For the second famous image of the Assumption in the German lands, we must go back to between 1505 to 1510 – still very much the era of the late Middle Ages. The Herrgottskirche (Church of Our Lord) in Creglingen is a chapel, built around 1400, that takes its name from the miraculous finding of a Host by a ploughman. A pilgrimage soon arose and this small church was decorated with a number of carved wooden altars that have miraculously survived until today. This, even though Creglingen became part of a principality whose ruler joined the Reformation later in the 16th century. But when the altar of the Assumption of Our Lady was created these developments still lay in the future.

The altar of the Assumption was called, at the time of its creation, the Corpus Christi altar in keeping with the dedication of the pilgrimage chapel. One of Tilman Reimenschneider’s greatest masterpieces, it’s also one of the earliest works of art to depict the Assumption of Our Lady – as opposed to the traditional Byzantine/medieval image of her Dormition. Yet the image of Our Lady in Creglingen is still that of the Middle Ages: calm, transfigured and sunk in contemplative prayer. The back of the altar is opened up, as if by the windows of a Gothic church, allowing light from the background to surround and illuminate the spiritual action taking place. Here we find no ecstatic, almost explosive rush towards the heavens (as in the Assumption of Egid Quirin Asam) but serene union with – even absorption into – God. One senses the lingering presence of the sprituality of the German mystics of the 14th and 15th centuries: Meister Eckhart, Tauler and Suso. And, of course, also of their contemporaries in other countries: think of Julian of Norwich, Walter Hilton and the author of the Cloud of Unknowing – just in England alone.

The creator of the altar, Tilman Riemenschneider, was the premier artist of the city of Wuerzburg located, like Creglingen, in the region of Franconia. At that time it was ruled by a prince-bishop, and Creglingen was under his spiritual (but not temporal) jurisdiction.Riemenschneider worked in both stone and wood. About this time, perhaps influenced by the first stirrings of the Rennaissance north of the Alps, Riemenschneider and other German artists started to abandon the medieval practice of painting religious statuary. Among this artist’s greatest works are his wooden altars. This kind of grand reredos, often featuring movable carved or painted wings, enjoyed a magnificent flowering in the Holy Roman Empire between 1450 and 1530.

The art of the great wood altars of Germany ended in the turmoil of the Reformation. In the tremendous religious struggles that followed, the precious contemplative heritage of the Middle Ages went underground. Yet that mystical spirituality did not go utterly extinct. It flamed up again and again in the Holy Roman Empire in the wake of the Catholic Reformation. It resurfaces, for example, in the Asam brothers’ mystical use of light at the church of St. John Nepomuk. And this spirituality lives once more in the poetry of Angelus Silesius (1624-1677) – such as in the following poem, which proclaims the bond between the Assumption and the Eucharist – the origin of Riemenschneider’s altar.

The Virginal Body that enclosed our Bread from Heaven.

Is truly no longer dead,

No ceder of Lebanon rots: otherwise it not be so fine,

For her to be, besides the Temple of God, His Ark of the Covenant.

Angelus Silesius, Cherubinischer Wandersmann, Book III, 66 “On the Most Blessed Virgin” (1675)

See Kahsnitz, Rainer and Bunz, Achim, Die grossen Schnitzaltaere 238-253 (Hirmer Verlag, Munich, 2005)

The brothers Asam, architects, sculptors and painters, represented the epitome of the baroque in the first half of the 18th century in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. They resided and did much their work in the electorate (principality) of Bavaria – an entity much smaller than the subsequent kingdom and present Land of that name – but were active in many other locations as well. But they only rarely had the opportunity to create an entirely new church, uniting all their talents in one unified work of art. Earlier, I have described one such example: their own house “chapel” of St. John Nepomuk in Munich. Another is the monastery church of Rohr, near Regensburg. Here Egid Quirin Asam created one of the three most famous images of the Assumption in European art. 1)

Rohr, now an out-of-the-way village, was in the time of the Asams the site of a monastery of the Augustinan canons. When we admire the almost innumerable number of baroque churches in 18th century Germany we forget that so many of these masterpieces were monastic churches. The eighteenth century in Germany was indeed the time of a great monastic flourishing after the tribulations of the Reformation and the wars of the 17th century – and before the destruction of the French Revolution and the subsequent secularizations (confiscations) by the German states. It was the patronage of these monks that in large part made possible the last great flowering of art in Europe in the age of the baroque and rococo. 2) The dedication of the Rohr monastery was to Our Lady of the Assumption.

The nave of Rohr is in a rather severe style, leading the visitor onwards to the main altar shimmering in the distance. Egid Quirin Asam was responsible for the decor and likely for the architecture as well.

The altar depicts the Assumption of Our Lady. Below, the apostles, in agitated conversation among themselves, marvel at finding her empty tomb strewn with flowers. Above, the Trinity and angels await the crowning of Our Lady as Queen of Heaven. The altar was the creation of Egid Quirin Asam in 1722-23.

Come away my Love,

Come away my Dove

Cast off delay:

The Court of Heav’n is come,

To wait upon thee home;

Come away, come away.

The ecstatic art of Egid Quirin Asam in Rohr corresponds to the expressive religious poetry of Richard Crashaw in the preceding century.

Thy sacred Name shall be

Thyself to us, and we

With holy cares will keep it by us,

We to the last,

Will hold it fast,

And no Asumption shall deny us.

All the sweetest showers,

Of our fairest Flowers

Will we strow upon it:

Though our sweetnees cannot make

It sweeter, they may take

Themselves new sweetness from it.

Richard Crashaw, “On the Assumption of the Virgin Mary”

1. The others are Titian’s great Frari Assumption in Venice and Riemenschneider’s masterpiece in Creglingen.
2. After World War II, German Benedictine monks expelled from Czechoslovakia came to Rohr and restored monastic life and many of the buildings.

Most Holy Redeemer Church in New York Celebrated its Patronal Feastday yesterday afternoon with a Solemn Mass, Father Sean Connolly, celebrant. A large crowd was in attendance.

Continued from Part 1

His Emminence Cardinal Raymond Burke celebrated a Solemn Pontifical Mass yestereday evening at the Basilica of St. John the Evangelist in Stamford, CT for the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. In this post we cover the first part of the ceremony, the vesting ceremony. In Part 2, we will cover the Mass itself.

Contine to Part 2

Fr Frantisek Marie Chloupek, CFR, who was ordained a priest on Saturday, celebrated his first Solemn Mass on Monday at St. Josaphat Church, Bayside, Queens. The Assistant Priest was Fr. Sean Connolly. The Deacon was Fr. Sebastian Maria Kajko, CFR. The Subdeacon was Fr. Elijah Marie Perri, CFR. The Master of Ceremonies was Mr. William Riccio. The organist and choir director was Mr. David Hughes.

A beautiful Solemn Mass was celebrated at St. Joseph’s Church in Danbury, CT today. Fr. Michael Clark was the celebrant; Fr. Peter Lenox served as deacon and Michael Falvo, for his first time, served as sub-deacon.

A beautiful shrine honoring Our Lady at the Oratory of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Bridgeport, CT. The statue was crowned yesterday before the 10:15 Mass.

Fr. Richard Cipolla was the celebrant today of the Solemn Mass at St. Roch Church in Greenwich, CT. Fr. Carl McIntosh, the pastor of St Roch’s was the deacon and Mr. William Riccio was the subdeacon.

New York, Boston, Philadelphia and … Bardstown? Furthermore, what could be the connection between this not-very-well-known Kentucky town and Naples, Italy? And what are its remote links not just with one, but two Catholic chivalric orders?

Bardstown, KY today is a quaint town  – population 13,000 – with numerous buildings from the 1770’s onwards. It resembles Litchfield or Farmington, CT, Deerfield or Salem, MA – all localities once important in preindustrial America but subsequently bypassed by economic progress and therefore fortunately preserved. Bardstown, however, has unique Catholic significance. For it was to this region that Catholic settlers came to establish a new community west of the Alleghenies.  These first Catholics, moreover, were in large part descendants of the original English Catholic population of Maryland. 1)

It was perhaps in recognition of these connections with Maryland that Bardstown became  – along with three other cities even then much more prominent – one of the first four new dioceses of the United States, carved in 1808 out of the original diocese of Baltimore.  And this status was probably also thanks to the efforts of its indomitable first bishop, Mgr. Benedict Joseph Flaget of France. The diocesan territory was unimaginably vast. Yet already between 1816 and 1823 Bishop Flaget built a new cathedral. It seems that both Catholics and Protestants contributed to its construction. St. Joseph’s stands, essentially unchanged, to this very day. 

Now this cathedral was designed by an American architect (John Rogers) in a quintessentially American style, very much like contemporary Protestant churches and secular buildings. It features “Catholic” statues on its façade and “Protestant” inscriptions of the Ten Commandments on the exterior walls of the nave. 

The columned façade is most impressive. We note there a plaque dedicated by the “Order of the Alhambra,” a kind of Catholic Shriners (they sport a white fez). Inside, the white columned interior is severe but festive. We read that the columns were originally great trees from the immediate vicinity cut down for this church. Photographs show us that up to the 1950’s the sanctuary was a pretty neo-Gothic affair undoubtedly dating to Victorian times. What is present there now, unfortunately, is a typical post-Conciliar “renovation.”

Around New York City, starting circa 1939, proto-Conciliar Catholics waxed enthusiastic about using imitations of the “enlightened” style of the American “meetinghouse” for Catholic churches (like Corpus Christi or, later, the Elizabeth Seton shrine).  In Bardstown, before 1820, Catholics were already building their churches in a bright neoclassical idiom – but as part of the original architectural movement!

But here the resemblance with the 20th century “Americanist” architecture ceases. Because Bishop Flaget by no means wanted just an austere, unadorned interior but sought to embellish it in a Catholic manner despite the limited resources at his disposal. And the main element of decoration would be framed paintings. A Belgian priest, working for the diocese, acquired a number of artworks in Europe. But outside assistance would also be necessary – and many more items indeed came as gifts. For at that time the “American Catholic Church” was still dependant on the aid of Catholics – especially the reigning princes and their officials – of Europe and Latin America. 

The pope himself contributed a number of paintings. The exact role of the future king Louis Philippe of France in providing support to Bardstown cathedral is disputed. But there seems to be a record of a gift from him of vestments, furnishings for the sanctuary, sacramental vessels and paintings from around 1823. The then Duke of Orleans had become acquainted with bishop Flaget during the time both were exiles from revolutionary France. The wife of Louis Philippe was a princess of the Neapolitan Bourbons. And a major donation of paintings from Francis I, king of the two Sicilies, (reigned 1825-1830) is obvious – numerous gold frames around the church record a dedication from him. The Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George – so visibly active in the Traditionalist cause around New York – should be overjoyed.  For the Bourbon kings of Sicily were the heads and patrons of that order. 

Much of this early donated art remains on display high on the walls of the cathedral. Regrettably, the paintings are indifferently lit and seem to be in need of restoration – so it is, in general, hard to form a judgment of their artistic merit. Subject to further research, for example,  I am not sure that the cathedral’s claim to possess works by “van Dyke, Rubens and van Eyck” is sustainable.  The attribution of one dramatic and powerful painting is, however, secure: a Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew by Mattia Preti (1613-1699) – one of the gifts of King Francis I. Preti continued the style of Caravaggio to the end of the 17th century. He joined the Order of St. John – the knights of Malta –  and worked for many years on the island of Malta itself. What a contrast between this dark, dramatic work and the surrounding neoclassical serenity of this church’s interior! This painting was restored carefully by the J. Paul Getty Museum in 2002 and is in fine condition.

Bardstown’s ecclesiastical glory was short-lived. In 1841 Bishop Flaget moved his cathedral to the upcoming city of Louisville, taking with him some of the paintings. And Louisville itself was even then being far surpassed by other more recently founded Catholic dioceses west of the Alleghenies: Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago and many more. St. Joseph’s of Bardstown become an ordinary parish church. It briefly came to national attention again in the 1950’s when some of the paintings were stolen and quickly recovered. Nowadays Bardstown is known, if at all, mainly to those touring the many local bourbon distilleries.  But the church of St. Joseph of Bardstown still stands as a remarkable, relatively intact monument to the earliest days of Catholicism in the United States and to the distinguished artistic taste of that far-off time. 

1. Also near Bardstown is the famous Trappist abbey of Gethsemani.