Resonant Reading (Saturday)-The Virgin Mary-Panofsky

An exploration of ideas, feelings, and our life experiences, using a different short reading as our springboard each time. The sessions are on Saturdays, 4-5, and on Wednesdays, 12-1. All are wide open and you are welcome to come twice a week or once in a while.

The participants over the years have found that the approach we take, and the respectful, affectionate community of inquirers in which we read and converse, are as important as the reading itself. While many small groups begin with a check-in, with a session only an hour long, Resonant Reading jumps right in to the conversation. Those who are frequently in the group get to know each other very well this way, and those who are new will soon find they are among friends.

Facilitators use a light hand, posting the reading in the chat and calling on whoever’s Zoom hand is up. Suggestions for readings* come from group members, who also take turns facilitating, if they want to try that role.

The reading for this session: Saturday, November 22nd

“[The] Virgin Mary, humbly sitting on the ground in front of a resplendent cloth of honor, adores the Infant Jesus, [her hands point downward toward him] and her robe embroidered with the “Magnificat”. With no one present but her sleeping husband, she is no less alone with her Son than she will be when kissing Him farewell.  That Rogier did expect us to think of the Passion while contemplating a scene from the Infancy is evident from the reliefs on the capitals where the Sacrifice of Isaac and the Death of Absalom prefigure the work of Redemption and, more specifically, the lance thrust of Longinus. Moreover, the fact that the Virgin holds the Christ Child on her lap in the very act of adoration, brings to mind those texts in which she addresses the dead Saviour with words such as: “Now I hold Thee on my lap as a dead body, Thee whom I held on my lap as a slumbering babe.”[This last verse is a quote found in the writing of early Christian mystics such as Symeon Metaphrastes, George of Nicomedia, and St. Bernadine of Siena]” – Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting

How to join:

• Join this class from your Web browser: https://zoom.us/j/91019857324, passcode 227385
• Join this class using the Zoom app: Meeting ID: 910 1985 7324
• Join this class by phone: 669 900 9128 US (San Jose), Meeting ID: 910 1985 7324
• Join this class by on-tap on mobile phones: +16699009128,,91019857324# US (San Jose)
• Phoning in, but not in the bay area?  Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/abL8clvIYT

This is the Zoom link for Saturdays. For the Wednesday Zoom link, go to the Calendar and click on a Wednesday session.

Questions? Drop an e-mail to resonant-reading+owner@uucpa.org.