My Own Private Fra Angelico

After mentioning my enjoyable foray to the Metropolitan Museum to my congregation last Sunday, and how beautiful Fra Angelico's "Annunciations" were, one of my dear elders, a native of Italy, gave me a Fra Angelico to call my own. Here's a picture of it:

It turns out that there is a hazelnut liqueur named after the blessed Fra. On the label it says that Fra Angelico was a hermit who lived by the Po River in Italy 300 years ago, and when not praying "created unique recipes for liqueurs." The bottle even has a monk's cincture (a rope belt) "which symbolizes freshness."

Now I got a good laugh at all this. Not a drinker myself, I'll perhaps take a sip sometime this weekend, but I found the whole conceit hilarious. Fra Angelico was no hermit, and he lived 600 years ago, and when not praying with his fellow Dominicans, he was painting, not brewing! The cincture around his waist was not a symbol of freshness (!), but of chastity.

Don't you just love marketing people? Can't you just imagine the look on the person's face who came up with this idea, when upon their death God inquires of him (or her), "Just what were you thinking that day? Would you like to meet the real Fra Angelico? Well you can't, because he dwells in glory too bright for your eyes." The marketing person, amazed says, "So all this Christianity stuff is true?" God replies, "Yes. Meet my Son, he will tell you where to go next..."