The Presence of the Creator

books:

	• The Grail Code: Quest for the Real Presence Mike Aquilina, Christopher Bailey Loyola Press, 2006 - 241 pages average customer review:based on 13 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Presence of the Creator

Since the publication of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, there have been a number of excellent books refuting the historical inaccuracies that Brown asserted as facts. Much of these have concentrated on such topics as the Divinity of Christ, the Canon of Scripture, and the Council of Nicea. Oddly enough, though Brown's assertions on the meaning of the Holy Grail so central to his book are thoroughly undermined, none of the apologists for orthodox Christianity had yet to bother to give a solid treatment of the history of that topic for the average reader.

This void has been ably filled by Mike Aquilina & Christopher Bailey's The Grail Code. Beginning as a simple meditation on the Eucharist, the authors weave a tapestry using threads from Roman and Church history, barbarian invasions, pagan mythology, practical evangelism, medieval romances, and Catholic devotion as medieval society comes to see that what they have been searching for all along is not in a far away land but as near as the local church where the salvation of mankind is presented to the faithful under the appearances of bread and wine.

In telling the tales of not only the legends of King Arthur and the quest for the Holy Grail (and how these two diverse traditions became intertwined) but also the evolution of how these tales were presented, Aquilina and Bailey delve into the stylistic devices authors have employed to add their own twists to these venerable legends and how these gradual accretions reflect the spiritual state of their audiences. In times of spiritual decay, the tales would take on views of love totally at odds with the Christian vision; in times of renewal, the quest would not be fulfilled in adventure but in the most sublime of the Christian mysteries.

The authors also flesh out the corrosive effect that modernism and its rationalist mindset had on this worldview. Having reduced the universe to sense perception and/or the intellect, modernism could not help but reject those accounts of things that would have room for the mystery of faith. This bleak materialism has generally held sway despite revivals of medieval thinking, but now seems to be in its death throes as its bogus promise of an earthly utopia has been exposed. Throughout this time, the legends were reduced to trite though popular tales of military daring- do with little concern for the Christian allegories that united them by a common bond.

Aquilina and Bailey also explore the role of the Protestant Reformation played in the dissolution of the medieval view. Though some of the early Protestants might be considered anti-modern as individuals, their rejection of tradition, methods of Scriptural interpretation, and rejection (in varying degrees) of the reality of the Sacraments allowed the modernist camel into the ecclesial tent. The end result now is revealed in the often modernist-to-the-core world of American Evangelicalism.

It would be a mistake to think that The Grail Code is only about refuting Dan Brown. In a sense, it does that of course, but Brown's brand of silliness barely makes an appearance in the book. Instead, this book should be seen in the same light as its subject matter - when all is said and done, the message is that our quest is only satisfied in the presence of the Creator.

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Love, sex, God, swordplay

One of my favorite books this year, Grail Code is the thoughtful answer to a question that has been on my mind for years, well before Dan Brown unleashed the merchandising behemoth that The Da Vinci Code became: namely, what is the core of the Arthur/Grail stories, and how do we understand the relationship of these stories to Christian culture? Mike Aquilina and Chris Bailey have done a bang-up job with this book. It's fun, with mock arthurian stylings in its chapter heads and allusions to such popular treatments as the 1981 John Boorman film Excalibur and 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Aquilina and Bailey highlight the changing contours of the legends in the hands of men like Chretien de Troyes, Walter Map, Sir Thomas Malory, and Alfred Lord Tennyson. They've turned the history of these romances into an engaging intellectual romance; they pull the reader in to a world that is much larger than he could ever have imagined. Aquilina and Bailey capture the sense of yearning that is the strong undercurrent of these stories. They liken the tale to a jewel-encrusted relic, a tale that grew in reverent retelling. Christian theology, British history, romance and adultery, this is a wide-ranging, romping read.

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A Moving Journey

It is unfortunate that The Grail Code will be seen by some merely as a work refuting The DaVinci Code. Such a misunderstanding might lead readers grown tired of the Dan Brown controversy to overlook it. In truth, the Grail Code is far more than another refutation of the dreadful novel. It is a superb account of the history and meaning of the Holy Grail. A must-read for those interested in the history of medieval literature.

Fascinating and engaging

Our family homeschools, and we're wandering through the Middle Ages this year. I just finished reading The Grail Code and then stayed up too late to finish wandering around the website ([...]) which is full of fascinating stuff, including links on their Scriptorium page to the texts that are discussed and quoted in the book.

Did you know you can read the old French original of Chretien de Troyes' "Lancelot, or, The Knight of the Cart," if you so choose? (Alas, if only I were able to so choose. The only French I remember from high school is "Ou est la salle de bain?" A vital phrase, oui, but limited. But I digress.)

The Scriptorium page of their website alone is worth a look, even if you skip the book. But, don't skip the book -- I learned volumes about the Grail, its origins and its chroniclers.

The website also whet my appetite for more Grail art and Aquilina and Bailey will even help you out with "How to Pronounce Those Impossible Welsh Names."

I admit that my Grail-Lancelot-Arthur knowledge is fairly limited. I have a passing-to-average acquaintance with Camelot (enough to know that I don't picture Lancelot as Robert Goulet.) I knew about Malory, of course, and we have a few books that I rounded up for the kids this year. I first read T.H. White's "The Once and Future King" when I was in high school, and loved it dearly.

What The Grail Code offered me, though, on top of fascinating lore and legend, was a great historical look at the rise and fall of the story and the world's enduring fascination with it. The authors' quest takes us through the Grail's sacred beginnings, into periods of secular, cultish appeal, traces why and how those changes happened, and finally, routes us back to what the Grail really means:

What (or Who) is our quest really about? What makes us thirst so, and how is that thirst quenched?

When my daughter asked me what I was reading, I gave her a short teaser version, and she said, "Wow ... searching for the cup ... that would make a great story!"

Ahem. Clearly, I've not covered Arthur with her in any depth (and she's never seen the Indiana Jones movie, either.)

I might just hand her "The Grail Code" and let her know that her quest is about to begin.

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What I Expected and More

Having taken a course in Grail legends in college (so many years ago that the professor quite possibly knew Arthur), I was curious to see what the author's take would be on this vast subject. Mr. Aquilina calmly surpassed my expectations.

This book is a concise and lilting journey through the various stages of the growth of the Arthurian legends. I was happy to see the author include aspects of the myriad authors that were left out of the college course I took. Mr. Aquilina uncovered the yearning for the meaning of life and ultimate destiny in the legends that was missing from my class. Perhaps because my professor came was a self-proclaimed Anglophile (although he didn't take milk and cream with his Earl Grey), he missed the piercing Catholic underpinnings of the legends that were the foundation of the quest.

Mr. Aquilina was able, in relatively few pages to weave the nuances and intracacies of humanity's search for reason and belief in and out of the various Grail legends throughout history. I was pleased to be re-introduced to so many storytellers who I spent long nights with (usually right before exams) and to see them from a refreshingly new angle. It was like meeting an old friend whose memory has been distorted by the years. You see them as new creatures, filling in the details with new colors and textures. For me, The Grail Code completed the image in my mind of the legends, the history and the characters that mottle our literary landscape even today.

This book came to be a gem for me. I look forward to reading it again soon.

Thank you, Mr. Aquilina. It's been a pleasure.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

The Holy Grail stories possess a mysterious power that has seized human imagination for centuries. They tell of a great secret finally revealed, of surprising answers to the most profound questions, of a hidden mystery that satisfies our deepest longings. Writers, poets, artists, composers, and filmmakers have pursued the Grail for 1700 years. This great quest drives the legends of King Arthur, propels Indiana Jones' greatest adventure, and keeps us turning the pages of The Da Vinci Code.

All this makes the Holy Grail stories themselves something of a mystery. Why have these tales captivated humankind so thoroughly and for so long? They enthrall us, say the authors of The Grail Code, because these stories really do touch the deepest parts of our hearts. They are profound meditations on the human condition, showing humans at their most heroic and most vile--pointing us toward God's remedy for what ails us. The Grail Code is a literary and theological detective story that ends where the Grail legends began--in the room where Jesus gathered his closest friends for the last time, spoke blessed words, broke bread, and shared a sacred cup.

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