Why Tobias?

A friend at church asked me last weekend “Why Tobias?”  Meaning, why did the Jenkins family choose to depict the story of Tobias in the church’s rose window? 

A rose window, as Wikipedia explains, is a typical feature of gothic churches.  It is a circular window, with mullions and traceries generally radiating from the center, and filled with stained glasses.   The term “rose window” may come from the English flower named rose.    The most beautiful examples of rose windows are to be found in the Ile de France and the adjoining provinces, Picardy and Champagne. The west rose of Notre Dame of Paris (c. 1220) is considered the most beautiful of all.

At Corpus Christi, the rose window is found high in the front façade of the church, above the organ, underneath a pointed arch.  The window was designed and created by the John Hardman & Co., and installed before 1891.  It was installed in memory of the founders’ great grandparents: Michael Jenkins (1736-1802) and Charity Ann Wheeler (1743-1820). 

In the center image, St. Raphael appears leading the youthful Tobias.  St. Raphael is depicted here in his representative character as Prince of the Guardian Angels and the Protector of travelers.  He carries in his hands a pilgrim’s staff and the fish, which is his special emblem.  The city in the distance, the Rages of the story of Tobias, is typical here of the Heavenly City to which all, under his guidance and protection, are traveling in this vale of tears.   On a scroll beneath is written the comforting text, He hath given his angels charge over thee.

The story of Tobias is told in the Book of Tobit.  It was unusually popular among Old Testament themes during the middle ages.  I found a short synopsis at the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops:

Tobit, a devout and wealthy Israelite living among the captives deported to Nineveh from the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722/721 B.C., suffers severe reverses and is finally blinded. Because of his misfortunes he begs the Lord to let him die. But recalling the large sum he had formerly deposited in far-off Media, he sends his son Tobiah there to bring back the money. In Media, at this same time, a young woman, Sarah, also prays for death, because she has lost seven husbands, each killed in turn on his wedding night by the demon Asmodeus. God hears the prayers of Tobit and Sarah and sends the angel Raphael in human form to aid them both.

Raphael makes the trip to Media with Tobiah. When Tobiah is attacked by a large fish as he bathes in the Tigris River, Raphael orders him to seize it and to remove its gall, heart, and liver because they are useful for medicine. Later, at Raphael’s urging, Tobiah marries Sarah, and uses the fish’s heart and liver to drive Asmodeus from the bridal chamber. Returning to Nineveh with his wife and his father’s money, Tobiah rubs the fish’s gall into his father’s eyes and cures him. Finally, Raphael reveals his true identity and returns to heaven. Tobit then utters his beautiful hymn of praise.   Before dying, Tobit tells his son to leave Nineveh because God will destroy that wicked city. After Tobiah buries his father and mother, he and his family depart for Media, where he later learns that the destruction of Nineveh has taken place.

The most likely reason the Story of Tobit was chosen by the Jenkins family is the fact that is emphasizes the family-oriented virtues of honoring parents, giving alms, and encouraging marriage.  In Chapter 4 Tobit tells his son:

 “Son, when I die, give me a decent burial. Honor your mother, and do not abandon her as long as she lives. Do whatever pleases her, and do not grieve her spirit in any way …

Give alms from your possessions. Do not turn your face away from any of the poor, so that 

God’s face will not be turned away from you … Give in proportion to what you own. …  For almsgiving delivers from death and keeps one from entering into Darkness …

Be on your guard, son, against every kind of fornication, and above all, marry a woman of your own ancestral family …

And so when Tobit dies, Tobias buried him with honor.  And when Tobiah’s mother died, she was buried next to Tobit. 

Sound familiar?

Vines, thorns, crowns and pelicans

 In 1911, after the death of his wife, Mary Isabel Jenkins, Michael Jenkins commissioned an extensive renovation of Corpus Christi Church.  As part of the redecoration, the old windows of the aisles were replaced by 10 new English stained-glass windows, designed and fabricated by the John Hardman and Co. of London and Birmingham, England. 

Filled with elaborate foliated work, the new windows symbolize the Holy Eucharist.  One window shows a conventional treatment of the Vine, the emblem of the Eucharist.  The next window shows the Holy Thorn intertwined at regular intervals with a golden crown to signify the heavenly reward of earthly suffering.  This window pattern alternates in the ten main aisle windows. 

The traceries above the thorn & vine windows show six other emblems of the Eucharist: the Lamb of God, a pelican in her piety, a sheaf of wheat, a chalice, and finally a lamp burning as if it were in honor of the Sacrament. 

Lamb of God

Sheaf of wheat

Burning Lamp

Chalice

Pelican in her piety

The image of the pelican “in piety” was an often used symbol for the Jenkins family.  E.g., the motif of the pelican piercing its breast to feed its young with its blood was used to decorate one of the early chalices used in the church.

First and foremost, the pelican is seen as the symbol of symbolizes the sacrifice of Christ on the cross (because he gave his blood for others) as well as the Eucharist (because it represents Christ's blood and provides spiritual nourishment). 

The Physiologus (a Greek didactic text written in 2nd cent. AD) told that the pelican is very fond of its brood, but when the young ones begin to grow they rebel against the male bird and provoke his anger, so that he kills them; the mother returns to the nest in three days, sits on the dead birds, pours tier blood over them, and they feed on the blood.  The physical reality which probably resulted in this legend is that the long beak of the pelican has a sack or pouch which serves as a container for the small fish that it feeds its young. In the process of feeding them, the bird presses the sack back against its neck in such a way that it seems to open its breast with its bill. The reddish tinge of its breast plumage and the redness of the tip of its beak prompted the legend that it actually drew blood from its own breast.

Thomas Aquinas used the allegory in his 'Adoro Te Devote'

Pelican of mercy, Jesus, Lord and God,

Cleanse me, wretched sinner, in Thy Precious Blood:

Blood where one drop for human-kind outpoured

Might from all transgression have the world restored.

By extension, the Pelican is also the personification of two virtues that were exceptionally important to the Jenkins family, i.e. “charity,” and “devotion to family.”   The pelican feeding its young is an emblem of charity.  Thus the pelican was said to be “in her piety,” a word derived from the latin pietas, which was one of the chief virtues of the Romans.  Cicero defined it as the quality "which admonishes us to do our duty to our country or our parents or other blood relations," i.e. familial affection and patriotism.

Bibliography
Hall, James. Dictionary of Subject and Symbols in Art. Boulder: Westview, 2008.
Raithwood, Elizabeth. "The Medieval Pelican." Elizabeth Raithwood's Home page. n.d. http://donna.hrynkiw.net/sca/pelican/ (accessed May 13, 2015).
Wikipedia contributors. "Adore te devote." Wikipedia. n.d. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adoro_te_devote&oldid=641531406 (accessed May 13, 2015).
—. "Pelican." Wikipedia. n.d. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pelican&oldid=660271020 (accessed May 13, 2015).
—. "Physiologus." Wikipedia. n.d. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Physiologus&oldid=648772577 (accessed May 13, 2015).

I am the True Vine

"I am the true vine and my Father is the vinegrower."  This is the first verse of this weekend's gospel reading, John 15:1-8.  It immediately reminded me of one of the two large mosaics in the front of Corpus Christi church, on either side of the apse.  

The two mosaics were installed in 1913-1914, as the Baltimore Sun reported in early August:

“What experts pronounce to be the two finest mosaics in the United States were blessed a few days ago at Corpus Christi Catholic Church, Mount Royal and Lafayette avenues, by the Rev. James F. Nolan, pastor of the church. The mosaics are a gift of Michael Jenkins in memory of his wife, who is buried at the church.  [...] The mosaics represent the Eucharistic Christ. They are eight feet high and five feet wide.  Ten thousand pieces were used in the making of each mosaic.  They are the work of the John Harden Company, London, and it took two years to complete.  [...] The hundreds of persons who have visited the church to see the mosaics have been impressed by their great beauty and dignity."[1]

In the mosaic, Christ is wearing a white vestment worn at Benediction.  The large outer garment is called a cope and the white tunic is called an alb.    He is shown treading the wine press and wine from the press flows into three communion chalices below.  Interlacing grapevines form the border of the central figure.  Beneath the mosaic is the text "I am the true vine."   Two angels with blue wings hold up a red tapestry that also includes the first verse of John 15.

[1] "Fine Mosaics Blessed: Those at Corpus Christi Pronounced Best in Country." Sun [Baltimore] 8 Aug. 1914: 7. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Web. 31 Jan. 2015.

Beautiful Italian-style medieval mosaics - a scoop for Baltimore

I spent the past week reading numerous articles in the Baltimore Sun that chronicle the building and decoration of our church between 1885 and 1914.  The information found there is not always complete and perhaps not always accurate, but it does paint a picture of the various stages of construction.  Corroborating the information found in secondary sources with what can be found in primary sources may take a while.  One article that caught my eye relates to the five large mosaics in the apse of the church. 

 These five mosaics were installed in October 1896 and were supposedly made by a process which originated in Florence, Italy in the Middle Ages.  The features, folds or drapery and other larger parts are painted and vitrified in fire on larger pieces of opaque glass.  The gold background, the nimbi, and other minor parts of the figures were set in the usual mosaic style with small tesserae set together in numberless minute pieces.    

Corpus Christi may be the only known church in the United States to possess mosaics of this kind.  According to the Baltimore Sun of October 6, 1896, they were most definitely a ‘scoop’ in the United States:

“It will undoubtedly be conceded by all lovers and students of mural decoration who have had the advantage and good fortune to be able to study the glories of Venice, Florence and Rome, that no process yet fashioned or devised by the artistic skill of man for this most important province of decorative art can approach in rich effect or brilliant splendor the glass mosaics of which every fine examples are to be found in medieval Italy.  […] Notwithstanding the rapid and splendid growth of ecclesiastical art and architecture in America of late years, few important examples of mural mosaics are yet to be seen in the churches of the land, and it becomes a matter of congratulation to the city of Baltimore that there has recently been completed in one of the most beautiful and monumental of its Catholic churches, Corpus Christi, on Mount Royal Avenue, the Jenkins Memorial Church, a series of five large pictures, each measuring over five feet in width by eight feet in height, representing five of the great subjects in sacred history, the Incarnation and Passion of our Lord, His Resurrection and “Corpus Christi,” the Holy Eucharist."

The mosaics, just as the stained glass windows of the church, were prepared and installed by John Hardman and Co., a firm from Manchester well known for its ecclesiastical work in England. 

The mosaics exemplify the style of the Pre-Raphaelites, a movement that flowered in England in the 2^nd half of the 19^th century.  The artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, as it was initially called, were discontented with the lifeless academic style of painting that tried to imitate the art of the great artist Raphael and yearned to return to the more vivid and intense painting style of 15^th century Italian artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. [1],[2],[3]

---

[1] Walking tour, p. 8.

[2] "Beautiful Mosaics: Splendid Examples of the Decorater's Art Placed in Position in Corpus Christi Catholic Church." Sun [Baltimore] 6 Oct. 1896: 7. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Web. 31 Jan. 2015.

[3] Gettinger, Steve, A Tour of Corpus Christi-Jenkins Memorial Church, p. 8. 1991. TS. Corpus Christi Church Archives, Baltimore, Md.