The Spirituality of Fireworks
We love fireworks.
To see the swords of modern warfare refashioned, if only here and only for one night, into ploughshares of pyrotechnic grandeur – the arts of war denatured, and put to the service of beauty, an anti-image of violence.
To see fire reveal the invisible beauty of salts of strontium, titanium, copper, iron, barium, sodium, zirconium – elements themselves first forged when incalculable energy of heat and light turned the building blocks of hydrogen, helium and lithium into all that now makes up the world we know.
To see, and think on that originating forge in which they were crafted, on the first instant of material creation as described in the physics of Monsignor Lemaître – an instant called derisively by Sir Fred Hoyle the “Big Bang” and profoundly by Pope Pius XII “an hour of peace” – turning us from the atavistic terror of massive scale and explosive force to the infinite gentleness of the guiding hand of the Creator.
To see this expressed in the mystery of color, light fragmenting into the diverse and the delightful, light that is nothing commensurate with the science of optics, light that as color ultimately eludes and exceeds description. As St. John of the Cross wrote: “If those born blind were told about the nature of the colors white or yellow, they would understand absolutely nothing no matter how much instruction they received… Only the names of these colors would be grasped since the names are perceptible through hearing; but never their form or image, because these colors were never seen by those born blind” – words the saint wrote as an analogy, comparing the phenomenological beauty and radiance of color to the hidden glory held substantially by faith.
And to see all of this in a community formed by the shared experience of awe; a community thoroughly multi-ethnic, multilingual, and multinational, a community of diversity in times of division – and indeed a community, however ephemeral and fleeting it might have been.
The Girandola fireworks above the Castel Sant’Angelo just outside the Vatican, is a papal tradition of well over five hundred years’ antiquity. Historian of science Simon Werrett considers it “the greatest of early European fireworks”; art historian Elizabeth Lev cites evidence of Michelangelo’s creative participation in the Girandola in the 16th Century, and describes the genesis of the 1641 Girandola, designed by Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini and artistically inspired by the eruption of the Stromboli volcano in Sicily, ten years before. The tradition continues every year on June 29th, the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul.
On June 29th, we were in the choir loft at St. John Vianney in West Haven, Connecticut, preparing to sing for the vigil Mass for the Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, when to our astonishment our pastor appeared vested in red. As it happened, the priests of our diocese had been offered a special indult to celebrate the Mass for Sts. Peter and Paul that day, in honor of the investiture of the pallium on our new metropolitan, Archbishop Christopher Coyne. Later that night, we too enjoyed a fireworks show on the water – though not on the Tiber, but on Long Island Sound.
On the 4th of July, we were at 46th Street on the Hudson River, just outside the Intrepid Museum, to watch the Macy’s Independence Day Display. The show was amazing; in addition to the familiar chrysanthemums, willows and all the rest, there were perfectly geometric orbs of light, striped in a multicolor array.
St. John of God, the patron of fireworks makers (and spiritual directee of one of our Sacred Beauty patrons, St. John of Ávila), was an early adopter of the technology of his time, printing and distributing devotional works set with Gutenberg moveable type. In an interview with Fast Company, Macy’s show designer Gary Souza described the pace of innovation demanded by his profession, noting that up to thirty percent of the shells fired any given year represent new designs; the journalist added: “Still, don’t expect any duds: They’ve all been tested in the Mojave Desert in advance of the show.”
While one wouldn’t want to call it a dud, we did notice one solitary variation in the entire show: at one point, a single set of the perfectly synchronized shells from the five barges on the Hudson exploded into four pinwheels – and one cross. Val randomly happened to catch a picture: