’s Church?

For example, on the 13th October (but of course the Sunday takes precedence) the nominated saints are once again a curious lot – their names ranging from the unlikely to the unknown: Faustus, Romulus, Fyncana, the only one at all familiar is Saint Edward the Confessor – a Saxon King of England almost exactly a thousand years ago.  If his name rings a bell it’s probably because his shrine in Westminster Abbey featured in the recent London Coronation.

He is hardly a figure relevant to today’s Church.  And yet, the benefit derived from saints can be less obvious than intercessional piety; and prayer to Saint Edward generated one of the loveliest treasures in the London National Gallery. 

The Wilton Diptych, by an unknown painter just before 1400 was painted for King Richard II’s personal devotion.  He kneels in the left panel before the Virgin and Child and is supported by impressive religious sponsors: King Edmund Martyr in costly scarlet shoes, our saintly Edward the Confessor dressed in royal purity plus a touch of ermine round the shoulders, and John the Baptist in his desert sparseness.  The dazzling blue of Mary’s robes – and of all the angels in an exuberance of colour – is from ground lapis lazuli imported from as far away as Afghanistan.  King Richard’s cloak is only one step less rare, made from ground cinnabar from the East, and the glimmering background, as well as the brocade touches on robes, is gold leaf.  The three kings wear such finely wrought crowns, by contrast the angels are wreathed in exquisite roses.  Nothing could be lovelier.  It is an artwork which has delighted the spirit over the centuries, and for which we must be grateful, but its flamboyant loveliness provokes as well as inspires.

Scholars think that Shakespeare, 200 years later, knew the piece.  His Richard II reflects the same exquisite, kingly, cultured figure kneeling there, making his mark and yet as the play says “with  fierce blaze of riot cannot last”.  The panels are a painted version of the Divine Right of Kings (even Mary’s angels wear King Richard’s personal badge of the White Hart), and the images with their flurry of colour, and  almost excessive expenditure risk being made for “flatterers”.  Shakespeare’s King Richard is mistakenly certain he has God and his saints on his side, and so does the Diptych, but the play finds that royal power, misused, forces rebellion in order to achieve some sort of justice.

All of which seems a mile away from our 13th October, 21st Century reality – academically engaging but irrelevant.  However, if both the saint of the day – King Edward –  and painting itself are medieval, and Shakespeare’s play seems distant from our time, the question they all pose “what is good government?” is profoundly important to our society. 

The last century, much of it in our living memory, has endured the bitter destruction and death wrought by extreme right and left – by Nazism and Communism.  We thought humanity had learnt those lessons, only to see the same ghosts rising again through Europe, re-clad in new and slightly different gear seventy years later.  Moreover, society has forgotten how afraid the electorate should be of the demagogue’s ability to distort democratic government.  The cult of persuasive personality – the manipulating firebrand even – can threaten the whole world. 

Edward can be made relevant – at a stretch – which is more than other saints would seem to be.  At the recent priestly Ordination in St Patrick’s Cathedral the ceremony was lengthy, and saints abounded.  Apart from other listings in the prayers, the choir chanted the great Litany of Saints.  Many of them seemed as anonymous as Duccio’s charming painted figures (above), names of saints completely unfamiliar in today’s church.  Who, apart from historians would readily invoke Cosmas and Damian, Linus and Cletus, or Athanasius and Basil?  Again, what possible relevance do these figures have to young priests looking toward to the future?  One is tempted to argue that age and tradition are stultifying and that newly minted servers of the Church and people need to look forward rather than back into history. 

On one hand that is obviously true.  Custom can be a dead hand that smothers thought.  On the other hand, it can act as a solid foundation for identity.  Ordination sees new priests joining a two-thousand-year thread of belief and prayer and sacrifice.  The litany is another form of family history, tracing the experience of the Church from the apostles.  But that does not mean living church life through the rear-vision mirror. 

Two questions then: where does that leave the young men, and where do the saints leave us?  To the second point first, saints may generate pious practices or produce great art, but both of these are optional extras to practicing our religion.  By contrast, a just society is central to the values of the Gospels.  For the newly ordained, feeling their way towards a new model of synodal Church, they must be willing to look outward to be where the people are.  And that means supporting the search for both justice and just government.  This does not mean supporting or condemning elements of a political party’s legislation; the view must be much wider than that. 

The line between proper authority and politics can be very fine, but that is no excuse for not looking for it.  It may be, as the Pope said recently when asked about the forthcoming US elections, as a choice as to vote for the lesser of two evils instead of the better of two worlds.  But choose we must and with great care.  It is even possible that moral choices faced in the past, and brought to mind through art, might foster ethical and responsible voting in our time.

By Sandy Curnow

Images (top to bottom):
Duccio’s ‘Maesta’ (The Litany of the Saints); a lectionary; Pope John Paul II beatified before more than 1 million faithful in St Peter’s Square in 2011 (Pier Paolo Cito/AP www.npr.org); ‘Wilton Diptych’, National Gallery, London

Published: 11 October 2024