Italian Musing #5: Heaven in Fra Angelico's Last Judgment

For many years of my life, before coming to the monastery, I was an active member of a traditional English dance community - we studied and enjoyed British and American dances from the late Renaissance through the 1800's. I have often said that this form of dance was my first formation in communal living. Although danced by couples, the figures link 2, 3, 4 or more couples, and only succeed when everyone gets to the right place at the right moment. The beauty only fully emerges when every dancer not only knows his or her part, but is also alert and responsive to the way all the others are dancing - taking care to finish a move so that the other dancer is in place for his next move, compensating for another's slightly faster or slower movement. Dancing with a group is always fun, but when the music and the dancers come together, it can be heaven.

So I was delighted to find, in Florence, that Fra Angelico had similar notions.

His Last Judgment - painted for an altar - shows all the graves popped open in the middle, the sinners being herded into Hell on the right, and - over on the left - the blessed being invited to join the dance as it winds its way into heaven.

The line of dancers form a circle - a common pattern found in many cultures. If one looks closely (detail), it's clear that there is an alternation: one winged angel, one new soul, another angel. At the very end of the line, an angel is reaching out a hand to a Dominican monk - Join the dance! - and his hand is outstretched, his face radiant.

Some of the newly risen - including kings, popes, many in the garb of nobility, and, yes, one or two monks - are singing praise, worship and adoration of the risen Christ, and seem perfectly content to continue. The dance, though, starts at the other end of the crowd. The angels seem to invite monks and nuns, and some plain townspeople, to this active and joyous processional dance.

The head of line approaches the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem, lit entirely by the glory of God. One pair of dancers are seen about to enter the gate - a soul and an angel.

What can we make of this scene? All of these souls have been saved, all have the experience of the beatific vision. For some, though, the joy is that of seeing and worshipping still at a distance. For others, the joy is more active and intimate - an invitation, the touch of a hand, processing through the outer ring - and to be invited through gates beyond which we cannot see.

The English Country Dancers - and so many other groups that share these types of community dance - do not have it far wrong. When we are able to dance together so perfectly because we are not thinking of "my fun" but "our good" - and we fully hear the beauty the musicians are creating for us - we are in one of those moments where the veil between heaven and earth becomes very thin. Just for a moment, we hear the deeper invitation.

So often, painters and theologians remind us of depths of hell and the dreadful possibilities of the Last Judgment. Fra Angelico does not ignore this at all - but he reminds us with equal force of the intimacy, beauty, and joy of intimate union with Christ. He does not ignore the possibility of Hell - but seems more interested in making sure we are ready to fully give ourselves to joy. Rejoice! he seems to say, be ready to dance!