How many days of “the fifty-day Easter Sunday 2024” are we on today? Are we aware that this time gives us seven times seven days (7 X 7), and one more, to taste, enjoy, and appropriate our Easter-existence?
How much commitment and energy goes into organizing the pre-Easter penitential season year after year – retreats in everyday life, Stations of the Cross, penitential celebrations, confession and fasting for good individual and communal-solidary purposes? In investigating their smallest shortcomings, many believers are just as persistent and diligent as the anxious housewife seeking the lost silver coin (Luke 15:9) – except that she is not looking for something to be eliminated, but rather for what she already possesses, and wants to regain and preserve. Are the charisms given to us being explored and cultivated just as persistently and carefully? If we are rightly celebrating the time of salvation during the sacramentum quadragesimale – are we celebrating the fifty days of the one Easter Sunday in a similarly tangible way?
The 40 of Lent days culminate in the intense Holy Week, the Triduum, the Paschal transit from death to life – and its liturgical celebration demands all our strength. The melody of the Hallelujah in the 6th tone no longer soars to lofty heights, for all is finished and the work of salvation is done (cf. Jn 19:30; Ps 22:32). We are allowed to eat and drink joyfully (cf. 1 Cor 5:7f)? Yes, and then the feast seems to be over.
After all, what happens in our parishes during Easter that is comparable to the activities of Lent? Only the (all too) familiar liturgical markers Hallelujah and Easter candle, the color “white” and readings from the Acts of the Apostles instead of the Old Testament – indicate the continuation of the laetissimum spatium for several more weeks. We have become so accustomed to them that they do not force themselves into the foreground of our perception. Unlike “Lent,” the annual Pascha (Easter) celebration lacks much of its existential seriousness and has little impact on the lives of the baptized.
Easter cloth instead of Lent cloth
The discussion about this disparity between the rich pastoral program of the pre-Easter penitential season and the comparatively inconspicuous, less creative celebration of the Easter season of joy gave rise to an idea in our community in Vienna, which is linked to the Benedictine Abbey of the Scots. In the search for a contemporary expression of Easter theology and spirituality, the decision was made to look to a textile work of art. The Scottish Abbey in Vienna (Schottenstift) did not have the usual Lenten cloth, which covers crosses and pictures since the Middle Ages to hide them from view (“Fasting with the eyes”), but an Easter cloth that sensually “reveals” what the annual celebration of Easter is all about. The baptismal font, where all baptisms take place during the year and, of course, the Easter Vigil, was chosen as the location for its installation.
The cloths: their dynamic, number, and colors
Since the Easter Vigil in 2005, specially made baptismal and Easter cloths that are decorated in various ways have been on display in our church during the fifty-day Easter period. They do not have a fixed place, but are draped differently every year – so they are a moving, not a static, work of art that always offers new aspects of the Easter transition from death to life.
Eight lengths of fabric, several meters long, some wider and some narrower, were painted on both sides in multiple colors so as not to be limited to one front and one back and thus to one angle.
The artist couple Cécile Nordegg and Jonathan Berkh explain:
“The repertoire of symbolism, not only in the church and liturgy, is incredibly extensive; broad and deep. Symbols stand for something and yet they are. The symbols in our work are the colors. The colors are: yellow, earth-colored or blue, for example, and they stand for something. For the beginning, for example, creation, Abraham’s trial, for the suffering endured by the Israelites in Egypt; sand, thirst, heat, sun; for the hardships of the Exodus, for the suffering endured by Jesus, for the burdens we carry around with us. They stand for water, heaven, consolation, the beginning of the new, baptism, liberation, redemption; for the new, strength, resurrection, decision, faith. The baptismal font has eight corners, seven for the old and one for the new. We have adopted this symbol and painted eight cloths. With many colors for the old and many colors for the new, for which you can always decide anew.”1]
The strong color red is also visible on two cloths: in a few strokes, at right angles to each other – blood on the lintel, blood on the beams of the cross.
In preparation for the Easter Vigil …
Every year on Holy Saturday after Vespers, the lengths of fabric stored in the pen are laid out ready. After a careful look at the cloths unrolled on the floor, a preliminary decision is made as to which colorful sides should come into their own this time. Then the installation gradually takes shape. There are no guidelines, no “archetype” of what should be shown that has to be recreated, but spontaneity and creativity bring forth the “ephemeral,” establishing a living 50-day work of art anew.
The cloths can be attached to the meter-high tubular steel scaffolding purchased especially for this purpose or to any other place in the church interior. This always creates new associations: Looking up to the one who is “lifted up from the earth” (Jn 12:32) opens up a view of the one exalted at the right hand of God, who will draw all men to himself (cf. Jn 12:32). Raw is the tool on which redemption literally hangs, roughly and unadorned also the scaffolding under the – not softly flowing, but physically resistant – texture of the fabric.
… many biblical associations come to mind
The “water-bright” and “mud-brown” cloths falling from above allow further associations: they are reminiscent of the divided flood of water “being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left” during the Exodus (Ex 14:22), when God “caused the children of Abraham to pass dry-shod through the Red Sea, so that the chosen people, set free from slavery to Pharaoh, would prefigure the people of the baptized” (Blessing of baptismal water). At the same time, these cloths offer the congregation around the baptismal fountain – here a waterfall and revitalizing spring – a sight just as refreshing as the water cut out of the rock by Moses, with which “the congregation and their cattle” can quench their thirst on the way through the desert (Num 20:8).
Towering and visible from afar, the cloths – depending on whether their muted grey or their yellow-reddish colouring is visible – also symbolize God’s walking with us in the pillar of cloud by day and in the pillar of fire by night (cf. Ex 13:21f).
The former Abbot Heinrich Ferenczy summed up this liveliness as follows:
“Water, fire, light – near the baptismal font, the hanging cloths bring movement to this area … Life thus enters the beautiful but stony architecture. Nothing is as moving, light, warming, but also cleansing as fire; a great longing for light fills us after long winter nights. God is light and there is no darkness in him. In Christ, he shows us the way through time. Since baptism, the Spirit of God has also been the source of life that does not pass away. Water means death and life: Water can destroy, tear away and destroy much; but without water there is no life.”[2]
Creativity is needed
The “high” suspension on the scaffolding is not the only way, as other interpretations are also possible. Over the years, very different ways of draping have been found. Flowing around the foot and edge of the baptismal font, the “living waters” (Jn 7:38) are just as visible as the Water flowing out of the Temple, which can neither be contained nor channeled (cf. Ez 47:1): This year its waters flow down the steps of the pulpit … The textile “watercourses” on the church floor or wrapped around the heads of some pews have a similar effect; the “integration” of the altar, ambo or paschal candlestick in turn creates references between baptism, proclamation and Eucharist.
When the Easter candle is brought to the place of baptism, the bright cloths colored like the pillar of fire appear like reflections of the lumen Christi to dispel the darkness of that night and guide the person being baptized (cf. Exsultet).
The wooden side portal of the church – in front of which the baptismal font and paschal candle stand – is also included: if the cloths with the red “traces of blood” are placed there, they again remind us of the sparing passover of YHWH in view of the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts of the Hebrews’ houses (cf. Ex 12:22f) and of “the Lamb that was slain” (Rev 5:9) so that we can feast (cf. 1 Cor 5:7f).
… in parish life
P. Christoph Merth describes:
“The cloths […] should not just be a work of art that decorates the room and creates a unique effect. From now on, they will be there within the congregation and for the congregation: a sign that can speak to us, that wants to lead us to a deeper understanding of our existence as baptized people. How this can happen remains to be seen. We will certainly see the Easter cloth during the Easter period, but perhaps one or two candidates for baptism will also decide to incorporate the cloths as an element in the preparation and celebration of their baptism. Perhaps families who bring their children to be baptized will enjoy using these cloths in a playful and meditative way, laying them anew, letting them flow … If this succeeds, then the work of art has achieved its goal; to be part of the life of this parish.”[3]
To more pictures of the Easter cloths
Postscript: A missed opportunity
Shortly before Easter, there was a heated debate about a contemporary work of art in Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral. The plan was to install a newly created textile triptych in the cathedral: a Lenten cloth (as every year), an Easter cloth for the first time and even a Pentecost cloth. However, shortly before Holy Week, the cathedral chapter banned the Easter cloth from being hung. It showed a resurrected, transfigured boy clothed only in a loincloth and with the stigmata of Christ. Regardless of the classic Christian iconography and the theologically coherent connection between the crib and the cross, it was feared that this depiction could scandalize and confuse the faithful.
The criticism was that it was too monumental, especially in the sanctuary, where the Eucharist is celebrated …. How accustomed have we become to the many huge crucifixes and statues of tortured martyrs that only a wounded child’s body makes us aware of the monstrosity of the crucifixion? And therefore – even when transfigured – must not be shown? Have we forgotten how irritating and at the same time overwhelming the encounter with the Risen Christ must have been? And are we no longer aware that in the Eucharist the broken body and the blood of Christ poured out for us (cf. Lk 22:20) are served?
An initiative and its abrupt end, and a missed opportunity … perhaps a reason not to let the Easter period simply pass by?
[1] Christoph Merth, Harald Buchinger, Ingrid Fischer, Steht auf zum Leben! Ein Buch zu den Ostertüchern von Cécile Nordegg und Jonathan Berkh (ed. by Museum im Schottenstift Betriebsges. m. b. H. Vienna) 2005, unpaginated.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.