IMAGE AND ICON - 3: CRUCIFIXION, EPITAPHIOS, BRIDEGROOM, MANDYLION and SHROUD by Father Alex Echeandia OSB, Prior of Pachacamac, Peru.

III

a) Icons of the Crucifixion
b) Icons  of the "Epitaphios"
c) Icons of the "Bridegroom"

Crucifixion

The icon of the Crucifixion from the XV century  is a good example of the simplicity of an icon composition. It show Christ dead on the cross with his eyes closed, angels weeping above him, at the sides the Mother of God and John the Apostle. The large body on the large cross is just above the ground. The elongated proportions, the saints poised on tip-toe, the deep drama of the scene point towards a different reality. That extended body is totally weightless.  Christ turns towards his mother who is so close to him that they are almost touching. His body is curved to signify the arch of Christ’s suffering and the scale of justice now inclined in favour of mercy, because all that what is evil has been captured by the Redemption of Christ.  The city of Jerusalem symbolizes the Church, a redeemed humanity. 

The icon does not show any dramatic moment like Christ being nailed to the cross, nor does it portray triumph, rejoicing or celebration at his victorious triumph over death. It is more likely a representation of a funereal mourning, a sense of prayer loaded with suffering. Figures in the scene don’t show any great emotional expression in their faces; all are silent witnesses.

John is also silent, the look of his face, the gesture with his hand shows him meditatiing on what she is experiencing as she witnesses the death of her Son. Death and birth are related at this moment. Simeon’s words are brought to mind as she experiences their truth: “A sword will pierce your heart.” The giver of life is contemplated in a shameful death. 

Among the Russian Orthodox on  Wednesday in the First Week of Lent they echo the hymn: “My Son, what is the meaning of this mystery? Why do You, who give eternal life to all, suffer willingly a shameful death on the cross? At the foot of the cross, Mary’s motherhood which began at Christmas is renewed.” 

Details on the icon of the Crucifixion have meaning. The size of the cross is astonishing, The base of the cross comes out of the ground in an unusual way because Golgotha is hardly represented. Frequently in icons the Golgotha is depicted like a little mound.  Here, it looks as if the cross was planted in the earth, it looks like a tree. Those who contemplate it are venerating a new tree, a tree from the paradise that has been re-opened by Christ.

Many icons also emphasise the way in which the ransom was paid at the Crucifixion of Jesus for the sin of Adam. It is frequently seen as a stream of blood coming down from Jesus’ feet pierced with nails. It flows down onto Adam’’s skull that is hidden in the cave of Golgotha. In the Eastern  Liturgy for Friday it says: Just as the enemy captured Adam with a tree heavy with fruit, so you O Lord, captured the enemy with the tree of your cross and sufferings. Now the second Adam has come to find the one who was lost to restore life to him who was dead.” 

Another important element in the icon is the plea of those who are suffering silently, a personal prayer to the Crucified Lord. Keeping to the Gospel narrative, the centurion and the other two Marys are frequently depicted.  They are mourning as in a funeral. This atmosphere is expressed by the simplicity of the buildings and colours.  In contraposition, Christ is shining with the whiteness of his cloth,  like the Sun shining out from his flesh.

Epitaphios

This icon is also called the “entombment of Christ.” However, the literal meaning of this name is a composite word from the Greek επί, epí, "on" or "upon", and τάφος, táphos, "grave" or "tomb". The Epitaphios is really a common short form of the Epitáphios Thrēnos, the "Lamentation upon the Grave", which is the main part of the service of the Matins of Holy Saturday, celebrated in Good Friday evening. 

Today it is most often found as a large cloth, embroidered and often richly adorned, which is used during the services of Good Friday and Holy Saturday in the Eastern Orthodox Churches and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite. It also exists in painted or mosaic form, on wall or panel.

The scene is taken from John’s Gospel (John 19:38-42) It shows Jesus lying on the stone, and around him, mourning his death, frequently are placed his mother Mary, John the beloved disciple, Joseph of Arimathea; and Mary Magdalene, the other women and Nicodemus. Sometimes they place angels and evangelists in the corners. Sometimes the body of Christ appears alone and sometimes with His mother. This scene of Mary and Christ displays similar interpretation of Mother and child in the Elousia icons. 

Epitaphios is used on the last two days of Holy Week in the Byzantine rite as part of the ceremonies marking the death and resurrection of Christ. It is then placed by the priest and deacon on the Holy Table (altar table) before Vespers, where it remains throughout the Paschal season, until the Ascension Thursday, in relation to the cloths left in the tomb at the resurrection of Christ. It can be anointed with perfumed oil, and the chalice veil and the Gospel book are placed on top of it. 

The Bridegroom Icon

One of the first images in this subject appeared in XII century. In the XIII century it is found frequently in icons, miniatures of codices and on walls of churches, mainly within the sanctuary. Unlike the Epitaphios icon relating to mourning and lamentation for the dead Christ, this icon shows Christ in an apocalyptic vision, and the celestial Jerusalem is depicted in the background behind Christ and Our Lady.  

The book of the Apocalypse in the vision of Juan refers to the new heaven and new Earth illuminated by the glory of God and the Lamb is the source of light (AP. 21:1). Moreover, this city also symbolises the earthly Jerusalem, because Jesus Christ was crucified outside the walls Christ. 

The body of Christ is illuminated with greater intensity than the head; and this is to the fact that the head (Christ) was crucified for his body, the Church.. The same Church that Christ redeemed with his death in the cross now appears behind the main figures as the celestial Jerusalem. It is, therefore, The single act of salvation occurred in Christ’s own body for the Redemption of the world. Thus, it is not the head, Christ head that is illuminated because Christ as head did not need to be saved from anything. It was the body. The icon reflects what our faith believes. 

In icons of Christ the halo represents the crown of thorns. Inside the halo the cross is delineated, because it is the reason for Christ’s glory and our salvation. In it appear “I am”,  written in Greek. This is a reference to the name of God, described in the passage of the Old Testament, where God revealed His Name to Moses in the burning bush with His Name, in Hebrew יהוה, YHWH.   

The naked body, humiliated by the death on the cross, is held by Our Lady, as he rise from the tomb. Behind the cross there is a text written: “Do not cry by me, Mother, when you see in the tomb the one you conceived virginally in your womb: indeed, I shall rise and shall be glorified, I shall raise to everlasting glory those who ceaselessly celebrate you with faith and love.” 

This icon is called the Bridegroom and associates Mary with the Passion. By this act she is sharing his sufferings as well as the fruit of this cosmic act of Redemption. In fact, Mary is dressed as a bride,  adorned with pearls, ready for the wedding. This becomes a  sign of the new alliance that Christ makes with His Church.  She holds her Son as well as her spouse.   Indeed, Christ in his wounds shows the signs of his sacrifice; even more, He shows his victory over death. Doing so, Christ with his blood purifies his bride, the Church. 

Finally, the colours of Mary’s garments show her human condition.  Blue and green symbolize her humanity by nature. The red colour symbolizes her divinity by Grace. That is to say, Mary, in her humanity is overshadowed by divinity. In Christ Pantocrator the opposite is depicted: that is to say, his divine nature assumed his human nature from Mary. By the Incarnation, Divinity became human; by Grace, human nature is divinized. This is the Mystery that brings the New Jerusalem into being.

The History of the Mandylion of Edessa

    According to Iconographic Tradition, King Abgar of Edessa wrote a letter to Jesus, asking him to come and cure him of an illness. This story is found in the History of the Church (1.13.5-22) written by Eusebius of Caesarea who claimed that he had transcribed and translated the actual letter in the Syriac chancery documents of the king of Edessa. In this earliest account, Christ replies by letter, saying that when he had completed his earthly mission and ascended, he would send a disciple to heal Abgar. The image “not made by hands”, that Jesus sent  to cure the king, was known later to the Byzantines as the Mandylion (“holy towel”). 

I present two interesting texts: the first one is an excellent account of the "History of the image of Edessa", written by Professor Sebastian Brock, Oxford University. You will find here a connection he makes between the mandylion and Adai and his disciple Mari, later related to the "Anafora Adai andMari" http://www.jaas.org/edocs/v18n1/Sebastian%20Brock-mandili-Final.pdf 

The second text, here below, is a quick account on the image of Edessa, its journey and a brief analysis of the icon. Enjoy!  

The Image of Edessa Revealed, by Joe Nickell

The Legend

The story of the Edessan Image is related in a mid-fourth-century Syriac manuscript, The Doctrine of Addai. It tells how King Abgar of Edessa (now Urfa in south-central Turkey), afflicted with leprosy, sent a messenger named Ananias to deliver a letter to Jesus requesting a cure. In the letter (according to a tenth-century report [qtd. in Wilson 1979, 272–290]), Abgar sends “greetings to Jesus the Savior who has come to light as a good physician in the city of Jerusalem” and who, he has heard, “can make the blind see, the lame walk . . . heal those who are tortured by chronic illnesses, and . . . raise the dead.” Abgar decided that Jesus either is God himself or the Son of God, and so he entreats Jesus to “come to me and cure me of my disease.” He notes that he has heard of the Jews’ plan to harm Jesus and adds, “I have a very small city, but it is stately and will be sufficient for us both to live in peace.”

Abgar, so the story goes, instructed Ananias that if he were unable to persuade Jesus to return with him to Edessa, he was to bring back a portrait instead. But while Ananias sat on a rock drawing the portrait, Jesus summoned him, divining his mission and the fact of the letter Ananias carried. After reading it, Jesus responded with a letter of his own, writing, “Blessed are you, Abgar, in that you believed in me without having actually seen me.” Jesus said that while he must fulfill his mission on earth, he would later send one of his disciples to cure Abgar’s suffering and to “also provide your city with a sufficient defense to keep all your enemies from taking it.” After entrusting the letter to Ananias, “The Savior then washed his face in water, wiped off the moisture that was left on the towel that was given to him, and in some divine and inexpressible manner had his own likeness impressed on it.” Jesus gave Ananias the towel to present to Abgar as “consolation” for his disease.

Quite a different version of the story (see Wilson 1979, 277–278) holds that the image was impressed with Jesus’ bloody sweat during his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22: 44). (This anticipates the still later tradition of Veronica’s Veil, wherein Veronica, a woman from Jerusalem, was so moved by Jesus’ struggling with his cross on the way to execution that she wiped his face on her veil or kerchief, thus imprinting it with his bloody sweat. Actually, the term veronica is simply a corruption of the Latin words vera iconica, “true images” [Nickell 2007, 71–76].) In this second version of the story, Jesus’ disciple Thomas held the cloth for safekeeping until Jesus ascended to heaven, whereupon it was then sent to King Abgar.

Significantly, the earliest mention of the Abgar/Jesus correspondence—an account of circa ad 325 by Bishop Eusebius—lacks any mention of the holy image (Nickell 1998, 45). Also, in one revealing fourth-century text of The Doctrine of Addai, the image is described not as of miraculous origin but merely as the work of Hannan (Ananias), who “took and painted a portrait of Jesus in choice paints, and brought it with him to his lord King Abgar” (qtd. in Wilson 1979, 130).

Historian Sir Steven Runciman has denounced all versions of the legend as apocryphal: “It is easy to show that the story of Abgar and Jesus as we now have it are untrue, that the letters contain phrases copied from the gospels and are framed according to the dictates of later theology” (qtd. in Sox 1978, 52).

The Mandylion’s Journey

Nevertheless, Runciman adds, “that does not necessarily invalidate the tradition on which the story was based ...” (qtd. in Sox 1978, 52). The best evidence in the case would be the image itself, but which image? There have been several, each claimed to be the miraculous original. Obviously, only one could be authentic, but does it even still exist?

The Mandylion has a gap in its provenance (or historical record) of several centuries. It was reportedly transferred in 944 to Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, along with the purported letter from Jesus to King Abgar. The image may once have been incorporated into a triptych of the tenth century. Its side panels, now reposing in the monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai, illustrate the pious legend of Abgar receiving the image. Interestingly, the panels portray Abgar as having the features of Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos.

After the Venetians conquered Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade, the Mandylion was reportedly transferred to the West, where its history becomes confused. Three traditions develop, each associated with a different “original” of the image:

Parisian Mandylion. Allegedly obtained by Emperor Baldwin II and sold or donated by him in 1247, this image was eventually acquired by King Louis IX (1214–1270), who had it installed in the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. It was lost in 1792, apparently destroyed during the French Revolution (“Mandylion” 2008; Wilson 1991, 129).
Genoese Mandylion. Although this image reportedly can be traced back to the tenth century, its verifiable history dates from 1362 when then Byzantine Emperor John V donated it to Genoa’s Doge Leonardo Montaldo. After Montaldo died in 1384, the Mandylion was bequeathed to the Genoese Church of St. Bartholomew of the Armenians, arriving in 1388. It remains there, displayed in a gilt-silver, enameled frame of the fourteenth-century Palaeologan style. The image itself is on a cloth that has been glued to a wooden board (“Mandylion” 2008; “Image” 2008; Wilson 1991, 113–114, 137–138).
Vatican Mandylion. This image has no certain history before the sixteenth century, when it was known to be kept at the convent of San Silvestro in Capito. In 1517, the nuns were reportedly forbidden to exhibit it, so it would not compete with the church’s Veronica. And in 1587 it was mentioned by one Cesare Baromio. In 1623 it received its silver frame, donated by Sister Dionora Chiarucci. It remained at San Silvestro until 1870 when, during the war that completed the unification of Italy, Pope Pius IX had it removed to the Vatican for safekeeping. Except when traveling, it still reposes in the Vatican’s Matilda chapel (“Mandylion” 2008; “Image” 2008; Wilson 1991, 139–140).

These are the three Edessan Mandylions that have been claimed as original. Others—such as a seventeenth-century Mandylion icon in Buckingham Palace in London, surrounded by painted panels (Wilson 1979, 111)—need not concern us here.

Image Analysis

The Vatican now concedes (in the words of the official Vatican Splendors exhibit catalog [“Mandylion” 2008]) that “... the Mandylion is no longer enveloped today by any legend of its origin as an image made without the intervention of human hands....”

In the summer of 1996, the Vatican Museum’s chemistry and painting restoration laboratory analyzed their Mandylion. It was taken out of its baroque reliquary and removed from its silver-sheet frame (made in 1623). Glued to a cedar support panel was the linen cloth on which the face of Christ was clearly “painted,” although the non-destructive tests were insufficient to specifically confirm that the painting medium was tempera.

While “the thin layer of pigment showed no traces of overpainting,” there were nonetheless “alterations in the execution of the nose, mouth, and eyes” that were “observed in the x-rays and thermographic and reflectographic photographs.” Specifically, the nose had once been shorter, “so that the image originally must have had a different physiognomy” (“Mandylion” 2008, 57–58).

The museums’ scholars learned (according to “Mandylion” 2008, 56):

The version in the Vatican and the one in Genoa are almost wholly identical in their representation, form, technique, and measurements. Indeed, they must at some point in their history have crossed paths, for the rivet holes that surround the Genoese image coincide with those that attach the Vatican Mandylion to the cut-out sheet of silver that frames the image. ... So this silver frame, or one like to it, must also have originally covered the panel in Genoa.

Iconography

The Mandylion clearly has been copied and recopied, as if the different versions were just so many “icons” (as they are now called). It is not surprising that many of them appeared. According to Thomas Humber (1978, 92), “Soon the popular demand for more copies representing the ‘true likeness’ of Christ was such that selected artists were allowed or encouraged to make duplications.” Indeed, “there was, conveniently, another tradition supporting the copies: the Image could miraculously duplicate itself.”

Because icons were traditionally painted on wood, the fact that both the Vatican and Genoese Mandylions are on linen suggests that each was intended to be regarded as the original Edessan Image. That image was described in the tenth-century account as “a moist secretion without coloring or painter’s art,” an “impression” of Jesus’ face on “linen cloth” that—as is the way of legend—“eventually became indestructible” (qtd. in Wilson 1979, 273).

While the original image appears lost to history, Ian Wilson (1979, 119–121) goes so far as to argue that the Edessan Image has survived—indeed, that it is nothing less than the Shroud of Turin, the alleged burial cloth of Jesus! To the obvious rejoinder that the early Mandylions bore only a facial image whereas the Turin “shroud” bears full length frontal and dorsal images, Wilson argues that the latter may have been folded in such a way as to exhibit only the face. Also there is an eighth-century account of King Abgar receiving a cloth with the image of Jesus’ whole body (“Image” 2008). Unfortunately, the Turin cloth has no provenance prior to the mid-fourteenth century when—according to a later bishop’s report to the pope—an artist confessed it was his handiwork. Indeed, the image is rendered in red ocher and vermilion tempera paint—not as a positive image but as a negative one, as if it were a bodily imprint. Moreover, the cloth has been radiocarbon dated to the time of the forger’s confession (Nickell 1998). (Another image-bearing shroud—of Besançon, France—did not come from Constantinople in 1204 as alleged but was clearly a sixteenth-century copy of the Turin fake [Nickell 1998, 64].)

The evidence is lacking, therefore, that any of these figured cloths ever bore a “not-made-by-hands” image. Instead, they have evolved from unlikely legend to Edessan portrait to self-duplicating Mandylions to proliferating “Veronicas” to full-length body image—all supposedly of the living Jesus—and thence to imaged “shrouds” with simulated frontal and dorsal bodily imprints. Finally, modern science and scholarship have revealed the truth about these pious deceptions.

References
Humber, Thomas. 1978. The Sacred Shroud. New York: Pocket Books.
Image of Edessa. 2008. From Wikipedia, available online, accessed September 5, 2008.
Mandylion of Edessa. 2008. Vatican Splendors: From Saint Peter’s Basilica, The Vatican Museums and the Swiss Guard. Vatican City State: Governatorato, 55–58.
Nickell, Joe. 1998. Inquest on the Shroud of Turin: Latest Scientific Findings. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
Sox, H. David. 1978. File on the Shroud. London: Coronet Books.
Wilson, Ian. 1979. The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ? Revised ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books.
—. 1991. Holy Faces, Secret Places: An Amazing Quest for the Face of Jesus. New York: Doubleday.
Investigative Files
Joe Nickell
Volume 19.2, June 2009

The Shroud of Turin

The Shroud of Turin is the most analysed artefact in the world, yet remains the world's greatest unsolved mystery. Could it be the actual burial cloth that wrapped the historical Jesus or is it nothing more than a medieval hoax?  For centuries, scientists and historians, artists and believers have pored over the mysterious Shroud of Turin. 

Here you will find a comment of a new discovery made in Italy: 

New testing dates Shroud of Turin to era of Christ, by Doug Stanglin (RNS, USA)

New scientific tests on the Shroud of Turin, which went on display Saturday (March 30) in a special TV appearance introduced by the pope, date the cloth to ancient times, challenging earlier experiments that dated it only to the Middle Ages.

Pope Francis sent a special video message to the televised event in the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, which coincided with Holy Saturday, when Catholics mark the period between Christ’s crucifixion on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

The Vatican, tiptoeing carefully, has never claimed that the 14-foot linen cloth was used to cover Christ after he was taken from the cross 2,000 years ago, as some believers claim.

Francis, reflecting that careful Vatican policy, on Saturday called the cloth, which is kept in a climate-controlled case, an “icon” — not a relic.

But Archbishop Cesare Nosiglia of Turin, the “pontifical custodian of the shroud,” said the special display on Holy Saturday “means that it represents a very important testimony to the Passion and the resurrection of the Lord,” The Telegraph reported.

The burial shroud purports to show the imprint of the face and body of a bearded man. The image also purportedly shows nail wounds at the man’s wrist and pinpricks around his brow, consistent with the “crown of thorns” mockingly pressed onto Christ before his crucifixion.

Many experts have stood by a 1988 carbon-14 dating of scraps of the cloth carried out by labs in Oxford, Zurich and Arizona that dated it from 1260 to 1390 — well more than 1,000 years after the time of Christ.

The new test, by scientists at the University of Padua in northern Italy, used the same fibers from the 1988 tests but disputes the earlier findings. The new examination dates the shroud to between 300 B.C. and 400 A.D., which would put it in the era of Christ.

It determined that the earlier results may have been skewed by contamination from fibers used to repair the cloth when it was damaged by fire in the Middle Ages, the British newspaper reported. The cloth has been kept at the cathedral since 1578.

The new tests also supported earlier results claiming to have found traces of dust and pollen on that shroud that could only have come from the Holy Land.

The latest findings are contained in a new Italian-language book — “Il Mistero Della Sindone,” or “The Mystery of the Shroud,” by Giulio Fanti, a professor of mechanical and thermal measurement at the University of Padua, and journalist Saverio Gaeta.

Fanti, a Catholic, used infrared light and spectroscopy — the measurement of radiation intensity through wavelengths — in his test. He said the results are the outcome of 15 years of research.

Here is an excellent video produced by BBC. In addition, there is a video commentary by an Eastern Orthodox expert; and, finally, a talk given by an important Jewish expert on the shroud.
.  

BBC DOCUMENTARY

(THE BEST)

The Face of God: Shroud of Turin and Orthodoxy

Agora Institute 

The Shroud and the jew: Barrie Schwortz
 at TEDx ViadellaConciliazione

THE BEST WEBSITE ON THE SHROUD

THE SHROUD MUSEUM

Circular Letter by Abbot General Bernardo Olivera OCSO

January 26, 2008



Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This will be my last annual letter as Abbot General. As everyone knows, I intend to offer my resignation during the next General Chapter, and I am sure it will be accepted.

Eighteen years have gone by since the first time I wrote you. That first letter was a sort of self-introduction in which I opened my heart to show what was there: Jesus, Mary, the Gospel, the Church, the Rule, Cîteaux, Man. This last word was absolutely inclusive, meaning both man and woman. These seven words led to a second letter on the Cistercian School of Charity. Both letters were youthful and passionate testimonials.

Today, having experienced the many things that have happened, I feel completely the same as before and yet rather different. The passing years do not fail to have their effect, even though what is most essential and most proper to me remains the same.

In this letter I would like to share with you what has remained constant in my monastic identify and what has become a characteristic of my identity as a person. I intend to be both testimonial and traditional in my approach. Using the words of the Fathers, I will speak to you about what I have been doing ever since I entered the monastery and even more so since I was asked to take on the service of general authority.

I hope what I say will be of use for reflection and self-evaluation before the mirror of the Lord, just as it has been for me while writing this letter.



1. Invitation and Response

A word of the Lord that has dwelt in me since the time of my novitiate is: “Seek me and you will live” (Am 5:4). Perhaps that is why I always hear in my heart: “Seek my face” (Ps 27:8).

And this seeking is neither fruitless nor empty; rather, it revels in the promise of meeting or finding: “You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart” (Jer 29:13; Dt 4:29). As we can see, this promise is all-demanding: “when you seek me with all your heart.” Or, to use the words of the Psalmist that so often echo in our prayers:



- O God, you are my God, for you I long; for you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you like a dry, weary land without water. (Ps 63:2)

- Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is yearning for you, my God. (Ps 42:2–3)



But the most important thing for me has not been so much my effort in seeking as my gratitude for encountering. For, “God is good to those who seek” (Lam 3:25). Moreover, he comes to take us to himself (Jn 14:3), and goes so far as to ask us frequently, “Whom do you seek?” (Jn 20:15).

Monastic life in all times—and in my own life, which has fed on this great tradition—has understood itself in this pair of terms: to seek and to find. Two Biblical texts point the way:



- “Such are they who seek him, seek the face of the God of Jacob.” (Ps 23:6)

- “Upon my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves […] I will seek him whom my soul loves […] I found him whom my soul loves.” (Sg 3:1–5)



Saint Benedict, in his Rule for monks and nuns, considers sincere seeking as one of the fundamental criteria for vocational discernment: “The concern must be whether the novice truly seeks God” (RB 58.7). And the main characteristics that guarantee the truthfulness of this search are “eagerness for the Work of God, for obedience and trials” (obprobria, according to Saint Basil’s Rule 6, means ‘household chores’). In other words, this seeking means concrete commitment to everything that makes monastic life a life oriented toward pure and continuous prayer and a school of divine service and fraternal communion. The concrete search for God translates desire into praxis, thus showing that one’s desire for God is genuine.

An obvious prerequisite here—for novices and for all of us persevering on the monastic way—is a faith-filled certainty that God has sought us out and continues to seek us out in order to make us happy: “Seeking his workman in a multitude of people, the Lord calls out to him and lifts his voice again: ‘Is there anyone here who yearns for life and desires to see good days?’” (RB Prol. 14–14; see also 27:8–9).

Our Cistercian Tradition has always considered the Song of Songs to be a contemplative and nuptial poem. This was how Bernard of Clairvaux, William of Saint-Thierry, Gilbert of Hoyland, John of Ford, and Geoffrey of Auxerre saw it. And it was experienced as such by Lutgard, Matilda, Gertrude, and so many others. And this is the way I have been discovering it over time, in progressive openness to the gift of God. In more precise terms: “to seek God for his own sake alone, this is to possess a face made most beautiful by the two elements of intention [i.e., the object: what is being sought; and the cause: why one is seeking]. This is the bride’s own special gift…” (Bernard, SC 40.3; CF 7:201)

Our Fathers often use Psalm 23:6 to describe the identity of monks. The following passage from Saint Bernard has always spoken to my heart:



We do not stand here all the day idle. We know what we are looking for and who it is that hired us: We seek God; we await God. […] See, the time for seeking and the day for finding are at hand: “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call on him while he is near” [Is 55:6]. […] “How good you are, Lord, to the soul that seeks you” [Lam 3:25]. And if you are good to those who seek you, how much more to those who find you! […] Seek him, brothers, “Seek the Lord and be strengthened, ever seek his face. [Ps 104:4] Seek the Lord, and your soul will live” [Ps 68:33]. “And my soul will live for him,” because it is dead to the world. The soul that lives for the world does not live for him. Let us seek so as never to stop seeking him, so that, when he comes to seek us, he will say of us: “Such is the generation that seeks the Lord that seeks the face of the God of Jacob” [Ps 23:6]. (Bernard, Div 4.1 and 4.5)



From those who have ruminated on the writings of the Abbot of Clairvaux for many years, I have learned that his doctrine comes down to this: mutual seeking between God and the human person created for love. And that is why his teaching is the narration of a love story. This whole adventure of love-filled seeking is nicely summarized in sermons 80–85 on the Song of Songs, sermons that comment on the words of the Canticle: “I sought him whom my soul loves” [Sg 3:1].

The theoretical and practical program of the Cistercian Schola caritatis likewise focuses on this mutual and loving search, rooted in the image of God and in the lost likeness that is restored through conformation with Christ. Experience has taught me that my “interior life” consists in this: attention-to the Lord and tension-toward him who seeks me and loves me. I seek by desiring, and I find by loving. The monastic observances are at the service of—and at the same time manifestations of—my seeking-finding and reciprocal love with the Lord.

William of Saint-Thierry, a good friend of my friend Bernard of Clairvaux, has taught me to pray as follows:

Lord, I will seek your face and continually search for your face as much as I can and as much as you render me capable of doing. Lord my God, my one hope, hear me lest exhausted I lose the will to seek you. May I ardently seek you always. Give the strength to seek, you who have given the desire. And when the strength is sufficient, add to the desire which you have given. May I always remember you, understand you, and love you until, faithfully remembering you and prudently understanding you and truthfully loving you, O Triune God, according to the fullness which you know, you reform me to your image in which you created me. (Enigma of Faith 23; CF 9:55–56)





2. Prayerful Seeking

Prayer, in all its forms and expressions, has been a priority for me in this experience of seeking and encountering God in Christ. Saint Benedict, who is quite clear in this regard, thus recommends: “First of all, every time you begin a good work, you must pray to him most earnestly to bring it to perfection. […] What is not possible by nature, let us ask the Lord to supply by the help of his grace (RB Prol. 4 and 41). And, putting it more briefly: “Indeed, nothing is to be preferred to the Work of God” (RB 43.3); “Listen readily to holy reading, and devote yourself often to prayer (RB 4.55–56).

I would like to dwell a moment on the monastic experience of prayer as relation, communication, and communion with God.

This experience has its foundation in our being as persons. As human persons, we are persons in relation, and therefore dialogical beings. Our inherent capacity for communication requires existential communion. Our demand for communion is satisfied solely in union with Absolute Being, i.e. God.

And yet, prayer is not predominantly a psychic or psychological activity; rather, it is a God-centered activity. Prayer begins in God and, by his grace, continues in us as participants.

When we pray in the state of grace, as God’s friends or brides, we relate to him through living faith, that is to say, a faith that is enlivened by love or a faith that has fallen in love. On the contrary (and God forbid!), when we pray apart from grace or in a state of sin, for having denied the Lord, we pray with faith but without love, that is, a faith that is dead, because it is not enlivened by love.

The essential forms that give shape to our life of prayer are the Celebration of the Eucharist, the Liturgy of the Hours, lectio divina, and intentio cordis. The liturgy especially shows forth the spiritual aim of our monastic life, and is extended and interiorized through lectio and silent personal prayer. In two earlier letters I spoke to you about the Eucharist (1994) and lectio divina (1993). Consequently, I will limit myself here to speaking briefly about the Liturgy of the Hours and intentio cordis.





2.1. The Liturgy of the Hours

The Liturgy is clearly both the backbone of our monastic day and one of the mainstays of our continuous prayer. The Liturgy thus tends to become a matter of routine for everyone except aspirants and novices. It is therefore useful periodically to motivate ourselves, in order that this sacrifice of praise and intercession be carried out in spirit and truth, that is to say, in communion with our brothers and sisters and with Christ the High priest.

Ever mindful of our weakness, it is the Patriarch Benedict who provides me with two bits of advice for avoiding this automated habit or custom we call routine.

The first piece of advice, taken from the Word of God, is best presented in Latin: Psallite sapienter (RB 19:4). Translations of Psalm 47 (46), where these words are found, tend to be very different one from another, and the same diversity is noticed in translations of the Rule. What is it that Abbot Benedict is advising here? What I was taught, what I learned, and I what I have in turn taught to others is the following:



- To chant with reverence, respect and fear of God, which is a form of humility and the beginning of wisdom. These attitudes place us correctly before the presence of God.

- To organize and execute everything artfully (Psalm tones, silences, readings, etc.), in order to be at peace and content in the Opus Dei. Spontaneous interventions are discerned according to their usefulness for the edification of one’s neighbor and the assembly at prayer.

- To taste and savor the spiritual meaning (allegorical, tropological, and anagogical) of the Psalms we sing, which does not mean doing exegesis during the office, but, rather, letting Christ make himself present to us.

- Giving priority to the Lord’s pleasure in hearing us over our own pleasure in singing to him. Our attention is thus centered away from ourselves, freeing us from self-interest.



Some think that these two words, psallite sapienter, are merely a foretaste of what immediately follows, that is, the second piece of advice Saint Benedict offers us: Ut mens nostra concordet voci nostrae (RB 19:7). I have always found in these words an ascetical-mystical itinerary that begins with attention and ends with communion. To put it succinctly:



- To pay attention to the words, and realize how tremendous the truths are that we speak and that the Lord causes us to speak: cursing Psalms included!

- To take serious what we say, in order that the Psalms translate into behavior and shape our way of life: “God helps those who help themselves.”

- To be in tune with the voice of the brothers celebrating the Opus Dei, in order to attain a single mind and single heart among all, until we are raised all together toward eternal life.

- To be in tune with the Voice of the One who alone prays, so that there be only one Person at prayer: this is the moment in which there is a great silence in heaven.



The following text from the Abbot of Clairvaux helps me summarize what I have been saying, and likewise helps me move into the theme that follows. Note how Bernard applies what Benedict says about individual prayer to both the Opus Dei and private prayer:



From what was just read in chapter, the authority of the Holy Rule has called your attention to reverence in prayer, and I take it as an opportunity to say a few things on this subject of prayer. To put it briefly, I think that not a few of those who pray occasionally experience dryness and a kind of dullness of mind, so that, praying only with their lips, they do not pay enough attention to what they are saying or to the One to whom they are speaking. The reason for this is that they came to prayer as out of habit, with less reverence and care than is fitting. Of what should a brother who goes in to pray be thinking, if not the words of the prophet: “I will go to the place of the wonderful tabernacle, unto the house of God” [Ps 41:5]? Indeed, at the time of prayer, we must enter altogether into the heavenly court, that court where “the King of Kings is seated on a throne set with stars,” surrounded by an innumerable and unspeakable army of the spirits of the blessed. […] With what reverence, what fear, what humility must he come forward, this vile little frog [vilis ranuncula], creeping out from his swamp? How fearful, supplicant, and humble, how carefully and with what total attention of soul [sollicitus et toto intentus animo] will this poor little fellow appear before the divine majesty, in the council and assembly of the saints and in the presence of the holy angels? Therefore, in all our actions, but especially in prayer, there is need for utmost vigilance of soul. As we read in the Holy Rule, the eyes of God are upon us at all times and in all places, but especially when we are at prayer. For, although we are always seen by him, at the time of prayer we also present ourselves and show ourselves as if speaking face to face with God. God may be everywhere, but we must pray to him in heaven, and it is there that our thoughts should turn at the time of prayer. Our minds should not be held up by the roof of the oratory, or the atmosphere, or the thickness of the clouds, but we should pray in the way Christ taught us: “Thus shall you pray: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven’….” (Bernard, Div 25.7–8)



2.2. Intentio cordis

The first Benedictine mystic, i.e. Saint Benedict himself, is no “theoretician” of personal and private prayer. Being a practical man, he instead offers us some pointers that spring from his experience, both personal and in community. These pointers are found especially in the chapter of the Rule dedicated to the oratorio of the monastery (RB 52). The Patriarch’s simplicity, in contrast to the artificiality of so many modern methods of prayer, won over my heart from the very first day: “…he may simply go in and pray…with heartfelt devotion” (RB 52.4).



What Benedict suggests and teaches about praying privately with greater recollection, I understand, in communion with the Cistercian tradition, in terms of desire, affection, and loving adherence brought about by divine grace. Here are two texts that endorse my way of understanding:



Prayer is the affection of one who clings to God, a certain familiar and devout conversation, a state in which the enlightened mind enjoys God as long as it is permitted. (The Golden Epistle 179; CF 12:71).



Prayer fulfils the function of both myrrh and incense. First it gathers and binds together into yourself your affections when you pray; then it releases them to transmit them to God. What is more like myrrh, when there is such an outpouring towards union with God? What is more like incense, when there is such an effusion towards some perception of God? (Gilbert of Hoyland, SC 28.7; CF 20:348)



This prayer must be frequent and timely, that is to say, assiduous and at the proper times. On this latter point, Saint Bernard wrote toward the end of his life:



A time of leisure is best and most convenient, the deep silence when others are asleep is particularly suitable, for prayer will then be freer and purer. “Arise at the first watch of the night, and pour out your heart like water [effunde sicut aquam cor tuum] before the face of the Lord, your God” [Lam 2:19]. How secretly prayer goes up in the night, witnessed only by God and the holy angel who received it to present it at the heavenly altar! How pleasing, how unclouded it is, colored with the blush of modesty! How serene, how calm, free from noise and interruption! How pure it is, how sincere, unsullied by the dust of earthly care, untouched by ostentation or human flattery! Therefore the Bride, as modest as she is cautious, when she desired to pray, that is, to seek the Word—for they are the same—sought the privacy of her bed at night. (Bernard, SC 85.3; CF 40: 213–14)



Let us notice that, in this Bernardine text, search for the Word takes place especially in prayer; therefore, to pray and to seek are one and the same thing. Let us also take note of the image of “water poured out,” with reference to heartfelt devotion or intentio cordis.



The teaching of Abbot Gilbert of Hoyland is similar to that of the Abbot of Clairvaux, in that the hours of the night are thought to foster this heartfelt devotion or intentio cordis in prayer:



But not even the intervals at night between the hours of common prayer are unoccupied. O God of goodness, how unlike night is that hour of the night, how that night is an illumination in delights [Ps 138:11]! Those prayers are made in private but they make petition for nothing private. The voice is indeed more subdued but the mind is more intent [sed mens intensior] and silent prayers are full of inspiration. Often indeed passionate prayer outstrips the voice; it neither needs nor uses words, for it is borne on the winds of pure and full affection. Love alone, beating on the ears of the Lord, disdains the sound of articulate words, which though they spur the beginner only impede one whose prayer is perfect. (Gilbert of Hoyland, SC 23.3; CF 20:287)



I recall one day, when I was Abbot of Azul, explaining the Order’s Constitution 22, that a brother put me to the test by asking: “in a few words, what is intentio cordis?” In order to hide my ignorance, I took some time before answering, and consulted an Australian monk, who referred me to the tradition. Here is my answer for both then and now. The references we find to intentio cordis in John Cassian’s Conferences and Institutes, as well as in the Rule of Saint Benedict (RB 18.1; 35.17; 48.18; 58.6), allow us to conclude that, when the Patriarch recommends heartfelt devotion, he is inviting us to pray with a unified heart, reaching out to God. Breaking it down into its different headings, we have attention, motion, and fervor:



- Integrated and fervent movement of the heart toward God.

- Intense outpouring of a heart that is undivided and directed toward God.

- Taut and relaxed inner attention to God.



This was precisely the disposition of Bl. Gabriella Sagheddu on the day of her monastic profession: “I thank you with complete outpouring of my soul, and, as I pronounce the holy vows, I abandon myself entirely to You” (Prayer written for the day of her profession, October 31, 1937). In short, it is a matter of the pure prayer of a heart that is trying to live a pure life, which leads to continuous prayer.



Considered in this way, intentio cordis is the twin sister of spiritual desire, which finds fulfillment solely in the Life and happiness of God. It is this that Saint Benedict teaches me and that daily motivates me in my seeking: “Yearn for everlasting life with holy desire” (RB 4.46).



It is already time to conclude. Some of you have asked me what I plan to do after my resignation. I am surprised by the question. The answer seems obvious to me: to go back to my community of profession and continue seeking and finding the Lord for his glory and our happiness!



With a fraternal embrace in Mary of Saint Joseph,


Bernardo Olivera
Abbot General
The Hermitage of Thomas Merton (Fr Louis OCSO)