Tag: Catholic

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On My Bookshelf: Sacred Art Every Catholic Should Know

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I know almost nothing about art history, but as a visually-oriented person, I love pondering beautiful images, statues, and stained-glass windows, especially when these works of art are faith-based. Jem Sullivan, PhD’s new book, Sacred Art Every Catholic Should Know, offers 50 masterpieces of sacred art; I recognized many of them at first glance but couldn’t tell you the name of the author, time period in which the art was created, or the place or circumstances surrounding their creation. This book fills in all that background information—and then some!

 

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When I first saw the cover of this book, the image that caught my eye was the one on the bottom left: The Virgin Adoring the Host by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1852). I see that full image frequently; it’s on the ordination card from my pastor’s priestly ordination, and those are on every bulletin board in our church. Since this book doesn’t require a start-to-finish read, but rather invites the reader to flip through and read about whatever painting strikes the eye, I turned to this one first.

As with many of the entries in Sacred Art Every Catholic Should Know, this one began with a quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church explaining a theological concept behind the art (in this case, Eucharistic Adoration). You can’t see it from the capsule image shown on the book’s cover, but in the full image, the Blessed Mother is looking at a Host depicted in the lower center of the painting. The description of the image sums up Mary’s Eucharistic faith, then explains the significance of the two saints shown on either side of the Blessed Mother in the full image: Saint Helena, who is believed to have discovered the True Cross, and Saint Louis IX, a king of France and Secular Franciscan. A discussion of the Eucharist as the saving and real presence of Christ concludes the entry for this image.

Some of the other images I recognized and was eager to learn more about (and prayerfully ponder) while reading this book include:

  • Rose Window at Chartres Cathedral
  • Fra Angelico’s Annunciation
  • The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci
  • The Return of the Prodigal Son by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
  • Michelangelo’s Pietà
  • Descent of the Holy Spirit by Gian Lorenzo Bernini
  • Giotto di Bondone’s Saint Francis Preaching to the Birds
  • The Angelus by Jean-François Millet

I appreciated that for many images, the book shows capsule sections of particularly significant parts of the image, so the reader can more fully concentrate on that small piece of the image and ponder how it relates to the larger piece of art as a whole.

You don’t need to be an art scholar or a theologian to enjoy and learn from this beautiful new book.

Ask for Sacred Art Every Catholic Should Know at your local Catholic bookseller, or purchase online from Amazon.com or the publisher, TAN Books.

 

Copyright 2023 Barb Szyszkiewicz

Links to books in this post are Amazon affiliate links. Your purchases made through these links support Franciscanmom.com. Thank you!

Why are Catholic Women “Mean Girls” on Social Media?

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I won’t name names because it doesn’t matter.

On any other day, it could have been someone else.

Or you.

Or me.

But that particular day, it was a high-profile Catholic with a follower count to match and a big social-media footprint who got the whole thing started.

User 1 mocked someone — a stranger — who was in no position to defend herself, and several hundred more users piled on with likes and comments, maybe hoping for a coveted sign of approval from User 1, such as a like, a retweet, or maybe (gasp!) even a personal response.

That’s how these pile-ons get started, after all. One person tosses out a tweet and we all jump into the fray.

Why do we do this? Why are we taking a page from “Mean Girls” in our use of social media?

Is this how Catholic women support each other?

We jump in. We pile on. Maybe we even make that statement that starts it all. We do this out of our own desire to be heard. To be seen. To be acknowledged.

Can’t we find ways to be seen by modeling kindness?

Can’t our voices be heard more clearly when we offer a positive word? A compliment? A cheerful greeting? A joke that isn’t at someone else’s expense?

I’m not saying there’s never any room to be snarky, but I am saying you need to be careful about your target. That target is a person too.

Probably at first, kindness won’t get you too far in growing your follower count. But if you get (or keep) followers because you tweet mean stuff, you need to re-evaluate your social-media strategy.

Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more. (Luke 12:48)

Use the power of your platform for good. Please.

Otherwise, you scandalize the rest of us — at best — and hurt others.

And if you’re going to use the power of your platform to exclude those who don’t fit in with the rest of your tribe, then that’s a tribe I wouldn’t want to join.

social
Photo credit: By Molly Belle (2016), Unsplash.com, CC0/PD

Copyright 2019 Barb Szyszkiewicz

On Barb’s Bookshelf: Catholic Fun from Ave Maria Press

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Barb's Book shelf blog title

Celebrate the fun of being Catholic with two clever offerings from Ave Maria Press.

Tommy Tighe’s Catholic Hipster Handbook reminded me of what I love about handbooks.

True confession: when I was in high school, The Preppy Handbook came out. My high school was preppy long before Lisa Birnbach told the rest of us how to imitate the real deal, complete with detailed drawings of what to wear for all occasions. I studied that book relentlessly, though it was clear from the subtext that as alligator-logo shirts and Weejuns weren’t in my budget, I wasn’t worthy to be among those who were to the manor born.

The Catholic Hipster Handbook is packed with plenty of Catholic inside baseball without making the reader feel unworthy. This book won’t teach you how to be a cool Catholic. Instead, it revels in what’s cool about being Catholic and invites the reader to revel in it too.

Tommy Tighe gathered together 15 cool Catholics, many of whom you’ll find speaking and tweeting and writing and hosting Catholic radio shows, to help put this handbook together. One of my favorite essays was Tommy’s own “Take a fresh look at that rosary” which encouraged readers to explore other forms of the rosary and chaplets. I’d add the Franciscan Crown to Tommy’s list of rosary-based prayer alternatives. Lisa Hendey details the must-have apps: I love the way she uses Evernote! And Anna Mitchell’s essay on the Divine Office (Liturgy of the Hours) is excellent as well. And and and …

This isn’t a book you need to read start-to-finish. Skip around. Open at random. The only thing this book doesn’t have (that I wish it did) is a detailed table of contents that includes the title of each essay. In a book of this nature, that would have been very helpful.

Who should read it: anyone who’s into history, trivia, and great stories — and who possesses a healthy sense of humor.

Speaking of trivia, reading The Catholic Hipster Handbook will prove very handy when you open up Catholic Puzzles, Word Games, and Brainteasers. (It’s not cheating if you read the Handbook before you do the puzzles! It’s priming your brain!)

Matt Swaim included puzzles of all kinds in Catholic Puzzles. If crosswords aren’t your thing, there are plenty of anagrams, code scrambles, word-link puzzles, and more. Do you like a challenge? Try the word search with missing vowels.

Some of the puzzles are quick to complete, like “Misspelled Books of the Bible” (of course I did this one first!) and “Scrambled Partner Saints.” Others, such as “Alphabet Fill-Ins,” will take a while.

When you’ve filled in all the blanks in Catholic Puzzles, Word Games, and Brainteasers, you’ll be relieved to note that there’s a Volume 2 with even more Catholic-puzzle fun.

Who will love it: teachers, youth-group leaders, and anyone who enjoys puzzles! Pair it with a pack of mechanical pencils for a terrific gift.

Copyright 2017 Barb Szyszkiewicz
This post contains Amazon affiliate links; your purchase through these links helps support this blog. Thank you! I was given a free review copy of this book, but no other compensation. Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

St. Nicholas: Better Late than Never

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We came late to the St. Nicholas “treats in the shoes” party. St. Nick didn’t start visiting our house to leave a sweet treat for the kids on his feast day until after 1996. That’s the year my oldest started school.

At that Catholic school, all the children would leave one shoe outside the classroom door at some point in the day. While everyone was in the classrooms studying, St. Nicholas would come along and put a candy cane in each shoe.

My son came home to tell us how he’d gotten a surprise in his shoe. Then he asked, “How come St. Nicholas doesn’t visit our house?”

To be honest, I hadn’t known that this was a thing. It’s not something we did when I was growing up. I distracted my curious 4-year-old somehow and resolved to start up the custom the next year.

Over the years, it became something everyone looked forward to; the night before, they’d all go searching for their boots (to have the biggest shoe possible in order to hold the treats or small gifts St. Nick would leave behind) and put them near the door.

The first year my older son was away at college, TheKid wondered how St. Nicholas would fill his brother’s shoe if he was in the dorm. That’s where Priority Mail came to the rescue! I started picking up the small boxes and stuffing them with packets of microwave popcorn, small candy bars, a new toothbrush, and a few candy canes. (It’s amazing what I can jam into one of those small boxes; remember, if it fits, it ships!)

St. Nick mails away 2 boxes now (this year my daughter took her box after Thanksgiving and promised not to open it before today.)

st-nick-2016

This morning I mentioned on Facebook that I’d cued up every version of “Jolly Old St. Nicholas” that Spotify has to offer in my neverending attempt to get my teenager out of bed. A friend of mine replied that she’d forgotten to set out treats in her children’s shoes today.

“Leave them for an after-school surprise,” I replied.

So if you missed the boat this morning or have never begun at St. Nicholas custom in your home before, there’s no reason you can’t start now.

Better late than never!

"Too Apologetic: An Open Letter to a University Admissions Office" by Barb Szyszkiewicz @franciscannmom

Too Apologetic: An Open Letter to a University Admissions Office

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Author’s note: I started writing this article over three years ago. It’s been sitting in my drafts folder ever since. I have removed all identifying information about the university in question and respectfully request that any comment-box discussion does the same; I am considering forwarding this to the university administration so that they can plan future admissions events with this in mind. But as college-tour season is in full swing, this has been on my mind lately. I wanted to publish it and invite discussion.

When I take a high-school student to visit a Catholic college, I don’t expect the tour guides to genuflect at every statue in the quad. That’s just not reasonable.

It’s also not reasonable for a student tour guide at a Catholic university to stand in the chapel with a group of high-school seniors and their parents and say, “We don’t force religion on you here, except for the 2 or 3 religion classes everyone has to take.”

Why is this university apologizing, through its tour guides, for its Catholic character–a Catholic character which is evident not only in the statues on campus and religious art in the classrooms, but in its huge commitment to community service and in the presence and participation of an impressive number of Religious who are not only professors but also administrators, counselors, support staff, and (in some cases) dormitory dwellers?

Doing so weakens the very foundation upon which Catholic education is built. Excuses should never be made for offering religion classes, community-service opportunities and religious services or for encouraging students to take part in them.

Perhaps our tour guide, who was quite competent in the art of giving a tour and in her knowledge of the University, its history, and what it offers, was acting on her own when she made this statement. I certainly hope that this is the case, because I would hate to think that a university with a long history of Catholic character and community service that encompasses all the corporal and spiritual works of mercy would deliberately downplay the very character that makes the University stand out among the other institutions of higher learning in the same city.

The University’s Catholic character is to be celebrated, not swept under the chapel rug. No one expects the University to force religion down its students’ throats, but neither should you pretend that it is not an important part of both academic and community life there.

"Too Apologetic: An Open Letter to a University Admissions Office" by Barb Szyszkiewicz @franciscannmom
NOTE: This campus image is deliberately not from the college described in this article. Photo via Pixabay (2011), CC0 Public Domain.

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This month I’m joining all the cool kids in the #Write31Days adventure! I didn’t pick a keyword or a theme, because just getting something written for all 31 days is challenge enough for me right now.

Why I Remain Catholic

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I’m responding to a question posted by Elizabeth Scalia at Patheos: Why do you remain Catholic?

And all I can think of is: how can I not?

Alleluia

I feel like being a Catholic is in my DNA.

I’m not a convert, and I’ve heard people say that cradle Catholics (like me) never made that conscious choice that a convert might have made.

But I beg to differ.

I make that choice every single Sunday when I go to Mass.

I make that choice every single time I receive the Eucharist: the Body, Blood, soul and divinity of Jesus.

I make that choice when I pray the Liturgy of the Hours, when I attend gatherings of the Secular Franciscans, when I play music and sing at Mass, when I pray for someone in need.

Being a Catholic–and, even more than that, being a Catholic and a Franciscan–is the air I breathe. It’s a part of me that I cannot separate out.

I can’t point to some earth-shattering moment when I knew this was the right thing for me.

It just is.

I’ve visited other churches, for funerals or weddings–and something is missing. That something, the Real Presence, is what makes Catholicism stand apart.

I didn’t make one conscious choice–but there have been thousands of little choices, every week, every day, that keep me in my Church. And I am thankful for the grace that helps me to make those little choices.

Image by Barb Szyszkiewicz, OFS: Empty Tomb at St. Casimir Church, Riverside, NJ (Easter 2007). All rights reserved. 

Monday Recap 4/13

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Recap logo Maybe I should change my graphic. It’s not morning–not here, anyway. But it’s Monday, so that means it’s time for a Monday Recap!

You can tell it’s spring, because two out of my three articles are on the subject of gardening. Yes, this Black-Thumbed Girl has found some success in that department!

CatholicMomcom-Contributor-blue-outlineAt CatholicMom.com:

I reviewed Margaret Rose Realy’s new book, A Catholic Gardener’s Spiritual Almanac.

My Tech Talk takes a look at a few Chrome tools that make my job easier (and a little more fun!)

real housekeeping

At Real Housekeeping:

This unlikely gardener shares how to grow an herb garden in a vintage red wagon, including a great gardening resource.

 

Art and Irreverence

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Last summer the Four Evangelists came to church.

evangelists behind altar
Last summer’s Evangelists, AKA the Traveling Willburys

They were set up behind the altar where they distracted me at each and every Mass. There they were, looking over Father’s shoulder as he recited the prayers. If I didn’t keep my eyes closed, I’d find my gaze wandering over to see if I could find the guy on the left’s other hand. The Evangelists were larger than life, but oddly proportioned, with any visible hands flat and deformed and smaller than mine.

And they weren’t in any kind of order, either, as we found out when the pastor conducted a little Who’s Who tour during the homily one day. Not alphabetical, not chronological, and not the order in which the Gospels appear in the Bible.

We musicians, of course, dubbed them “John, Paul, George and Ringo.” After about two months, they disappeared, but we found them again at the other church within our parish. That’s when they got a new name:  the Traveling Willburys.

I’m pretty sure that the purpose of art in a church isn’t to inspire the assembly to new heights of snark. It’s also not there to distract from worship. It should lead the mind to God. It should inspire not sarcasm but devotion.

Gary ColemanI’d forgotten about this particular venture in ecclesial decor until today, when a new set of Evangelists had taken their places behind the altar. These were even larger, and from where I sat in the choir area, it seemed that the one on the far right was giving the musicians the side-eye.

My teenage neighbor told me after Mass that she thought they looked creepy. For the moment, I’ve dubbed them the Suspicious Evangelists.

(That would be a pretty good band name, come to think of it.)

I’m guessing that the Traveling Willburys have taken up residence in the other church, and now that we have two complete sets (collect ’em all!) we’ll all get to be distracted by the various Evangelists until the end of Ordinary Time.

If I had my druthers, the only things behind the altar would be the crucifix and the tabernacle. There’s got to be a spot somewhere else in the church where the Evangelists could go, somewhere that can’t be seen from the pews during Mass.

Lead us not into distraction, Lord, and deliver us from creepy Evangelists.

Lawn Chair Catechism Ch. 6

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lawn chair catechism 2014 header

Join the Lawn Chair Catechism discussion at CatholicMom.com every Wednesday this summer. well built faith lawn chair catechismWe’re reading A Well-Built Faith by Joe Paprocki, but you can participate even if you haven’t read the book. Check out the free Leader’s Guide, which covers the main points of the book.

Discussion Questions from the Leader’s Guide:

  • What does it mean to say that spirituality is not just a slice of the pie that represents our life, but is the whole pie?
  • What’s the difference between belonging to the Church and being Church?
  • What does the concept of stewardship have to do with spirituality and Church?
  • What does it mean to say that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic?
  • Why do Catholics place such great emphasis on Mary and the saints? Explain our understanding of the Communion of Saints.
  • How would you summarize the Catholic understanding of the afterlife?

Joe Paprocki starts off strong on page 37 with the statement that “the Church is not a club.” This is a concept that Father H at my parish drives home very regularly. At every baptism and wedding, he reminds the congregation that these sacraments are not private family moments but joyful occasions for the whole parish and the whole Church. And he exhorts the assembly to offer not only prayer support but the support of a true community to these families, because these sacraments are not only for a moment, but the beginning of a lifetime.

This is a concept that, I feel, is lost in a world where the Catholic culture is not as strong as it was when my parents were young. And I think that Father H is telling all of us that we need to be Church, not just “belong” to the parish and show up when we feel like it.

My parish, right now, is engaged in a community-building effort that they’ve described in our church bulletin:

Many times we ask ourselves, what more can we do as  individuals and as members of a Church family to reach out to others in our parish community. We would like to create a caring community where fellow parishioners know the names of their neighbors and where the church members come forward in times of difficulty and joy.

This is sorely needed, and I’d venture to say that my parish isn’t the only one that needs an effort like this.

The folk group I’ve belonged to since 2006 is that community for me. We’ve celebrated births, baptisms, First Communions, graduations and marriages together. We’ve rejoiced together at someone’s good news, prayed for each other frequently, delivered dinners when someone is ill, laughed together, and even provided tech support. I am so grateful to call these fellow musicians my friends, and I know I can call upon them for whatever’s needed–and they can call upon me. But we are united by more than friendship and the common bond of music. We are united by faith. We are Church for each other.

I used to dislike the phrase “being Church” because I felt it was just more spiritual jargon with nothing behind it. That’s before I had an actual experience of what it means to be Church.

What’s your take on this week’s chapter?

Lawn Chair Catechism Ch. 5

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lawn chair catechism 2014 header

Join the Lawn Chair Catechism discussion at CatholicMom.com every Wednesday this summer. well built faith lawn chair catechismWe’re reading A Well-Built Faith by Joe Paprocki, but you can participate even if you haven’t read the book. Check out the free Leader’s Guide, which covers the main points of the book.

These sentences from Chapter 5 really struck me:

Salvation in Jesus is not a guarantee–it is a gift. The only way to embrace salvation is to embrace the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This means that we constantly strive to die to sin and live as a new creation, performing good works in response to this great gift. (p. 36)

Salvation is not only a gift. It is a gift that came at a great price:  the Passion and Death of Jesus. We can honor the gift of our salvation by trusting God, by praying, by performing works of mercy even when they cost us greatly. Especially when they cost us greatly.

What’s your take on this week’s chapter?