Epigraphs: Theirs and Ours
My dictionary defines an “epigraph” thus: “a quotation placed at the beginning of a book or chapter to indicate the leading idea or theme.”
For the past few years, I’ve asked my undergraduates to affix an epigraph on the title page of the book review they are doing for class. For the most part they choose something from the book itself. But often enough it will be taken from a favorite song or poem. Always it provides a valuable affective insight into what has moved them.
I recall the first time, as a teenager, that the weight of an epigraph struck me. My first reading of The Brothers Karamazov was guided by the epigraph Dostoevsky affixed to his masterpiece: “Amen, amen, I say to you. Unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it remains alone; but if it die, it brings forth much fruit” (John 12:24).
Years later, in graduate school, my reading of Jonathan Edwards’ great Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections was similarly illuminated by the epigraph he placed at its beginning: “Without having seen Jesus Messiah you love him; though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy. As the outcome of your faith, you obtain the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8&9).
When I am sometimes asked: when did you first sense a vocation to priesthood?, my affections always return to St. Roch’s parish in the South Bronx (then an Irish, Italian, and Jewish neighborhood) and the old onionskin missal containing, as a prayer after communion, Psalm 84. The twelve year old I was then somehow thrilled to the opening verse: “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord God of Hosts! My soul yearns and faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.”
As we begin Holy Week, a salutary exercise is to remember the epigraph that serves as “leading idea or theme” for the book of our own spiritual journey. To unite our anamnesis with that of the Church remembering/reliving the great events that give it being.
Should any care to share their “epigraph” in this space, I’m sure we will all be enriched.
A blessed Week!
“Jesus,” he said, “remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
“Indeed, I promise you,” he replied. “today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 22:42-43)
Much as I rail against the fundies, my epiphany moment as a Christian came when I heard a radio sermon given by a black Baptist preacher on this text. In his explication, he said that Jesus “stopped dying long enough to help a dying man.”
I identify more with the thief than any other figure in the New Testament (big surprise). And I have always looked at this passage as a promise of God’s presence and love.
If a dying Jesus could save a sinner in his last moments, then think what a risen Christ could do with a mess like me!
The combination of my leaving the Navy with an honorable discharge as a conscientious objector (1976) and soon after joining Maryknoll as a Brother candidate because of my percieved vocation to “peace and justice” has led me to adopt an epigraph from Psalm 85 for many years: “Kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss.” It continues to be my dream…
ADDENDUM: my dream and my commitment in my life’s work…and make that “perceived”…shouldn’t write these comments before a second cup of coffee!
There are so many passages from Scripture that I could cite, but somehow I get pulled back to this from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers:
“Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, ‘Abba as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?’ then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, ‘If you will, you can become all flame.’”
I also love Jesus telling the repentant criminal that he will be with him in paradise that very day. This shows the need for humility and how no one can boast over another since salvation is a gift from God.
Some good Christians rail against the story of the Prodigal Son, saying that the evil one gets rewarded. The point is that we are what we are by the goodness and grace of God.
I find that different phases of my life have called for different epigraphs. In my early adulthood, my Peace Corps Volunteer, pre-religious, pre-Catholic phase, my epigraph came from the Introduction to George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman: “This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”
In my new-Catholic, new-Jesuit phase it was Psalm 8: “O Lord, Our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth!..What is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou considerest him?…for you have created him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor.”
In my current, between-jobs phase it is Chapters 14 and 15 of John’s Gospel: “Do not let your hearts be troubled…I am the vine, you are the branches, abide in me as I abide in you…For I do not call you servants any longer. I call you friends…”
Thank you, Bob, for posing us this question. You are quite right. It is always edifying to see how different and yet how similar people’s responses can be.
Ben Hawley, SJ
While teaching a New Testament class (I must be a Jack of all topics and master of none at Morgan State), I was suddenly startled when I read “On this day you will be with me paradise.” I thought, what does this mean for “On the third day, he rose again in fulfillment of the scriptures”? Has anyone else noticed this, and what are your thoughts on the matter?
Just to be clear, this is not a Jesus Seminar proof text kind of question. Rather, it is just one of those things that you never notice, even though you have heard both phrases again and again.
Since I was a child my epigraph (at least the biblical one) has always been “Crave as newborn babes pure spiritual milk,” as I learned it those many years ago. I like to think that logikon and adolon add another dimension of meaning in the original Greek.
I seem to find my two epigraphs in the conclusions of lengthy works. Both of the authors I quote celebrate that elusive equilibrium where knowledge, will and power, usually disjoint or in conflict, reach a temporary harmony.
1) The sober words in the final paragraph of James Q. Wilson’s great book, The Moral Sense, describe on a personal level the harmony to which we can aspire:
“Mankind’s moral sense is not a strong beacon light, radiating outward to illuminate in sharp outline all that it touches. It is, rather, a small candle flame, casting vague and multiple shadows, flickering and sputtering in the strong winds of power and passion, greed and ideology. But brought close to the heart and cupped in one’s hands, it dispels the darkness and warms the heart.”
2) And for a cosmic view I choose my favorite passages from Dante. In the last canto of the Paradiso the poet describes the convergence of sacred and profane elements just before his experience of the Beatific Vision. In his rendering of the final synthesis of the ancient wisdom, written on leaves by the Cumaean Sibyl, he recognizes that knowledge, will and power will become one, this time in the highest heavens.
“So the snow loses its shape in the sun;
So was it that the oracles of the Sibyl,
On the light leaves, were lost in the wind.”
…but then in an instant…
“I saw gathered there in the depths of it,
Bound up by love in a single volume,
All the leaves scattered through the universe.”
The Word was made flesh
and dwellt amongst us.
Joe:
The simple answer is that to be with Jesus would be to be in paradise. The puzzle arises because none of us knows quite what it is like to be dead. For a full discussion of various views about these words I recommend Raymond Brown’s Death of the Messiah pp. 1008-1013.
“Never look back; something might be gaining on you.”
-Yogi Berra
Bob–
I think you are quoting Satchel Paige, though Yogi is a master of potent quotables. My two favorites are “I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early,” and “You should always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise, they won’t come to yours.” A life can be planned around such sage advice.
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” Philo of Alexandria.
In my life, unfortunately, this has been honored in the breach more than in the living out.
I would choose, “I am the vine, you are the branches,” from the Gospel passage (John 15:1-11) that my wife, Deborah, and I selected for our wedding Mass. We chose it, in part, because of its concluding notes on joy, but its deepest resonance now comes from its line, “every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.” Still joy, but a much deeper and more real level than we could have imagined seven years–and three sons–ago.
This Holy Week, I pray that we may all encounter the joy and beauty of Jesus–”apart from me you can do nothing.”
Some great epigraphs posted here!
I have two:
The first is a consoling statement about God’s mercy
Hebrews 4:14: “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin. So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.”
The second highlights an element that has particularly been a part of my spiritual journey since I was in grade school: Awareness of death (not because of any particular tragedy)
Walker Percy “From Facts to Fiction” (1966) in a collection essays entitled “Signposts in a Strange Land”:
“After twelve years of a scientific education, I felt somewhat like the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard when he finished reading Hegel. Hegel, said Kierkegaard, explained everything under the sun, except one small detail: what it means to be a man living in the world who must die.”
“To be human is to change, to be perfect is to have changed often.”
–John Henry Newman
“When shall we begin to do good?”
–St Philip Neri
and a lighter note:
“Love many; trust few and paddle your own canoe.”
–Msgr. Florence D. Cohalan
It seems time for some G.K. Chesterton…
“The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.”
“It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.”
“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
And my personal favorite:
“Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.”
Msgr FLORENCE? Oops … did the Holy Spirit finally get through to the Church and I hadn’t heard about it?
And my all-time governing epigraph:
“Cope, Don’t Mope!” Blessed Hildegarde of Ubaldigor
I also like Pope John 23:
See everything, overlook a great deal, correct a little.
It’s HARD! Especially the “overlook” part. And it sounds better in Italian.
Jimmy, I always liked that quote from Philo, but didn’t know where it came from. I always thought it would be good if I could somehow get that saying wired up somehow so that it played in my head before I opened up my big mouth.