Arts and Culture

Restoration help St. John's reconnect with its past

February 12, 2010

TORONTO - St. John’s Church isn’t what it used to be, but to Lynn East it feels like home. “This is lovely. It’s like coming home again,” said East as she gazed from the back pew up toward the altar. East was married at St. John’s on Kingston Road in Toronto’s east end in 1969. Shortly after her wedding the church went through major, post-Concilliar surgery. Not only was the communion rail taken down and the altar turned around, but the icons painted on the wall behind the altar were painted over and the grotto-like shrine for Mary filled in, covering up one of the church’s stained glass windows.

Chronicle of Marian devotion doesn't go far enough

January 29, 2010

Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary by Miri Rubin (Yale University Press, 533 pages, hardcover $35). Despite its title, this excellent new book is not a history of the Virgin Mary — it is a history of devotion to the mother of Jesus in medieval Catholic Europe. It presents the creative ways that Christians — and even some Jews and Muslims — thought about Mary and expressed themselves in writing, music, liturgy, art and popular devotions. It also looks back to the origins of the Marian devotion among Eastern Christians, follows the controversies about Mary during the Reformation and traces the spread of her cult to European colonies. To write such a history is a daunting task. Nevertheless, a history of Mary must include the last, eventful four centuries.

The Book of Eli surprisingly reverent

January 25, 2010

More contemplative and lyrical than advertised, the first big action movie of 2010 incorporates religious faith and Judeo-Christian principles to a surprising degree. Directed by twin brothers Albert and Allen Hughes, The Book of Eli (Warner Bros.) prompts the question whether, assuming a minimum level of respect, the attempt to integrate religion and Scripture into a mass-appeal film is by itself laudable.

Do I have to go to Mass?

January 25, 2010

Do I Have to Go? by Matthew Pinto and Chris Stefanick (Ascension Press, 156 pages, $12.99). Many Catholics have asked themselves the question at least once — Do I have to go? — but rarely has the question received such a clear answer as the one provided in this book by authors Matthew Pinto and Chris Stefanick. Do I Have to Go? explores “the Mass, the Eucharist, and your spiritual life” in easy to read question/answer format. Pinto and Stefanick eloquently cover almost every question imaginable regarding the Mass and the Eucharist.

Gregorian chant is old school for Luke Togni

January 15, 2010

HALIFAX - Luke Togni is old school — very old school. Or old schola, if you prefer. Togni, 22, is passionate about Gregorian chant and refers to himself as “second in command” in a Halifax-based chant group, or schola. Directed by Robert Bruce and together for the past two years, the schola sings monthly at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Halifax, and less frequently at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Halifax.

Dead Sea Scrolls shatter ROM records

December 30, 2009

TORONTO - The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit comes to a close at the Royal Ontario Museum Jan. 3 after six months of unmatched popularity in the museum’s history. “It’s definitely come down to between this and the Egyptian Art and the Age of the Pyramids which was in 2000,” ROM media spokesperson Marilynne Friedman said before Christmas. “There’s the expectation that 300,000 people will have visited the scrolls by close on Jan. 3.”

Celtic performance celebrates all Irish

December 18, 2009

BRAMPTON, Ont. - Nearly 200 people gathered inside St. Marguerite D’Youville parish Dec. 11 to witness and enjoy otherworldly performances by many of Canada’s best musicians and musical directors, including Juno-nominated Loretto Reid. An ensemble of nine vocalists and six instrumentalists, mostly between the ages of 24-35, mixed traditional Celtic songs with contemporary Christmas carols on this evening, and again at the Newman Centre at the University of Toronto Dec. 12.

Much can be learned of Holocaust sensibilities

December 18, 2009

No Going Back: Letters to Pope Benedict XVI on the Holocaust , Jewish-Christian Relations and Israel, Edited by Carol Rittner and Stephen D. Smith (Quill Press, softcover, 180 pages, $20). When Pope John Paul II visited Jerusalem and Palestine in 2000 he made a powerful and lasting impression. Prior to his visit and throughout his pontificate, the Catholic Church had done much to nurture and follow the spirit of Vatican II. Many Jews thought they had a friend in John Paul II and relations between the two faiths were warming.

The Priests used music during the Irish Troubles as a unifying force

December 8, 2009

TORONTO - When Fr. Eugene O’Hagen was a student at St. MacNissi’s College in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, one of his school friends used to dress up in an IRA uniform for parties and sing The Men Behind the Wire. “It was his party piece,” O’Hagen explained on a recent visit to Toronto to promote The Priests’ latest CD, Harmony. The song begins:

Oberammergau carries a passion for the greatest story ever told

December 4, 2009

It’s a testament to human tenacity and faith that the people of a tiny Bavarian village, keeping a promise made four centuries ago, will again hold performances of the Oberammergau Passion Play next year. Following the deaths of 80 townspeople in 1633 from a plague that swept Europe during the Thirty Years War, the people of Oberammergau promised to perform a play depicting the suffering, death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ every 10 years if they could be spared further deaths. Miraculously, the epidemic ended and the following year the first presentation took place. Since then, with only a few exceptions when world events intervened, the people of Oberammergau have kept their pledge.