In 134 chapters Herman Melville writes about the quest for the white whale. Ray Bradbury, John Huston and Norman Corwin condensed and reshaped his words for the cinema.There is a most wonderful little english teacher's joke about the book. The teacher asks, "What is the first line of Moby Dick?". The student answers, "Call me Ishmael.". "Alright, Ishmael, what is the first line of Moby Dick?".Ishmael is the narrator and sole survivor, yet most are drawn to Captain Ahab and his vengeance quest for the white whale. Monomania is the word. Ahab is mad, in both respects angry and crazy. Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab justifies himself, "I don't give reasons. I give orders!"Starbuck talks, to Stubb and Flask, in arguing for mutiny, "It is our task in life to kill whales, to furnish oil for the lamps of the world. If we perform that task well and faithfully, we do a service to mankind that pleases Almighty God. Ahab would deny all that. He has taken us from the rich harvest we were reaping to satisfy his lust for vengeance. He is twisting that which is holy into something dark and purposeless. He is a Champion of Darkness. Ahab's red flag challenges the heavens." He reads from a book, "A captain who, from private motives, employs his vessel for another purpose from that intended by the owners, is answerable to the charge of usurpation, and his crew is morally and legally entitled to employ forceful means in wresting his command from him." The answer he gets back is the captain is the law. There will be no action taken to prevent the disaster that Ahab will commit. A fatal surrender to fatalism, a surrender of reason and justice to personal power.Starbuck is the only one who opposes Ahab, in the novel (cf. chapters 36, 109) and the film; he thinks of shooting or arresting Ahab. He tries to convince others to take the ship home. Starbuck is unsuccessful.
Melville takes care in naming characters. There is a biblical overlay. Achab is the king of Israel that marries Jezabel. He opposes the prophets, especially Elias (Elijah).And Achab the son of Amri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him.— III Kings xvi. 30.
And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD above all that were before him.— I Kings xvi. 30 kjv
Now, Starbuck is a supporter of commerce, of the moneyed interests, that equates work (that creates wealth for others) that supplies a need as worthy of the praise of God. Ahab interferes with the primacy of commerce, and is therefore derelict. Ahab is a crazed tyrant. Starbuck does not oppose him for that essence, but for his blasphemy of capitalism. Ahab is the father of disaster, and should be opposed for it.What makes Ahab an hero is that he is not a coward, he will act himself. The rest of the crew permits his misrule. Now, this is marvelous fiction. We live in reality. We suffer leaders, really suffer leaders, legitimate or not, whom lead us to disaster. They are unaccountable. They have support from the people they destroy. We see this in the country, at work, in the church and elsewhere."I don't give reasons. I give orders!" Ahab is nakedly honest, the usual tyrant of to-day is not so forthright. This sort of 'leader' needs to be opposed.
window of the Coronation of Mary as Queen of Heaven. Blessed Sacrament, Cleve., O. 2009.
electrical 'cans' containing fluorescent tubes, St. Leo Cleve., O.
final presentation of back lit glass. St. Leo, Cleve., O. now.
Lennon has suppressed parishes and sold off their patrimony. Some were ransomed to nearby parishes, some remain available on the internet for purchase. It is very hard for parishioners to find out the location of many items. Though the chancery and Lennon, himself, have made claims of transparency, open clarity and accountability is little in evidence. Perhaps we will find out one day in the future after Lennon is gone.
Some pieces that were part of an unified set have been treated as jigsaw puzzles. See photographs above of one window from Blessed Sacrament, when it was there it was flanked by sidelight windows. They did not accompany the move to St. Leo's. The central window is missing the lower sixth portion. All together seven windows are expected to arrive from Fulton to Broadview Road in Old Brooklyn. Windows were originally set in outside walls to let sunlight through. The current installation is on the wall, in front of switched light fixtures. What would a long time parishioner of Blessed Sacrament think and feel when he comes to St. Leo's, and see something so once familiar.
A side note: Blessed Sacrament had money in the bank, Saint Leo's owed assessments (tax) to the bishop. Similarly, St. Thomas More bought statues from closed parishes, and owes assessments to the bishop.
No picture with this one. Sometimes, i have found a photo of a masterpiece to illustrate or begin an essay; sometimes i have found something nearby to photograph and present here; not to-day. The paintings by Rubens and the rest, do not do justice.
Then Herod perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry; and sending killed all the men children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.
Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet, saying:
A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not. — Matthew ii. 16-18.
To-day is Herod's big day. Shakespeare refers to Herod, some eight times. Now, people remember Hamlet's acting advice, and his summation of the bad overacting: It out-Herods Herod. Shakespeare grew up in an England where catholicism was not extinguished. He had seen the Coventry and other mystery plays. This was a scene that played to people in town squares, where there was no stage. Men would mount wagons and carts. The role of Herod was as extravagant as could be mustered. Chaucer two centuries before mentions such an Herod. The Coventry Carol as a lullabye refers to it.
Herod, the king,
In his raging,
Chargéd he hath this day
His men of might
In his own sight
All young children to slay
Herod was a child killer. Everyone knew his wickedness, and children would be scared of him, and fully knew the dread of the tale.
Shakespeare, in Henry V, brings up a more accurate reference to Herod:
...If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Desire the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters,
Your fathers taken by the silver beards
And their most reverend heads dashed to the walls,
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod’s bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? Will you yield and this avoid
Or, guilty in defense, be thus destroyed? — Henry V, III. iii.
Henry V advises the town of Harfleur to surrender without a fight, without a siege. I can control my soldiers now, but not when they have been deployed, and when they are, only murder and rape will follow.
Now, for years Jonah House in Washington, D.C. has held retreats and demonstrations about the death wars and militarism bring about. Peaceniks that stand against violence, not far from the Pentagon will meet at St. Stephen and the Incarnation in D.C. Catholic Workers in Cleveland, to-day at 4 p.m., will have a small demonstration at Public Square, and then will march to the Cathedral of John the Evangelist.
Yes Rachel weeps for her children. This is an image that is used by some ministries to the unborn and the aborted. Taking of life is killing and murder, and great sadness follows. But in the scriptural text, it is the government that is killing the children. Whether it is the male children of Bethlehem, in order to include Jesus, or the mediæval knights of Herod in the plays, or the military and police of to-day, it is governmental action that causes the deaths.
Those children, two millenia ago in Palestine, were the first anonymous christian martyrs. Martyring of children has not stopped. Rachel still cries, and if she is in Iraq or Afghanistan or some other foreign land, which American hears her?
Jan Cieplak displaying a crucifix to the troika of bolševiki
In the church of Saint Stanislaus Kostka, in Adams Massachusetts, there is a window with Lenin (no not our boy [Lennon from Boston], every time i type Vladimir Ilič's surname it looks odd), Trotsky and Stalin, and a Polish priest (archbishop) sentenced to death. The well versed reader, certainly, knows of Lenin and his boys, and what they did in the Russian lands, and to the peoples of Holy Mother Russia, but few know Jan Cieplak (*1857, †1926). There were few Catholics of the western rite in Russia. With the coming of atheistic socialism (communism) religion was suppressed. Catholicism, especially in its roman form, was a competing international, and transnational, ideology. It was a competitor for allegiance.
After the deportation of Edward von der Ropp, Jan Cieplak was the highest ranking Latin churchman in Soviet Russia. Petrograd (formerly and once again St. Petersburg, after becoming Leningrad) was under Grigorij Zinoviev (once second to Lenin). Zinoviev wanted an eradication of catholicism. During Lenin's final illness (stroke), Zinoviev, as an ally with Kamenev and Stalin, controlled the Politburo.
In 1923 a show trial of 18 Catholics took place in Moscow. Nikolaj Vasiljevič Krjlenko was the prosecutor. Now, Krjlenko did not care if someone was innocent or guilty, but only the political value of prosecution. The execution of the innocent was a politically useful demonstration. Konstanty Romuald Budkiewicz was executed at Lubjanka Prison early Easter morning. Cieplak was also sentenced to death. After international appeal, Cieplak was released the next year. He went to Poland, Rome, and the US. He visited St. Stanislaus Kostka church in Adams Massachusetts, hence the window. He died, soon thereafter, in Passaic New Jersey. Since 1952 Cieplak has been recognised a Servant of God (an early step towards canonisation).
Stanislaus Kostka was the first church in the New World to have a representation of the Divine Mercy. Two years ago, Timothy McDonnell, the Bishop of Springfield, Massachusetts closed them. They have maintained a successful sit-in since.
Why is the church to be closed? The same reason they are closed in other American dioceses: elimination of ethnic parishes, with cash on hand, and rich patrimonies in order to pay off sex scandal lawsuits, and increase episcopal power; a further clerical abuse in American clericalism. A parish and its people who should be lauded are condemned to extinction and exile.
If Servant of God Jan Cieplak is one day recognised as a saint, will he be the patron of a persecuted church and its people against bureaucratic tyranny that cares not a whit about justice, but only the fear it can engender amongst the oppressed?
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Postscriptum: 15 February 2011. Rome says re-open the church.
Postscriptum: 1 April 2012. Celebrated Homecoming Mass.
On another cold day the Casimiri met, the second Christmas in the streets. A cameraman from a local station came by. They all know we will be there, we have been since Lennon evicted the parish last year. There is not much local news to cover on Sundays, there is professional football, and then there is what local news does most frequently—violent deaths, car wrecks and fires. We are always available at 11.30 a.m. Sunday, until we get our church and parish back. If there is no assignment on the desk Sunday, they can get footage for story. The cameraman stayed long enough to hear a carol, or two, and then had to rush to a fire.
The Casimiri sang carols and kolędy. They sang enthusiastically, but were very unenthusiastic about the breezy cold. Afterwards they shared oplatki (wafers) which they broke in pieces and ate. They hugged each other and wished each other a good, and merry Christmas.
detail from Last Supper reproduction at Broadway Methodist, Cleveland
This is a copy of Da Vinci. It is still impressive, and instructive. It is instructive in the religious narrative and its pondering of reaction. Jesus is sharing supper with his disciples, the Twelve, and He announces to them that one is the traitor. So that now, Judas is synonymous with traitor, the last sentence could end, "and He announces to them that one is the Judas". As art, students with sketch pads have a lot to draw. There are many individual objects. There are groups of people. There is Jesus, Himself. Each is a study in itself. All of the years that people sat in front of this work, they could have considered much; especially if a speaker was deadeningly dull. The painting has life. Art students have drawn many inferior studies. Dostojevskij taught us we could be saved by beauty.
Samson by R. Toland Wright (1887-1934) . Cleveland.
On one side of the nave there are four windows of the evangelists, on the other -- the four major prophets. The last window is of Daniel, but one of the scenes is that of the Judge, Samson. Scenes of the Old Testament are paired with the New, this is paired with the Resurrection.
He said: Let me die with the Philistines. And when he had strongly shook the pillars, the house fell upon all the princes, and the rest of the multitude that was there: and he killed many more at his death, than he had killed before in his life. -- Judges xvi. 30.
Some vignettes work better than others. A couple of his prophets seem familiar from drawings. Samson, eyeless and chained to pillars, is a well known story. It is dramatic, and if sketched, instantly recognised; but can we think of a famous painting of the scene. One would think Rubens would have done one. From the nave windows, and this rests underneath the choir loft, this might be the most effective scene. Samson appears as a wrestler or a circus strong man, and the masonry flies and falls.
Wright's œuvre overlaps chronologically with Prohibition, the time after the Great War and before the New Deal. Preliminary research suggests either he was the only Cleveland stained glass artist of the time, or at least the most significant. His work was done in several Protestant churches of note. Many people see stained glass as a primarily Catholic art. I have not found note of his work in a Catholic or Orthodox church.
A series of Wright's windows were destroyed this year, when Euclid Avenue Congregational burned to the ground. Different denominations have differing views and styles of iconography. Sometimes pastors may make a decisive commission. The earliest Congregationalists were extreme iconoclasts. This particular church had a complement of seven portrait windows, and three of them were Catholic figures (St. Monica, St. Francis of Assisi and Christopher Columbus). To some this had to be surprising. Perhaps someone has color photographs of them, they cannot be snapped now.
Broadway Methodist windows were his. On a very overcast day the windows are almost black. When the sun comes through they become very light, some light passes through as if no pigment colored it. To appreciate, and to critique the panes and their subjects one needs to have several viewings under divers light. This is the nature of the art, but these more than the average. On the dark day, the windows appear sooty and grimy. There are storm windows over them. The choir loft window does not share this nature, and does not have the non-figurative sections. The Resurrection aftermath is bright in all weather.
Censer (thurible), incense boat and spoon. Our Lady of Good Counsel, Cleveland, O.
I appreciate stained glass windows. They are art and craftsmanship. They illustrate a story, and pictorially represent ideas and images. Some are accompanied with text.
There are people, who loudly profess their supposed christianity, that delight in assaulting catholicism as paganism, or something similar. Their brassy ignorance is sharply grating. One of their many vexations concerns the 'smells and bells' presentation of the faith. If the use of incense is pagan when catholics use it in churches, it would hold that it was paganistic when the jews of the Old Testament did so too, and such language in the Bible would also be. But rarely do these sort of protestant bigots make those necessarily related, and prior charges. Psalm 140 DRC
1 I have cried to the, O Lord, hear me: hearken to my voice, when I cry to thee.2 Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight; the lifting up of my hands, as evening sacrifice.3 Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth: and a door round about my lips.
4 Incline not my heart to evil words; to make excuses in sins. With men that work iniquity: and I will not communicate with the choicest of them.
5 The just shall correct me in mercy, and shall reprove me: but let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head. For my prayer also shall still be against the things with which they are well pleased:
6 their judges falling upon the rock have been swallowed up. They shall hear my words, for they have prevailed:
7 as when the thickness of the earth is broken up upon the ground: Our bones are scattered by the side of hell.
8 But o to thee, O Lord, Lord, are my eyes: in thee have I put my trust, take not away my soul.
9 Keep me from the snare, which they have laid for me, and from the stumbling blocks of them that work iniquity.
10 The wicked shall fall in his net: I am alone until I pass.
I was told long ago that a saloon/restaurant on the near West Side used to have items from St. Agnes'. Agnes', before merging with Our Lady of Fatima, was a prestige parish on the East Side. I was told a confessional became a phone booth (also a vanished thing), pews were seating, and stained glass was on the ceiling.I went there Tuesday. The present ownership has been there four years, some remember the glass on the ceiling, the other stuff may have been gone before the second previous owner had the place. All that remains is a mezzaluna window embedded in brick. It is still lovely.Some of you may be aware, that, the Cleveland Diocese has contracted with Henniger's to market church objects from closed parishes. Some of this is being advertised on the internet. I am told, one needs to go through the chancery to schedule an appointment with Henniger's to view items. Of course, not everyone is scheduled; nor are all items accounted for in inquiry. People have asked about items and have been given non-answer answers. One such inquiry concerns the multi-statue shrine of Our Lady of Fatima from Saint Lawrence, Cleveland.
Former shrine, now in bleak winter. Statues' whereabouts not public.
view from the Broadway parking lot of Broadway United Methodist Church of Our Lady of Lourdes' steeple before noon on the winter solstice of 2010
The high point of the sun is the lowest of the year to-day. Behind and above early morning clouds there was a total lunar eclipse, that some people in North America were able to see.
The catholic church is a czech parish with spanish language masses. The protestant church had a czech congregation (at one time), its final services will be on the Feast of Stephen, the day that the carol has King Wenceslas look out on the snow in the moonlight.
This methodist church has a lone weekend service with less than two dozen participants. The congregation's endowment has been spent, a time ago; and by the rules of the polity of the Methodist Church, the threshold of congregants had not been made. It is one of three methodist churches in the county closing. The community programmes will continue from Broadway Methodist. Methodist ministries will operate in the North Broadway neighborhood from the offices attached to the sanctuary. Comparatively, the Catholic Church's threshold is one, and many closed parishes were flush with money. The leadership methods of the two churches' in town is different.
Their sanctuary has a life size painted reproduction of Da Vinci's 'Last Supper', and nine large stained glass windows by the Cleveland artist, R. Toland Wright. The windows were commissioned in 1918, and the painting in 1924. The present building's construction began in 1918 and services were held in late December 1919.
The congregation's founding was in 1872, and was part of the home missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Some czechs had left the church, and were anti-clerical and broadly agnostic, and called themselves 'freethinkers', some of these joined protestant congregations. The neighborhood was heavily czech (bohemian) with the catholic parishes of Old St. Wenceslaus (1867) and Our Lady of Lourdes (1883). For more than two generations, both english and czech services were held. In 1968 the congregation joined the United Methodists. For a time beginning in the 1980s a korean presence was there under the name of Korean American United Methodist Church, and as St. Andrew Cooperative Parish.
__________
essay updated and expanded 22 December 2010.
The vox populi concerning Richard Lennon's episcopacy is odium populi. Earlier to-day, The Endangered Catholics released results from an internet survey 'Voices of Cleveland Catholics' to the press. It gathered a relatively small response, but it has been the only attempt at collecting anything near a census of responses. The diocese only gives its own opinion on the matter, and that is to sway and not to describe. The press tries to get an equal number of pro and con views, that is to create a false "balance" of equivalency. Clearly, even as limited as the survey may be, it is overwhelming indicative of episcopal failure. The written comments (on questions six and nine) are a strong vein of accusation against Lennon. This is understandable, Lennon is the author of the troubles. There is no honest way not to point fingers at Lennon. Some will complain that he is not the onus. They are wrong, and may purposely be dictating a deception. Either way, they are not willing to admit the obvious.
Here follows additional questions and their results as of the initial press release concerning the presentation on "Google Survey", also included in the press release [but not below] were the first responses from a "SurveyMonkey" presentation:
1. On a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being "poor" and 5 being "excellent", how would you rank your satisfaction with the leadership of Bishop Lennon?
votes % ordinal
269~75% 1 "poor"
043~12% 2
020~06% 3 [average]ed.
004~01% 4
022~06% 5 "excellent"
358 responses
______________________
2. Which of the following expresses your assessment of the Reconfiguration Plan (the closing and merging of parishes)?
votes %
014~04% Necessary
088~25% Not necessary
238~66% Necessary, but the process was flawed
018~05% I am satisfied with how the Reconfiguration was organized and executed
358 responses
______________________
5. What action have you taken since the closing of your church?
votes %
026~08% I am attending a church created by the merger
139~44% I am attending another Roman Catholic church
025~08% I am attending a non-Roman Catholic church
080~25% I am not attending any church on any regular basis
046~15% I am not attending any church at all
316 responses
________________Postscriptum: The new version is -- here. It is to end 31 January 2011??Postscriptum II: It ended ~ March 31.
