Wearing Your Heart on Your Lapel - A Novel Way to Bear Witness to Christ

I recently did a FB photopost on my icon lapel pin, and was surprised by the positive reaction, so I decided to write a little bit more about it!

In the West, we live in a time of steadily increasing hostility towards Christianity. Famously, the late and much missed Cardinal George of the Archdiocese of Chicago, who died of cancer in 2015, summed up the situation with the following statement made several years before his death: 

I expect to die in my bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. 

This statement caught attention at the time, but it is not quite as pessimistic a statement as some have suggested. Clearly, there is an assumption here that his successors would be as orthodox in their faith as he was in his, and so merit attack from secular forces. Some might say that in itself was optimistic to the point of foolishness! But also, he went on to say in the same statement, that after the death of the martyr bishop:

His [the martyr's] successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.

In other words, we should not lose heart, for the Church will prevail regardless of the malice of men or the devil.

I thought about this recently when I heard a homily about the need to bear witness to the Faith today. The pastor made the point that while we are not at the point yet of being persecuted for our faith in this country, it might happen in the future and it is more likely to happen if we do not stand up for the Faith now. Countering prejudice at an early stage, he suggested, can help to stop it growing into open hatred and persecution in the future. He reminded us of how blessed we are in this country, still, compared with many who live in real fear for their lives for practising their faith, especially those in some predominantly Islamic countries.

I pray that if required, I might have the courage of the martyrs through the centuries who stood up to oppression whether it be from ISIS or the Emporer Diocletian.

In the meantime, the question is what can I do here and now to play my part? How do I bear witness in such as way that people know that I am Catholic and is likely to create a positive enough impression to draw people to the Faith?

The first thing, I think, is to acknowledge my need for God's grace to be able even to begin to live up to Christian ideals.

Second is let people know that I am a Christian. I live in the San Francisco Bay area and I often hear derogatory remarks about Christians and Christianity. Wherever possible I try to respond by casually and cheerily remarking that I am Christian. Usually, that has the simple effect of halting the conversation because no longer is 'the Christian' an abstraction in their imaginations, he is a real person. And I find that even here, most people shy away from offending flesh-and-blood people standing in front of them.

In his sermon, our pastor (at St Elias Melkite Catholic Church) suggested one simple way of discreetly but visibly making such a statement would be to wear a cross. He said that it would arouse curiosity and people would ask what it was. It would also, he suggested, give us the motivation to be better Christians because we are so clearly identifying ourselves with the Faith.

I have bought one and wear it, but I'll admit it sits under my shirt, only sometimes visible when I have an open-necked shirt. A necklace or medallion is not something that I would ordinarily wear and I don't feel absolutely comfortable with it. I decided to do something different that felt more natural to me. I found a company online that makes personalized lapel pins and so asked them to create some for me based on the Holy Face. I sent them a jpeg of the following icon:

When the batch came (I had to order 100) they looked like this:

Already, people have asked about it, and one even asked where I go to church, so I gave her a St Elias Melkite Catholic Church business card (which the pastor had printed up and encouraged us to have in our wallets, just in case!). I also see many people looking at it when I wear it although most do not say anything. Nevertheless, I am pleased about this because I feel that I have made a statement without saying anything in a way that I feel comfortable with.

I might be wrong, but I don't feel I am the sort whose natural gifts extend to being able to attract people to the Faith by standing on a soapbox and preaching on a street corner to passers-by; or by wearing a sandwich board that says: 'The End is Nigh' - as a man used to do for years in Liverpool city center when I was growing up in the 1960s and 70s.

Perhaps I am less courageous than this man. But a lapel pin is my way of being in-your-face with the Holy Face, while not looking as though that's what I'm trying to do. It was easy enough to do - you could easily create your own if you have a jpeg file of an image you like. 

I am curious to hear from readers. Do you have any ways that tell people you are Christian without putting people off? I'd love to hear about what you do and the reactions you get. This is probably something that would appeal more to men than women, so what might women do alternatively?

Meanwhile, I am still waiting for someone to come up and incense my jacket...perhaps one day, you never know.

The Good, the Better and the Sunday Best - How to Evangelise Using St Thomas's 4th Way Without Having to Read or Understand the Angelic Doctor

In this article, I am suggesting that the 4th St Thomas’ Aquinas’s Five Ways (or proofs, for the existence of God), is a powerful tool for evangelization, but not through an explanation of the proof itself, no matter how engaging it might be. Rather, the 4th Way describes after the fact, a mode of thinking that leads naturally to faith as a response to the world around us. It is seen most commonly, therefore in those who already have faith regardless of whether or not they have even heard of St Thomas Aquinas, let alone read his proof. This being so, as a method for evangelization, one approach to using the ‘4th Way’ is to do so indirectly. Accordingly, the goal is to stimulate and nurture the natural facility in us for ‘4th-Way’ thinking (leading in turn to faith in God), through the influence of the culture, and our actions and interactions with others. That mode of 4th-Way thinking is one that uses the principle of analogy in connecting beings to each other, recognizes the natural place of a hierarchy of being, and that all lesser beings participate in the fullness of Being which is the ultimate cause of their existence. This mode of thinking comes so naturally to us that even small children can employ it. Furthermore, when we apprehend beauty, we intuitively employ all of these modes of thinking and so in many ways, the 4th Way is itself analogous to, if not directly identifiable with, the Way of Beauty. Finally, and in the light of this, after suggesting general principles by which we might create an environment that evangelizes, I illustrate with some specific examples that occurred to me.

What’s the use of proofs of God’s existence? Will they persuade anyone to believe anyway?

The 4th Way of St Thomas is described in the Summa Theologiae, and in the Prologue to his commentary on the Gospel of John. St Thomas thought this was the most persuasive of his proofs for the existence of God. But how can such a dry and for many people arcane argument be persuasive? I think it can be, but not in the way that many academics discuss it today.

Here it is as described in the Summa:

The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings, there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But "more" and "less" are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.

Put another way: we observe degrees of perfection of properties found in beings (good, better, better still...etc), by analogy this establishes a hierarchy of beings with that property and this hierarchy indicates to us that there is something, which might not be otherwise known, but which is the greatest in each property. In turn, and again by analogy, we see that the best in all categories exist in a single being which contains all attributes of being in perfection, which is Being itself. All of lesser beings owe their existence to that greatest possible Being and are said to participate in that fullness of Being.

My understanding is that the intention of St Thomas in presenting this was not to convert, but rather to demonstrate that faith is consistent with reason - faith seeking understanding. For those with faith, understanding is certainly a noble goal. But does this mean that this Way has no application as a tool for evangelization? I suggest that the answer to this is, no and, in fact, the Fourth Way is indeed the most powerful tool we have for conversion. Though perhaps not in the way that some people might think.

If we have faith, then it is as likely that we already think in such a way that the concepts of hierarchy, substance, analogy, and participation are natural modes of thought for us. We may not be able to articulate how we think or define the terms in such a way that a philosophy professor would be happy, but it doesn’t stop us from thinking in that way. For so many who have faith, they are engaging in 4th-Way thinking deep in their hearts, naturally and intuitively, and in response to the world around us.

If our mode of thought changes, as it can under the influences of bad education or culture, then faith will decline too. This being so the task is not so much to teach people about the 4th Way of St Thomas, although doing so might help with some, but rather to stimulate and nurture this mode of thinking. In the context of its use for evangelization and preservation of the Faith, the need to teach people about the argument of the 4th Way itself is primarily to the few who are in a position to influence the pattern of education and of the culture so as to reflect and in turn cause it.

What do we do to encourage 4th-Way thinking?

I think that the approach should be similar to that by which we might encourage people to apprehend beauty naturally. Here's why:

One simple definition of beauty is ‘the radiance of being’. When we grasp the beauty of something we are in relation to it and we are apprehending truths about its existence that are transmitted, so speak, to us. When we respond fully, we see it as beautiful and it causes us to look instinctively for the perfection and superabundant source of that beauty, which is Beauty itself, God. And we look also to the source of that object’s existence, Being itself, which again is God.

The desire for the original source of beauty and being can be so great that it has been compared to a wound. Benedict XVI, for example, quoted Nicholas Cabasilas the 14th century Greek Father, who said that: ‘True knowledge is being struck by the arrow of beauty that wounds man: being touched by reality, “by the personal presence of Christ himself.” This visceral response to beauty is powerful ‘4th-Way’ thinking that directs us to the contemplation of God.

Furthermore, when we see something as beautiful we are are seeing a pattern of related parts within a being (or of interrelated beings within a community of beings), harmoniously arranged. Either way, to do so we must be capable of recognising beings - substances - (as well as communities of beings) as entities that really exist and recognise also that they are interrelated through common properties of being and see how, collectively, they point to the highest being possible. Again, to think ‘beautifully’ is to employ 4th-Way thinking. Every time we see a pattern in which we can see that something is missing and fill in the gaps, as it were, we are thinking in this way.

So, I suggest, when Benedict XVI and John Paul II stressed the power of beauty in evangelization, those modern prophets of beauty were simply reiterating in their own way what St Thomas told us several hundred years ago when he spoke of the power of the 4th Way.

A formation in beauty encourages 4th-Way thinking: This being the case, the simple answer as to how we might encourage 4th Way thinking is that we work to create the liturgical city here on earth - the New Jerusalem - that is we strive to create a beautiful culture that is informed by the divine order. Furthermore, others should see that our response to the beauty around us is faith and joy and that as a result, we conform to that order in our own behaviour and especially interactions with others so as to compound it.

My book, The Way of Beauty describes my general ideas for how we can work towards such a culture, but here are some specifics that occurred to me that are informed particularly by this consideration also of St Thomas’s 4th Way.

Aidan Hart's New Jerusalem

The Liturgy

As with nearly all human behaviour and thought, whether directly or indirectly, the most important influence is the liturgy. If we get this right it catechizes the faithful and evangelizes the faithless. Here are some suggestions:

Ad Orientem: This is perhaps the most striking and immediate way of symbolizing that we look to and recognize a Higher Power. My own conversion was influenced by seeing an ad orientem Mass in which the priest seemed to be at the head of a body of people leading us towards a common destination. This impression just described was accentuated by the architecture and art which served to focus my attention on and present to me visually images of what I otherwise would not have intuited.

Sacred Images: In regard to sacred images, in particular, we must again learn to pray with and venerate sacred images, especially in the context of the liturgy. For to do so requires us to think analogically and hierarchically when we recognise that the image presents to us in a particular way the prototype in heaven. Accordingly, when we venerate an icon we understand that the respect we show is transferred to its prototype; and furthermore, we understand that there are degrees of respect. These are traditionally seen as latria - worship, which is the highest and is for God alone; next is hyperdulia, which is accorded to Our Lady only among the saints and angels; and then dulia which is for saints and angels. This mode of thinking which takes delight in and recognises degrees of perfection that point us to an ultimate Being is powerful 4th-Way thinking.

So important is this to our faith that the Church asserts that sacred art is not just permitted but necessary in the Christian life. When we cease to pray with images they become superfluous to our worship and this, in turn, undermines further the authenticity of our worship.

The natural extension of this proper sense of their place in the liturgy is iconoclasm. So powerful a part does sacred imagery have in preserving and stimulating a faithful mode of thought that I suggest that what might seem like minor neglect opens the way to a chain of progression that has the direct consequences. We see connected: iconoclasm, the rejection of the authority of the Church and the inversion of the hierarchy of being which seeks to bring ‘god’ down to us (rather than allowing him to draw us up to Him by our partaking of the divine nature), and then atheism which rejects Him altogether. People may doubt that these things are connected, but I am certain that they are.

It is not the only thing to think about, but I suggest nevertheless that until devout Catholics once again engage actively with sacred images in the act of worshipping God, in the liturgy, we will not stop the decline in the Faith that we see in the West. One cannot underestimate the importance of this or how far from this ideal we have strayed today. Remember that Christians died in order to defend the orthodoxy of holy images. Today in the Roman Church, it seems, we so often give away freely what saints in the past fought so hard to defend. We have a situation (in both forms of the liturgy I might add) where, generally, the imagery is irrelevant to our worship. Even for the pious prayer is so much an internalised, eyes-closed affair which makes the reduces the role of art and architecture, at best, as a beautiful but irrelevant backdrop.

In the wider culture?

Here are just a few examples of how we might envision such a culture:

Polis and metropolis: When possible we should design cities and towns so that God has pride of place - the heart of the community is where we worship because that is where we meet God, not the shopping mall or even the government building. This is the tradition going back centuries which has been lost in the last couple of hundred years. Vitruvius knew that the temple ought to be the focal point of the city. This meant placing it centrally and prominently and the source of an architectural style in which all other buildings participated, with design modified to suit the purpose of each building.

We often have to start from where we are, and if our church and neighborhood don’t conform to this standard already, it doesn’t always mean that we have to flatten everything and start again. Wherever the church is, to the degree that it is beautiful and it houses right worship, a community will naturally develop around it and it will start to become the natural heart of the community. Then organically and slowly, but still perceptively, the neighbourhood around will order itself to the natural focal point. People who are outside of that religious community will notice that it is the worship in the church that is the beating heart of a community, and will be curious to see more.

Recovering the art of thinking and acting symbolically: This encourages an appreciation of the natural connections between things that convey meanings to us. We must learn again to look symbolically at the culture of faith, at nature and the world around us and then strive to create a culture that reflects this symbolic way of thinking. This is not simply the re-establishment of the old symbolism that has been lost, but rather a creative and discerning retrieval informed both by tradition and our new understanding of things, for example of nature in the light of developments in natural science. The pelican symbolized the Eucharist at the time of St Thomas because it was thought to feed its young with its own blood. This was reasonable at the time, but nowadays nobody seriously believes it anymore. I wonder if might be, beautiful though the symbolism might seem, that to persist with this sort of symbolism makes us look superstitious and foolish, for example?

Scripturally based symbolism should be recovered first. Who are the figures on the fish and this scene of the baptism of Christ?

Natural hierarchies in society: We must strive to re-institute or preserve the natural authorities that exist in society, based upon, for example, family, nation and Church. When we visibly and joyfully respect those authorities it tells others that we are happily conforming to the natural order of things and will provoke curiosity. Similarly, when we are in positions of authority we must assert it but responsibly and lovingly otherwise people will rebel. These are high ideals and we will fall short, but the effort will bear fruit I believe. As an aside, I always thought that one of the things that made the series Downton Abbey so popular was the portrayal of a community in which, generally, people respected authority and those in authority recognized their obligations to those they had authority over and did their best exercise them lovingly. This contrasted with the usual dramatic narrative, in which the hero leads a rebellion against tyranny or fights injustice. Sometimes rebellion against unjustly exercised authority is right, I don’t deny, but it's not an inevitable dynamic in society and not the only story worth telling!

Nurture our inherent facility for 4th-Way thinking from the earliest age, ‘Suffer the little children…’: Even young children have the natural faculty for recognizing the existence of God as a personal God and Creator. It is still natural to them, perhaps because the awareness of hierarchy is so strong. They depend upon their parents who have full authority over them, and are the apparent source of all that is good in their lives.

Another reason that children have this natural inclination to faith might be that they have not yet had it knocked out of them by our culture, bad education, or bad liturgy.

Modern secular education deliberately, it seems to me, seeks to undermine faith by subtly but powerfully undermining 4th Way while professing an open mind to personal belief. This will be no surprise, but what is sad is that sometimes what we generally think of as a good Catholic education can do it too. Any education which is too focused on what Newman called scientific or analytical thinking will stifle our sense of the beautiful if our abilities to think synthetically are not nurtured in parallel with our ability to analyse. There is little point in learning anything, even if a true fact if we are incapable of bringing it into the whole body of learning via synthetic thinking, which then places it into the context of our ultimate purpose in life, union with God. A formation of beauty develops this facility.

There is a prejudice in academic circles, even amongst Catholics, that says that book and classroom-based learning is the real education, while other activities that develop our ability to apprehend beauty (a powerful mode of synthetic thinking) are just recreation. Whereas, in point of fact, if education is not re-creating the person, then it fails to attain its highest goal. Very few Catholics argue would with me on this point, I suggest, but then when it comes down to curricula design, many seem to hesitate to actually devote time to the formation of synthetic thinking through creative pursuits. This is a subject I address at length in The Way of Beauty.

Social graces and good manners: These are natural modes of behaviour that indicate respect for others in accordance with the natural hierarchy. They tend to be disparaged today as old modes of behaviour that are restrictive and stifling for the ‘natural expression’ of thought for others. A rigid rulebook of manners can be stifling, but when it is understood that good etiquette can promote when well taught, respect in accordance with the natural order of things, then it can be liberating. The virtuous gentleman is one who makes all around him feel at ease and for most of us, this is a skill that usually has to be learned.

Behave and dress so that we demonstrate to others that we respect authority: Even what we wear can send out visual messages. It is right to dress up on certain occasions, and even the seemingly innocent trend of no longer wearing ‘Sunday best’ for church contributes to the destruction of the faith more than we imagine. The clothes we wear reveal something of our attitudes and who we are. We all make judgements about people based on the clothes they wear, whether we like to admit it or not. In church, we should dress and behave in such as way that it reveals to others the respect we have for God. When we go for an interview we take great care to make sure that the clothes we wear and the way we behave indicate respect for the person who is going to give us a job, so much more should we remember this is God’s house. Formal dress does not alienate fellow worshippers if appropriate to our actions and our subsequent interactions with others speak of the love of God. Then our appearance will contribute to the sense that we want to invite others to join us, rather than to push them away. The goal here is to do so in such a way that it tells people what we think about God, not what we want them to think about us. This should be thought of a principle that we apply to ourselves and those beholden to us, not one by which we can criticise others!

This is a true humility. All that we do ought to draw the attention of others, not in a way that says, ‘Look at me’, but rather, ‘Look at the One who made me,’ or, ‘Look at the One who inspired me’. Potentially all that we do can speak of the love of God and so direct others to Him. When we strive for this ideal it is a true humility for it recognises our responsibilities as a Christian and our place in relation to our fellows and to God. Reflection upon the lives of Our Lady and the saints, especially through the prism of the liturgical year will help us in this regard, for they are the experts in showing us God through their lives.

Many youth fashions are designed deliberately to convey the message that they do not respect the traditional conventions of society including orderly behaviour. Yet if anyone ever admitted that they accepted that message and crossed the road to avoid them on a dark night, or let it affect them when making a hiring decision, they would be pilloried for being discriminatory and intolerant. Take note SJWs, you can't have it both ways.

Cultivate and ordered appreciation of the beauty of the natural world: Nearly all people recognise the beauty of the natural world, but not all recognise the natural hierarchy of being within nature. Hence, that hierarchy as it ought to be - man highest, then animals, plants and then inanimate nature - is often distorted or inverted.

Furthermore, in the right way of things, man is made to cultivate nature and when he does so well (and it has to be admitted he can do this badly!) he raises it up to something greater than what it was originally. I would argue therefore that there is a hierarchy of beauty in nature too that puts the work of man at the pinnacle: with gardens cultivated for beauty highest, land for production of food next and wilderness lowest. The task here is twofold, we must change our understanding of this hierarchy, as well as strive to work in harmony with the cosmic order so that what we cultivate reflects this hierarchy.

People used to see things this way, but it is not so common now. Those who hate God aim to destroy our natural desire to praise God for it by inverting the hierarchy so that man is at the bottom of the pile. Some forms of extreme environmentalism do this. For them, man in the ideal is the noble savage who is in harmony with nature. Modern man, however, has been corrupted by the false constructs of society, and as a result of this corruption is inferior to the rest of nature. ‘Corrupted’ man, it is maintained, will tend to destroy nature for he no longer lives in harmony with it. The only way to save the planet, so the argument runs, is to restrict man’s activity. The easiest way to do this is to aim to reduce the number of humans. This is why abortion and contraception are promoted across the globe and why, I suggest, the garden is a powerful and underappreciated antidote to this as a symbol of the culture of life. I wrote about this in a blog article here: Come out of the wilderness and into the garden!

In this regard, it is interesting that after the Resurrection, Mary Magdalene mistook the Risen Lord for a gardener. Our Lord did not deny that he was when asked, rather he made himself known to her more fully. I suggest that Mary was correct, although perhaps she didn’t appreciate why, for as the new Adam, Christ is the gardener par excellence who cultivates Eden. We participate in the creation of Eden through all human activities that synthesize and use the natural world gracefully and beautifully and within this gardening particularly speaks of this special role of man in nature.

The liturgy can form us here too. Our delight in the beauty of creation is consummated when we sing our praises to God for his creation in the psalms and canticles of the Liturgy - for example, the Canticle of Daniel, or Psalm 18(19). This not only trains us to see God through his works but supernaturally forms us as people who might imitate the work of the Gardener.

Ness Gardens, Cheshire, England (my mum used to work here as a gardner!)

Work to change the things that have the opposite influence: Sometimes one wonders if atheists and anti-Catholic forces understand better than we do ourselves how the changing of our mode of thinking leads to faith, so skillfully do secular educators and shapers of the culture promote the values of atheism while appearing to promote the values of freedom and tolerance. They seem to realise that they don’t need to attack faith directly but can destroy it by restricting the parts of our culture that reinforce the sort of thinking that leads to faith. We must learn to recognise it and learn to assert what is good and true and beautiful to counter this.

All the structures a false egalitarianism (which fails to recognise the unique value of each person) in the guise of an exaggerated identity politics and tolerance for individual faith. They promote a culture of ugliness and disrespect for natural authorities while asserting respect for unnatural authority and an unnatural hierarchy (by creating, for example, too authoritarian and centralized government).

It has occurred to me that perhaps they do so because deep down, they recognize in themselves the power of this 4th Way thinking, and because they hate God, wish to erase all evidence of Him and our tendency to a natural and healthy response to that evidence.

The antidote to the art of protest, or any other form of cultural Marxism, is the art of suffering and redemption through Christ, which is the art of hope.

An Online Source for Ceramic Images and Hand-Carved Shrines

Make your public shrine or icon corner with www.waysideshrines.com

Following on from recent articles encouraging people to think about creating ceramic icon corners that can be beautiful and discreet, yet clearly visible signs of faith, here, and here, here is someone who can create such images and also carve beautiful shrines in wood or stone to house them in. It is Jerome Quigley of www.waysideshrines.org.

I met him at an Art and Faith event at St Pius X Catholic Church in Rock Island, Illinois this past week. He explained to me that he creates the carvings himself in wood or an artificial granite (used for heavy kitchen surfaces and which can be carved like wood). He can respond to commission and even more interestingly, he has a process whereby he can set images into porcelain. This is not a print, but rather one in which the pigment is set directly into the chemical structure of the substrate porcelain - similar to the way in which pigment is incorporated into the plaster in frescoes.

The tradition of reproducing paintings on porcelain goes back to the 19th century at least. I have recently seen several handpainted porcelain copies of the highest quality made in that time. The look of these hand-painted antique reproductions is the same those that Jerome makes. Here is a 19th-century example. Porcelain has a luminosity to it that you can see in this photograph.

I spoke to him about the possibility of creating icon corners consisting of three images and he was confident that he could produce something beautiful, either on a shrine or as a ceramic piece that could be set in a building by the purchaser, for example. It would need demand from customers for this to happen, but if the business logic is there for Jerome to do it, I am happy to work with him to help create outdoor icon corners.

Here are some more examples of his work. Once again his website is www.waysideshrines.org.

Here

Natural Law and the 10 commandments. A Meditation for the 3rd Sunday of Lent. From a Priest of the I.V.E.

In those days, God delivered the commandments: 1 Ex 20:1-17.  Here is another Lenten reflection from a priest from the Institute of the Incarnate Word, IVE, which is for the week of the 3rd Sunday of Lent. This is by Fr Nicholas Grace who is in Cowdenbeath, Scotland.

“I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery…I am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for wickedness but mercy…on those who love me and keep my commandments.”

Considering this text, I would like, in this article, to focus on two things in a very brief manner.

First: The Natural Law, written by God on every human heart.

Second: What are the Ten Commandments & Why they are so important.

The Natural Law, written by God on every human heart: Every member of Nature, every plant, every animal has a law which makes them tend to their goal, which makes them work.

Every human being has a law and must remain faithful to it if they are going to reach their goal if they are going to function correctly.  This is called man’s Natural law.

Why is it called natural? This Law is rooted in a set of natural inclinations to specific goods. Natural inclinations toward Self-preservation, toward having and raising children, toward knowing the truth about God and living in society. It is imprinted in our hearts.  It doesn’t have to be taught or learned. Like our DNA or genetic code, we also have this moral code weaved into our very being. How does it function?  -This law, through our intelligence, tells us what is right for us, what is wrong for us, what is good for us & what is bad for us. When our actions conform to this law they help us fulfill our purpose in life & are thereby right & morally good.  Similarly, when our actions are at variance with this law, they deter us from that purpose and are therefore wrong & immoral.  Some examples: The law of our Nature tells us that… ●   Nourishing our bodies is right, but overindulging to the detriment of health is wrong.

●   Self-preservation is right, but selfishness is wrong.

●   To love another person is good, but to love someone already seriously committed to another is not.

Now while it is easy to recognize that this knowledge comes naturally to us, we must also admit, very often, that same knowledge is rejected. In fact, the modern Western World is in a moral crisis.  Institutions and governments often deny the Existence of the Natural law inscribed in every human heart. This denial has assisted in the spread of a morality not based on human nature but based on an easily manipulated social consensus. Is there a consequence? This denial means that all moral opinions become valid.

Why is that a problem? Values become distorted. Take tolerance, it has been distorted to promote a society where no one's choices are criticised because criticism might make someone feel bad.

Why is that a problem? Isn’t it best to make people feel nice? People’s feelings are easily manipulated and once manipulated evil can be called good & good can be called evil, evil vices can be presented as virtues and virtues as vices to the point where feelings totally outrank reason.

Is there a solution? We already have it!. God in his Wisdom and as a convenience, explicitly revealed the Ten Commandments, which very clearly express all those Laws already written in the heart of man, but often conveniently ignored because of the stubbornness and selfishness of man.

What are the Ten Commandments & Why are they so important? As an exercise say and name aloud each of the Ten Commandments. Then consider: If everyone in the world kept even half of them would the quality of life on our planet improve? Would human beings be working so much better?

The answer is, of course, YES, because the Commandments aren’t just Religious guidelines, they are also God’s design for work, for families, for friendships and for society as a whole. A: We can compare the Ten Commandments to the handbook for a car. A car is a complicated piece of machinery, and the maker’s handbook tells you how to take care of our car properly so that you can get the most out of it.  The Ten Commandments are God’s handbook for human beings.

Why else are they so important?

Many people no longer respect God’s authority.  As a result, they no longer respect authority of any kind, whether politicians, parents, Priests, teachers or employers and the secular, as well as, the Religious community suffer greatly because of this lack of respect.

We live in an age of Moral Relativism: All Morality is relative.  All truth is relative. Unfortunately, the more everyone makes up his or her own truths, the less truth there will be.  The Ten Commandments preserve for us the ten most important truths.

There is tremendous ignorance about God. The Commandments remind the world of his existence, manifest his plan and express his personality.

Finally, The Commandments are extremely important, but they are not everything. For this reason, I would like to conclude this article with a story which might illustrate my point. It is a missionary story which concerns the Taliabo people of Indonesia. “Many years ago, two families from New Tribes Mission,  moved in with the Taliabo to live with them and learn their language. They began teaching the Scriptures, working their way forward to Christ and the Gospel. However, soon after the missionaries taught the people the Ten Commandments, a group of men visited them at their hut.

We are in big trouble with God.  God’s law tells us not to kill, but we have killed other men.  God’s law tells us not to steal, but we have stolen.  We have broken God’s commandments, but we did not know that God commanded these things.  From now on, we will keep God’s Commandments.

A couple of weeks later they returned to the missionaries’  hut. We are in really big trouble with God.  Now we know God’s Commandments, but we still break them”.

I wanted the story to underline to those reading this article that, although God has written his law in our hearts we cannot keep it.  Even though God has revealed his law through his prophets, we cannot keep it.  The Taliabo people, just like the people of Israel, broke almost every Commandment immediately after receiving them.

The point is that Knowledge of the law is not enough.  Knowing what is right does not confer power to do what is right, as Socrates incorrectly supposed. That is why, we have doctors who smoke, financial advisors who are in debt, and marriage counselors who are divorced!

The Ten Commandments do not remedy our sins; rather they reveal them and underline our need for a Saviour who can forgive them.  That Saviour is Jesus Christ.

This Lent let us make a great effort to, not only, live by following the Ten Commandments but also seek Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, when we will probably fail in our best efforts to keep the Commandments.

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Radiant Truth - How the Thomism of Fr Norris Clarke Explains The Style of Holy Icons

'For with You is the fountain of life, and in Your Light, we shall see light.' 

Many readers of this blog will be familiar, I'm sure, with the idea that there is a theology that is used to explain the stylistic elements of the iconographic liturgical art. However, I am not aware of a metaphysics or philosophical anthropology that has been or could be used to articulate a philosophy of icons.

That is, until recently.

A couple of years ago, on the recommendation of a Dominican friar here in Berkeley, I read two works of the late Jesuit philosopher, Fr Norris Clarke. These were Person and Being, and The One and the Many - A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics. You can see an interview with him shortly before his death in 2008, here, on YouTube in which he talks about his 'personalist' Thomism.

More recently, I sat in on a series of excellent lectures on the thought of Fr Clarke as part of a class on the philosophy of nature and philosophical anthropology, taught by Dr. Michel Accad for Pontifex University's Master of Sacred Arts program. Dr. Accad had invited me to attend so that I might participate by discussing with him why an understanding of philosophy is important for artists today.

There are, incidentally, a number of general reasons why such a class would be included in a sacred arts program - for example, the simple fact that an understanding of the human person and nature is always important for an artist who is seeking to reveal both invisible and visible truths about both through art. However, it occurred to me as I listened and reflected on the subject that Fr Clarke's Thomistic philosophy, in particular, might be the basis for a philosophy of icons. I offer my thoughts on this as some personal speculation for your interest.

We will start with a brief account of some of the ways in which theology has been used to explain the style of icons.

Take a look at this icon of the Transfiguration,

...we see Christ shining with light. This is understood to be a glimpse given to the Apostles of his heavenly glory. That glory, which is the radiance of his being, is the radiating of an uncreated 'light of being', the divine light of the burning bush, that shone without consuming the bush itself. Saints, who through baptism and lives of purity participate in the divine nature shine with this light too; and in their purity are able to see in ways that we can only grasp 'through a glass darkly'. This radiance is represented by the halo of light around their heads. Another indication that each figure is a source of light is indicated by the fact that none have cast shadows.

Even the apostles, who are not shown with halos (indicating that this event is prior to Pentecost when the fire of the Holy Spirit came to them) are nevertheless shown without cast shadows. This reflects the fact that in some way and at this moment, they must have been at least temporarily purified. For only the 'pure in heart' who are themselves participating in the divine nature can see the divine light. Even so, the power of such a vision to those who are unused to seeing it has knocked them back as we can see!

There are other stylistic elements that reflect truths about the objects portrayed that are not ordinarily visible. So there is a hierarchy of being in which Christ is greatest, mankind is next and inanimate beings come next. This is reflected visually by having Christ the most prominent figure amongst the six, through the design - and his size and brightness and the way in which his image relates to the other people in the composition. The mountain, on the other hand, is small relative to its natural size. In some icons, plants and mountains will be depicted actually bowing to Christ to communicate this point.

While the discussion so far relates to visible light, which is the only way that an artist working in a visual medium can portray such radiance, the light he is portraying is not in fact limited to visual light or even to electromagnetic radiation. This radiance is of a divine, uncreated supernatural 'light' that is visible to the purified 'spiritual eye', the place inside us where we see, so to speak, truth, and are connected to God. This is the 'spirit' of the Pauline anthropology (body, soul, spirit), which Stratford Caldecott, for example, equated with the intellectus of the Western medievals, and the nous of the Eastern Fathers, see here.

So how can philosophy account for this? First, it is worth describing the work of Fr Norris Clarke who is a philosopher in the true sense. He develops his own original thought, still working in the Thomistic tradition. Dr. Accad was kind enough to give me a summary of the salient points.

He wrote:

'I agree, that the work of Fr. Norris Clarke (which we cover at the end of the course, as a kind of summary and integration of everything we have learned) is likely to provide a helpful framework. Here are some of the points that Fr. Clarke distills from St. Thomas’ metaphysics (and to which he adds insights from modern “personalist” philosophy):

'The universe is an immense family of real beings, and all real beings—from the simplest drop of water to the human person—have something in common: They all exist! In technical terms, all real beings share in the act of existence. What’s more, we are all intimately connected with the source of our existence, God, who is existent in Himself (“I am who am”)

'Although all created beings share in the act of existence, each being is limited by an essence: A dog is a share of existence possessed—and limited by—the essence of “dogginess” and an oak tree is a share of existence possessed and limited by the essence of “oakiness”. God, of course, is unlimited, infinite being. According to St. Thomas, His essence is existence.

'Because created being are all finite and limited by essence, we each have something to receive from the rest of the family of beings, but we each also have something to contribute to other beings. All beings are constantly communicating of themselves to others and receiving from others to complete and perfect themselves.

'For example, even a simple pebble communicates its own existence to the rest of the world. Modern science acknowledges that: For one thing, by its existence, the pebble contributes materially to the gravitational field of the planet—even if in a most modest way. Without that gravitational field, we would all be floating about in the ether, getting evermore separated from one another!

'Because to be real is to be giving and to be receiving, we are all substances in relation. This is particularly true in the higher beings, like animals and humans who are constantly giving and receiving from one another, but it is even true at the lowest level. Water, for example, is molecular beings that are in relation with one another. Each molecule of H2O gives of itself to its neighbor and receives the actions of its neighboring molecules. The consequence this mutual interaction is a community of molecular beings that has the property of being clear, liquid, and life-sustaining for all living organisms!

'Clarke’s rendition of Thomistic metaphysics describes a wonderful community of beings, each of which, in its own way, reflects, refracts, and radiates the light of the Creator to all other beings.'

Man, of course, occupies a special place in the universe. Being at once a spirit united to a material body, he is an “amphibian” straddling the world of angels and that of earthly creatures. Because he possesses and intellectual nature that allows him to form civilizations, he leads creation on its journey back to the Creator. And, as spirit, man is also person: individually distinct and self-possessing and capable of living in self-conscious and self-determining community with others, in the image of the community of Divine Persons.

I do not know if Fr Clarke himself ever connected his ideas to the theology of the icon, but the parallels seem clear. He is describing this radiance of being in ways that are compatible with the uncreated light of being referred to by the theologians of the past, and which is manifested visually in the icon.

As I read Fr Clarke's books, this picture of being as an activity, a static dynamism in which each is giving and receiving of itself superabundantly (that is without depletion) reminds me of the dynamic of love described by Benedict XVI is his encyclicals. Benedict talks of love as simultaneous actions of self-gift and ordered reception of persons in relation, terming them agape, and eros respectively. I have written about this here.

Also, Clarke's philosophy helps me to understand something about the nature of beauty itself, which is sometimes defined as the 'radiance of being'. Beauty is an objective quality, that is, it is as an aspect of the thing considered beautiful; and in the full perception of its existence we, the subjects observing it, delight in it. But beauty has, nevertheless, a subjective component, for different subjects will have differing abilities to 'see', that is to apprehend, the incident 'light' of being emanating from the object.

I finish with an affirmation from the greatest school of theology and of life and all, that is, the liturgy. Light and life are connected in the hymn in the Eastern Rite called the Great Doxology. It opens with the proclamation, 'Glory to You, O Giver of light!' This is the divine light which we all participate in through our existence, which as human beings incorporates life, and which we possess in the fullness of our capabilities by partaking of the divine nature as baptized Christians. The connection is made explicitly later in this same hymn with the words: 'For with You is the fountain of life, and in Your Light, we shall see light.' 

The fountain of life!

What is this if not the self-effusive activity of being made all the more resplendent with the supernatural gift of life by which we relate to each other and with God in love in, at its consummation, the liturgy?

As an aside: in the Mandylion above, which I painted, I was told that the rounded brow that sits in the V between the eyebrows can be thought of as the 'spirit' or the 'spiritual eye' of the person that 'sees Light'.

Pontifex University is an online university offering a Master’s Degree in Sacred Arts. For more information visit the website at www.pontifex.university

Ceramic Tiles From Portugal - And Resources To Make Them Today

Further to my last post (on how we might bear witness publicly, yet discreetly and beautifully through tiled images cemented into buildings), readers have been coming forward with interesting and useful points. For the following I woud like to thank particularly, Raven W.

First the interesting - a number pointed out that Portugal has many blue and white ceramic tiled images. You can see many of these if you do an image search on 'Portuguese religious tile murals'.

As I dug further I found this photograph of an extraordinary mural on the wall in the town of Avente.

There are charming little decorative details as well. Remember that these patterns reflect a geometry that echoes the mathematical description of the beauty of the cosmos. When we get this right it is decoration with purpose - subtly but powerfully raising people's spirits to God through cosmic beauty so that they might be receptive to the Word.

I then decided to look further and explicitly search for Spanish architecture influenced by the Islamic art, as a style called Mujedar. I found these in the cathedral of Santa Maria de Teruel, in the town of Teruel:

This external adornment is so important in that everybody sees it. If it is done beautifully enough they will not object, I believe. The onus is on us, artists, architects, patrons, that is everybody, to start thinking about this and looking for opportunities for cosmic beauty in every aspect of our environment. (If you want to know more about the theory behind these designs, then I have just created a course as part of Pontifex University's Master of Sacred Arts program called The Mathematics of Beauty. This is an extended presentation of the theory introduced in my book, The Way of Beauty.)

Some of you may be wondering where we can get such tiles today? (Now we come to the useful!) I am not in the building trade so there is probably a lot more than I am aware of. But here are some ideas.

Patterns that reproduce the Victorian neo-gothic church floors are produced today for kitchens and bathrooms. I saw a shop on Chiswick High Road in West London, that had William Morris designs in the shop window. These floor designs began as renovations of  English gothic floors, such as the 13th century, Westminster pavement in Westminster Abbey by Victorians such as George Gilbert Scott. I would as happily use these tiles in the sanctuary of a church as in an external walkway:

...and here is a detail of St Albans Cathedral floor, renovated in the 1880s:

For the figurative religious imagery, it had occurred to me that if you can order cups with personalized messages on them online, it has to be as easy to reproduce religious imagery on ceramic now as it is to put 'World's Greatest Mom' on a mug! Sure enough, a reader referred me to this Italian company that offers Catholic religious images through Etsy and they do mail order. Here is a ceramic tile image of the Virgin at Prayer by Sassoferrato:

So there are ways we can start to think about this.

It can be done well or badly - we still need to take care that we don't put this together to create kitsch, but as long as we are aware of that we have a chance. And as GKC said - if something is worth doing, it's worth doing badly!

We finish with something done well. A cloister in the cathedral at Porto, Portugal.