Lesons from a Desolate Place Pt. 6 by Chris White

Hikers to St. Antony's Cave

     Christ was tempted by Satan when he was physically weakened from fasting and at a time when He had gone out to be alone in the desert in preparation for His public ministry.  This should not surprise us in the least.  The loneliness and hardship of the desert is a great revealer about the true state of our souls and our enemy knows we are very vulnerable on that point.  Fallen human nature would rather hide from God or flee from His presence than own up to failure.  This translates into our relationships as well.  Have you ever noticed how easy it is to be angry towards somebody who has criticized you rather than to actually examine yourself and consider that they may be right?  The lesson we can learn from those who went out to the desert is what they called a vow of stability.  A great many of them lived alone in caves or simple shelters (naturally cool and easy to find) but naturally formed into communities for mutual protection, safety, and spiritual encouragement.  What they did is promised God and each other that they would not run when life got hard, they would not move away when they got bored (an affliction we all seem to think is fatal), and they would not flee if they were criticized.  In essence, they were willing to face the truth about what they would quite naturally do and put themselves in a position of not turning back.  We are all prone to running away when life gets hard.  If we don’t do it physically, we do it a thousand other ways for we are all masters of escape.  But the Lord does His best work when we stay put, stand firm, and stick together.  In our next installment we’ll consider the discipline of silent thought and silent prayer as was practiced in the desert.

A Visit to the Crypt of Original Sin by Chris White

Matera outside of Sassi district

Matera is a town in the extreme south of Italy that is largely a city of rock and caves.  There is evidence that suggests this place, located in the province of Basilicato, was originally settled 250,000 years ago and has been occupied with various groups and cultures ever since.  What drew me to stay in Matera was how ingenious and unusual this city was with houses and churches, schools and even hotels carved out of and into the soft limestone rock that is the dominate feature of the place.  But also I was traveling with friends whose eyes would glaze over when I began discussing art of the Italian Renaissance or Baroque church architecture, but would light up when we began discussing the truly authentic Mediterranean cuisine that forms the diet of southern Italians.  Put another way, my traveling companions wanted me to calm down a bit on my obsession to visit all the magnificent houses of worship that cover all of Italy and what better way to fight this temptation than to go to a place that was virtually unknown to people like Michelangelo and Bernini?

The Terme at Locanda di San Martino

I will say that I did a whole lot less sight-seeing on this trip and much more relaxing.  It didn’t hurt that our hotel, The Locanda di San Martino, a monastery carved out of rock in its previous life, had an underground Terme or mineral springs swimming pool (yes, carved into the rock too) that drew you in for hours because of the water’s restorative effect on your skin and body.  But, that said, I spent part of every- day visiting the rupestrian (carved-rock) churches, or their fine art galleries (also carved into the rock).  There are literally chapels and churches everywhere many of which are no longer in use but are of historic interest revealing the architectural styles and religious sensibilities of the many groups of people who came to settle there.  There are too many of these places to list in a single article, but the city of Matera does provide materials for a self-guided tour at each of them.

This rock has 3 churches carved into it

So what’s with the rocks and why are they so cool?  People build their cities with what is plentiful around them.  This region is dry, hot, and has few trees, but has plenty of soft limestone.  The early and later settlers found natural caves but also quickly discovered with simple tools they could create almost anything they wanted by carving out of the rock what one would normally have to build.  The other part of the equation is living in caves is really cool as in lower in temperature.  The heat in the south of Italy can be easily overcome by living in the cool of the rocks.  Additionally, this is a dryer region of Italy and the rocks allow for channels and cisterns to be cut in them to collect all the precious water that comes in the form of rain.

Crypt of Original Sin

The best of the best of these “rock churches” is just outside of Matera (you need to arrange for a tour and driver) in a place called the Cripta della Peccatore Originale or the Crypt of Original Sin.  This is not the location where Adam and Eve had their monumental slip up with God, but is so-named because one of the beautiful frescoes that survived depicts that epic moment in Biblical history.  This cave church was part of a monastery that was built by Christian monks migrating from southern Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) due to political and religious pressures placed on them by the Muslims who were conquering their lands.  These were Greek Catholics and their Byzantine sensibilities are seen in the art that adorns their caves.  If you could go back in time, all of the cave churches were highly decorated with these kinds of paintings, but most of them are lost simply because they were nearly impossible to preserve in the micro-climate of a cave.  In the mid-1960s these caves were discovered and the frescoes, which were in great condition (and possibly 1000 years old) were quickly and carefully preserved.   What stands out about the Crypt is that it was not a creation of poverty or necessity.  The paint colors reveal that this group of monks had great resources and the ability to travel and purchase what they wanted to make their chapel a beautiful place.  They probably could have built their monastery on a hill like so many others were in their homeland.  But they too saw the climate they were in and the wisdom of retreating to the coolness of a cave.  One can only imagine the haunting beauty of this church lighted entirely by candles and accompanied with the music of Greek antiphonal chant.

Byzantine style fresco of Adam and Eve in Temptation

I hope if you have found this article because you are already planning a trip to Matera, this will excite your appetite even more to explore this very unusual place in Italy.  If you have never been and are looking for something beyond the usual trifecta of Rome, Florence, and Venice, I would commend this small city for at least a few days of your trip.  We stayed there 10 days and saw everything and more but justice to Matera can be done with a stay of 3-4 days.  You will want to research transport there and hotels and I might add there is a direct correlation between price and comfort that is not always the case in other locales.  But if you do go, definitely put the Crypt of Original Sin on your itinerary.

A couple of websites to get your research started:

http://www.amoitaly.com/matera/access.html  (arrival to Matera using Italian train system)

http://www.italyheaven.co.uk/basilicata/matera.html (general info and ideas for your time in Matera)

http://www.locandadisanmartino.it/?lang=en (The hotel I mention in the article. A totally unsolicited recommendation.  They treat you like a VIP!)

Lessons from a Desolate Place Pt. 5 by Chris White

     Christians of previous centuries have held the notion that there are three kinds of martyrdom a believer may undergo for the sake of Christ.  Red martyrdom obviously relates to the shedding of blood as a witness for Christ while white martyrdom was associated with boat sails where the believer would leave family, friends, Church, and homeland to spread the Gospel without ever returning home.  Finally there was green martyrdom.  Green martyrs were people who did battle with Satan but also with their own flesh.  Their goal was to die to the world and the flesh in an extraordinary way that they might serve Christ in a greater fashion.  Those who entered the desert thought of themselves as martyrs whose chief aim was unceasing prayer and deep purity of soul.  One would think that moving away from civilization and living in a place of low visual stimulation like the desert would make it very easy to live such a life but most people who attempted this had a constant battle on their hands.  The voice of God does seem louder in quiet places and quiet times, but at the same time the voice of our true inner soul becomes much louder too.  As Christians we are very much aware of the presence of our old nature but many of us do a good job of concealing the really ugly parts from others and ourselves.  Life in the desolate places simply didn’t allow this to continue.  Every believer who did this successfully came into a great awareness of God but also themselves.  Some became so discouraged they gave up, but many, many more looked at their reality, considered the grace of God, and then took some radical steps of towards deep transformation.  But that we’ll save for next time.

Michelangelo's Pieta : Treasure of St. Peter's Basilica by Chris White

Pieta is a term for fulfilling your God-given familial duty.  In this sculpture we see a mother grieving over the death of her son.  It would be utterly unnatural for a mother not to do so and one would probably consider a mother who didn’t grieve to be fairly twisted in her soul.  That said, The Pieta, is its own art form as well.  It is believed to have originated in Germany and later became popular in France.  A Pieta always depicts Mary holding her son Jesus after he was brought down from the cross.  It may include other figures, but Mary and Jesus are the constants in this matter.

Michelangelo was commissioned to do this piece when still in his twenties.  As you can see from the complexity and detail of this piece, this was not the work of someone just starting out.  In fact, Michelangelo was a prodigy and was trained under the sponsorship and supervision of the renowned Medici family of Florence at age 14.  He was not only trained in sculpture but also in other visual arts and even philosophy.  He lived during the glory days of the Florentine Renaissance and was a humanist and renaissance man through and through.

Like other artists of the Renaissance, he was drawn from his hometown of Florence to Rome, where between the Catholic Church and wealthy patrons of the city, he would have enough contracts to make a living as an artist.  This commission came from a French cardinal who wanted this as his funeral monument.  In those days the leader of a church would be buried in the church building he had been connected to in life and so having beautiful monument with your grave would ensure that people would remember you in death.  

Eventually the church building where the Pieta stood and the cardinal was buried had to be torn down.  This sculpture was moved and placed in St. Peter’s basilica where it has been since the mid 1800’s.  If you have ever been or plan to visit the Vatican in Rome, this will be a part of your tour as it is such a famous work.   If you are going by yourself to St. Peters, just as you walk into the sanctuary and are facing the altar, turn immediately to your right and you will see either the Pieta in the first side chapel or you will see a horde of tourists, many of them occluding your view of the statue with their Ipads in camera mode.  It is among the most beautiful works of art in the basilica and worth lunging through a crowd to see or, if time permits, coming back in the early evening when things are less crowded and taking a long gaze at it.  Since the early 70’s, when a mentally deranged man attacked the statue with a rock hammer, it has been behind bullet-proof glass.  In a way this is a blessing as the oil from millions of human hands (which would touch this statue if there were access) discolors marble in a fairly grotesque way.

Background aside, what is this statue’s message to us the viewer?  First look at the face of Mary.  Mary is a young woman.  In fact, much too young to have a son in his thirties as Jesus would have been at his death.  Michelangelo was asked about this detail.  He said that it is because in the spiritual realm Mary is the daughter of her Son Jesus even though on earth she was the vessel God used in his incarnation.  This is very revealing about Michelangelo’s theology.  The Catholics had long thought of Mary as almost a fourth member of the Godhead.  But Michelangelo was known to have a theology that was more in line with Protestantism even though he would have never left the Roman Catholic church.  Another detail we are intended to see in the sculpture is that Mary and Jesus’ faces are not in agony as we would expect.  Instead there is a quiet serenity in both their faces.  This is to speak another spiritual truth:  because of the agony of Christ’s passion on the cross, there is now peace between God and man.

When Jesus entered into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday he told his critics that if the people didn’t worship, the very stones would cry out in praise.  As we look at this sculpture, it is easy to forget that it is just one piece of stone.  And as such, the stone speaks a truth to us—the Lord has come and all is well.