Templar Globe

The sufferings of Our Lord, which culminated in His death upon the cross, seem to have been conceived of as one inseparable whole from a very early period. Even in the Acts of the Apostles (i, 3) St. Luke speaks of those to whom Christ “shewed himself alive after his passion” (meta to mathein autou). In the Vulgate this has been rendered post passionem suam, and not only the Reims Testament but the Anglican Authorized and Revised Versions, as well as the medieval English translation attributed to Wyclif, have retained the word “passion” in English. Passio also meets us in the same sense in other early writings (e.g. Tertullian, “Adv. Marcion.”, IV, 40) and the word was clearly in common use in the middle of the third century, as in Cyprian, Novatian, and Commodian. The last named writes:

“Hoc Deus hortatur, hoc lex, hoc passio Christi
Ut resurrecturos nos credamus in novo sæclo.”

St. Paul declared, and we require no further evidence to convince us that he spoke truly, that Christ crucified was “unto the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:23). The shock to Pagan feeling, caused by the ignominy of Christ’s Passion and the seeming incompatibility of the Divine nature with a felon’s death, seems not to have been without its effect upon the thought of Christians themselves. Hence, no doubt, arose that prolific growth of heretical Gnostic or Docetic sects, which denied the reality of the man Jesus Christ or of His sufferings. Hence also came the tendency in the early Christian centuries to depict the countenance of the Saviour as youthful, fair, and radiant, the very antithesis of the vir dolorum familiar to a later age (cf. Weis Libersdorf, “Christus-und Apostel-bilder”, 31 sq.) and to dwell by preference not upon His sufferings but upon His works of mercifulness, as in the Good Shepherd motive, or upon His works of power, as in the raising of Lazarus or in the resurrection figured by the history of Jonas.

But while the existence of such a tendency to draw a veil over the physical side of the Passion may readily be admitted, it would be easy to exaggerate the effect produced upon Christian feeling in the early centuries by Pagan ways of thought. Harnack goes too far when he declares that the Death and Passion of Christ were regarded by the majority of the Greeks as too sacred a mystery to be made the subject of contemplation or speculation, and when he declares that the feeling of the early Greek Church is accurately represented in the following passage of Goethe: “We draw a veil over the sufferings of Christ, simply because we revere them so deeply. We hold if to be reprehensible presumption to play, and trifle with, and embellish those profound mysteries in which the Divine depths of suffering lie hidden, never to rest until even the noblest seems mean and tasteless” (Harnack, “History Of Dogma”, tr., III, 306; cf. J. Reil, “Die frühchristlichen Darstellungen der Kreuzigung Christi”, 5). On the other hand, while Harnack speaks with caution and restraint, other more popular writers give themselves to reckless generalizations such as may be illustrated by the following passage from Archdeacon Farrar: “The aspect”, he says, “in which the early Christians viewed the cross was that of triumph and exultation, never that of moaning and misery. It was the emblem of victory and of rapture, not of blood or of anguish.” (See “The Month”, May, 1895, 89.) Of course it is true that down to the fifth century the specimens of Christian art that have been preserved to us in the catacombs and elsewhere, exhibit no traces of any sort of representation of the crucifixion. Even the simple cross is rarely found before the time of Constantine (see CROSS), and when the figure of the Divine Victim comes to be indicated, it at first appears most commonly under some symbolical form, e.g. that of a lamb, and there is no attempt as a rule to represent the crucifixion realistically. Again, the Christian literature which has survived, whether Greek or Latin, does not dwell upon the details of the Passion or very frequently fall back upon the motive of our Saviour’s sufferings. The tragedy known as “Christus Patiens”, which is printed with the works of St. Gregory Nazianzus and was formerly attributed to him, is almost certainly a work of much later date, probably not earlier than the eleventh century (see Krumbacher, “Byz. Lit.”, 746).

In spite of all this it would be rash to infer that the Passion was not a favourite subject of contemplation for Christian ascetics. To begin with, the Apostolical writings preserved in the New Testament are far from leaving the sufferings of Christ in the background as a motive of Christian endeavour; take, for instance, the words of St. Peter (1 Peter 2:19, 21, 23): “For this is thankworthy, if for conscience towards God, a man endure sorrows, suffering wrongfully”; “For unto this are you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps”; “Who, when he was reviled, did not revile”, etc.; or again: “Christ therefore having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same thought” (ibid., iv, 1). So St. Paul (Galatians 2:19): “with Christ I am nailed to the cross. And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me”; and (ibid., v, 24): “they that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (cf. Colossians 1:24); and perhaps most strikingly of all (Galatians 6:14): “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.” Seeing the great influence that the New Testament exercised from a very early period upon the leaders of Christian thought, it is impossible to believe that such passages did not leave their mark upon the devotional practice of the West, though it is easy to discover plausible reasons why this spirit should not have displayed itself more conspicuously in literature. It certainly manifested itself in the devotion of the martyrs who died in imitation of their Master, and in the spirit of martyrdom that characterized the early Church.

Further, we do actually find in such an Apostolic Father as St. Ignatius of Antioch, who, though a Syrian by birth, wrote in Greek and was in touch with Greek culture, a very continuous and practical remembrance of the Passion. After expressing in his letter to the Romans (cc. iv, ix) his desire to be martyred, and by enduring many forms of suffering to prove himself the true disciple of Jesus Christ, the saint continues: “Him I seek who dies on our behalf; Him I desire who rose again for our sake. The pangs of a new birth are upon me. Suffer me to receive the pure light. When I am come thither then shall I be a man. Permit me to be an imitator of the Passion of my God. If any man hath Him within himself, let him understand what I desire, and let him have fellow-feeling with me, for he knoweth the things which straiten me.” And again he says in his letter to the Smyrnæans (c. iv): “near to the sword, near to God (i.e. Jesus Christ), in company with wild beasts, in company with God. Only let it be in the name of Jesus Christ. So that we may suffer together with Him” (eis to sympathein auto).

Moreover, taking the Syrian Church in general — and rich as it was in the traditions of Jerusalem it was far from being an uninfluential part of Christendom — we do find a pronounced and even emotional form of devotion to the Passion established at an early period. Already in the second century a fragment preserved to us of St. Melito of Sardis speaks as Father Faber might have spoken in modern times. Apostrophising the people of Israel, he says: “Thou slewest thy Lord and He was lifted up upon a tree and a tablet was fixed up to denote who He was that was put to death — And who was this? — Listen while ye tremble: — He on whose account the earth quaked; He that suspended the earth was hanged up; He that fixed the heavens was fixed with nails; He that supported the earth was supported upon a tree; the Lord was exposed to ignominy with a naked body; God put to death; the King of Israel slain by an Israelitish right hand. Ah! the fresh wickedness of the fresh murder! The Lord was exposed with a naked body, He was not deemed worthy even of covering, but in order that He might not be seen, the lights were turned away, and the day became dark because they were slaying God, who was naked upon the tree” (Cureton, “Spicilegium Syriacum”, 55).

No doubt the Syrian and Jewish temperament was an emotional temperament, and the tone of their literature may often remind us of the Celtic. But in any case it is certain that a most realistic presentation of Our Lord’s sufferings found favour with the Fathers of the Syrian Church apparently from the beginning. It would be easy to make long quotations of this kind from the works of St. Ephraem, St. Isaac of Antioch, and St. James of Sarugh. Zingerle in the “Theologische Quartalschrift” (1870 and 1871) has collected many of the most striking passages from the last two writers. In all this literature we find a rather turgid Oriental imagination embroidering almost every detail of the history of the Passion. Christ’s elevation upon the cross is likened by Isaac of Antioch to the action of the stork, which builds its nest upon the treetops to be safe from the insidious approach of the snake; while the crown of thorns suggests to him a wall with which the safe asylum of that nest is surrounded, protecting all the children of God who are gathered in the nest from the talons of the hawk or other winged foes (Zingerle, ibid., 1870, 108). Moreover St. Ephraem who wrote in the last quarter of the fourth century, is earlier in date and even more copious and realistic in his minute study of the physical details of the Passion. It is difficult to convey in a short quotation any true impression of the effect produced by the long-sustained note of lamentation, in which the orator and poet follows up his theme. In the Hymns on the Passion (”Ephraem Syri Hymni et Sermones,” ed. Lamy, I) the writer moves like a devout pilgrim from scene to scene, and from object to object, finding everywhere new motives for tenderness and compassion, while the seven “Sermons for Holy Week” might both for their spirit and treatment have been penned by any medieval mystic. “Glory be to Him, how much he suffered!” is an exclamation which bursts from the preacher’s lips from time to time. To illustrate the general tone, the following passage from a description of the scourging must suffice:

“After many vehement outcries against Pilate, the all-mighty One was scourged like the meanest criminal. Surely there must have been commotion and horror at the sight. Let the heavens and earth stand awestruck to behold Him who swayeth the rod of fire, Himself smitten with scourges, to behold Him who spread over the earth the veil of the skies and who set fast the foundations of the mountains, who poised the earth over the waters and sent down the blazing lightning-flash, now beaten by infamous wretches over a stone pillar that His own word had created. They, indeed, stretched out His limbs and outraged Him with mockeries. A man whom He had formed wielded the scourge. He who sustains all creatures with His might submitted His back to their stripes; He who is the Father’s right arm yielded His own arms to be extended. The pillar of ignominy was embraced by Him who bears up and sustains the heaven and the earth in all their splendour” (Lamy, I, 511 sq.). The same strain is continued over several pages, and amongst other quaint fancies St. Ephraem remarks: “The very column must have quivered as if it were alive, the cold stone must have felt that the Master was bound to it who had given it its being. The column shuddered knowing that the Lord of all creatures was being scourged”. And he adds, as a marvel, witnessed even in his own day, that the “column had contracted with fear beneath the Body of Christ”.

In the devotional atmosphere represented by such contemplations as these, it is easy to comprehend the scenes of touching emotion depicted by the pilgrim lady of Galicia who visited Jerusalem (if Dr. Meester’s protest may be safely neglected) towards the end of the fourth century. At Gethsemane she describes how “that passage of the Gospel is read where the Lord was apprehended, and when this passage has been read there is such a moaning and groaning of all the people, with weeping that the groans can be hear almost at the city. While during the three hours’ ceremony on Good Friday from midday onwards we are told: “At the several lections and prayers there is such emotion displayed and lamentation of all the people as is wonderful to hear. For there is no one, great or small, who does not weep on that day during those three hours, in a way that cannot be imagined, that the Lord should have suffered such things for us” (Peregrinatio Sylviæ in “Itinera Hierosolymitana”, ed. Geyer, 87, 89). It is difficult not to suppose that this example of the manner of honouring Our Saviour’s Passion, which was traditional in the very scenes of those sufferings, did not produce a notable impression upon Western Europe. The lady from Galicia, whether we call her Sylvia, Ætheria, or Egeria, was but one of the vast crowd of pilgrims who streamed to Jerusalem from all parts of the world. The tone of St. Jerome (see for instance the letters of Paula and Eustochium to Marcella in A.D. 386; P.L., XXII, 491) is similar, and St. Jerome’s words penetrated wherever the Latin language was spoken. An early Christian prayer, reproduced by Wessely (Les plus anciens mon. de Chris., 206), shows the same spirit.

We can hardly doubt that soon after the relics of the True Cross had been carried by devout worshippers into all Christian lands (we know the fact not only from the statement of St. Cyril of Jerusalem himself but also from inscriptions found in North Africa only a little later in date) that some ceremonial analogous to our modern “adoration” of the Cross upon Good Friday was introduced, in imitation of the similar veneration paid to the relic of the True Cross at Jerusalem. It was at this time too that the figure of the Crucified began to be depicted in Christian art, though for many centuries any attempt at a realistic presentment of the sufferings of Christ was almost unknown. Even in Gregory of Tours (De Gloria Mart.) a picture of Christ upon the cross seems to be treated as something of a novelty. Still such hymns as the “Pange lingua gloriosi prœlium certaminis”, and the “Vexilla regis”, both by Venantius Fortunatus (c. 570), clearly mark a growing tendency to dwell upon the Passion as a separate object of contemplation. The more or less dramatic recital of the Passion by three deacons representing the “Chronista”, “Christus”, and “Synagoga”, in the Office of Holy Week probably originated at the same period, and not many centuries later we begin to find the narratives of the Passion in the Four Evangelists copied separately into books of devotion. This, for example, is the case in the ninth-century English collection known as “the Book of Cerne”. An eighth century collection of devotions (manuscript Harley 2965) contains pages connected with the incidents of the Passion. In the tenth century the Cursus of the Holy Cross was added to the monastic Office (see Bishop, “Origin of the Prymer”, p. xxvii, n.).

Still more striking in its revelation of the developments of devotional imagination is the existence of such a vernacular poem as Cynewulf’s “Dream of the Rood”, in which the tree of the cross is conceived of as telling its own story. A portion of this Anglo-Saxon poem still stands engraved in runic letters upon the celebrated Ruthwell Cross in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. The italicized lines in the following represent portions of the poem which can still be read upon the stone:

I had power all
his foes to fell,
but yet I stood fast.
Then the young hero prepared himself,
That was Almighty God,
Strong and firm of mood,
he mounted the lofty cross
courageously in the sight of many,
when he willed to redeem mankind.
I trembled when the hero embraced me,
yet dared I not bow down to earth,
fall to the bosom of the ground,
but I was compelled to stand fast,
a cross was I reared,
I raised the powerful King
The lord of the heavens,
I dared not fall down.
They pierced me with dark nails,
on me are the wounds visible.

 Still it was not until the time of St. Bernard and St. Francis of Assisi that the full developments of Christian devotion to the Passion were reached. It seems highly probable that this was an indirect result of the preaching of the Crusades, and the consequent awakening of the minds of the faithful to a deeper realization of all the sacred memories represented by Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre. When Jerusalem was recaptured by the Saracens in 1187, worthy Abbot Samson of Bury St. Edmunds was so deeply moved that he put on haircloth and renounced flesh meat from that day forth — and this was not a solitary case, as the enthusiasm evoked by the Crusades conclusively shows.

Under any circumstances it is noteworthy that the first recorded instance of stigmata (if we leave out of account the doubtful case of St. Paul) was that of St. Francis of Assisi. Since his time there have been over 320 similar manifestations which have reasonable claims to be considered genuine (Poulain, “Graces of Interior Prayer”, tr., 175). Whether we regard these as being wholly supernatural or partly natural in their origin, the comparative frequency of the phenomenon seems to point to a new attitude of Catholic mysticism in regard to the Passion of Christ, which has only established itself since the beginning of the thirteenth century. The testimony of art points to a similar conclusion. It was only at about this same period that realistic and sometimes extravagantly contorted crucifixes met with any general favour. The people, of course, lagged far behind the mystics and the religious orders, but they followed in their wake; and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we have innumerable illustrations of the adoption by the laity of new practices of piety to honour Our Lord’s Passion. One of the most fruitful and practical was that type of spiritual pilgrimage to the Holy Places of Jerusalem, which eventually crystalized into what is now known to us as the “Way of the Cross”. The “Seven Falls” and the “Seven Bloodsheddings” of Christ may be regarded as variants of this form of devotion. How truly genuine was the piety evoked in an actual pilgrimage to the Holy Land is made very clear, among other documents, by the narrative of the journeys of the Dominican Felix Fabri at the close of the fifteenth century, and the immense labour taken to obtain exact measurements shows how deeply men’s hearts were stirred by even a counterfeit pilgrimage. Equally to this period belong both the popularity of the Little Offices of the Cross and “De Passione”, which are found in so many of the Horæ, manuscript and printed, and also the introduction of new Masses in honour of the Passion, such for example as those which are now almost universally celebrated upon the Fridays of Lent. Lastly, an inspection of the prayer-books compiled towards the close of the Middle Ages for the use of the laity, such as the “Horæ Beatæ Mariæ Virginis”, the “Hortulus Animæ”, the “Paradisus Animæ” etc., shows the existence of an immense number of prayers either connected with incidents in the Passion or addressed to Jesus Christ upon the Cross. The best known of these perhaps were the fifteen prayers attributed to St. Bridget, and described most commonly in English as “the Fifteen O’s”, from the exclamation with which each began.

In modern times a vast literature, and also a hymnology, has grown up relating directly to the Passion of Christ. Many of the innumerable works produced in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries have now been completely forgotten, though some books like the medieval “Life of Christ” by the Carthusian Ludolphus of Saxony, the “Sufferings of Christ” by Father Thomas of Jesus, the Carmelite Guevara’s “Mount of Calvary”, or “The Passion of Our Lord” by Father de La Palma, S.J., are still read. Though such writers as Justus Lipsius and Father Gretser, S.J., at the end of the sixteenth century, and Dom Calmet, O.S.B., in the eighteenth, did much to illustrate the history of the Passion from historical sources, the general tendency of all devotional literature was to ignore such means of information as were provided by archæology and science, and to turn rather to the revelations of the mystics to supplement the Gospel records.

Amongst these, the Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden, of Maria Agreda, of Marina de Escobar and, in comparatively recent times, of Anne Catherine Emmerich are the most famous. Within the last fifty years, however, there has been a reaction against this procedure, a reaction due probably to the fact that so many of these revelations plainly contradict each other, for example on the question whether the right or left shoulder of Our Lord was wounded by the weight of the cross, or whether Our Saviour was nailed to the cross standing or lying. In the best modern lives of Our Saviour, such as those of Didon, Fouard, and Le Camus, every use is made of subsidiary sources of information, not neglecting even the Talmud. The work of Père Ollivier, “The Passion” (tr., 1905), follows the same course, but in many widely-read devotional works upon this subject, for example: Faber, “The Foot of the Cross”; Gallwey, “The Watches of the Passion”; Coleridge, “Passiontide” etc.; Groenings, “Hist. of the Passion” (Eng. tr); Belser, D’Gesch. d. Leidens d. Hernn; Grimm, “Leidengeschichte Christi”, the writers seem to have judged that historical or critical research was inconsistent with the ascetical purpose of their works.
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Written by Herbert Thurston. Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter. Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ - The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XI. Published 1911. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

Pope Benedict XVI opened Holy Week at the Vatican with the traditional Palm Sunday procession and Mass in St. Peter’s Square on March 16.

About 50,000 people attended the Eucharistic celebration. Most were young people who were observing World Youth Day in the Rome diocese, preparing for the worldwide celebration that will be held in Sydney, Australia in July.

In his homily during the Mass, Pope Benedict recalled that after his entry into Jerusalem, Jesus found the Temple cluttered with traders busy with various money-making schemes. That bit of Gospel history should cause Christians today to pause and ask themselves whether our faith is “open and pure enough,” the Pope remarked. Non-believers coming into Christian churches should be able to “see the light of the one God,” rather than be distracted, he said.

The Pope prodded the faithful to examine their consciences particularly with respect to financial affairs, recognizing that “greed is idolatry.” Like the Jewish worshippers at the time of Christ, he said, we should notice how “in various ways we actually let idols enter the worth of our faith.”

Holy Week gives the Church a fresh opportunity for purification, the Pope said. After driving away the money-changers, he said, in their place “Christ put his own healing goodness. This is the true purification of the Temple.” Referring back to Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the Pope took note that Jesus was always especially anxious to embrace children. Like those children, eager for Christ’s touch, “we must abandon the pride that blineds us, that pushes us away from God as if He were our competitor,” the Pope said.

The vaulted cellars of the Templarske Wine Company are located in the beautifully reconstructed buildings which were a former commandary of the Templar Knights back in the 13th Century. The Czech wine company uses the legendary Templar cross both as company name and emblem since their creation in 1992, although the cellars were never actually used as a winery back in that era. For the second year running, Templarske Wine company has won a prestigious SYBA “Packaging of the Year” Award for its emblematic packaging, developed in collaboration with O-I.

The range of containers combines nostalgic design with the latest trends, and includes traditional Bordeaux models with long neck and tall shoulders (two furthest bottles on right, above), and Bourgogne-inspired “vintage” models (centre and centre-left bottles), which already won the company a SYBA award in 2006. Completing the range, O-I has developed a prestigious tall, Catalan-inspired bottle with a modern flat finish and customized engraving, bearing the Company’s emblem, the “Templar’s Cross” proudly on its shoulders (far left bottle, above).

The new package is aimed at both the Horeca and retail segments. The bottles in this Templar range are available in number of shapes and colours: amber, dead leaf green and flint colours. Whilst the coloured tints are made locally at the Nove Sedlo plant in the Czech Republic, the flint bottles are produced in limited quantities nearby at an O-I facility in Germany.

The OSMTHU welcomes its new members in Slovenia. As we had announced, the Priory of Slovenia met in the Castle of Turjak for a weekend of spiritual retreat and Templar ceremonial.

Prior General Fr+ Marin Zen was the perfect host to the over 100 attendants, including Fr+ Leslie Payne, Prior General of England and Wales and Fr+ Roman Vertovec, Visitor General, both members of the Magisterial Council, as well as members of the Priory of Croatia.

We hope to be able to publish a detailed description of the days events shortly. In the meantime, we give you two photos. In the first we can see Prior Fr+ Zen investing a Knight with the attentive assistance of his officers. In the second we can see Fr+ Vertovec and Fr+ Payne during the gala dinner.

The term Candlemas (or Candelaia) derives from the late Latin “candelorum” or “candelaram” namely the blessing of candles and it indicates a holiday in astronomical time, coinciding with half winter in the rural cycle, when we approach the end of winter and the beginning of spring. The most famous popular saying about it states: “When we are at Candlemas, we are out of winter, but if it rains or the wind is blowing, we are still within winter” suggesting that if the day of Candlemas does not have good weather, you still have to wait several weeks before the end of the winter and beginning of spring. This is a moment of transition between winter / dark / end and spring / light / Birth: the passage is celebrated through the purification and preparation for the new season.

For the Catholic Church, Candlemas is the Feast of the Purification of Mary, celebrated by the Church and by the faithful on February 2 simultaneously with the presentation of Jesus in the temple which could not take place before 40 days had passed, which is the time required by the Jewish law for the purification of one who has recently given birth to a male.

The first account of the Candlemas in the Holy Land is by Eteria that describes it as a major public holiday. Later, from Jerusalem, the festivities spread throughout the East and particularly to Byzantium. With the Emperor Justinian I it became a public holiday and took the name of Ypapanté (= meeting of the Lord). The origins of Candlemas, however, have distant roots in time.

From Rome, Italy, we descend on Lupercalia which celebrated in the Ides of February, the last month of the year for the Romans, when they used to purify themselves before the advent of the new year to propitiate fertility. In this celebration, dedicated to Fauno Lupercus, two boys of a patrician family were conducted into a cave on the Palatine, consecrated to God, in which priests, having sacrificed goats, mark their forehead with a knife stained with the blood of the animals. The blood was then dried with white wet wool in milk, and then the two couples had to smile. They were dressed in skins of sacrificed animals; and the same skins were then cut into strips which were then used as whips. So dressed and whips in hand, the couple had to run around the base of the Palatine hitting anyone they might encounter, particularly women who voluntarily offered to be purified and whipped to obtain fertility. Another moment of the festival was the ‘februatio’, the purification of the city, where women ran through the streets with lit candles and torches, a symbol of light.

The use of lit torches and candles during the religious procession had two functions: the first, of a spiritual nature, showed the victory of light over darkness, the social presentation of the Divine on earth, and the other of a practical nature, resulted from the need to have visibility in travelling night in the cities where the celebrations took place. The blessing of candles, then as now, is a significant moment in the great procession called Cerorum luminibus coruscans (or “shining through candles and lights”), and it is able to generate in the hearts of the participants a strong sense of communion with the mother of Jesus. Today, the solemn offer of candles to the Pope is done by many Italian cities, as in Trapani, where popular representations recall the purification of Mary, and people bring candles, flashlights and torches to their windows, as it used to happen in Naples. The blessed candles are then kept at home by the faithful and are lit to appease the wrath of God, during violent storms, on waiting for an absent person who does not return or is kept away in serious danger, when attending to a moribund, or anytime you feel the need to invoke divine help.

The character that of a Marian feast was introduced by Pope Sergio. But it will be the Eastern mysticism that sings more profusely in its liturgy about the Virgin’s gesture especially in the antiphonal “, oh Zion, the wedding room, receive Christ your Lord…” sang in response to the first reading of the office readings. This mystical intuition is made possible by following these steps: Christmas is considered the “husband” (antiphon to the Magnificat Vespers first and second readings at antiphon) as the sun is rising on the horizon; and the Church is considered as a bride adorned, its joys are the wedding feast of Christ with the Church. The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, though celebrated for a time “during the year,” is the final point of the Christmas season. The same antiphon, mentioned above, places Mary in the correct position by singing: “… (Oh Zion) hail Mary, gate of heaven, because she holds on her arms, the king of glory, the new light. The Virgin recoils, presenting the Son, born before the first-born star of the morning. Simeon keeps him in the arms, and announces to the people that he is the Lord of life and death, the Saviour of the world “. Towards the eleventh century comes to revelationem antiphon Lumen Gentium that characterizes faith and prayer of the Church in this circumstance, and the song of podsejani Simeon Nunc dimittis.

For this reason the Vatican II Council invites us to understand the intimate nature of these festivities: “The union of the Mother and the Son in redemption occurs upon virginal conception of Christ lasting until his death. And when presented to the temple by offering the gift of the poor, Simeon was heard saying that the son would become a sign of contradiction and that a sword would pierce the soul of the mother, because they revealed the thoughts of many hearts “(LG 57).

Candlemas in some places is called “Day of the bear”. In this particular day, the bear is emerges from hibernation and out of his burrow to see weather and assess whether or not he should put the nose out. A proverb from Piedmont says that if the bear has its dry bed (which would indicate a good weather for that day) for forty days he no longer exits. Another proverb similar to the first, but in this case Southern, argues that if the 2 February the weather is not good, the bear has a chance to stay in winter continues.

The bear was also the main character of some rural rites of February, placed in the rural cycle: at the end of a simulated hunt, the bear is caught and brought inside the country where it is the object of jokes and games. The epilogue can vary either with its release or an escape and return to nature. The character of the bears is played by actors in disguise who should not be recognized until the end of the ritual show.

At Urbiano they celebrate the “feast of the bear”: a few days before the feast, hunters with the face blackened, went in search of bears, (played by a man in costume) who were invariably found the eve of the evening. Hunters, “bear”, and a tamer visited the public houses and inns with the pretext to scare people (and girls), left to become transgressivelly drunk. The day after, the bear appeares in the country and, after the tour of the village, dances with the most beautiful girl before disappearing only to be transformed in a man.

This festival occurs not only in Piedmont and areas in the Alps, but also in other regions (and nations) and, at distant times bears in the party were true animals, led around by a mountaineer who took the bear dancing in the squares of villages around the country. Then he used to disappear. In some countries, to maintain tradition, the bear was then replaced by a masked person that specifically performed the same pantomime.
At Putignano, in Puglia, bear impersonators toured the streets of the country, stopping in the squares: there, with the sound of drums, they danced the tarantella, among those present arranged in a circle. Sometimes, depending on the weather, the bear wouls mimic the act of building his refuge (u pagghiar ‘).

These rites reprised an ancient tradition that celebrated the festival of the return of light for the summer, with the defeat of the forces of darkness and cold. By performing these rituals the symbolism of bears is revealed (they go into a winter hibernation and awaken back in spring), interpreting a primitive force of nature. The bear can also be understood as representing “wild man”. In both representations there is still represent the binomial nature - man.

The number “Forty” in the Bible
The day of Candlemas is connected with the number 40, a number that represents the purification. The Book of Genesis, for instance, tells us that the deluge lasted forty days and forty nights (7.12), and, according to Matthew, chapter 4.2, Jesus’ was fasting in the desert for forty days and forty nights. On the other hand, St. Paul in his writings to the Christians in Corinth, he recalls when he received 40 lashes by the Jews. (2Cor. 11.26)

In the Bible, the number 40, with its precise religious meaning is used many times: Abraham implores to God to save Sodom if there he would find at least 40 righteous people (but had come down to less than ten in the end), and when saved from Esau he had offer 40 cows in sacrifice. In Egypt, Joseph took 40 days to embalm the body of his father, and left Egypt, Moses was on Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights, and when the tabernacle was built it took 40 silver bases to stand on. The explorers of the land of Canaan arriving to the Promised Land: it took them 40 days, but in return they had 40 years of punishment. Judge Abdon had 40 children, and the philistine persevered for 40 days, according to Samuel (1 Sam. 17.14).

Even the great prophet Elijah remained on Mount Horeb for 40 days and 40 nights and Jonah preached repentance to the inhabitants of Nineveh for 40 days. Therefore really lent 40 days (40 nights) of true inner penance, fasting, is not just a physical stance but spiritual experience.

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Translation with the help of Google Tools from the article published last Friday in Italian sent in by the Priory of Italy at the occasion of the publishing of the video depicting the Candlemas celebration of 2008. We apologise for any mistranslations.

Questo é il video preparato por il Priorato de Italia in occasione della Festività della Candelora lo scorso 2 febbraio 2008.

Il termine Candelora (o Candelaia) deriva dal tardo latino “candelorum” o “candelaram” cioè benedizione delle candele ed indica una festività collocata, nel tempo astronomico, a mezzo inverno e coincidente, nel ciclo agreste/vegetativo, con la fine dell’inverno e l’inizio della primavera; il più famoso detto popolare a riguardo infatti recita: “Quando vien la Candelora, de l’inverno semo fora; ma se piove o tira il vento, de l’inverno semo dentro” suggerendo che se nel giorno della Candelora non si avrà bel tempo, si dovranno aspettare ancora diverse settimane prima della fine dell’inverno e dell’arrivo della primavera. Si tratta di un momento di passaggio, tra l’inverno/ buio/ fine e la primavera/ luce/ nascita: passaggio che viene celebrato attraverso la purificazione e la preparazione alla nuova stagione.

Per la Chiesa Cattolica, la Candelora è la festa della purificazione di Maria, celebrata dalla Chiesa e dai fedeli il 2 di febbraio in simultanea con la presentazione di Gesù al Tempio che non poteva avvenire prima dei 40 giorni,cioè del tempo previsto dalla legge ebrea per la purificazione di una puerpera dopo il parto di un maschio.

La prima testimonianza della festività in Terra Santa é raccontata da Eteria che la descrive come una grande festività pubblica. Successivamente, da Gerusalemme, la festività si diffuse in tutto l’Oriente e in particolare a Bisanzio. Con l’imperatore Giustiniano I divenne giorno festivo e assunse il nome di Ypapanté (= incontro del Signore). Le origini della Candelora, però, hanno radici lontane nel tempo.

In Italia, a Roma, risaliamo ai Lupercalia che si celebravano alle Idi di febbraio, ultimo mese dell’anno per i romani, che servivano a purificarsi prima dell’avvento dell’anno nuovo e a propiziarne la fertilità. In questa celebrazione, dedicata a Fauno Lupercus, due ragazzi di famiglia patrizia venivano condotti in una grotta sul Palatino, consacrata al Dio, al cui interno i sacerdoti, dopo aver sacrificato delle capre, segnavano loro la fronte con il coltello tinto del sangue degli animali. Il sangue veniva poi asciugato con della lana bianca bagnata nel latte, e subito i due giovani dovevano sorridere. A quel punto i due ragazzi dovevano indossare le pelli degli animali sacrificati; con la medesima pelle venivano quindi realizzate delle striscie (dette februa o anche amiculum Iunonis) da usare a mo’ di fruste. Così acconciati e con le strisce in mano, i due giovani dovevano correre attorno alla base del Palatino percuotendo chiunque incontrassero, in particolare le donne che si offrivano volontariamente ad essere sferzate per purificarsi e ottenere la fecondità. Altro momento particolare della festa era la ‘februatio’, la purificazione della città, in cui le donne giravano per le strade con ceri e fiaccole accese, simbolo di luce.

L’uso di fiaccole e candele accese durante la processione sacra aveva due funzioni: la prima, di natura spirituale, indicava la vittoria della luce sulle tenebre, la presentazione sociale del Divino in terra; l’altra di natura pratica, derivava dalla necessità di avere visibilità nell’attraversamento notturno delle città in cui avvenivano i festeggiamenti. La benedizione dei ceri, allora come oggi, è un momento significativo e la grande processione chiamata Cerorum luminibus coruscans (ovvero “risplendente mediante ceri e lumi”), è un grado di generare nei cuori dei partecipanti un forte senso di congiunzione con la madre di Gesù. Ancora oggi, l’offerta dei ceri al Papa viene fatta in forma solenne ed in molte altre città italiane, come a Trapani, si celebrano rappresentazioni popolari che rievocano la purificazione di Maria, o si mettono ceri, torce e fiaccole alle finestre, come si faceva anticamente anche a Napoli. I ceri benedetti sono poi conservati in casa dai fedeli e vengono accesi, per placare l’ira divina, durante violenti temporali, aspettando una persona che non torna o si ritiene in grave pericolo, assistendo un moribondo, e in qualunque momento si senta il bisogno d’invocare l’aiuto divino.

Il carattere mariano della festa fu introdotto da papa Sergio. Ma sarà la mistica orientale a cantare più profusamente nella sua liturgia il gesto della Vergine soprattutto nell’antifona “Adorna, o Sion, la stanza nuziale, accogli Cristo tuo Signore…” che si canta nel responsorio alla prima lettura nell’ufficio delle letture. Questa intuizione mistica è possibile seguendo questo passaggio: a Natale ecco affacciarsi lo “sposo” (antifona al Magnificat dei primi Vespri e seconda antifona all’ufficio delle letture) come sole che si leva all’orizzonte; all’Epifania è la Chiesa che si presenta come una sposa adorna delle sue gioie: è la festa delle nozze della Chiesa con Cristo. La festa della Presentazione del Signore al Tempio, anche se celebrata nel tempo “durante l’anno”, è il punto conclusivo del tempo di Natale. La stessa antifona, che abbiamo ricordato sopra, colloca Maria nella posizione giusta cantando: “… (o Sion) accogli Maria, porta del cielo, perché ella tiene fra le sue braccia il re della gloria, la luce nuova. La Vergine si ferma, presentando il Figlio, generato prima della stella del mattino. Simeone lo tiene fra le braccia, e annunzia alle genti che egli è il Signore della vita e della morte, il Salvatore del mondo”. Verso il secolo undicesimo nasce l’antifona Lumen ad revelationem gentium che caratterizza la fede e la preghiera della Chiesa in questa circostanza, e viene intercalata al cantico di Simeone Nunc dimittis.

Per questo il Vaticano II invita a cogliere l’intima natura della festività: “L’unione della Madre col Figlio nell’opera della redenzione si manifesta dal momento della concezione verginale di Cristo fino alla morte di lui. E quando lo presentò al tempio con l’offerta del dono proprio dei poveri, udì Simeone mentre preannunciava che il Figlio sarebbe divenuto segno di contraddizione e che una spada avrebbe trafitto l’anima della madre, perché fossero svelati i pensieri di molti cuori” (LG 57).

SPIGOLATURE SULLA CANDELORA
La Candelora in alcuni luoghi viene chiamata “Giorno dell’orso”. In questo particolare giorno, l’orso si sveglierebbe dal letargo e uscirebbe fuori dalla sua tana per vedere come è il tempo e valutare se sia o meno il caso di mettere il naso fuori. Un proverbio piemontese in questo senso recita: “se l’ouers fai secha soun ni, per caranto giouern a sort papì”. Ovvero, se l’orso fa asciugare il suo giaciglio (cosa che starebbe a indicare tempo bello per quel giorno) per quaranta giorni non esce più. Un altro proverbio simile al primo, ma meridionale in questo caso, sostiene che se il 2 Febbraio il tempo non è buono, l’orso ha la possibilità di farsi il pagliaio e quindi l’inverno continua.

L’orso era anche protagonista di alcuni riti rurali del mese di febbraio, collocati nel ciclo agreste/vegetativo: al termine di una caccia simulata, l’orso viene catturato e portato all’interno del paese dove viene fatto oggetto di dileggi e di scherzi. L’epilogo può variare dall’uccisione dell’orso alla sua liberazione/fuga e ritorno alla natura. La figura dell’orso è rivestita da qualcuno del luogo che non deve essere riconosciuto fino alla fine della rappresentazione rituale.

A Urbiano si celebra la “festa dell’orso”: qualche giorno prima della ricorrenza, i cacciatori con il volto annerito, andavano alla ricerca dell’orso, che (rappresentato da un uomo travestito) veniva immancabilmente trovato la sera della vigilia. Cacciatori, “orso”, e domatore visitavano le stalle e le osterie con il pretesto di spaventare la gente (e le ragazze) si lasciavano andare a trasgressive bevute. Il giorno dopo, l’orso compariva in paese e, dopo aver fatto il giro della borgata, ballava con la ragazza più bella prima di scomparire per ritrasformarsi in uomo.

Questa festa ricorre non solo in Piemonte e nelle zone dell’arco alpino, ma anche in altre regioni (e nazioni); in tempi più remoti l’orso della festa era vero, portato in giro da un montanaro/domatore che andava da un paese all’altro facendo ballare l’orso nelle piazze. In seguito questo uso scomparve e in alcuni paesi, per mantenere la tradizione, l’orso fu sostituito da una persona appositamente mascherata che ripeteva la stessa pantomima.
A Putignano, in Puglia, chi impersonificava l’orso girava per le vie del paese, fermandosi nelle piazze: lì, al suono di tamburi, si metteva a ballare la tarantella, tra i presenti disposti in cerchio che battevano le mani a tempo e lo punzecchiavano e colpivano con qualche sberla. A volte, a seconda del tempo, l’orso imitava o no l’atto del costruire il suo rifugio (u pagghiar’).

Questi riti riproponevano comunque una tradizione antica che celebrava la festa del ritorno della luce e della bella stagione, con la sconfitta delle forze del buio e del freddo. Nello svolgimento di questi riti traspare la simbologia dell’orso (che con l’inverno va in letargo e si risveglia a primavera), interprete della forza primitiva della natura. L’orso può anche essere accostato alla figura dell’”uomo selvaggio”. In entrambe le raffigurazioni rappresenterebbe comunque il binomio natura - uomo.

IL NUMERO “QUARANTA” NELLA BIBBIA
Il giorno della Candelora fa riflettere sul numero 40, un numero che ovviamente rappresenta la purificazione così come ricorda il libro della Genesi quando racconta che il diluvio è durato quaranta giorni e quaranta notti. (7,12), oppure, come dice Matteo al capitolo 4,2, quando racconta del digiuno di Gesù nel deserto per altrettanti giorni ed altrettante notti. Che dire poi dei ricordi di san Paolo, quando, scrivendo ai cristiani di Corinto, racconta loro di avere ricevuto 40 frustate dai giudei. (2Cor. 11,26)

Nella Bibbia il numero 40, ovviamente col suo preciso significato religioso, ricorre molte volte: Abramo implora Dio di salvare Sodoma se vi avesse trovato almeno 40 giusti (ma dovette scendere a meno di dieci che non furono trovati); e per salvarsi da Esaù dovette offrirgli 40 vacche. In Egitto, Giuseppe impiegò 40 giorni per imbalsamare il corpo del padre; e usciti dall’Egitto, Mosè rimase sul Sinai per 40 giorni e 40 notti; e quando fu costruito il tabernacolo occorsero 40 basi d’argento. Peggio se la videro gli esploratori della terra di Canaan all’arrivo verso la terra promessa: impiegarono 40 giorni, durante i quali se la spassarono, ma ebbero in cambio 40 anni di punizioni. Il giudice Abdon ebbe 40 figli, e il filisteo perseverò nell’insistenza per 40 giorni, come ricorda Samuele (1 Sam. 17,14).

Anche il grande profeta Elia rimase sul monte Oreb per 40 giorni e 40 notti e Giona predicò la penitenza agli abitanti di Ninive per 40 giorni e fu ascoltato. Quaresima dunque davvero 40 giorni (e 40 notti) di vera interiore penitenza, un digiuno non semplicemente corporale ma soprattutto spirituale.

Fr. Vincenzo TUCCILLO KCT, Priorato de Italia

El próximo día 1 de Marzo reunirá la encomienda de Málaga del Priorato de España en ceremonia y investidura a realizar en Marbella. Los miembros del Priorato de España que deseen participar, por favor contacten vuestro Comendador o el Prior General Fr+ Manuel Quintanilla.

El Canciller de la Orden ha confirmado su presencia a los actos.

Rock-and-Rollers and hippies have long had a soft spot for the decorative appeal of William Morris’s Gothic Revival, with its fair-haired maidens in flowing robes and its air of medieval mysticism. So it is not surprising that when Paul Reeves decided in 1973 to break out of designing avant-garde clothes for David Bowie, Led Zeppelin and The Who, he started selling Arts-and-Crafts furniture to some of the most famous musicians of the day, including George Harrison and Roger Daltrey.

Mr Reeves has organised a week-long selling exhibition and an auction at Sotheby’s next month. They will show just what a good eye he has, and how crucial he has been in encouraging furniture collectors to buy British design from the Gothic Revival onwards, a turning point in western architecture and interior design. About 120 items from Mr Reeves’s personal collection will be for sale at fixed prices. Another 120 pieces from other collectors—many of whom originally bought them from Mr Reeves—will be sold at auction.

Many of the period’s best works found their way to America. Mr Reeves helped collectors and museums alike—including the Getty brothers, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Wolfonsian-Florida International University Museum in Miami Beach—build substantial collections of fine 19th- and 20th-century British design, centred around such luminaries as A.W.N. Pugin, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Ernest Race and William Morris.

Mr Reeves initially faced a small market, but as this work has become more popular, prices have risen dramatically. A magnificent Anglo-Japanese sideboard by Edward William Godwin, an architect and designer who built houses for Oscar Wilde and James Whistler, sold last year for nearly £1m ($1.9m) to the Art Institute of Chicago.

Next month’s sale features a number of Godwin pieces, including an ebonised hanging bookcase, estimated at £60,000-80,000, and an ebonised chair, estimated at £10,000-12,000. But the star piece will undoubtedly be “The Quest for the Holy Grail: The Achievement” (pictured), a 25-foot (7.7-metre) tapestry based on the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Designed by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, a leading pre-Raphaelite artist, and woven by William Morris, it represents one of the two artists’ principal collaborations.

William Knox D’Arcy, an Australian mining engineer, commissioned the tapestry in 1890. It was the most important piece in a set of six hangings made for the dining room of his grand house, Stanmore Hall, on the outskirts of London.

It has only been sold twice: once in 1920 after D’Arcy died, when the whole set was sold to the Duke of Westminster, and again in 1978, when the current duke sold three of the hangings, thus breaking up the set. On that occasion, Mr Reeves bought “The Achievement” and one of the other pieces for Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin’s guitarist. The third hanging, which is much smaller than “The Achievement”, was sold again at Christie’s in 2004 for nearly £390,000.

“The Achievement”, which Mr Page is selling because it is too big to fit into his new home, is expected to fetch more than £1m. Nothing like that price has ever been paid for a Burne-Jones tapestry, but there are many reasons why this piece will be eagerly fought over. “The Quest for the Holy Grail” was woven in several editions, one as late as the 1920s.

But only the original set, of which this is the most important piece, retains the lovely details of Burne-Jones’s faces and hands. In the later editions, the shading is far more generic, giving the tapestries a blander look. Even the carpet of flowers in the foreground, which had been traced for the weavers’ guidance by Morris’s assistant, J.H. Dearle, is virtually unrecognisable.

Burne-Jones resented Dearle’s floral foregrounds, complaining that they cluttered up his designs. No one, however, could deny their botanical accuracy. In 1895, soon after the tapestries were completed, D’Arcy’s gardener, a man by the wonderful name of W. Tidy, studied Dearle’s flowers and was able to identify every one: daffodil, saponaira, campanula, dianthus, foxglove, hawkweed, tulip, convolvulus, snowdrop, lychnis, winter aconite, celandine and poppy. Such intricate details make this particular work a glory of its kind.

“The Best of British: Design from the 19th and 20th Centuries” will be on view at Sotheby’s from March 14th. The auction is on March 20th.

in The Economist

The Priory of Slovenia will be conducting a seminar for members and an Investiture ceremony in the Castle of Turjak this coming February the 24th.

Recently the Prior of Slovenia, Fr+ Marin Zen, has lead a pilgrimage of the Templars to the Marian Sanctuary of Medugorge where they celebrated mass and chanted the “Non Nobis” in a spontaneous choir that filled the celebration with a true sense of mystic elevation.

 The Magisterial Council will announce very soon the dates and agenda of the next two International Meetings and General Assemblies, to take place in Madrid, Spain in early April and Lubljana, Slovenia, in early June. Members of the Council will be present, but both meetings are to be attended by all Priors and opened to the participation of all regular members of the Order of all ranks.

Photo: Fr+ Marin Zen, Prior General of Slovenia

At least three different Saint Valentines, all of them martyrs, are mentioned in the early martyrologies under date of 14 February. One is described as a priest at Rome, another as bishop of Interamna (modern Terni), and these two seem both to have suffered in the second half of the third century and to have been buried on the Flaminian Way, but at different distances from the city. In William of Malmesbury’s time what was known to the ancients as the Flaminian Gate of Rome and is now the Porta del Popolo, was called the Gate of St. Valentine. The name seems to have been taken from a small church dedicated to the saint which was in the immediate neighborhood. Of both these St. Valentines some sort of Acta are preserved but they are of relatively late date and of no historical value. Of the third Saint Valentine, who suffered in Africa with a number of companions, nothing further is known.

The popular customs associated with Saint Valentine’s Day undoubtedly had their origin in a conventional belief generally received in England and France during the Middle Ages, that on 14 February, i.e. half way through the second month of the year, the birds began to pair. Thus in Chaucer’s Parliament of Foules we read:

For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne’s day
Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.

For this reason the day was looked upon as specially consecrated to lovers and as a proper occasion for writing love letters and sending lovers’ tokens. Both the French and English literatures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries contain allusions to the practice. Perhaps the earliest to be found is in the 34th and 35th Ballades of the bilingual poet, John Gower, written in French; but Lydgate and Clauvowe supply other examples. Those who chose each other under these circumstances seem to have been called by each other their Valentines. In the Paston Letters, Dame Elizabeth Brews writes thus about a match she hopes to make for her daughter (we modernize the spelling), addressing the favoured suitor:

And, cousin mine, upon Monday is Saint Valentine’s Day and every bird chooses himself a mate, and if it like you to come on Thursday night, and make provision that you may abide till then, I trust to God that ye shall speak to my husband and I shall pray that we may bring the matter to a conclusion.

Shortly after the young lady herself wrote a letter to the same man addressing it “Unto my rightwell beloved Valentine, John Paston Esquire”. The custom of choosing and sending valentines has of late years fallen into comparative desuetude.

By Herbert Thurston. Transcribed by Paul Knutsen.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XV. New York, 1912

Per la prima volta alla sfilata dei Carri del Carnevale di Viareggio un carro allegorico dedicato ai Templari:

In nome di chi…

di Carlo Lombardi e Roberto Vannucci

questa la spiegazione degli autori alla presentazione del bozzetto del carro:

Che cosa ci può essere di più sconcertante e avvilente per la dignità umana che lottare in nome della guerra per il bene dei propri popoli?

Quale bene, di qualsiasi popolo contro qualsiasi male si tratti, può far spargere tanto sangue in suo nome?

Non è possibile che queste sanguinarie guerre, esistenti sin dai tempi dei tempi, possano trovare la parola fine?

E’ questo il breve ma forte messaggio che le due costruzioni vogliono portare all’attenzione del pubblico. E’ la pace tra i popoli il messaggio che si evince da ogni testo sacro: non ci sono confini, non ci sono differenze di razze e di religioni che possano creare barriere per la costruzione di un mondo pacifico.

Il nostro Carnevale diventa un palcoscenico sul quale due guerrieri si affrontano l’uno di fronte all’altro, non animati da sentimenti di odio e violenza, ma mossi dalla forza dell’amore, della giustizia e della fratellanza, che sono le fondamenta necessarie per la costruzione della PACE UNIVERSALE per la salvaguardia delle generazioni future.

Una sola riflessione:

i Templari sono conosciuti ai più per le grandi battaglie che si conclusero con la caduta di san Giovanni d’Acri, pochi vogliono ricordare come i Poveri Cavalieri di Cristo, operarono soprattutto attraverso la mediazione politica evitando quando possibile inutili spargimenti di sangue e cercando la battaglia solo come ultima ratio.

Ricordiamo come tra le vari accuse mosse nel processo per eresia vi era l’accusa di intelligenza con il nemico.

For the first time the parade of floats of the Carnival celebrations in Viareggio had a wagon dedicated to the allegorical Templars:

”On behalf of those who …

Carlo Lombardi and Roberto Vannucci“

This is the explanation by the authors presented with the sketch of the wagon:

What may be more disconcerting and disheartening for human dignity that fight in the name of war for the good of people?

What “good”, coming from whomever is fighting any evil, may spilt blood in its name?

Is it not possible that these bloody wars, existing since the time of the times, can find their way to the word “stop”?

That is the short but strong message that the two wagons try to bring to the public. And ‘peace among peoples is the message that can be seen from any sacred text: there are no boundaries, there are differences of races and no religions can create barriers for the construction of a peaceful world.

Our Carnival becomes a stage on which two warriors face each other in the line of sight, not motivated by feelings of hatred and violence, but moved by the strength of love, justice and brotherhood, which are the necessary foundations for the construction of UNIVERSAL PEACE in order to safeguard future generations.

One reflection:

The Templars are known more for the big battles that ended with the fall of St. John of Acre, few want to remember that as the Poor Knights of Christ, they worked mainly through political mediation whenever possible and avoided unnecessary bloodshed, looking for battle only as a last resort.

We recall how the various allegations in the trial for heresy were accused of intelligence with the enemy.

(by the Priory of Italy OSMTHU)

Editor del Globe con Fernando de Toro-Garland y esposa Dueña Paricia Oyarzun en Italia  

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El próximo Martes, 15 de Enero, presenta en Madrid su nuevo libro “La Rosa del Desierto” el poeta, escritor, abogado y ensayista Fernando de Toro-Garland, Maestro Emerito de la Orden del Temple. Al acto tendrá lugar en la Asociación de Escritores y Artistas Españoles y será presentado por Juan Ruiz de Torres.

Autor de una vasta obra literaria que repasa desde estudios lingüísticos y literarios, hasta la poesía, el ensayo y la misma novela, Fernando de Toro-Garland es un nombre de referencia obligatoria en el mundo Templario moderno. Esta presentación marca un punto alto (uno más), en una vida dedicada al saber y a las artes, como profesor universitario en Estados Unidos y España, como promotor de encuentros entre autores, escritores y artistas y como autor de gran talento y sofisticación.

La presentación será a las 8 de la tarde en la Calle Leganitos, 10 - 1º Derecha, Madrid.

Dickens, in Barnaby Rudge, got it right when he wrote “who enters here leaves noise behind”. You go through a door from honking, endless traffic and bustling pavements into a different world. Peaceful, slower, quiet. You feel you have stepped outside central London.

This is Temple, 20 acres of land which is one of London’s best kept secrets. Although primarily a large lawyer oasis between Fleet Street and the Embankment, it has a diverse cultural history which runs the gamut from Shakespeare to Robert Louis Stevenson, and John Tavener to The Da Vinci Code.

This month sees the beginning of events to mark the 400th anniversary of the signing of the royal charter giving Inner and Middle Temples a level of independence from church and crown control which they have ferociously guarded ever since. There were two conditions: the Inns must “serve for all time to come for the accommodation and education of the students and practitioners of laws of the realm”; and maintain the Temple church and its Master’s House. Both of these terms have been kept.

Events for the 2008 Temple festival kick off with an open weekend on January 19 and 20 giving access to the history soaked galleries, halls and gardens - the largest private gardens in London. “I think it’s true that a lot of Londoners don’t know we’re here and we want them to know we’re here,” said the festival’s artistic director, Kenneth Morrison.

One of the most striking parts of Temple is the Elizabethan Middle Temple hall which, unlike its Inner counterpart, largely survived German bombs in the second world war. The hall, with its double hammer beamed roof, has been the venue for all manner of performances down the years with the most impressive being the first performance of Twelfth Night in 1602 in which, it is said, Shakespeare appeared.

At the time it was the place to be seen, and to this day there are bits from Francis Drake’s galleon Golden Hind still in the hall, which Drake would have given as he partied and celebrated success against the Spanish. They include the table on which Middle Templars sign the roll of members when called to the bar: it is known as the cupboard and came from a hatch cover on the ship.

Every direction you turn there is something of interest. The 29ft table that was made in the hall from a single oak barged down from Windsor on the orders of Elizabeth I. The portrait of Charles I on a white steed from the studio of van Dyck, with the horse’s head disconcertingly small “so as not to look more imposing than the king”. And in the window, two stained panes with the shields of one Josephus Jekyll and Roburtus Hyde - one can imagine young Middle-bencher Robert Louis Stevenson staring up at the window and something lodging in his mind.

Over at the church, with its effigies of Knights Templar lying on the floor staring up to the sky, the Temple choristers are rehearsing carols in the place that the makers of the film The Da Vinci Code used for one of its scenes. The church was also the venue for the world premiere of Sir John Tavener’s seven-hour meditational The Veil of the Temple in 2003 using four choirs and several orchestras.

The open weekend kicks off four months of events including guided tours, mock trials and advocacy demonstrations. There will also be music, film and drama including a performance by the Holst Singers; a showing of the 1922 film Nosferatu (by Inner Temple’s Bram Stoker) accompanied by an improvised organ performance; a new production of Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas in Middle Temple hall; and recitals by singers including Angelika Kirchschlager, Carolyn Sampson and Sergei Leiferkus.

There will also be a series of public discussions on Islam in English law in Temple Church - an appropriate venue given that the church was built by the Knights Templar 800 years ago during the Crusades. On February 7 the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, will give a lecture entitled Civil and Religious Law in England: A Religious Perspective.

Robin Griffith-Jones, who is the Temple’s Anglican priest - or the Reverend and Valiant Master of the Temple, as he can call himself if he ever feels insecure - hopes the festival will lift the mystery which surrounds the 20 acres of land. “We are rather tucked away and we’re seen as a little bit secretive or covert, which is not the case. Most people haven’t got a clue we’re here and when people discover Temple they’re bowled over. It’s a magical place.”

· Visit temple2008.org for details of the festival

in The Guardian

La verdad es que nada podía haberme preparado para lo que iba a experimentar en Peñiscola. Ya había visto una o otra foto del castillo y lo creía pintoresco. Cuando recibimos en la Chancillería una invitación para visitarlo e impartir una conferencia sobre nuestra Orden, lo aceptamos con entusiasmo, tan solamente con la idea de cumplir un paso más de nuestra obra de divulgación de los principios y historia Templarios. Pero las duras rocas y los peñascos más agrestes que soportan su bello castillo han moldado por su impenetrabilidad el espíritu y la argucia de dos compañeros que nos han recibido de brazos abiertos y, en un par de horas, se han convertido en fieles amigos de toda la vida. Más que bellas paisajes, más que el gusto de pasar mi mano por la rudeza del granito y sentir la historia, más que mirar el horizonte abierto del mar desde las altas murallas de una torre Templaria, he regresado más caballero, más hermano todavía, hermano del lugar y sus custodios.

Antes de marchar y hacer los más de 1.200 km que me separan de Peñiscola, he mirado que decía Atienza sobre esta plaza fuerte: “castillo y lugar junta al mar, puesto a disposición de los templarios desde 1233, año de su conquista. Pasó a la Orden de Montesa en 1319. Es monumento nacional en la actualidad y entró por derecho propio en la Historia por haber servido desde 1409 de refugio postrero y de sede pontificia al papa cismático Benedicto XIII, el Papa Luna. Con la cantidad de reformas que sufrió, y a pesar del buen ambiente que permite disfrutar (el castillo es meta obligada de todos los turistas que pasan por aquella zona), hoy es más importante su recuerdo que su apariencia. Y, dentro de ese recuerdo, tiene parte fundamental la coincidencia de su singladura, que no por esta sola circunstancia hace pensar en un ideario templario o templarista en la figura del papa, que recibió aquella donación de los caballeros de Montesa, los herederos de los bienes templarios en el reino de Valencia.”

Pocas líneas. No suficientes para hacer-me soñar. Vamos, que es tarde.

La conferencia la impartimos yo - el Canciller de la Orden, y Fr+ Manuel Quintanilla - Prior General de España. Decidimos ser breves y “cistercienses” (o sea, no usar demasiadas “decoraciones”) sobre el periodo histórico entre 1118 - 1314 , porque es aquél más conocido por la mayor parte de la gente. Después disertar un poco sobre el Pergamino de Chinon y sus implicaciones históricas, pasando de seguida para las líneas de continuación templaria, enfocando particularmente la nuestra y el siglo XVIII. De manera muy clara y totalmente inhabitual entre los varios grupos que hoy se denominan “templarios”, discurrimos sobre cada línea, llamamos falso a lo que es falso (carta de Larmenius, etc.) y explicando la causa de movimientos de denominación “templaria”, pero de origen muy distinta. Terminamos con una descripción en detalle de las ramas OSMTH y OSMTHU de la Orden hoy, así como su trabajo en el dominio político, humanitario, académico, artístico, espiritual y iniciático. Después se abrió una sesión de preguntas por parte del publico que ha sido la parte más estimulante de toda la conferencia.

Aquí iremos publicar el texto de la conferencia, ya que acaba por contestar a varias de las preguntas que muchos visitantes del “Templar Globe” se han colocado sobre nosotros.

Pero, más que hablar, hemos ido a Peñiscola mirar y escuchar. Y lo que hemos visto y escuchado nos ha dejado perplejos. La torrente de pensamientos que se ha suelto es increíble, y las asociaciones de puntos de la historia que hemos tardado tantos años en conocer con lo que guardamos sobre los Templários, nos han dejado muy interesados en profundizar nuestro conocimiento sobre el castillo de Peñiscola y extender a nuestros hermanos - no solamente en el Priorato de España, sino a nivel mundial - la reflexiones y las sensaciones que allí hemos vivido.

Así, en las próximas semanas iré pasar a escrito algunas de ellas, en Castellano e Inglés, para publicarlas aquí en el Templar Globe. Hoy tan solo quiero dar mis gracias a Jordi Pau Caspe, director del castillo y su custodio amantísimo y defensor intrépido por su amable recepción y a Lorenzo, nuestro dedicado guía con quienes mucho hemos aprendido sobre esta fascinante historia. Y, en conjunto, a los dos, por nos haber hecho soñar y volver a una época lejana en la cual encontramos respuesta a muchas de las inquietudes de la vida moderna. En un dado momento, mirando los ojos brillantes de uno y otro, que, con gestos largos y palabras entusiastas nos introducían a los secretos de la maravillosa construcción Templaria, me acuerdo de revivir los tiempos de niño en que iba de mi casa a la casa de un compañero mío y juntos construyamos reinos y, en caballos imaginarios, vivíamos las aventuras de una Avallon que no conocíamos aún. Se la presencia mística de la Divinidad se siente como una alegría incontrolable, un ardor inexplicable en el pecho, una fuerza interior que guía nuestro pensamiento hacia lo más sublime y a menudo nos deja sin poder articular palabra, esa la he sentido en Peñiscola aquella tarde.

Gracias por vuestra generosidad.

Volveremos pronto.

El próximo día 15 de Diciembre, Sábado, tendrá lugar en el Castillo Templario de Peñiscola una conferencia sobre la Orden del Temple con el titulo: “Orden del Temple, Pasado, Presente y Futuro”. La conferencia será impartida por S.E. Manuel Quintanilla, Prior General de España e Luis de Matos, Canciller Internacional de la OSMTHU - miembros del Consejo Magistral, integrada en las conmemoraciones de los 700 años del Castillo, organizadas por la Diputación de Castelló y el Castillo Templario de Peñiscola.

La conferencia tendrá lugar en el Salón Gótico, por las 18 horas.

El Castillo Templario-Pontificio de Peñíscola es la fortaleza que ocupa la parte máselevada del peñón sobre el que se sustenta la antigua ciudad de Peñíscola. Situada al norte de la Comunidad Valenciana, dentro del mar, es Peñíscola toda ella una fortaleza completamente amurallada, unida a tierra por una estrecha lengua de arena, que antiguamente desaparecía cuando había tempestad y que hoy esta ocupada por la ciudad nueva que es centro turístico de primer orden.

Esta imponente fortaleza se comenzó a construir en 1294 y fue terminada doce años después en 1307. Quienes poseían recursos y poder en aquellos tiempos para emprender y concluir tan rápidamente una obra de esta magnitud no eran otros que los enigmáticos caballeros Templarios. Edificaron el castillo a imagen y semejanza de los que antes habían construido en Tierra Santa. El monumento conserva en la actualidad todas las particularidades de una obra templaria siendo uno de los mas claros exponentes de dichas características.

Sobria y robusta edificación, que ha llegado a nosotros en perfecto estado de conservación, aunque le falte una cuarta parte que se destruyó en 1814; en el transcurso de la guerra de la Independencia. Condenada a un duro e implacable sitio por parte de las tropas del General Elio que intentaban recuperar la ciudad ocupada por los franceses. Hubieron de someterla a un furibundo bombardeo que asoló gran parte del caserío que rodea el castillo y parte de la fortaleza, dejando las marcas de los proyectiles en todas las murallas.

El Castillo Templario-Pontificio de Peñíscola comparte con el Vaticano y el Palacio de los Papas de Aviñón el privilegio de haber sido Sede Pontificia; una de las tres que ha habido a lo largo de la historia. Muchos autores lo describen como monumento singular, único y así es ya que cualquier persona puede visitar, en España, gran cantidad de castillos, algunos templarios, como este. Ubicados en una roca, casi dentro del mar, algunos. Pero que hayan podido participar en un momento de la historia de Europa como fue el Cisma de Occidente, desde el privilegiado puesto que le confirió ser una de las tres sedes pontificias que a lo largo del dramático proceso hubo en el mundo cristiano, tan solo Peñíscola, en toda España, y sobre todo su Castillo, jaula de oro donde se recluyó Benedicto XIII, solo este.

Fue esta la época más importante de los más de 700 años que tiene la fortaleza. Sin lugar a duda, los años en que sirvió de refugio al Papa Luna. Para poder entender la personalidad de tan insigne figura, fundamental en la historia de Europa, se han de recorrer sus austeras salas, sobrios patios y adustas torres, todo el conjunto rodeado por el omnipresente Mediterráneo, del que Benedicto fue Papa: el Papa del Mar.

Hoy el Castillo Templario-Pontificio de Peñíscola es un foco de atracción turística y cultural, más de 330.000 visitantes al año. En él, convertido en un prestigioso Centro Cultural que alberga numerosas exposiciones plásticas, el Festival de Cine de Comedia de Peñíscola, Congresos, Conferencias, etc… . Destacan entre las muchas actividades: El Festival de Música Antigua y Barroca que se lleva a cabo durante la primera quincena de agosto. El ciclo de Conciertos de Música Clásica que cubre parte del mes de septiembre y el Festival de Teatro Clásico que desarrolla sus sesiones a lo largo de los meses de julio y agosto.

En definitiva, este edificio que desde el 4 de junio de 1931 es Monumento Histórico-Artístico Nacional, recoge entre sus muros más de 700 años de existencia, convirtiéndose, para el visitante, en una puerta por la que acceder a la vivencia de su historia y un lugar perfecto para el disfrute del ocio y la cultura.

Programación de las Conmemoraciones.