Medievalish 2.5
Special edition: Cover Reveal!
Dear friend,
Happy May! It’s finally fully spring here in Colorado!
Today, I have something special to share with you. My thirty-fifth birthday is in five days so getting to share this feels like a little gift for me. *Tacky drum roll on knees*…presenting the cover of my first book, Jesus Through Medieval Eyes: Beholding Christ with the Artists, Mystics, and Theologians of the Middle Ages forthcoming from Zondervan Reflective on October 31st, 2023!
The material copy will have very appropriately medieval gold foil on the haloes and title 😍 I can’t wait to hold it in my hands! All the side-eyeing medieval saints come from the fifteenth-century Book of Hours of Louis de Laval, now held in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, illustrated by Jean Colombe (c. 1430-1493). Their diversity of gazes and expressions reflect the wide ranging ideas and portrayals of Jesus in my book. Let me tell you a little bit about it.
In three of the gospels, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say I am?” Our friend Simon Peter answers magnificently: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!” (Matthew 16:16). And then, in the fascinating backward and forward dance that characterizes the life of all followers of Christ, Peter immediately tries to cram Jesus back into the cultural box of his expectations. When Jesus teaches the disciples about his coming death and resurrection, Peter rebukes him. Implicitly, we hear it: such a thing could never happen to the Messiah, Son of the Living God. Peter has been waiting for the powerful and triumphal Messiah who will drive out the occupying empire once and for all. “Get behind me, Satan!” Jesus strongly responds.
Jesus’s question is for all his followers in all the times and places of the church, including us. But when we answer it, we find we are often no better than Peter, mired in his own expectations of what a savior should be. Arch-conservative Jesus, bourgeois Jesus, hippie Jesus, self-help Jesus, overthrow-the-government Jesus. We’ve all met those Jesuses, and may follow some version of them ourselves. How can we break out of our own cultural contexts when we answer Christ’s question? One way is by turning to the answers of the past, which have their own cultural assumptions and contexts—but not ours. It’s not that we wholesale adopt the ideas of the past in servile and unthinking fashion. But the past offers us gifts of unique perspective that we simply don’t share. Jesus Through Medieval Eyes turns to the different answers of medieval thinkers, poets, and artists to look with paradoxically fresh and ancient eyes on the person of Christ.
Each chapter wrestles with a different medieval representation of Jesus in the poetry, prose, theology, and art of the Middle Ages in invitational and accessible chapters. I explore the words, images, and thought of medieval writers and artists like St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Julian of Norwich, Fra Angelico, Mechthild of Magdeburg, St. Thomas Aquinas, and many others. In this book, you will meet representations of Jesus that are sometimes familiar, and sometimes strange. You will encounter Jesus the Judge of the End of Days, who looks into the eyes of everyone who ever lived and calls them to account. You will meet Jesus the Lover, who gently and tenderly invites us to our marriage feast. Jesus the Knight jousts with the Devil, without weapons or shoes. Jesus the Mother labors to give birth to the church in his passion and tenderly feeds us, his beloved children, with his body. And there’s much more.
This book is not a textbook, not a straightforward work of literary criticism, theology, or medieval history, though it has elements of those things. It’s more like an ongoing conversation with these folks from the past centered on the One whom we love together as members of the same Body. In that conversational mode, I weave in some reflections on our present moment and my own life as I consider these medieval depictions of and thoughts on Christ.
I hope that Jesus Through Medieval Eyes will deepen readers’ roots in the historical church and encourage us in our present moment by turning to those who came before us, who struggled with similar things—religious and political corruption, pandemics, reckonings with gender, money, and power—and kept the faith through their creative, fierce, and aesthetically beautiful devotion to Christ. Their pursuit of Christ has challenged me, taken me out of my comfort zone, and moved me to love. I wrote it for anyone and everyone curious about our medieval brothers and sisters and what they had to say about Jesus.
I am thrilled, and terrified, and ecstatic—really, all the feelings—to share it with you in October (just in time for All Souls’ and All Saints’ Days! perfect timing). I’ll answer questions you have in the comments, if you have burning curiosity about any of it. Shockingly, it’s already available for preorder! (Preorders are significant for authors because they help booksellers determine how many books to order for their stock).
Or check out your favorite local bookstore’s website and see if they have it for preorder 📚
What I’ve been up to this month:
I’ve been doing a ton of reading on the virtues and virtue ethics for a project that I hope will turn into something really lovely… we shall see.
Only a couple more episodes of Old Books with Grace before season three is a wrap! I had a lot of fun in the most recent conversations: Scott Newstok chatted Shakespeare and education with me, and Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt shared about how to read old art in the context of our Christianity. Next up: a special Julian of Norwich episode for this week’s 650th anniversary of her encounter with God, and winding up the season by talking Augustine and the virtue of hope with Michael Lamb.
The paid tier of this Substack, the Medievalish Book Club, has been reading St. Catherine of Siena’s Dialogue together. It’s not too late to join us, as all previous sections are available to subscribers!
What I’ve been reading this month:
Fiction: I enjoyed H.G. Parry’s The Magician’s Daughter, a fantasy about a young girl who grows up on an enchanted island off the coast of Ireland as the adopted daughter of a magician, and then leaves on a mission to restore fading magic to the world.
Nonfiction: I highly recommend Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life by Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman. It’s the fascinating story of Elizabeth Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, and Philippa Foote, and their friendship and philosophical engagement during World War II and the post-war years.
Medieval/medieval-adjacent: I’m reading a bunch of English penitential literature from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Lately, it’s been the Northern Homily Cycle, a collection of verse Middle English sermons and gospel retellings from the North of England meant to capture the wandering attention of early fourteenth-century laity. Is it capturing my wandering attention? It’s a little plodding. But every once in a while you get some lines that distill something that catches you for a moment:
He lyhted doun ful mekeli Into the maiden wamb Mary, And schop him bodi of hir fleyse, And dubbed him wit our liknes, And welk in werld als sinful man, But sinles was he al an.
Article: Clare Coffey’s recent piece on common sense resistance to teenage smartphone usage and the value of limits spoke to me, especially as a future parent of preteens & teens who really hopes that by the time our little family gets to that point, there will be a movement of strict parents around cellphones & social media…
A Prayer from the Past
Today’s poem-prayer is from a manuscript now in the British Library, called Ms. Harley 2253. I found it in the ever trusty Religious Lyrics of the XIVth Century edited by Carleton Brown. This manuscript is a collection of saints’ lives, poems, prayers, and recipes, in a lovely medieval jumble of Anglo-Norman French, Middle English, and Latin. The part this poem appears in, the “Harley lyrics,” was written by a scribe active near Ludlow, some time between 1330-1340. Take a look at the digitized manuscript (you’ll have to navigate to folio 75r) for our mysterious scribe’s beautiful handwriting… see if you can pick out some of the Middle English words! As my birthday present to you, I have also recorded myself reading it in my mediocre yet mildly soothing Middle English. Listen, meditate, pray with some of the church in history. My modern English translation comes below the Middle English.
Suete ihesu, king of blysse, myn huerte loue, min huerte lisse, thou art swuete myd ywisse— Wo is him that the shal misse! Suete ihesu, mine huerte lyht thou art day wih-oute nyht, thou yeve me streinth & eke myht forte louien the aryht. Suete ihesu, myn huerte bote, in myn herte thou sete a rote of thy loue that is so swote, ant leue that hit springe mote. Suete ihesu, myn huerte gleem, bryhtore than the sonne beem, ybore thou were in Bedleheem— thou make me here thi suete dreem! … Suete ihesu, louerd myn my lyfe, myn huerte, al is thin; vndo myn herte & liht ther-yn, ant wite me from fendes engyn. Suete ihesu, my soule fode, thin werkes bueth suete & gode; thou bohtest me vpon the rode, for me thou sheddest thi blode. … Suete ihesu, heuene king, feir & best of alle thing, thou bring me of this longing & come to the at myn endyng. Suete ihesu, al folks reed, grante ous er we buen ded the underfonged in fourme of bred, ant seththe to heouene thou vs led! Sweet Jesus, king of bliss, my heart's love, my heart's joy You are assuredly most sweet-- woe is he who lacks you! Sweet Jesus, my heart's light You are day without night, You give me strength and also might, so that I may love you aright. Sweet Jesus, my heart's remedy in my heart you set a root of your love that is so sweet, and make it so that it might grow. Sweet Jesus, my heart's gleam brighter than the sun's beam, born you were in Bethlehem, You make me hear your sweet dream (song). ... Sweet Jesus, Lord mine, my life, my heart, all is thine; undo my heart and alight therein and guard me from the fiend's engine. (devices) Sweet Jesus, my soul's food, thy works are both sweet & good; You bought me upon the Rood (cross) For me you shed your blood. ... Sweet Jesus, heaven's king, fair & best of all things, deliver me from this longing & come to me at my ending. Sweet Jesus, wisdom of all folk, Grant that before we are dead we may receive you in the form of bread, and afterward lead us to heaven.
Amen.
Peace for your May,
Grace
P.S. As always, Medievalish is free, and I’d be delighted if you shared it with a friend!
I am SO excited about this book. Beautiful cover, beautiful concept.
The cover of your book is simply gorgeous, Grace, and the topic of the book makes me so excited. My sister Grace and I can't wait to get our hands on it and read it! Congratulations 🎉😍🥰