The treasures of devotion

 A few days ago, I visited one of our New York City treasures here in Manhattan on "Museum Mile." I had learned that an exhibit at The Frick Collection, entitled "To the Holy Sepulcher: Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum," was closing the first week of January, so I hurried and bought a ticket. I had not visited this museum in many years, and it had recently reopened after a years-long renovation. I remember visiting as a high school student many decades ago, when I had the good fortune to study art history, igniting a life-long love of art. (One high school summer I worked as an intern at the great Metropolitan Museum of Art, but that story will have to wait for another blogpost.)

"To the Holy Sepulcher: Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum" was a stunning collection of more than forty religious objects on loan from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. 

Among the items were jewel-encrusted gold and silver altar pieces, reliquaries, and sacred vestments from the 17th and 18th centuries, gifted to the Church by wealthy patrons, monarchs and emperors from across Europe. To say that these pieces were fabulous would not do them justice -- I was in awe. But aside from the beauty, artistry, scale and immense intrinsic value that these objects possessed, I was captivated by their magnificence, and imaged myself as an ordinary worshiper in one of these very Catholic countries several centuries ago. Like my own ancestors (who were probably peasants or laborers) the common folk of Europe must have been entranced by these holy treasures, which lifted them from the drudgery of their meager existences into the ecstatic realms of religious devotion as they attended weekly Mass. 

This 17th or 18th century peasant or laborer was likely exposed to only one religion, and attended weekly indoctrination sessions -- I mean devotional services -- at their local church or cathedral. It became clear to me as I mused that becoming an adherent to the Catholic faith was practically inevitable for the vast majority of the population, peasants and nobility alike. Only the highly educated  would have been exposed to other belief-systems, and even fellow Christians of the Protestant or Eastern Orthodox persuasions would have been looked at askance. Jews, Muslims and non-believers were under constant threat of persecution. And I'm not just picking on the Catholic faith; Protestants and Eastern Orthodox observers were likewise guilty of intolerance and religious persecution and violence, as were adherents of Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism in their realms, to name but a few. 

Having been born in the latter half of the 20th century, in a pluralistic society, and in a mixed religion household, my outlook has evolved very differently. My mother was raised Jewish (but not very) and my father Protestant (but not very). My family of upbringing always had a Hanukkah menorah and a Christmas tree this time of year. The only formal religious education I received was at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture. As a teen and young adult, I explored several religions, mostly the various Protestant faiths of family members and friends.  Decades of exploration and introspection have led me to my current identity as an Ethical Culturist-Unitarian Universalist agnostic and a secular Jew. Had I been born in a different place and time, my religious outlook would likely have been very different.