Last weekend I went to a family wedding. It was a Catholic wedding at a Catholic church (For those who are interested, St. Raphael’s, in Morningside [a Pittsburgh neighborhood] It was built in the late 50’s. The old church still sits next to it). It was a beautiful church which had a few symbols, though that baffled me.
Behind the tabernacle there was this ornate, abstract sculpture with a grape and wheat theme. This was easy enough, symbolizing the Host and Wine. But after looking at it for a while, I noticed that there were peacocks in the pattern. Peacocks? I did look this up and found that Peacocks are indeed symbols of resurrection (they moult their feathers and re-grow them every year) so I am just wondering how common the peacock is as a aymbol in the Roman Catholic Church. I’d never seen it before.
This church has many stained glass windows. One side is the normal style that I’ve seen with saints, Jesus, Mary, etc. Thoe other side of the church, though, simply had a collection of small windows each with a different symbol. Most I have seen before, but one puzzled me. It looked like a club that you’d see in a deck of cards, kind of like a 3 leafed clover. What is this symbol and what was it doing in a Catholic church? Does it, perhaps, have something to do with the trinity?
Did the original St. Raphael parish have a strrong Irish component to it? The “club” might have been a faulty attempt at a shamrock.
(Unless the other three card suits were also represented or it was placed in a specific pattern, I do not believe that it would be associated with cards: the three balls of the club symbol indicated money or wealth.)
I would not say peacock’s are common (a bit less common than pelican’s for example, and pelican’s are really not common). However, there are huge numbers of images that have accumulated in the last 1,950± years (to say nothing of the symbols we borrowed from the much older Jewish tradition), so it is not surprising to stumble across a “new” symbol from time to time.
Good question. I was under the impression that this church was an Italian church. I base this opinion on 2 things:
They celebrate the St. Rocco Festival.
They have a bocce ball court in the back of the church.
The neighborhood is mostly Polish, Slovak and Italian. There is an Irish church nearby. This area of Pittsburgh is so heavily Catholic that sometimes it seems that there is a different “ethnic” Catholic church each block.
I had thought of the Shamrock angle, but thought it unlikely since the glass was black. I should also note that the “leaves” were not attached to the “stem.” The glass was 4 distinct pieces. I should note that I got the idea that it was not supposed to secifically be a Club as in cards, that is simply what it looked like. There was a fleur-de-lis near by, for instance.
Perhaps I should have studied the other windows. There were many, though. I would say just from memory, maybe 50-75 individual windows.
Can you perhaps post a picture of these items? Seeing them both alone and in context of the sculpture/window might help identify them.
Having been raised a Roman Catholic (with heavy Orthodox influence from mom’s side of the family), and having taught Catholic school (lay teacher, yes I’ve heard the jokes, thankyouverymuch), I can honestly say I have not seen a peacock depicted in any of the churches I’ve attended. From my readings, the peacock was a symbol of pride and vainglory, more along the lines of the seven deadly sins than the Resurrection. Then again, anything can have almost any meaning attached to it, depending on the context and the lesson to be taught.
Then again, perhaps asking the priest may shed some light on this. There may be some hidden symbolism in the glass window: e.g., it was donated by the “Clubbe” family who wished to remain anonymous, so to speak. You may get an intesting history of the particular parish.
Just a thought. Keep us posted.
Look for a heart, diamond and spade - it’s subliminal advertising for ‘Wednesday Poker Night’ at the church.
Heck, my grandmother’s church (the Orthodox one) had a bowling alley attached to the church! An open corridor (for inclement weather) attached the church to the rec hall and the men’s club, with the bowling alley in between.
So it’s not unheard of as a symbol of resurrection. I still find it odd that this sculpture sits directly behind the altar, above the tabernacle and below the large crucifix. One might say that it is the centerpiece of the church. It is also very abstract and it took me a few minutes of staring at it to notice the 5 or 6 pairs of peacocks. The sculpture has bi-lateral symmetry.
Maybe the next time I’m in Pittsburgh I’ll see if I can’t make a trip out to take some pictures of the church and re-visit this, but, no, it’s not something I can do quickly.
Hall’s Dictionary of Subjects & Symbols in Art (John Murray, 1979) gives both identifications. The full entry for “Peacock” is as follows:
“From the ancient belief that its flesh never decayed the peacock became a Christian symbol of immortality and of Christ’s Resurrection. It is with this meaning that it features in scenes of the NATIVITY. It is the attribute of JUNO, for whom the amoretti may be seen gathering up the 'eyes’from its tail; also of PRIDE personified, and of BARBARA”
For what it’s worth, I have seen pelicans appear in church decoration, but no peacocks that I recall.
The Altar pictures are really crappy, but that gold colored stuff is stylized wheat, grapes, and peacocks. The crappy digital camera seems to get blurrier the further away you get, and, unfortunately, there is no zoom. So, you get what you get. Trust me, there are peacocks in there.
The window pictures are a little better. You can clearly see the “club”, the fleur de lis, and some other odd ones, including a green tree. The wider pictures also suffer from the blur problem, but I included them anyway.
LateComer, it looks like your page isn’t set up correctly – all I get is six broken links where the pictures are supposed to be. I’m guessing that the links you have set up don’t work for anyone outside of IUP.
The peacock was used more commonly in Renaissance art than it is now, so I’m impressed that St. Raphael’s has them! The designer of the church may have been borrowing from a specific church in Europe (somewhat common among American Catholic populations from particular regions, like Italy or Ireland), or that person might have simply been looking for a more European design element.
I haven’t been able to see your pictures, but is it possible that it’s a trefoil design?
This is very common in Gothic architecture. The fact that it has three parts would be appreciated as relating to the Trinity, but it doesn’t have a particular significance.
I took a religious studies class a couple of years ago, and my prof. had us read several stories by Flannery O’Connor, one of the Catholic authors of the 20th century. She included peacocks in her stories as an important religious symbol; she actually owned a small flock and took comfort in their symbolism as she struggled with lupus. There’s an interesting look at O’Connor and her birds here.
Crap. Okay, try it again. The pictures were inserted with file path instead of the full web path. Again, I apologize for the quality of my crappy digital camera.
The three balls are also the symbol of St. Nicholas, patron saint of pawnbrokers, and source of the modern idea of Santa Claus. But I suspect in the arrangement you’re describing, they are meant to symbolize the general idea of the number three in Catholocism (the Holy Trinity, the Holy Family, the three crucified on Good Friday, etc.).
Well, the architecture is post-WWII and pre-Vatican II, so I’m guessing that the “clubs” are stylized shamrocks. (Note also the Chi Rho that has only a single horizontal cross-piece (making it a Chi Tau!?) in place of the “X” (Chi) that should normally be below the “P” (Rho).) The cross embedded in the “M” also “suggests” the IHM (Immaculate Heart of Mary) ikon, but is lacking both the letter H and the pictorial heart.
I’m guessing that some artist got carried away with his “vision” and wound up creating a bunch of symbols that weren’t quite the expected versions.
Wow. Those windows give a whole new meaning to the study of iconography - either a dream or a nightmare, I’m not sure. The club is not a trefoil, I’m sorry but I got an impression of something else before I saw the actual pictures.
One other thing that comes to mind, straight from left field, is that the different windows might have been sponsored by various Italian-American groups. I was thinking this because there is one window that has two crossed keys, which is a symbol of papal authority, a symbol of St. Peter, and is also a symbol of Rome. Another window has a fleur-de-lis, sometimes a symbol of Mary (the lily is associated with Mary), and also the symbol for Florence. If you have Italian-Americans from Rome sponsoring one window, it might be that the “club” is associated with another Italian city. The city emblems could be used in the church because they are not entirely secular – the fleur-de-lis is associated with Florence because Florence is the city of Our Lady of the Flowers (the cathedral there is called Sta. Maria del Fiore, and more commonly called “The Duomo” which means “cathedral” in Italian). This could also support the theory posted by others that the club is a shamrock, which might have been a nod to an Irish-American minority in what is a mostly Italian-American neighborhood.
I have seen other American churches that have this sort of “mother city” motif, although I confess I’ve never seen it in such a prominent area of the decor of the church. I’m half tempted to call the parish house at St. Raphael, I’m sure they’d be pleased to answer any questions.
