Federico Barocci Renaissance Master

The St. Louis Art Museum has an exhibit up Federico Barocci: Renaissance Master through this coming Sunday, January 20th, that is well-worth seeing. This particular preview image here is better than many you will find online -- the colors and tone-scale are pretty true, but nothing compared to seeing the real thing in person. The idea that "religious art" is dark and somber is wrong, wrong, wrong. These paintings are stunning and huge -- most of them are of architectural scale, not paintings for a suburban living room.

Barocci had a truly Catholic eye -- he could capture a supernatural vision within mundane (even funny) ordinary life. An example is here in the painting called La Madonna del Gatto, or roughly Our Lady of the Cat. She is holding St. John and our Lord in a domestic setting where the last prophet of the Old Testament is playing with (teasing?) a cat. The message here is that Salvation History isn't a mere abstraction -- it happened and looked at least at the time pretty ordinary (and conventionally nuts). This is what  "incarnation" means and Barocci got it on canvas.

AHC Lecture Series, Typology: How the Old Testament Prefigures the New

The Spring 2013 lecture series, “Typology: How the Old Testament Prefigures the New”, sponsored by the Association of Hebrew Catholics (AHC) begins on Wednesday Jan. 23. This series, consisting of 14 lectures will beheld in the Gannon Room of the Cathedral Basilica Rectory, every Wednesday from 7-9 PM. Entrance and parking are on the west (left) side of the Rectory. The lectures are of general interest to all Catholics and presented free of charge by Dr. Lawrence Feingold. Dr. Feingold is a Credo Advisory Board Member, the AHC Director of Theology, and Associate Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, St. Louis.

While there is continuity from one lecture to the next, each lecture in the series can stand alone. You can view the schedule and titles of all lectures, as well as retrieve MP3 podcasts of past lectures here. Call the AHC at 314-535-4242 for additional information.

Professor James Hitchcock’s History of the Catholic Church

Finally! Professor Hitchcock’s long awaited and comprehensive  History of the Catholic Church is out. Join Credo in welcoming his book and congratulating him on his latest achievement at a reception and book signing event from 2 – 4 PM on Sunday, January 27^th at St. Louis the King School (Boland Hall) at the Cathedral Basilica. Copies will be available on-site at the discounted price of $25 (cash or check, please). Professor Hitchcock will give a short talk, and will be happy to inscribe your copy if you like. There will be light refreshments. No charge but donations appreciated. Questions? Click Here.

Click the photo here to be taken to the Ignatius Press webpage for the book. Need a flyer for your church or school bulletin board? Click Here.