St Anthony of Padua and St Francis of Assisi
Friedrich Pacher
1477
Tempera oan pine panel, 54,5 x 93,5 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
I am fond of this painting.
Posted on 06/28/2008 9:38:51 AM PDT by annalex
then appling the term “anti American” is not hyperbole?
Christ said His Kingdom was not of this world.
That denial of incarnate miracle-working God is not Christian albeit Deism can be dressed up a bit to look so to an Evangelical eye.
I believe it is a very interesting piece and the part that annalex highlighted speaks volumes about current iconoclast tendencies and the limits put on the Holy Trinity by many Christians who rebel against the Church.
With a strong dose of Atheistic Historical Revisionism.
To me the author sounds like Nietszche lamenting how Christians “killed” God by removing him from nature.
It is slanderous. Bin Laden is anti-American. First, I don’t know anyone who I’d consider an authentic Christian who would not want the America of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution back. Second, it is for the good of any nation to examine its roots every once in a while; such exercise cannot be considered anti- that nation.
His position is however, anti-secularist and anti-protestnat, yes. Good for him.
Exactly. So where does it leave Christians?
in the world, not of the world; John 17; “I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world,but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one.” BTW , I actually meant no slander by “”anti-American.” I suppose the separatist Amish, whom I love,are “anti-American “ also in the way I meant it, though certainly you are right in that it’s better to reserve the term to OBL- like enemies.
You said: God works miracles through providence, not through icons, bleeding statues or priests is the Protestant point of view, I would say.
Your statement shows part of the problem I see with protestant beliefs. They always put limits on what God can and can’t do. Such a being is therefore limited vice infinite. Ultimately they put themselves in the place of God to decide what he can or can’t do.
bookmark
You are making Fr. Stephen's point.
“in the world not of the world” better applies to a medieval monk than to a middle class American whose faith is reduced to a Wednesday Bible study and a Sunday sermon.
I am fond of this painting.
I see two major flaws in the father’s writing. One, he uses the term “practical atheist.” The definition of atheist by its very nature means a person who does not believe in God or any supreme being in any form. The individuals he is critiquing may be many things, but atheists they are not. If a person believes there is a God but that this God does, or does not, do thus and such, that in no way means they do not believe in God, only that they do not believe in God in the way orthodox Christians (and when I say orthodox I include Catholics and Protestants)believe. We can call them pagans or many other terms, but atheist is the improper term.
Two, he states that the more secular the world becomes for Christians, the more political Christians will become. Scripture tells us, “When the foundations crumble, what will the righteous do?” God wants us to keep our foundations strong and I believe with all my heart that the United States was brought about by divine, yes, providence; meaning that we would not be without God’s hand in this; and the only reason we are even what we are is because God has allowed it towards His good purposes. Just as He allowed the Holocaust to work towards His good purposes; one of which was the establishment of Israel as a nation.
There is a host of problems that go with being either only political or only religious. I would not want our political system to be run by ecclesiastical law for the simple reason that men are corrupt, whether secular or not.
I watched so many so-called Christians and Catholics do awful things over the years, the only reason it DOES NOT shake my faith is that it is not God who does these things and I know that. My husband’s sister threatened to sue him for some trivial matter(of course this was after her husband just graduated from law school this past year). In fact, we joked the other day that they have threatened to sue so many people, we have compiled a list of those they have NOT threatened to sue. So far, the list comprises the Pope and Casper. She has criticised me in the past because I am not a Catholic, yet she does not even know what the Catholic church teaches. She is, in fact, what I call a “cultural Catholic.” There are cultural Lutherans, cultural Jews and so on. They practice it only insofar as it occupies a certain realm in their life but they have no real understanding of the God who is living and active, the “God-Who-is-among-us” as this author states. These people occupy every denomination that ever existed.
Furthermore, after watching the debacle that occurred within the Catholic Church, wherein the Church moved priests they knew were practicing debauchery to unsuspecting parishes where these evil men could damage forever the souls of children, some of whom will NEVER go back to the Catholic church or any other church.
The deeper my faith, the more political I become. When I see what the 5 of the 9 judges on the SCOTUS are doing, I am going to be working very hard to stop more of these people from getting a lifetime appointment to destroy all that is good and sacred in this country. Of course, I pray, but like that one quote says, “Don’t be so heavenly minded that you are no earthly good.”
I think the father has it all wrong here. I think the deeper your faith becomes in God, the more you care and the more you see what is going on - how families are turning on each other; the natural affections they have are no longer there and so on. Yes, I am political and it is BECAUSE I love my Lord. It is no different than why I care for the hungry, those in prison, widows and orphans, and all other things Christ taught us to care about.
Hi Annalex - I posted you on this topic but had to tell you that I love this painting also. What is the deal with the hand wounds and the wound on the right side of the chest?
I don’t read German or Hungarian so I don’t know what it says.
Also, the one thing I don’t like about this painting is the way their hands have been done - too creepy - reminds me of “Nosferatu.”
This is what Fr. Stephen said:
I have here introduced the notion of “practical atheism,” meaning by it, that although a person may espouse a belief in God, it is quite possible for that belief to be so removed from everyday life, that God’s non-existence would make little difference.
It seems, he acknowledges that this "practical atheism" is not the same as internalized atheism of conviction. He simply says that it has the same effect to an outside observer.
On the second point, I think you object to what he did not propose. Of course Christians should be engaged in the political world. We've always have been. But he gives us a forgotten model of doing so, with personal witness, rather than relying on the modernistic model of democratic politics, or on military force. See his comments reproduced here at #10:
When Christians have become a serious political force in the various states they have inhabited they have as often been coopted by the state as they have had an influence on the behavior of the state. As my Archbishop says, “On the whole, in Church State relations, we have not done so well when we were the state Church.” But much that is political action or action by political bodies is only secular action, use of the power of the state for the ends of the state. Caesar will always be Caesar, I believe. We should care deeply about the things that matter, so deeply we do something and the something very likely should be more than vote. Though I do not advocate not voting. But voting and the Kingdom of God are not the same thing. When I think about these matters, I think about Christians becoming the answer rather than using the coercive power of the state to make someone else be the answer. Interestingly, one of the things I always liked best about St. Francis, was that during one of the Crusades, he simply took passage to the mideast and went to the court of the Sultan and witnessed to him about Christ. The Sultan listened and dismissed him, but did not kill him. It would be like looking for Osama Bin Laden in order to forgive him and tell him about Jesus. I can’t help but like such people and think there is more there than we allow.
I respected your implication not to be pejorative regarding Fr. Stephen’s anti-americanism; now you be equally as respectful of the spiritual life of those whom you caricature
According to several scholars, Friedrich Pacher was the famous Michael Pacher's relative and collaborator. His style developed under the influence of Michael. This panel is one half of a predella which consisted of two parts for the representation of the most highly revered saints of the Franciscan order. The other side also depicts Franciscan saints. This panel adorned the lower, not very clearly visible, subordinate addition to a major altarpiece, hence the modest colour scheme content to forgo variety. Gaunt faces with strong cheek-bones, receding chins and thin lips are frequent in the master's oeuvre. The minutely elaborate broken folds, particularly at the elbows of sleeves, reveal the important part of sculpture in the activities of Michael Pacher, the most outstanding member of the studio, and also the deep absorption of sculptural forms in his style of far-reaching influence. The text giving the names of the donors and the date in fine Gothic minuscules occupies an outstanding place in the lower image field.The wounds are "stigmata", wounds of Christ miraculously appearing on some saints, most recently Padre Pio. The artist did not know it, but St. Francis received very unusual stigmata, -- they were protuberances of flesh in the shape resembling nails, rather than wounds as depicted.
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