Category: Art & Christianity

Vespers for All Saints and a lecture “Art, Beauty and the Sacred” in NYC

The Catholic Artists Society is hosting a lecture on October 31st at 6:30pm titled “Art, Beauty and the Sacred” given by Oratorian Father Uwe Michael Lang. The evening will include the celebration of First Vespers of All Saints in the Church of Saint Vincent Ferrer (NYC). The flyer can be viewed here: Catholic Artists Society All Saints and lecture.pdf


Vespers

We will celebrate the ancient and beautiful liturgy of Solemn First Vespers for All Saints, officiated by our special guest, Father Uwe Michael Lang, C.O. Father Bruno Shah, O.P. from Saint Vincent Ferrer, and Father Michael Barone from the archdiocese of Newark, will assist in the liturgical celebration. Gregorian chant and polyphonic settings will be provided by a professional choir led by David J. Hughes, Organist & Choirmaster at Saint Mary’s Church, Norwalk, CT.
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Artistic expression is part of that “way of beauty” that leads to God

Pope Benedict gave the following teaching on beauty –a subject near to his heart– on August 31. Some of the paragraphs are here (the entire address is here). Isn’t what the Pope says true???? The beautiful expressed in food, music, art, architecture, the human body, the poerty and friendship is the extroversion of the Holy Spirit.

 

Today, I would like to consider briefly one of these channels that can lead us to God and also be helpful in our encounter with Him: It is the way of artistic expression, part of that “via pulchritudinis” — “way of beauty” — which I have spoken about on many occasions, and which modern man should recover in its most profound meaning. 

 

Perhaps it has happened to you at one time or another — before a sculpture, a painting, a few verses of poetry or a piece of music — to have experienced deep emotion, a sense of joy, to have perceived clearly, that is, that before you there stood not only matter — a piece of marble or bronze, a painted canvas, an ensemble of letters or a combination of sounds — but something far greater, something that “speaks,” something capable of touching the heart, of communicating a message, of elevating the soul. 

 

Wells cathedral.jpgA work of art is the fruit of the creative capacity of the human person who stands in wonder before the visible reality, who seeks to discover the depths of its meaning and to communicate it through the language of forms, colors and sounds. Art is capable of expressing, and of making visible, man’s need to go beyond what he sees; it reveals his thirst and his search for the infinite. Indeed, it is like a door opened to the infinite, [opened] to a beauty and a truth beyond the every day. And a work of art can open the eyes of the mind and heart, urging us upward.

 

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Quilting ladies of St Benedict’s Abbey, Benet Lake

ladies quilting at Benet Lake.jpgBenedictine abbeys are places where the culture of prayer, study, charitable work and arts and crafts can breathe with ease. That’s the genius of Saint Benedict and the leadership of monasticism through 1500 years. Few religious orders have such an expansive sense of culture as the Benedictines (or share in across the world). Art aids one in his or seeking God and a better sense of self.

The monks of Saint Benedict’s Abbey, a monastery of monks in the Swiss-American tradition just outside Milwaukee and an hour’s drive from O’Hare Airport, have a retreat house where individuals and groups come to pray, study and rest in the Lord.

The arts have had a significant, yet humble place in Benedictine life. Making art is one way to bring together a deeper level of fraternity, balance and healing in the distracted world. Some Benedictines are musicians, others are scholars, weavers, quilters, calligraphers gardeners, beer makers, vestment makers, organists and horn players, others are apiarists and the so on. In his Rule for Monasteries, Saint Benedict’s 57th chapter “On the Artisans of the Monastery” fosters a spirit of human expression that has limits based on virtue as yet another but crucial way to glorify God. Benedict says,

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A Benedictine’s art collection

Michael Komechak.jpegBenedictine culture is very interesting. I find this to be true for 2 reasons: after 1500 years of Benedictine monasticism a refined style of humanity and relationship with God is constitutive and monasteries have interesting people as monks and nuns. The famous Rule of Saint Benedict encourages the monk to praise and worship God through a proper ordering of life and interest. Few Benedictines I know are not proficient in works of culture (in the true meaning of the word) like music, vestment making, bee keeping, keeping the library, preparing good lessons for the classroom, cooking, music writing, preaching, study and the like.

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1,400 year old fresco of St Paul found

new fresco of St paul.jpgThe religious and art worlds are abuzz with the latest find: an early 6th century image of the Apostle Paul in Naples. The discovery happened in the Catacombs of San Gennaro.

Gianfranco Cardinal Ravasi said “The image of Saint Paul has an intense expression, philosophical and its discovery enriches our image of one of the principal apostles.”
The story of the new image is found in the culture section of L’Osservatore Romano.

Watch the video story from Rome Reports.
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Paul Haring: opening the shutter to view Christ’s vicar

Paul Haring, a photojournalist who works for Catholic News Service in Rome talks about his vocation in following Pope Benedict to record for us “the moment” with the Vicar of Christ. As Paul notes, it is a singular act of Providence to be see life through an new lens, especially when pointing that lens at the Supreme Pontiff.

If you love photojournalism as I do, you will want to watch this brief video story on working near Benedict XVI narrated by Paul Haring. Both the story and photography are helpful in giving structure to what is an unusual experienced.

Art is not merely an option for the Christian

Our Lord ascended to Heaven so that the Holy Spirit
might come at Pentecost and fill the Church with His truth. The greatest art
expresses that truth and is far superior to vain “self-expression.”
John Keats said “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” but T.S. Eliot
rightly thought that the expression was meaningless sentimentality. The
craftsman ignorant of the Creator becomes a vain aesthete expressing nothing
more than the ego. While truth is beautiful, beauty is not truth itself but
expresses that truth. In the classical tradition, beauty consists in
proportion, integrity and clarity: it is harmonious, suited to its purpose, and
intelligible. This is sublimely seen in Christ Himself, Who incarnated this
beauty as the Way (guiding to a harmony of virtue) and the Truth (revealing
God) and the Life (enlightening with creative love). St. Macarius, an Egyptian
monk of the fourth century said, “The soul which has been fully illumined
by the unspeakable beauty of the glory shining on the countenance of Christ overflows
with the Holy Spirit . . . it is all eye, all light, all countenance.”


Art
is not merely an option for the Christian. Thus, the wisdom of Lorenzo in The
Merchant of Venice: “The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not
mov’d with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils
. . .” The most sublime art is the Eucharist, in which we “take part
in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of
Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims . . .” (Vatican II, SC 8).

Father George Rutler
Pastor, Church of Our Saviour, NYC
homily excerpt from a recent Mass with Artists

‘There Be Dragons’ — Even Saints Have A Past

There Be Dragons.jpg

There’s a film worth watching and spending time thinking about. I believe that we need to reflect upon the great themes of humanity: peace, forgiveness, love, selfishness, self-giving, regret, power, sin, and grace. Either we confront and reject nihilism and thrive, or we capitulate to it and die. We have this opportunity in Roland Joffe’s newest film, “There Be Dragons.”
Comparison’s are not always helpful. The old saying is that comparisons are odious. For many reviewers the only to make sense of “There Be Dragons” is to contrast it with “The Da Vinci Code,” and I happen to see no point in doing so. The two films are apples and oranges, if you will. Be that as it may, “There Be Dragons” is a movie on the early life of a Spanish saint, Josemaria Escrivá de Balaguer (1902-75) which mixes fact with some fiction. The historical context of the film is the Spanish Civil War with all its bloody violence, incredible strident anti-clericalism and whole scale diminishment of the human person.

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The lost Caravaggio, The Martyrdom of St Lawrence, found with the Jesuits

OR.jpgThe art world is abuzz due to an article in L’Osservatore Romano on Sunday stating that a “lost Caravaggio” may now be found.

The as yet unauthenticated painting, “The Martyrdom of St Lawrence,” owned by the Society of Jesus, is thought to be a Caravaggio because it has the hallmarks of a Caravaggio, including dramatic lighting effects, the L’Osservatore Romano said. “Certainly it’s a stylistically impeccable, beautiful painting,” the article stated in its Sunday edition. “One can’t but be reminded of works like the Conversion of St Paul, the Martyrdom of St Matthew and Judith and Holofernes.”

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio is the acknowledged pioneer of the Baroque painting technique of contrasting light and dark known in Italian as “chiaroscuro.” It is estimated that about 80 of the painter’s works are extant. He was born in Milan and trained there under Titian. Many are also aware of the artist’s wild lifestyle and the alleged murder he committed of a man in a brawl and then fled Rome. Moreover, Caravaggio’s mysterious death in 1610 has long intrigued scholars. Among the theories of his disappearance are that he was killed on a deserted Tuscan beach or collapsed there due to an illness. Italian anthropologists announced last month they had found the famous artist’s mortal remains. The artist’s club is observing the 400th anniversary of the artist’s death.

Leave it to the Jesuits to have at least two Caravaggio’s!