The Daily Niblet: Jesus, the first Gothic architect

Yes, candid reader, I have resurrected the "daily niblet" as a way to post some more or less intriguing - but brief - errant thoughts without bogging you down in more than three paragraphs or so. Expect meatier niblets than those of the past, but nothing more filling than your average appetizer. Firstly, from the great thinker G.K. Chesterton:

"Christ prophesied the whole of Gothic architecture in that hour when nervous and respectable people (such people as now object to barrel organs) objected to the shouting of the gutter-snipes of Jerusalem. He said, "If these were silent, the very stones would cry out." Under the impulse of His spirit arose like a clamorous chorus the facades of the mediaeval cathedrals, thronged with shouting faces and open mouths. The prophecy has fulfilled itself: the very stones cry out." - Orthodoxy, Ch. 7 The Eternal Revolution

Pictured below is the great Cathedral of Strasbourg, France.

St. Justin, the Ancient Mass, and Martyrdom

This post is one of those hodge-podgey assemblages full of things that your author doesn't have the patience to sort into nice and tidy categories (much as he would like). Today just seemed like a good day to throw together some wisdom from the Church Fathers (when isn't there a good time for that) and some even more enlightening wisdom from G.K. Chesterton (always a good time for that!).

Today is the feast day of St. Justin Martyr, an 2nd Century early Christian convert from Palestine who lived from 103 until his martyrdom by beheading in 165. Justin Martyr is notable to us today both for his devout faith that he clung to even to death, and his apologetical works that he authored. His First and Second Apologies offer numerous insights into the early doctrine and worship of the Church; insights and descriptions that align with the ritual and beliefs of the Church today. Most notable (in my opinion) is his description of the Eucharist in his day:

And this food is called among us Εὐχαριστία [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, This do in remembrance of Me, this is My body; and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, This is My blood; and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn. - First Apology, LXVI

That seems to put to bed the myth of the Catholic "invention" of transubstantiation during the Middle Ages (as Luther and his companions unwisely maintained). You will also note, patient reader, that Justin slips in a mention of the sacramental view of baptism "the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration" - a view that was tossed out by many of the more radical Protestant sects who claim baptism as a mere symbol. Additionally, this passage and the one immediately following, describe a liturgical church, focused on orderly worship and weekly reception of the Eucharist. This "proto-mass" described by Justin Martyr was the "source and summit of the Church's life" (Lumen Gentium, 11) just as it is for Catholics today. It is certainly comforting to know that our ancestors and forefathers in faith worshiped in the 2nd Century much as we do in the 21st Century.

To switch gears a bit, I thought I'd add a tidbit on martyrdom from the famed Catholic apologist and sometimes funny man, G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936). Chesterton struggled in his path toward Catholicism (and Christianity in general) to understand why the Church upheld martyrs as the greatest of the saints, but cast suicides as the worst of the sinners:

About the same time I read a solemn flippancy by some free thinker: he said that a suicide was only the same as a martyr. The open fallacy of this helped to clear the question. Obviously a suicide is the opposite of a martyr. A martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside him, that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man who cares so little for anything outside him, that he wants to see the last of everything. One wants something to begin: the other wants everything to end. In other words, the martyr is noble, exactly because he confesses this ultimate link with life; he sets his heart outside himself: he dies that something may live. The suicide is ignoble because he has not this link with being: he is a mere destroyer; spiritually, he destroys the universe. - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Chapter 5. Sam Torode Book Arts. Nashville, TN. 2009.

Good things to keep in mind, especially in these confusing times of suicide-bombers acting like martyrs. The two are diametrically and forcefully opposed.

St. Justin Martyr, pray for us!