Possible candidates of saints of nudists,
- As soon, then, as you entered, you put off your tunic; and this was an image of putting off the old man with his deeds. Colossians 3:9 Having stripped yourselves, you were naked; in this also imitating Christ, who was stripped naked on the Cross, and by His nakedness put off from Himself the principalities and powers, and openly triumphed over them on the tree. For since the adverse powers made their lair in your members, you may no longer wear that old garment; I do not at all mean this visible one, but the old man, which waxes corrupt in the lusts of deceit. Ephesians 4:22 May the soul which has once put him off, never again put him on, but say with the Spouse of Christ in the Song of Songs, I have put off my garment, how shall I put it on Song of Songs 5:3? O wondrous thing! You were naked in the sight of all, and were not ashamed ; for truly ye bore the likeness of the first-formed Adam, who was naked in the garden, and was not ashamed.
- Then, when you were stripped, you were anointed with exorcised oil , from the very hairs of your head to your feet, and were made partakers of the good olive-tree, Jesus Christ. For you were cut off from the wild olive-tree , and grafted into the good one, and were made to share the fatness of the true olive-tree. The exorcised oil therefore was a symbol of the participation of the fatness of Christ, being a charm to drive away every trace of hostile influence. For as the breathing of the saints, and the invocation of the Name of God, like fiercest flame, scorch and drive out evil spirits , so also this exorcised oil receives such virtue by the invocation of God and by prayer, as not only to burn and cleanse away the traces of sins, but also to chase away all the invisible powers of the evil one.
newadvent.org/fathers/310120.htm
In 1806 Ingres set out for Rome, and in the Vatican he saw the frescoes of the greatest of the decorators, the master of the “Parnassus” and the “School of Athens”. He at once persuaded himself that this was absolute beauty, and that these paintings held within them formulæ and concepts revealing a full definition of art and of its immutable laws. And it is to this mistake of his that we owe not a few of his finest works; for had he not wrongly thought himself a classicist, he would not have felt himself bound to adopt the essential constituent of the classical language, namely, the nude figure. The nude, in modern realism, hints at the unusual, suggests something furtive and secret, and takes a place in the programme of the realists only as something exceptional. Whereas with Ingres, thanks to the classical idealism of his doctrine, the nude was always a most important and sacred object of study. And to this study he applied, as in all his undertakings, a delicacy and freshness of feeling, an accuracy of observation toned down by a slightly sensual touch of charm, which place these paintings among his most precious works. Never was the joy of drawing and painting a beautiful body, of reproducing it in all the glory and grace of tis youth, mastered by a Frenchman to such an extent, nor in a way so akin to the art of the great painters. “OEdipus” and the “Girl Bathing” (1808), the “Odalisque” (1814), the “Source” (1818) — all these canvases are in the Louvre — are among the most beautiful poems consecrated to setting forth the noblest meaning of the human figure. And yet they remain but incomparable “studies”. The painter is all the while incapable of blending his sensations, of harmonizing them with one another so as to form a tableau.
newadvent.org/cathen/08008b.htm
Freed by his mother during Bernardone’s absence, Francis returned at once to St. Damian’s, where he found a shelter with the officiating priest, but he was soon cited before the city consuls by his father. The latter, not content with having recovered the scattered gold from St. Damian’s, sought also to force his son to forego his inheritance. This Francis was only too eager to do; he declared, however, that since he had entered the service of God he was no longer under civil jurisdiction. Having therefore been taken before the bishop, Francis stripped himself of the very clothes he wore, and gave them to his father, saying: “Hitherto I have called you my father on earth; henceforth I desire to say only ‘Our Father who art in Heaven’.” Then and there, as Dante sings, were solemnized Francis’s nuptials with his beloved spouse, the Lady Poverty, under which name, in the mystical language afterwards so familiar to him, he comprehended the total surrender of all worldly goods, honours, and privileges. And now Francis wandered forth into the hills behind Assisi, improvising hymns of praise as he went. “I am the herald of the great King”, he declared in answer to some robbers, who thereupon despoiled him of all he had and threw him scornfully in a snow drift. Naked and half frozen, Francis crawled to a neighbouring monastery and there worked for a time as a scullion. At Gubbio, whither he went next, Francis obtained from a friend the cloak, girdle, and staff of a pilgrim as an alms. Returning to Assisi, he traversed the city begging stones for the restoration of St. Damian’s. These he carried to the old chapel, set in place himself, and so at length rebuilt it. In the same way Francis afterwards restored two other deserted chapels, St. Peter’s, some distance from the city, and St. Mary of the Angels, in the plain below it, at a spot called the Porziuncola. Meantime he redoubled his zeal in works of charity, more especially in nursing the lepers.
newadvent.org/cathen/06221a.htm
