Worship Resources for March: 5. Mystery

Esther Morgan has written a delightful poem about Mary’s vocation to ministry. The title of the poem is taken from St. Luke’s Gospel and the word of Elizabeth to her pregnant cousin, Blessed Art Thou. It is the angel’s meditation. He watches intently as Mary goes about her business—kneading the dough, sweeping the room, arranging a vase of lilies in the centre of the table.

Believe me, if I could have left you then,

as you stepped back to admire

the flowers’ golden tongues …

but you chose that moment, at last, to rest,

your skin filmed and shining,

your warmth rising against me like bread. ¹

The poem reminds me of a Vermeer painting. Although he didn’t paint flowers, there is a lot of light here—the flowers’ golden tongues, Mary’s skin shining like Moses when he withdrew from the presence of God. And there’s the concluding stillness.

If Mary hadn’t stepped back to view the vase of lilies and, ultimately, rest, things might have been quite different. Did she almost miss her vocation? Could the angel have gone to someone else? Where heaven and earth meet is a holy place. Our initial response is one of awe as we try to unravel the mystery.

This word is used in the Bible to describe God’s plan which has been revealed in the Gospel. It’s a mystery which was ‘kept secret for long ages’, ² says St. Paul to the Romans and is described in Ephesians as a plan ‘to gather up all things in Christ’. ³

In post-biblical times, the word became associated with the sacraments, ‘the holy mysteries’. We respond to the mystery of God’s calling as one would respond to the sprinkling of water and the breaking of bread or the pouring of milk and the opening of a window to welcome the morning light.

One of Vermeer’s most mysterious paintings is The Music Lesson in the Queen’s Collection. The young woman and the cavalier are standing at the virginal, thrust to the far end of the room by Vermeer’s expert perspective and distanced even more from the viewer by the reflection of the artist’s easel in the mirror.

However, the couple keep their distance. She is concentrating on her playing. He has created a threshold between them by placing his right arm on the instrument. Behind him is a classical painting of a bound man suckling from his daughter’s breast. In the mirror, the young woman’s head has turned to smile surreptitiously at the cavalier.

Surprisingly, the reflection does not match the pose of her actual body. The tension increases. Is this what she really wanted to do but because of the restraints of the day, she was inhibited? And did he feel bound by propriety, unlike the subject of the painting, to keep his distance whilst longing for the nourishment?

And what about the artist? It is hardly a self-portrait but a tiny reminder that on the day when the music lesson took place, Vermeer was actually there. He existed too. The easel confirms his presence in the room and, paradoxically, his absence. He is no longer there!

Although we are there today, our access is inhibited by the frame and the canvas. Even if we could get inside, there are additional barriers—the heavily carpeted table, the empty chair and the viola da gamba sitting prostrate on the floor!

There is a Latin inscription on the virginal. ‘Music is a companion in pleasure, a balm in sorrow.’ Which is it today? We look and see but find it difficult to unravel the mystery. There are obvious tensions which make Vermeer’s compositions even more mysterious.

Consider the relationship between the secular and the sacred.

Only three of Vermeer’s paintings are overtly religious. His first attributed work sits on the walls of the National Gallery in Edinburgh, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary. The second is another early work which was only attributed to Vermeer in 1969, St. Praxedis’. And the third is Allegory of Faith. This is his most uncharacteristic work.

The painting may have been a commission for a Catholic patron. Although Vermeer was a Protestant, he probably became a Catholic when he married into the Catholic family of Maria Thins. But, like other aspects of his intriguingly sparsely documented life, we do not know. The painting has traditional Catholic imagery—the holy book, the chalice, the crucifix and a painting of the crucifixion which Vermeer has altered.

There is an apple for sin and a crushed, bloodied serpent demonstrating victory over evil. A woman rests her right leg on the globe featured in the Geographer. She holds her breast and gazes into heaven. ‘Be of good cheer! I have overcome the world.’ ⁴ Perhaps she celebrates?

The decorative glass globe hanging down from the ceiling could have reflected the crucifixion, but it doesn’t. In the glass, you can see the open window in the artist’s studio. The painting is contrived and the theatricality of the woman is completely at odds with the silence and stillness of the women in his secular paintings.

This allegory of faith does not lay bare the mystery held momentarily in the glass globe’s reflection. ‘Open the window,’ Vermeer softly whispers, ‘and let the light come in!’ As we have seen in other paintings, he spurns the emblematic books in favour of a subtler, gentler, more spiritual approach.

It seems surprising that works of an overtly secular nature should be so open to spiritual reflection and understanding. Art within the Church has had a tempestuous history. The second commandment about making graven images has a lot to answer for in the various iconoclasms in Orthodoxy and Protestantism.

Of course, a graven image is one thing, worshipping it, quite another. In the incarnation, God embraced the material, human world and in the first Creation narrative, declared that the earth was good. Not only did he give Moses the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai but detailed instructions on how to build and decorate the Tabernacle.

In his discussion on this, Francis Schaeffer observes that the priests’ garments were to be decorated round the skirt with pomegranates of blue, purple and scarlet. Where does the blue pomegranate grow? It was a fruit of the artistic imagination evident in this whole enterprise.

And when King Solomon built his famous Temple, ‘He garnished the house with precious stones for beauty.’ says the writer of the Second book of Chronicles. ‘There was no pragmatic reason for the precious stones. They had no ultimate purpose.’ writes Schaeffer. ‘God simply wanted beauty in the temple. God is interested in beauty.’ ⁵

Does a painting have more value to our spiritual development if it celebrates religious life? It may be easier to enter and to read. However, by its very nature, the religious painting has a narrower frame of reference and restrictive connectivity with the wider world.

In a peculiar way, the mystery of all things including our own being may be deepened by the imaginative exploration of women doing ordinary things like drinking wine, playing the guitar and making lace. And the artistic adventure of the viewer may be enriched by departing from his usual frame of reference and finding himself in a surprisingly new world.