Sunday Night Journal — 6/29/2008

Cries and Whispers

—Maclin Horton

St George Iconography Workshop

There are still openings for my fifth annual iconography workshop, to be held at St George Romanian Catholic Cathedral in Canton, Ohio, August 3-10. This is an intensive class in icon painting/writing for beginners. I teach, step by step, the process for creating a hand-painted icon, and supply all materials.

It is a great time; part retreat, part art class, and part summer camp.

The cost is $250, with $50 due with registration.

If you are interested, give me a call: 330 837 0534.

–Daniel Nichols

Sunday Night Journal — 6/22/2008

Guilty Non-Pleasures

–Maclin Horton

Dual Communion?

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has suggested that Eastern Catholics can return to union with the Orthodox without relinquishing their union with Rome. While both Melkite and Ukrainian Catholic hierarchs have suggested this in the past (and it apparently has occurred to some degree with the Melkites and the Antiochian Orthodox) this is the first time that it has been proposed at such a high level.

It should be noted that whatever authority the Ecumenical Patriarch has is moral rather than juridical; he is not the “Orthodox pope”. Still, if he leads by example, it is hard to imagine that some Orthodox jurisdictions would not follow him.

This seems very hopeful and something to pray about. From a purely practical point of view, it sure would be nice to walk to the Greek church down the street rather than drive half an hour to the Byzantine Catholic church we attend.

The story is discussed, with links, on the Eirenikon site: http://eirenikon.wordpress.com/ [direct link here--mh]

If you scroll down, there is also a discussion, with links, of the variance of marriage discipline in east and west, which we have talked about at some length here. I was unaware that the Council of Florence, where the approach to reunion was more or less “We are right and you are wrong, sign here”, which required among other things acceptance of the filioque, did not demand a change in eastern marital discipline… [direct link here--at least i think that's the right one--mh]

–Daniel Nichols

Ostrov

The first dialogue in the 2006 Russian film Ostrov (”The Island”) is the repeated intonation of the Jesus prayer. The setting is a remote monastery on a thin spit of land on the shore of the White Sea, in Russia’s far north. Monks are shown at prayer, alone and together, in more than one scene. The protagonist, Father Anatoly- he is not a priest but a lay monk; all monks are called “Father” in the Christian east- is a saint, a holy fool, and he is shown not only praying but exercising clairvoyance, healing the lame, foretelling the future, and casting out devils. In one scene he vehemently calls abortion “murder” and threatens a young woman considering one with hellfire.

On the basis of this description, you are no doubt skeptical about Ostrov. Despite my love of Russian spirituality- which is here served straight up, no chaser- I myself have generally been of the sneaky, Walker Percy school when it comes to depicting religious experience. Direct portrayals of holiness nearly all fail; think of the disastrous and self-conscious film Therese a couple of years back..

It is true that there are exceptions to the rule that direct portrayal of religious experience makes bad film, like the Israeli movie Ushpizin, which we discussed here some time ago, but that was about a good man, not a miracle-working saint.

But Ostrov works, and works beautifully, and apparently not just for a Russophile like me. While I cannot read the Russian on the DVD box, there are three of the little olive branch symbols that indicate the film has won awards at festivals.

Ostrov succeeds where others fail for two reasons. The first, quite simply, is the subject matter. The holy fool is a spiritual type that is by nature rich and colorful and funny. He is surely a better subject than say, a parish priest or a teaching sister. And Father Anatoly’s earthy humanity would, I think, engage all but the hardest of hearts.

The second reason this film works is the pure eye of the filmmaker, Pavil Lungin. Aside from a jerky frenetic flashback to World War II, thirty years earlier, where the man who is to become Father Anatoly is shown committing a cowardly and vicious sin, a sin for which he will spend the rest of his life in repentance, the film is meditative, almost still. The camera lingers over the ebb and flow of the waters, the wind and snow and clouds. Ostrov unfolds like a prayer. The score, which evokes Slavonic sacred music when it is not quoting it, weaves an undulating atmosphere into the story, which is one of the redemption of often reluctant souls.

Ostrov is a wonder, a gem of a film.

I had to order it online, as neither the interlibrary loan system nor local video stores could find it. But then, as it is one of the handful of films to which I will return again and again, that seems a sound investment indeed.

Find this film and watch it; it is unlike anything you have ever seen.

—Daniel Nichols

NOTE from Maclin: if you comment on this post and have seen the movie, please don’t reveal important plot elements. Thanks.

Sunday Night Journal — 6/15/2008

Standing In Line at the Sinners’ Hospital

—Maclin Horton

Sunday Night Journal — 6/8/2008

To Know and To Love

—Maclin Horton

Sunday Night Journal — 6/1/2008

Love. Love. Love.

–Maclin Horton

The Ratzinger Proposal

“The Ratzinger Proposal”, which then cardinal Ratzinger penned in 1987, in which he proposed a return to the understanding of the Roman primacy which prevailed before the Great Schism, and would not impose the formulas of the recent centuries (ie, Vatican I):

http://merecath.tumblr.com/post/32542902/the-ratzinger-proposal

–Daniel Nichols

A Question

Recently we have had a long conversation here regarding the prospects for reunion with the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

One of the biggest obstacles, according to some, is the Orthodox praxis regarding marriage, which allows a second, nonsacramental union for the innocent party in a shattered marriage.
 
I understand the concern for the integrity of marriage, and the weight of Our Lord’s words about divorce and remarriage.
 
However, the reality of the situation, at least here in America, hit home this week when I received a wedding invitation to the marriage of an old friend.
 
He had left his first wife, the woman who had borne him five children, some time ago for another woman.
 
It is this woman he is marrying, in the Catholic Church.
 
He has obtained an annulment for his first marriage.
 
Now, I recognize that there are marriages in name only, where some essential element to marriage is lacking. I know a woman, a relative, who married a man who slept with another woman  the night before the wedding. And I have known many other “marriages” where one or both of the partners lacked some fundamental capacity to enter into Christian marriage.
 
Biut this couple were not kids.. Both were committed Catholics, serious and prayerful. They lived for years in a Catholic charismatic community. The man pursued graduate studies in theology, and for years served as a director of religious education in several parishes. I was a reader at his wedding, witnessing firsthand the seriousness with which they made their vows.
 
That the Church would bless the “marriage” of an adulterer and his partner is a scandal
 
If the See of Peter can maintain union with the American bishops, who have allowed such a state for the last 30 or 40 years, why again would it be such a threat to the sanctity of marriage to enter union with the Orthodox, whose canons would forbid this union?

–Daniel Nichols