Bishop Strickland . . . For The New Evangelization… We Need Epiphanies Of Beauty

By MOST REV. JOSEPH STRICKLAND

Part 2

The Magnetic Draw Of Beauty

But the magnetic draw toward beauty is still present in every man and woman. That is because it is written on the human heart. We are drawn to beauty because we were made for the God who is Beauty. And, this truth offers hope to all who have chosen to follow the Way of Beauty, the way of Jesus Christ who reveals the fullness of Beauty. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Colossians:
“He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities — all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:15-20).
The fullness of God is the fullness of Beauty. We must re-present this truth to the current barren culture and call this fallen world back to God. Creation and Redemption are part of a grand masterpiece of love painted by the Divine Artist. He created the world out of love and has given it as a gift to those with the eyes to see.
The first creation was and is a manifestation of His Beauty. He has begun the New Creation, in and through the Incarnation and Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ. The Church, His Mystical Body, should be filled with manifestations of His Beauty. It will be fully manifested in the New Heaven and New Earth.
In the twelfth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, Jesus said, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself” (John 12:32). Yes, Jesus was speaking of His sacrificial death on the cross. But, every time we lift Jesus, He draws the whole world to Himself. Works of Art are a part of that beautiful action of lifting Him up and are channels of grace.
Every beautiful artistic expression can be an invitation to encounter the Lord. There is a vital connection between beauty and the Christian vocation to manifest the presence of the living God in this world which He still loves. To be fully Christian is to be fully human. It is a beautiful way to live. It is the way all men and women are called to live.
On March 25, 1987, on the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, Pope St. John Paul II issued his beautiful letter on the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Life of the Pilgrim Church, The Mother of the Redeemer (Redemptoris Mater). In it he writes of a particularly important manifestation of the Beauty of which we have been speaking, Mary the Mother of the Lord: the most beautiful woman ever fashioned by God. She would, by the power of the Holy Spirit, conceive, carry, bear, raise, and accompany Jesus Christ, the very Revelation of the Beauty of God. Pope St. John Paul II devoted his entire pontificate to her.
Every apparition of Mary is accompanied by a description of her beauty by the visionaries. For example, St Bernadette Soubirous, to whom Our Lady of Lourdes appeared, wrote: “My Lady is beautiful, beautiful beyond compare; so beautiful that when one has seen her once, one would wish to die so as to see her again; so beautiful that when one has seen her, one can no longer love anything earthly.”
The majestic artwork of the Church, both East and West, features her beauty prominently. In fact, throughout the Christian tradition, some of the most beautiful artwork of the Church has been dedicated to depicting the beauty of Mary. That is precisely because of her intimate communion with the Lord and her unique role in His Plan of Redemption.
In our mission to draw all men and women to Jesus Christ, and, through Baptism to then incorporate them into His Mystical Body, we need works of beautiful art. There are few as beautiful as those dedicated to Mary. We need to use the rich treasure of art depicting her. We need new art, by new artists, to paint her image.

Some Christian History

Though the Church has always produced and participated in the Arts, there were times when the cultures into which she was sent became so debased, she had to withdraw from some artistic expressions. For example, in the First Christian Millennium, the environment into which the nascent Christian Church was sent offered an expression of theatre which had become debased. Thus, many dramatic expressions were considered indecent and a threat to a life of virtue for the early Christians.
No longer recognizing the beauty of creation and the beauty and dignity of the human person, the culture reveled in sexual debauchery. It was because of that that some early Christian leaders discouraged participation in the theatre.
Unfortunately, hostility between the Christian Gospel and the theatre continued into the third and fourth centuries because much theatrical presentation mocked the Christian rites and the Christian message.
However, the Christian faith proclaims that in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ the transformation of the entirety of all human experience — and the entire created order — has begun. The early Fathers of the Church understood the capacity of the Gospel to transform men and women. And then, through them, to replace debased “art” with true beauty. The fullness of liturgical expression and the works of art produced by the early Christians demonstrated this fact.
When we fast forward to the second Christian millennium, we find the first half of the millennium witnessed a mature flowering of a Christian worldview with developments in art and Christian participation. Sadly, it did not last long.
In the aftermath of the so-called Enlightenment and the reactions to its after-effects in some segments of what has been called the Protestant Reformation, another season of suspicion arose concerning Christian participation in the arts.
The theatre was again seen as suspect and discouraged in many Christian circles. It was even considered to be unchangeably corrupt. As a result, a sad and limited view of both man — and the world created for him by God the Divine Artist — sometimes emerged.
As we began the Third Millennium, a Playwright and Artist occupied the Chair of Peter. In his Letter to Artists, Pope St. John Paul set forth an ambitious call for a revived participation of artists in the renewal of humanity through the flourishing of a new “Christian humanism,” which he rightly contrasted with secular humanism.
With prophetic clarity, he wrote of the “artistic vocation.” He called artists to carry in their hearts the Beauty they are called to create and then to help to infuse such beauty in all their artistic expressions, including poems and plays. Recognizing this mixed history of the relationship between art and Christian mission, John Paul wrote of the modern era:
“In the modern era, alongside this Christian humanism which has continued to produce important works of culture and art, another kind of humanism, marked by the absence of God and often by opposition to God, has gradually asserted itself. Such an atmosphere has sometimes led to a separation of the world of art and the world of faith.”
That kind of separation between the “world of art and the world of faith” has no place in a mature Christian worldview. It proceeds from a poor anthropology, a misunderstanding of the nature of man/woman. It represents an inadequate understanding of the scope and implications of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.
It can also promote a theology of the Church and her mission that views “the world” as only a hostile environment from which the Christian and the Church must recoil. Too often we then forget the beauty of the created order as a palate worthy of loving transformation by those who carry on the redemptive mission of Christ the Divine Artist.

We Need New Epiphanies
Of Beauty

A renewed emphasis on art and beauty as a path to God is a part of the New Evangelization. Both St. John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI affirmed this. As a part of their baptismal vocation, Christians are called to flourish in all the “theatres” of the human experience. Certainly, the arts are among them, they are vital ones. In an age mired in ugliness, materialism, and a disdain for true beauty, Christians can lead a resurgence of the arts and create new epiphanies of beauty which draw all men and women to the source of all that is beautiful, the living God.
We should begin with the Sacred Liturgy, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Over the last few decades, some who purported to be liturgical experts stripped away the richness and the depth that draw so many to the treasure that is Catholic worship and life. With that misguided form of what I have called a new iconoclasm the beauty of our church sanctuaries, music, and liturgies suffered.
Too often we failed to emphasize the transcendent and, consequently, the faithful have been ill served.
This encounter with the transcendent should spread from the Altar into the entirety of the lived Catholic experience. Christians, and particularly Catholic and Orthodox Christians, have a beautiful understanding of beauty as a path to God. And we share a rich heritage of beautiful Art which we must re-present to an age mired in the ugliness which is the sordid fruit of sin and the rejection of the living and true God who is the source of all that is truly beautiful.
In its treatment of this understanding of the centrality of Beauty, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in a section entitled “Truth, Beauty, and Sacred Art,” summarizes the importance of our topic:
“Created ‘in the image of God,’ man also expresses the truth of his relationship with God the Creator by the beauty of his artistic works. Indeed, art is a distinctively human form of expression; beyond the search for the necessities of life, which is common to all living creatures, art is a freely given superabundance of the human being’s inner riches.
“Arising from talent given by the Creator and from man’s own effort, art is a form of practical wisdom, uniting knowledge, and skill, to give form to the truth of reality in a language accessible to sight or hearing. To the extent that it is inspired by truth and love of beings, art bears a certain likeness to God’s activity in what He has created. Like any other human activity, art is not an absolute end, in itself, but is ordered to and ennobled by the ultimate end of man.
“Sacred art is true and beautiful when its form corresponds to its particular vocation: evoking and glorifying, in faith and adoration, the transcendent mystery of God — the surpassing invisible beauty of truth and love visible in Christ, who ‘reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature,’ in whom ‘the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.’ This spiritual beauty of God is reflected in the most holy Virgin Mother of God, the angels, and saints. Genuine sacred art draws man to adoration, to prayer, and to the love of God, Creator and Savior, the Holy One and Sanctifier.
“For this reason bishops, personally or through delegates, should see to the promotion of sacred art, old and new, in all its forms and, with the same religious care, remove from the liturgy and from places of worship everything which is not in conformity with the truth of faith and the authentic beauty of sacred art” (CCC, nn. 2501-2503).
This bishop is trying to do just that in his little portion of the vineyard, the East Texas Catholic Diocese of Tyler.