http://archangelpublications.com/6publications/60.htmlSTUDY: THE COSMIC IMAGE
3.01 The Search for the Cosmic Image
3.02 LITURGY: Art + Architecture + Space
3.03 LITURGY: Manifestation of the Supernatural?
3.04 LITURGY: Liturgy: Space + Time + Architecture
3.05 LITURGY: History + Style +Image
3.06 LITURGY: Artisan Questions
3.07 TIME: Historical, Liturgical, Mystical
3.08 TIME: Amenenesis, Epclesis, Prolepus
3.09 TIME: Divine Presence
3.10 TIME:The Past Future: Present
3.01: THE SEARCH FOR THE COSMIC IMAGE
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Although, the concepts of the “Cosmic Image” in the construction of sacred space for the future Church has been with us from the moment of breaking of the Bread in the Upper Room fully materialized in the genius of the Gothic and Renaissance.
Some believe that the:
Reality of the Cosmic Image consummated in the work of Gaudi.
Today, the creative professions have turned away from Christ to pursue the secular and the profane.
Lost in themselves, searching for God, not from within the inner mystical life that leads us to the sacred they are found reaching out into the scattered light of shapes reflected in the glitz and glitter of false cultural values.
‘Reaching into the past for form and detail not as a Brunellschi but as the Disneyland specialist where Church becomes video, imitation, and disguised as sacred?’
How bring about a “transformation” in the few to avoid the terrible possibility of the many?
Monastic Institute Interview 2007: Lackney R.R., “Spiritual Life: Mystery”. Vol. 2, 2/20
http://archangelpublications.com/6publications/60.html3.02 LITURGICAL ART .
“ … The decay of Sacred Art into Religious Art ….a language of energetic symbols into a “mawkish” sentimentality, is symptomatic of a growing blindness: the transformation of contemplation and communion into aestheticism. Great Christian art did not die because all possible forms had been used up … it died because faith was being transformed into piety… always a certain amount of abstraction … purging ecclesiastical art of the sentimental and literal irrelevancies which obscure its essential function …”
There are 3 degrees of Liturgical Art include:
1/ Contemplative Art: God-centered abstractions imagery.
2/ Religious Art: Religious Themes,
3/ Sacred Art: Art used for public prayer murals, stained- glass, vestments, vessels, sacred books, carvings, and symbols.Word/Image: The creative process of connecting images with words is the result of a deep religious faith where sanctified persons have been given the grace to make beauty.
Design is a community initiative where things made by the artisan announces the Presence of God.
Where flowing from the artist’s Creative Imagination the community is called to prayer, worship, and service to one another.
Objects that are placed /found in holy places, sculpture, paintings, carvings, stained-glass windows, and relics, awaken the presence of God.
Sacred Space: An intersection point between humanity and divinity a “Jewel” that mirrors the mysteries of Christ.
Faith ‘feeds’ on the Word and Image: Word/Image coexist giving a silent witness to the history, traditions,& teachings of the Church.
Lackney Robert R., “MOTHER: Simplicity + Solitude + Splendor”. Jan.23rd
http://archangelpublications.com/7itemsforsale/75.html3.03: LITURGY:THE SUPERNATURAL?
‘ Liturgy without a framework of generalizations, details are aimless.
Without the knowledge of the details, generalizations are meaningless slogans.’
r.r.l 2004
‘ Design forced by a theory based upon fictions severely limits the performance of the designer.
Work forced by a theory based upon fictions is irrelevant.
Each problem waiting to be solved offers unique opportunities and solutions. This process of the “cycle of problem to solution(s)” reveals the talent of the designer to “see” and to “identify” concepts.
Notions and theories- insights into the supernatural- that flow from the designer-artisan’s mind- are necessary “generalizations” but are rare products among those who are the “doers” in the drafting rooms.
Ordinarily, the details dominate the mediocre mind. Generalizations standing alone become clichés.
Details alone become “chitchat”, “gossip”, “rumor”, or little more than “tittle-tattle”: without a theory these become speculations of an undisciplined mind.
‘Generalizations within liturgy require supporting details and details must fit into whole generalizations and the details are a sine qua non [or outcomes] combination in liturgical teaching.’
2007 Reflections: Faith, Religion, Belief, and Science
r.r.lackney, liturgical architect
http://archangelpublications.com/8IIdeasWorthy/82.html3.04: LITURGY: SPACE + TIME + ARCHITECTURE
“ … I hope to discover ideas that embody a clear sense of architectural form.
Identify those key ideas that have
the potential and ability to generate SACRED FORM…”
How do I define, for myself, and others a clear and concise “way of thinking” about ARCHITECTURE?
This has been my search: a theory that is capable of revealing the design attributes that “mix and blend” and that enables me to mentally generate the forms and images of space, structure, surface that come together to make space and buildings that are recognized as ARCHITECTURE!!!
I study to understand those concepts that establish the form, the patterns of space, the pathways of movement, the perceptions of time, and the patterns of light-its shades/shadows, colors/textures.
My task: to develop a way of “seeing” architectural space and form from both “inside/outside” simultaneously.
Identifying within the pre-conceived design programs of those activities relationships, elements, and linkages that form ideas that solve problems. Become vehicles for “innovations”.
IDEAS: the conceptual analyses of the building are both abstractions and experiences intended to convey the essential characteristics of the building. As such, these conceptual ideas focus on the building’s attributes allowing comparisons of IMAGERY, independent of the designer’s sense of process, or style.
The conceptual ideas reduce the imagery to their “essence” simplified to their essentials. Conceptual ideas are to be understood as concepts which the designer influences or gives form to the design; offering a means to organize decisions to provide order and to generate form.
Education+ Design + Practice, 2000
r.r.lackney, liturgical architect
Society of sacred Art and Architecture, Inc.
http://archangelpublications.com/2contactus/1.html3.05: LITURGY: HISTORY + STYLE + IMAGE Making the past and future: “Present in the: Near and Now”.
1: Image nurtured in experience, knowledge, vision, and spirit seeks expression through integrity and simplicity.
2: Defining problems, finding solutions and clarifying goals is the process objectives are translated into realities.
3: Design forced by a theory based upon fictions severely limits the performance of the designer.
4: Work forced by a theory based upon fictions is irrelevant.
+OBSERVING CASES+
+FORMULATING CONCEPTS+
+DESIGNING STRUCTURES AND PRODUCTS+
These the work and thinking processes to discover an authentic expression of the “supernatural presence” in space and form in time and place.
How do we teach the “reality of the supernatural” to the form givers?
The conceptual “ Way of Thinking and Working Process”, should be pursued.
3.06: LITURGY: ARTISAN QUESTIONSEach Artisan must reconcile the reality of the supernatural in their works:
• Is sacred and or secular space “supernatural” ?
• Define the intersection of Divine with Human time?
• How is the Alpha/Omega realized in liturgical space?
• Are Signs/Symbols the Doorways to Divinity?
• Can Past Future be made Present in the Liturgy?
• How does Architectural space generate the “sense of Divine Presence?
• How does Architecture form present “Inner Mystery”?
• How is the “sense of presence” reflected in historical references?
4th Day Journal, March 1985, Rome
R.R.Lackney
http://archangelpublications.com/3consultation/34.html 3.07 TIME: HISTORICAL, LITURGICAL,MYSTICAL
HISTORICAL TIME:Traditionally viewed as: Chronological. Sequential Linear.
MYSTICAL TIME:Perpetual concepts that include Circular. Cyclic. Continuous without
Beginnings and ending. Eternal.
SACRED TIME:Developed in medieval thought as Concentric, ever expanding, absolute central beginning and ending. The ever Present Moment known as: Eternity, where Historical Human Time is intersects with Eternity and the Past Future is made Present.
The life of possibilities and creative adventures that are discovered within the spiritual dimensions of sacred time. Catholic belief embraces the reality that everything can Begin all over again. Individual lives are freed of all past lives. Believers are forgiven past mistakes of their lives and start over. It is the Divine Voice we hear deep within ourselves that calls out in time to us. The human capacity to reach back in the mind to an activity, experience, event, person and to bring it out of the past and into the present moment.
TECHNOLOGY TIME:
The 4-dimensional continuum of the temporal and
3 spatial coordinates the Space/Time continuum.
LITURGICAL TIME:The Church teaches that Liturgical Time is circular, an ever contracting spiral, connecting the First Day, the Day of Creation (Genesis) and The Eighth Day, The Judgment Day.
Christians believe that The Alpha and the Omega (Revelations) stands at the center of human history and time where all things past, present, and future breaks out of chronological time and opens into the sacred time of eternity where the past and future is made present.
3.08 TIME: EPICLESIS, ANAMNESIS, PROLESUS
THE PAST IN THE PRESENT MOMENT
This concept is not new. Known for centuries by the mystics in all religions as:
Anamnesis (Zikkaron)
The three fundamental attributes of Sacred Time include the:
Epiclesis, Anamnesis, and Prolesus
Where Past - Future is experienced in the Present Moment.
THE PAST FUTURE: PRESENT (The Model)
Amenesis: recalling the Past into the Present Moment
Eplclesis: the invocation of the Spirit of Christ
Prolepus: echos of the Future into the Present Moment.HUMAN LIFE (Church teaching)The life of possibilities and creative adventures that are
discovered within the spiritual dimensions of sacred time.
The Church teaches that Liturgical Time is circular, an ever contracting spiral, connecting the First Day, the Day of Creation (Genesis) and The Eighth Day, The Judgment Day.
Christians believe that The Alpha and the Omega (Revelations) stands at the center of human history and time where all things past, present, and future breaks out of chronological time and opens into the sacred time of eternity where the past and future is made present.
All sacred time is focused into the present moment of the liturgical celebration of the
LITURGY: THE HOLY MASS
Liturgy is where the believer is made one with the Creator.
Humankind is “assimilated” into the mystery of the
Alpha and Omega with all its meaning and reality within the present moment.
The Mass is a continuous prayer of praise and thanksgiving of the supernatural reality within sacred time. Liturgy allows humankind to re-enter the moment of origin of the events within sacred history and to experience the Last Supper, the Passion, Resurrection Ascension, and the Judgment Day, the Last Day, the Day of Yahweh. Worship and prayer is the means by which the Christian enters into the mystery of Liturgical Time where
the reality of the past, future is made present.
The Christian experience of the ever presence of God, once and for all, in the here and now is validated as God freely intervenes in the personal lives of the believer:
1/ Sacred Time: the individual is transfigured and stands in the Holy Presence and is the witness of the Creator who caused the cosmos.
2/ Christian belief teaches that it is the Creator, who caused the cosmos, and who connects the beginnings and endings of eternity to the present moment.
3/ When at worship, the individual ceases to exist in the everyday world.
4/ The individual is transfigured and stands in the Holy Presence and is the witness of the Creator who caused the cosmos.
3.09 TIME: DIVINE PRESENCE
DIVINE PRESENCE:
Religion teaches that the intervention of God into the affairs of humankind has been, and continues to be, a universal phenomenon experienced within ancient cultures until present times.
Ancient cultures responded to their unique personal encounters with the interventions of the “Gods” filled with awe and fear. These communities associated divinity with the “re- creating” cycles of nature : The return of the seasons, weather events, births and deaths, and the movements of the sun , moon and stars. Focused on these interventions of the earth and sky gods humankind integrated these mysterious happenings of the divine into their daily lives as sacred and holy events believing that communication with the divine powers, which dominate and control human existence, would bring the anticipated blessings for the community’s well being.
Structures were erected to honor and venerate the divine presence. First, the placement of monolithic structures to mark the time the deities would return to bless the planting, the harvest, the community, and to receive sacrifice for their sacred services. Earth and sky gods demanded shrines and temples, worship and veneration, and rites and rituals to bring the community into sympathy with the eternal gods.
The God of Israel, the God of Sinai – The One God- opposed the gods who resided in the temples made by human hands and the rationale of humankind’s relationship to existence and the universe.
Yahweh, the great intervention into human history and the universe where:
God freely intervenes in nature, events, things, people, and places.
God is not an event of repeating cycles where
humankind is enslaved or dominated.
God is ever present once and for all time.
God’s omnipotence stamps human history with an irreversible intervention.
God is here in the present, in the moment, in all the manifestations of existence.
THE HISTORY OF HUMANKIND
The world discovers its true character only as it is revealed to be part of the unfolding of the sacred and the divine. Human life and its response to God’s presence is a life of possibilities, creative adventures, and a sequence of positive gestures giving praise for all the good things experienced in the service of God.
Knowledge and Love are indeterminate ever expanding.
