Don't Beat About the Bush...Change the Culture! More on Land and the Common Good

Landowners have a duty to leave some food for the poor and give people access to get it. Or that's what it looks like at least. Here are two scriptural passages taken from the Office of Readings (part of the Liturgy of the Hours) that  caught my eye when I read them. One is from January and the other is a Lenten reading. Office of Readings 24^th Jan 2011, Commemoration of St Francis de Sales: "You must not pervert justice in dealing with a stranger or an orphan, nor take a widow’s garment in pledge. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there. That is why I lay this charge on you. When reaping the harvest in your field, if you have overlooked a sheaf in that field, do not go back for it. Leave it for the stranger, the orphan and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all your undertakings. When you beat your olive trees you must not go over the branches twice. Let anything left be for the stranger, the orphan and the widow. When you harvest your vineyard you must not pick it over a second time. Let anything left be for the stranger, the orphan and the widow. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. That is why I lay this charge on you." (Dueteronomy 24) And Tuesday 4^th week of Lent “When you gather the harvest of your land, you are not to harvest to the very end of the field. You are not to gather the gleanings of the harvest. You are neither to strip your vine bare nor to collect the fruit that has fallen in your vineyard. You must leave them for the poor and the stranger. I am the Lord your God.(Leviticus 19) I have written on a number of occasions, here, that land is considered by the Church a common good. This means that like air and food it is something that should be available to all people. This does not mean that there should not be private property however, provided that private ownership of property is viewed as an entitlement to work the land. This privilege of ownership brings obligations. Its use should be for the benefit of the common good. This is not so completely counter cultural as it might sound at first. Generally, growing crops on a farm; and then selling anything (beyond what is needed for personal consumption) for distribution through the market is in accord with this. This entitlement, however, and this part might be counter cultural in some parts of the world, is not always seen as extending to allowing the owner to exclude others from his land all the time, as the quoted passages above indicate.

In a number of European countries (I know of England, Scotland, Spain and Italy specifically) there is public right of way preserved in law, on privately owned land. This is a tradition that goes back to medieval times. While the landowner is obliged to allow people on his land, those who go onto the land are also obliged to respect the property and the crops that are growing respecting it's function as contributing to the common good. I don't know if any applications of this extend to being in accord with the passages from the bible, which clearly allow for "the stranger, the orphan and the widow" to go onto the land and gather food.

There is an American version of this approach, as I understand it whereby in some states the default situation is that people do have access to private land to hunt. In New Hampshire there is an option to pay a higher land tax and that allows you then to bar everyone else from your land. I wouldn't be interested in hunting, just the chance of finding a walkable path across farmland. I did find one farm west of Nashua, NH when I was living there that had a notice saying. Please do come an enjoy our farm land but we ask that you respect it. I don't know if it was a coincidence, but the was a large statue of he Virgin Mary very visible next to the farmhouse as we walk off the land.

It seems that perhaps the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council and those subsequently who actually revised the Office of Readings considered this an important principle for today; otherwise it would not have been included in regular readings in the Church's liturgy. I believe that access to the land is important even for those who are not so poor that they need to pick the crops for personal use. It is important for the soul, I think. And this means access to cultivated land, productive land, not the wilderness. It is good to have firsthand experience of man's productive and harmonious activities with nature. This shapes not only the view of nature, but the view of man's proper relationship with the land. This access will also, I believe raise people's wonder at the beauty of cultivated land (whether ornamental garden or agricultural) and so perhaps help to offset the neopaganism that gives rise ultimately to the culture of death.  When the only country landscape available to man is wilderness, and all else he sees is modern suburbia or a cityscape, then it reinforces the idea that the standard of beauty is that land which is untouched by man, that is wilderness. This in turn reinforces the idea that man's influence on nature is always detrimental and the natural extension of this idea is profound evil: the most effective way to restrict man's bad influence on nature, so the logic runs, is to restrict his activity through population control, which means contraception, abortion and euthanasia.

I do not believe that this alone will reverse the culture of death (abortion exists in Europe too). However, if any discussion of these ideas in both Europe and the New World is combined with the example  of what people see if they have access to cultivated land it will, I feel,  speak of man's positive impact on the natural world. This then could help to change views on man's relationship with Creation. The change will not occur through engagement in discussion, so much as through a subtle influence that seeps into the thinking of society. Then perhaps, in some small way at least, it could contribute to the transformation a culture in the reverse direction to what is happening now and which is so anti-human.

So it seems that the dictum, spare the rod and spoil the child doesn't extend to olive trees! The photograph below of the Tuscan countryside. Above that we have Spanish olive groves and an illumination from Crete dating from the Byzantine rule.

Promoting Chivalry and the Ideal of the Catholic Gentleman

Recently I was approached by Sam Guzman who has a blog called The Catholic Gentleman. He is promoting the idea that virtue, sanctity and chivalry are ideals that men ought to aim for if they are to be fully masculine because they are ideals that all people should subscribe to. I would encourage men (and women too) to check it out.

Recently Sam has created a subscription based online community of his readers called Fraternitas. As part of the membership there is a book club in which each person can receive free copies of the monthly book. I was honored that for the inaugural book club webinar, he chose The Little Oratory, the book I co-wrote with Leila Lawler and which is published by Sophia Institute Press. Sam wanted me to talk about beauty and masculinity.

He wanted the highlighting of this book to be the starting point for a discussion about beauty in family prayer, liturgical prayer and then how men in particular can contemplate beauty.

We discussed how a prayer life centered on the Sacred Liturgy, especially that which includes prayer in the home with the Liturgy of the Hours - can form us and that this is something that forms us so that we appreciate beauty more and become more inspired in our contributions to a beautiful culture. Also, I was at pains to point out that if we do anything beautifully - gracefully - we are doing it better even in narrow utilitarian terms. That includes activities that we think of innately masculine and not normally associated with beauty.

I also discussed how gardening for beauty, and yes I mean growing flowers, is as much a masculine thing to do with your backyard as cultivating vegetables or chickens. And if you don't have a backyard it can be in a plant pot on the windowsill of you 5th floor apartment!

To hear the webinar, which includes Sam's fascinating insights and responses to my points, you should go to his Fraternitas page, here. 

While you ponder over it. Here is my artistic contribution. The chivalrous knight of the New Evangelization, with his copy of the Divine Office next to him as he prays in the Spirit, through Christ, and to the Father.

Farms, Country Walks, Private Property and the Common Good

I am a keen walker and when I moved to the United States ago to take up my position as Artist-in-Residence at Thomas More College, I immediately started to investigate the local country walks. I lived Nashua, a town in New Hampshire, very close to its southern border with Massachussetts. Both are beautiful states and there are state and national parks with developed paths within striking distance of here. These are very different from the British country walks that I am used to however. The countryside in Britain is almost all farmland of some description. So whereas in the US, as a general principle, the state and national parks aim to present man with a ‘wilderness’, that is countryside unaffected by man, the British national parks preserve a traditionally farmed landscape.Creating a network of walks across privately owned farms is possible in Britain because in this respect the attitude to private ownership of land is different in England to that in the US. In England there are public rights of way across private land which the landowner is obliged by law to maintain. In return, the public is expected to respect the land and the farmer’s crops and animals and stick to the path. There are many thousands of miles of public footpath across private land. This is a system which would be impossible to police effectively, yet it works. On the whole the farmers happily keep the paths open and maintain them for the benefit of walkers, and the whole the public respects the farmers’ land, crops and animals. So although backed up by law, it is founded mainly on mutual trust and respect. It is working example of the good that arises when individuals go beyond a strict interpretation of the law and create a covenantal approach for the benefit of the common good.

As a result, everyone in Britain has the chance to see firsthand how man can cultivate and work the land for benefit of all of us. This goes further than simple recreation. For those who wish to accept it, there is profound lesson to be learnt. Creating the possibility for all people to come into direct contact with land that has been worked by man beautifully will teach us that man is capable of working productively with the land in harmony with it. This counters the false idea that man’s activity is necessarily destructive and ‘unnatural’. This latter point is one of the fundamental premises of neo-paganism. It is an anti-human principle, which leads ultimately to the culture of death.

Some Americans might react sharply and suspect that this an example of the state overreaching itself. However, the idea of the right of the public to cross private land goes back to medieval times. It could not be enforced by the state anyway, because as explained earlier, it relies not so much on the law, but on mutual respect for its effectiveness. The way it worked was this. The landowner, perhaps the lord of the manor, agreed to allow men to farm a strip of his land to grow food in exchange for a tithe, a taxation of a tenth of the produce. The tithes were collected in huge barns – ‘tithebarns’- the photographs, above and below show one example that still exists in Oxfordshire in England. However, there was a problem. Our serf might have the land to grow his food, but if it is situated in the middle of a large estate owned by someone else, how is he going to get to it without trespassing? To overcome this, a system of pathways developed that ensured that people could get to their land without fear of prosecution. They were allowed ‘right of way’. They could cross someone else’s land provided they followed the path and respected the property. This is part of an old tradition of noblesse oblige. This is a French phrase which means literally, ‘nobility obliges’. It communicates the idea that with privilege comes the responsibility to use it well in service of the common good.

The idea of a public right of way survived, surprisingly, the industrial revolution right through to the 20^th century. By the 20^th century, however, many landowners were doing the best to close the paths down and stop public access. The demand for access to the land arose now not from the need to cultivate a leased strip of land, but for the desire for recreation by city dwellers, who otherwise had no chance to experience the countryside. This natural desire to be in contact with the land was being thwarted. There were mass peaceful protest walks. This resulted in Britain’s national parks being set up in which not just the paths, but the traditional beauty of the farmed landscape was protected, as well as the maintenance of traditional public footpaths throughout the whole countryside (not just within the park boundaries).

As you can imagine, I would love to see a similar system set up in the US but was told that Americans' understanding of what private ownership of land means, as well as fear of litigation is less likely to allow this. To my surprise, however, I have found out that in New Hampshire at least allows there is the possibility of such a system. By New Hampshire law, the citizens have access to any land provided they respect what is on it. The same law protects landowners from litigation if the person who goes on to his land is injured in some way. The landowner can bar people from his land if he wishes however, by ‘posting’ it – putting up a publicly displayed notice which tells people that they are trespassing and if they encroach and they will be prosecuted. Landowners exercise this option by paying a higher rate of property tax to the state.

Also, I have recently seen some similar attempts working within American law in California, around the San Francisco Bay area, to create walks across pasture land rather than always 'wilderness'.

According to Catholic social teaching, land is a common good. It is created by God and all people therefore should have access to it. This would seem to mitigate against the idea of private ownership of land. However, in practice this is not the case. The best way to have a plot of land developed for the common good is to give favoured person the freedom to develop it and to exclude others only so far as they do not interfere with this. This is not a right to private property as many envisage it today, however. It is better seen as a privilege, an entitlement to develop it in accordance with the common good (and farming it for profit would qualify in this respect). In medieval times there was also ‘common’ ground, preserved for commoners who did not own the land, so that there was always somewhere for them to put their animals to pasture. Sadly, much common pasture land was seized for private ownership after the industrial revolution. There are exceptions however and Port Meadow in Oxford is one. You can walk across it today and see a charming hotchpotch of ponies, horses and cows grazing on this huge flat open expanse of grassland next to the Thames that reaches right into the city. Here in the US Boston Common exists right in the centre of the city today, admittedly as a public park and clearly it gets its name from the tradition of common pasture land. I do not know of its current status in law in regard to free pasture however. If any inner city goatherds can enlighten me in this respect, I would be grateful.

What is attractive about the medieval balance between practicalities and the preservation of land for the common good is that it allows for a blurring of the division between the two extremes of complete public access one hand and on the other a total exclusion of all those who d0 not own land.

It may be an unrealizable dream, but nevertheless I will end by encourage all landowners to consider the idea of noblesse oblige in regard to their land.  At the same time I would like to encourage citizens, if accorded this privilege, to respect the land they go on to. I am aware that the Americans' love of hunting with guns might during deer season might need thinking about if this is going to work - perhaps this might have to restrained as a condition of access in some cases - but if we can find a way of making it happen, I believe that we will have an even happier nation if we do!

Photographs: aside from the tithebarn in Great Coxwell, Oxfordshire, the others are from a day's walk in the English county of Northumberland. It was a wet day (well this is Britain!) with only a few breaks in the clouds. The purple flowers are of heather in bloom. The rougher looking areas are sheep fells (pasture) and the building at the top is a shepherd's shelter in the moorlands on the Pennine hills the form the division between east and west in northern England. The greener, lusher areas are given over to cows as well.

Spanish Polychrome Sculpture, Ancient and Modern

When I think of sculpture, I usually think first of something that is monochrome - in one colour, that of the material that it is made from. Perhaps stone or cast in bronze. If I think of coloured sculpture, what probably comes to mind is the kitsch stuff of gift shops. There is however, a wonderful tradition of  ‘polychrome’ meaning many colours sculpture. First, many of the statues that we now see in just stone would have originally been painted (for example the pre Renaissance sculpture of the Middle Ages. There is also a great baroque tradition of polychrome carving and some of the greatest examples are from the Spain in the 17th century.

In the examples show, which are from this period, you can see the same stylistic features used by the stone sculptors of the time, even though these artists are not ‘painting in shadow’, as stone sculptors such as Bernini did (as I wrote about last week, here). For example, they display the same exaggerated angular folds in the cloth to give the form vigour. One of the greatest of these Spanish artists is a man called Alonso Cano.

There is an artist in Spain today who is producing work in a similar vein called Dario Fernandez. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any images that I am able to reproduce here, but there are plenty on his website www.dariofernandez.com and he is well worth looking up.

Works shown (all from the 17th century), from top: Scourging at the Pillar, Gregorio Fernandez; John of God, Alonso Cano; The Scourging at the Pillar, Alonso Cano; Suffering Christ, Gregorio Fernandez; St Teresa of Avila, Gregorio Fernandez; Christ of Sorrows, Pedro de Mena; Crucifixion, Juan Martinez-Montanez

Chance to get free Scott Hahn book and up to 50% off Emmaus Road Publishing books

I have just been told about the news that Scott Hahn’s St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology has merged with Emmaus Road Publishing. They are also partnering with Lighthouse Catholic Media, who many will know for the recorded talks sitting in racks at the back of churches. Lighthouse will serve as their distributor for their products. I am a great fan of all of Scott Hahn's books. He has a great gift for articulating what can ordinarily be quite dry and abstract subjects in a way that is accessible and interesting. His book the Lamb's Supper - the Mass as Heaven on Earth was a revelation (if you'll forgive the pun). It was the first time that the Book of Revelation had made any sense to me and it changed dramatically my whole idea of what the liturgy is.

The St. Paul Center was founded by Dr. Hahn to promote Scripture Study from the heart of the Church’s tradition. Similarly, Emmaus Road publishes authentically Catholic books that make all aspects of the faith accessible - as they put it, everything from sacraments to social issues, Church history to arts and culture.

I am happy therefore to give this project my support and wish it every success.

In order to attract attention to what they are doing at this early stage, EmmausRoad.org is offering all books at discounted prices. All books are discounted up to 50%. Their catalog includes books by Mike Aquilina, Ralph Martin, Dan Burke, Emily Stimpson, Ted Sri, and many other popular Catholic writers. They are also giving away a free Scott Hahn book (Understanding “Our Father”) and will give you free shipping on one order.

He tells you about it here:

https://youtu.be/8RZZ3ZuKSjM

The Hermeneutic of Continuity in Sacred Art - a forthcoming lecture by Clemens Fuchs in New York City

Clemens Fuchs, the Austrian artist who works in the baroque tradition, will be giving a lecture at the Catholic Center and New York University, 238 Thompson Street, New York City on June 27th at 6pm.

I met Clemens first about 10 years ago. He and I were both studying the academic tradition at an atelier in Florence. We had a lot in common and became friends as we were both interested in how to direct the skills we were learning to the service of the Church. We grappling with the idea of working within tradition on the one hand and avoiding a limited, backward looking historicism on the other. This promises to be a very interesting lecture.

Clemens is exhibiting in the One Faith: East Meets West art exhibition and this the closing event for an exhibition that has travelled from New York, through Europe to China and Russia and back again in past months.

RSVP to onefaithexhibition@gmail.com by June 24th to reserve a place for the lecture and reception.

The event is co-sponsored by the Catholic Artists' Society the Catechetical Institute and the Catholic Center at NYU.

Dionysius, a poem by Andrew Thornton-Norris

I know I said I wasn't going to write much, but I just saw this. It's a poem that I actually like. It's by Andrew Thornton-Norris. He wrote it after reading Hans Urs von Balthasar's description of the theology of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Von Balthasar is almost as always hard work for me . He seems to be saying the right sort of things and I know that because all right sorts of people quote him when talking about beauty, so he must be good...but when you actually get to his texts I find he's very difficult to understand. Perhaps it is a mark of his genius, that H U von B has managed to produce a valid commentary on Pseudo-Dionysius that is even less intelligible than the original.

So, it's always a relief to let somebody else you can trust do all the hard work of reading Hans Urs von B. and then condense it and explain it you. This was once reason I am so glad that we have Pope Benedict. Anyway here's Andrew's succinct poetic summarization.

As he says, heaven is revealed in the liturgy......

Dionysius

As form contains the meaning of the work

So heaven is revealed in liturgy

The inward grace in sacramental sign

The mystery of being uncovering.

...

Ineluctable trinitarian light

The beatific vision happiness

The love that moves the sun and other stars

Our brother sun and sister moon and stars

Andrew is an Englishman and Resident Poet at the Imaginative Conservative (where this poem was published). He is also the author of a Spiritual History of English which has been endorsed by no less than Roger Scruton and Fr Aidan Nichols and was reviewed by the Times (that's the 'London Times' to Americans).. and amongst many others, myself. My review of his book is called - A Book for Anyone Interested in the Evangelization of the Culture.

I like the way he talks about literature and poetry. He analyses content and form and relates them to the world view of the poet or author. In this there are many parallels to my own analysis of art. In his book he describes how the structure of the English language and the use of vocabulary has changed to reflect the broadly held worldview of the English speaking peoples of the time. In his analysis, the language itself, and not just the way it is used has become gradually more impoverished since the time of Shakespeare and the language we speak today is a direct reflection of the cumulative effects of the Reformation, the Enlightenment and Modernity.

So if you have complaints about my prose, I say it's not my fault... it was the Reformation wot dunnit.

Lessons from Baroque Sculpture

The first name that comes to mind when thinking of great sculptors is Bernini. When we look at his sculptures there are parallels to the baroque approach to painting. Although he is creating form in three dimensions, he still ‘paints’ in light and dark so that the baroque symbolism of the Light overcoming the darkness is there. He is quoted as having deliberately cut the lines in his statues deeper to accentuate his shadow, especially, as he said, that he did not have coloured paint to work with, only contrast of light and dark. This is why he took such care to consider that placement of his works relative to the source of light. Some artists, such as Alonso Cano and the other Spanish workers in wood of the baroque period did paint their work (hence the name ‘polychrome’ – many coloured). Unless the sculptor intends to follow Cano and paint his work then he must consider how the interplay of light and shadow in his work will affect the ability of the viewer to see what is intended. One of the great problems that we see in modern attempts to create beautiful art is that it lacks power. The visual vocabulary of modern art has been developed to communicate what is bad. It cannot communicate goodness and truth well (ie beautifully) and retain its power, so if we try the result always seems to be sentimentality. We are all a product of our times, and will be influenced by the culture of the day whether we wish to be or not. This means the Christian artist must be especially aware of this tendency to sentimentality in his work.

When I was learning to paint icons, my teacher Aidan Hart, told me to break curves up into a series of straight lines in order as a way of avoiding sentimentality and giving the painting rhythm and power. Later, when I was studying Western naturalism in Florence, part of my study involved drawing casts of Bernini statues. I saw that he had done something similar. The lines of drapery are usually represented not as curves, but as a series of intersecting lines (or perhaps more accurately, as series of broader arcs). It might be surprising to some that there are such parallels between iconography and the baroque, but I discovered a number which I recognised because of my exposure to both traditions. This common ground helped to reinforce the common threads of Christian art and to distinguish the naturalism of the 19th century from the baroque of the 17th century. It is why I would always say that even those artists who wish to specialize in the baroque style would benefit from learning iconography to a foundational level as well; or at the least from a study so that those stylistic features are better understood. We live in a different atmosphere from the 17th century and a clearer, more conscious recognition of what consitutes Christian culture is probably more important now than it was then, when just to be alive would have enabled people to soak up the essence of Christian culture without even thinking about it.

The other thing that is of interest is in connection with the training and working methods of artists at that time. Bernini is known today for his dazzling technique, but at the time, his genius was considered to be the ideas and vision that he had rather than in the skill in realizing it. There were other great sculptors whose style was similar and had great skill, for example Algardi and Finelli (in fact it is his sculpture of Cardinal Scipione Borghese shown above and not Bernini's, which is right).

One of my teachers in Florence, and American called Matt Collins who still lives in Italy, wrote to me about this recently. I thought I would pass on part of the correspondence, which I found interesting and surprising. He described how Bernini ran a workshop and that for a while Bernini was not the greatest technician even in his own bodega.

'Today we appreciate Bernini for his fantastic technique. However he was not the most virtuoso marble sculptor of his time. Giuliano Finelli was. Bernini employed highly skilled assistants to help realize his ideas. His 'Genius' or 'Divine gift' as it was referred to in his time was his artistic sensibility and vision. The production of art in the 17th century was a collaborative process, not the misunderstood individual against society of today. Students of the of the past were not studying but working. Art education was in fact 'on the job' training. All the assistants received the same technical training. Art evolved from it constant practice. There was always work for a competent artist, so he could risk and push himself.

'Finelli's first biographer was a man called Giambattista Passeri. He may have known personally the sculptor. Finelli was born in Carrara in 1601. The first documentation about him is from 1616 about his relation to a Michelangelo Naccherino, a sculptor based in Naples. Naccherino moved around a lot, working in Rome and even Florence. Eventually, Finelli moved to Rome around 1620 and worked in Bernini's workshop. One of the most shocking revelations is that Finelli completed a lot of the detail work on Bernini's marbles. The virtuoso leaves on Bernini's Apollo and Daphne were most likely done by Finelli. Today, we attach 'Genius' to technique. Recent revelations about 17th century art production show that virtuoso technique was only a component of great art, not the sole determiner of 'Genius.' In fact, if you look at Finelli's independent work it is not very impressive outside of the technical realm.

'Passeri is quoted as saying: "vedendo la diligenza di Giuliano si valse di lui nelle due statue di Dafne, e di Apollo, che sono nella Villa Borghese a Porta Pinciana, nelle quali oltre il buon gusto, e disegno si vede un maneggio di marmo che pare impossible, che sia opera umana, e da essa Gian Lorenzo guadagno un nome immortale."

'It is roughly translated as: "recognizing Giuliano's capability, he(Bernini) utilized him in the production of the statues Apollo and Dafne that are in the Villa Borghese at Porta Pinciana. Apart from the good taste and competent design, one sees a treatment of marble that seems impossible, let alone a work by human hands. And it is from this that Gian Lorenzo(Bernini) name became immortal."After collaborating on many projects with little compensation Finelli left Bernini's workshop in 1629.'

Matt knows more than anyone else I know about the training methods and technique of the baroque and the High Renaissance and he has taught me a great deal over the years. He has just started his own blog which publicises his own work and discusses a lot of these technical aspects in an engaging way. Those interested should look here.

This article first appeared in July 2015.

Above, Bernini's (or perhaps Finelli's!) Daphne and Apollo

Cardinal Montalto by Finelli

Detail of Bernini's Ecstasy of St Theresa of Avila, shown in full below

Vocation and the Common Good

How doing what I want to do helps others to do what they want - a tribute to the outgoing President of the Dominican School of Theology and Philosophy in Berkeley, CA  Several years ago, I attended a short lecture series offered by Fr Michael Sweeney, who was president of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology a member school  of the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley). It was called Re-Visioning Society and was offered as part of their summer session and explored Catholic social teaching and the common good. I am reminded of this now, in 2015, because I have stayed in touch with Fr Sweeney ever since. He has just stepped down from his role as President after 10 years. I am sure he will continue to have a profound affect people's lives in this next phase of his life. I hope also, of course, that the incoming President continues and even builds on the good work that has been going on at the school. I was interested Fr Sweeney's course I because this idea of the common good has been referred to by Pope Benedict in a recent encyclical. What I didn't quite realize beforehand  how important what I learned would be on my thinking subsequently. I was excited to realize, as happens so often when I learn more about one aspect of Catholic teaching, that it would have an impact on my understanding of everything else in the Faith. One of those in particular relates to the idea of personal vocation. I had written an article about discerning personal vocation just before this. Here is the article I wrote after the course, 5 years ago, in which (with the aid of Fr Sweeney's lectures) I hoped to place that idea of personal vocation in the context of God’s vocation for the whole human race, the common good:

The questions I was hoping to resolve ran as follows: how can I act in ‘solidarity’ with the ‘common good’ and fulfill a personal vocation at the same time? Does acting for the common good mean that I have to think about how every action is in part, for example, going to contribute to alleviating famine in the world? Or, put another way, if I do nothing directly to help alleviate famine in Africa, am I ignoring my obligation to act in accordance with the common good? If either is so, it seems an impossibly high standard to achieve. Furthermore, won’t it likely undermine my success at doing anything well because I will have to spread myself too thinly – if I devote the time needed to teaching at Thomas More College, plus the other duties of life, I have none left to use directly to help those starving in the horn of Africa. Is this wrong? Am I being selfish in being and artist because I love doing it?

The course began by establishing from reason (as distinct from revelation) the nature of the human person as a relational being.  We were simply asked to give a short summary of who we were for the other members of the class.

At this point I must admit I was wondering if I’d done the right thing in signing up for the class. Was it was going to degenerate into a touchy feely therapy? I needn’t have worried however. After allowing each of us to speak, Fr Sweeney then remarked on a common thread that ran through our descriptions of ourselves.  Our own sense of ourselves was based upon relationships we have with others.  (For example, ‘I work with this company’ ‘I do this job with these people’ ‘I am a father’) This is, we were told, what describes a person, as distinct from an individual. A human person is always in relation with others, starting from birth. No one, by choice, disengages from society altogether (not even a hermit) and is happy. From this starting point in common experience, he built up rationally, the case he was making, taking us with him…

This understanding of the human person has a profound effect on how we view what society is. A relationship of the sort we are now envisioning is always between two subjects ie two people freely cooperating as moral agents. This is termed covenantal and is based upon mutual self-sacrifice on behalf of the other. This freedom to respond as a person is one of the essential elements of society. Society therefore is the vector sum of the relationships within it. It is not a collective of self-contained individuals.

As with all things that exist in human nature, the essence of personhood exists in perfection in God in whose image and likeness we are made. However, there is only one God and unlike us He is complete unto Himself and does not rely on any external relationships in order to exist. Revelation helps us here: through it we know that there is one God and three persons in the Trinity, in perfectly realized relationship. This Christian concept of God also explains why we are liturgical beings, first and foremost. We are made for the liturgy, by which we approach the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. When we participate in the liturgy we enter the Church, the mystical body of Christ. When we do so, with grace, we can relate first to the Son as man; and second to the Father through the Son as God. The Son is one person, but two natures.

If God were not like this, our relationship with him would be very different. A God who is not personal in the Christian sense would always be above us. We could not be raised to Him. Instead of a relationship of two subjects, it would be one of subject and object that is, master and slave. One can immediately see why Judeo-Christian society is fundamentally different from Islamic understanding of society, for example.

The good is what we seek and what makes us happy. We know from revelation objectively that this is God. This is the ultimate Good that is common to all of us. Society as a whole is called to be with Him in heaven and simultaneously, each person is called be with Him as well. On the way there are secondary goods that every one of us needs in order to be happy: food, shelter, water, air, love and so on. These are common goods.

So what of personal vocation and common good? God has called each of us to be with Him in heaven, as I described in my previous article, when we follow this we feel the joy that is ours. If we consider the vision that God has for society to be represented by a picture, then each personal vocation is a piece in the jigsaw that contributes to that picture. Therefore, we only need focus on our personal vocation and be content that it is contributing to the big picture and if perfectly realized would be in perfect harmony with it. This is not justifying selfishness. Every vocation is one of charity which permeates all that we do, but the precise way in which we are called to direct that charity is unique to each person. Some will be called to raise money for those who are starving. Some will not, but will be asked to. We are connected to society most profoundly through our closest personal relationships. So whatever these happen to be, these are the ones that we should focus on the most.

This of course, does rely on us being able to discern our vocation. We are fallen people and man’s ingenuity to hide bad motives behind good seems at times limitless. Therefore, good counsel is to be recommended during the discernment process.

When faced with a major choice we can ask ourselves a number of questions that help to point us in the right direction. First, is what I am doing consistent with its proper end? If so I am more likely to completing my piece of the jigsaw. Second (as a safeguard) is what I am proposing to do contrary to common good? Is it undermining others’ ability to respond freely in their relationships, for example; is it polluting the air so that it’s likely to harm those who breathe it. If so, I won’t do it.

Applied in business for example, other things being equal, I would act to make the business as profitable as possible, so that the gross profit was available to pay costs and employees, distribute amongst shareholders and reinvest for the continued profitability of the business. I would not feel obliged, for example, to institute charitable donations by the business to people that would be otherwise unconnected to the business model (although it would be perfectly good to take steps to enable shareholders and individuals to choose to contribute cooperatively in some way that they could not do as individuals).     The general principle is that by fulfilling our personal vocation, we will be helping society as a whole to move towards the common good (and by refusing to do so, we tend to frustrate it).

I saying that each person's vocation is unique, what we are referring to is each person's unique way of attaining those goods that are common to all of us. And if in essence our vocation itself is common, and if the essential relationships through which it is expressed our common, then we are necessarily in solidarity with each other as we pursue our own vocation.

And what does this have to do with beauty? Beauty is what we perceive when there is harmonious relationships, sometimes called ‘due proportion’. In the context of human relationships, that is the harmonious alignment of wills on behalf of another and it is called love. An education in beauty is an education in love. It will increase our natural instinct for acting in accordance with the common good for the benefit of all. It starts with God’s love for us, already assured, and the degree to which we respond in kind, through grace.

As St Augustine said: ‘Love God and do what you want.’ And even if it means going to the desert and sitting on a pillar it is helping mankind...

News about the Way of Beauty

Some of you who read the blog regularly may have noticed that my posts have been less meaty recently.  This is because I have been devoting much of my writing time to two books. The first pulls together themes that I have written about in the last 5 years on this blog on the basis of Catholic culture in the liturgy and how we can form people to create a culture of beauty using traditional principles. That is due to be published by Angelico Press any day now. When it comes out I will let you know. It will be entitled...the Way of Beauty.

The second is about to be submitted to publishers consideration (any publishers reading, I'm open to offers!). It is a manual for discerning personal vocation and is detailed explanation of a program of personal prayer and spiritual exercises that I was shown when I first came into the Church and which led me to doing what I do now. These were developed by an insightful layman who helped many, many people in London and are not obviously linked to any other method such as those based upon Ignatian spirituality or those used by the Catherine of Sienna Institute. I thought that the originality and effectiveness of the method I was shown might make it of interest to some people. It is intended as a companion to the Little Oratory, which describes the liturgical piety which must be at the heart of our prayer lives if we are to be open to inspiration and transformation in Christ.

This is still taking up a great deal of my time.

When I started this blog it was a chance to start airing some of my ideas and see what the response was. Now after 5 years of posting twice a week I think I have reached a point where I am ready to pause and reflect. I have noticed that the ideas for articles which just seemed to flow effortlessly when I started, are now beginning to dry up - I feel as though I am forcing it a bit now. I am ready now to devote my writing energies much mor e to pulling the material together and developing it further and then capturing it in books and courses to make it available on a more permanent basis (assuming there are some people who will be interested of course!).

So I will take a sabbatical for the summer and start original material in the Fall.

The postings that do appear will either be news about those products that I am producing - books, talks, online courses, chant etc.: or will be an approximately weekly posting of past material from about 5 years ago. It occurred to me that there is much material that I have created will be of interest to people who were not reading the blog back then, so I will be bringing back articles from that time that are still relevant today with usually just a few modifications. Some long time readers might have noticed that I have already begun to do thi. The series about landscapes are such examples.

I will still be walking the Way of Beauty but for the summer at least it will be a more reflective, less public journey.

Lead kindly light....

Baroque Landscape: Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

I can only marvel at the work of French artist Corot (1796-1875). He follows that baroque format of variation in focus rendering much of out blurred and out of focus. In this respect some might liken him to the Impressionists who followed him. But to my eye he differs in that he retains the sense of a sharp focus. There are enough edges and sharp contrasts for give the roving eye places to rest comfortably. Corot was part of movement of landscape painters, called the 'Barbizon' (after a village near Fontainbleau Forest where they gathered). They consciously modelled their work on John Constable's landscapes and ideas. Constable's work had been popular in France and he had exhibited his work there. I think that my comments on his approach are, not surprisingly, similar to those I made in regard to Constable. For example, he tends to work tone into the natural colour of what is being painted, greens, for example, of the landscape. However, Corot seems to have developed further what Constable did and is perhaps even more masterly in his ability to combine all these competing considerations in a unified beautiful image. His rendering of foliage and especially the appearance of trunks and branches within the form of the tree or shrub is immensely skilfull. I would refer those who haven't read them to my other articles on baroque landscapes in previous weeks. Beyond the general comments about landscape I have very little to say other than just enjoy the beauty of his work. Baroque Landscape

Baroque Landscape: Chinese Baroque!

Romantic Baroque: the Landscapes of William Turner

19th Century Baroque: the Landscaps of John Constable

Pocket oratories - aids to prayer in your wallet

Thanks to Nanci Keatley who has just told me about her 'pocket oratories'. Each one is a miniature hand-held iconostasis, which can be kept in your wallet or purse and is a focus for prayer. If you pause in the day, perhaps to pray the Office or the Rosary, this can be an excellent portable visual aid. Unbutton it and open it up and you can focus on the images in the palm of your hand as you pray. What a great idea this is! They are available here.

This one has icons from the Little Oratory book as well as the Sacred Heart.

Weekend Course on Sacred Art and the New Evangelization June 12-14 in Kansas City, Kansas

This offers more than teaching you about the New Evangelization - it tell you how to be part of it, a new person, transformed in Christ and through beauty, and showing Christ to others in our everyday activities Dr Caroline Farey of the School of the Annunciation in Devon and myself will be teaching a weekend course, Sacred Art and the New Evangelization in Kansas City, Kansas for the weekend of June 12 -14. It will include talks from both of us and the praying of the liturgy of the hours through the weekend. Register here.

Pope Benedict said that he believes that the Domestic Church will be the driving force for the New Evangelization. With this in mind and as part of this course we will be praying the Liturgy of the Hours. The intention is that this will do more than simply bring the community of students and teachers together (which it will do); we hope to see those who attend take this away with them and introduce the practice to their families and parishes. The material we use is simple enough that people who can sing it easily and beautiful so that they want to. Anyone who can hold a pitch when they sing and is not afraid to sing in front of their friends can will be able to continue on their own or pass it on to others in their own homes and parishes afterwards and build communities in faith around them. So why not start thinking out of the box...or out of the cell? Take a beautiful simple Vespers into hospitals or prisons in a form that patients and prisoners and will want to sing with you? We can take Christ from the monk's cell to the prisoner's cell so that the two are synonymous.

In conjunction with this, students will be taught how to pray with sacred art so that their icon corner really does become the focus of prayer and the heart of the home. We will learn, for example how the traditional layout of the icon corner reflects in both content and form the themes that Benedict brought out in his essay on the New Evangelization. This adds to the power of the prayer in the home to transform us supernaturally so that, despite ourselves and through God's grace, people see Christ in us and they believe that He can give them what they want most in life.

The price for the weekend which includes room and board is just $250 which is extraordinarily good value.

For more details click link here or go to www.archkck.org/evangelization

The Landscapes of John Constable

There are two difficulties with baroque landscape. First was the inclination in the 17^th century baroque to represent those areas where the colour is muted in sepia. This meant that they very often gave the appearances of very deep shadow everywhere that was not  the primary focus of interest. Second was the technical difficulty in describing the form of trees and foliage. It may sound like a small thing, but anyone who has ever tried to paint trees will know that they are fiendishly difficult to represent. The artist must give the sense of a united form, like a sponge, but also of one composed of many individual leaves. The paintings of trees from the earlier period tended, to my eye, to look to 'feathery'. They focussed too much on the detail and not enough on the overall form. Turner overcame this in an idiosyncratic way by adopting the colour theories of Geothe for his tonal representation and, as far as I can see, avoiding painting any trees at all! Other artists overcame this problem by representing the tonal areas in a muted version of the original colour. So, in landscape this usually means toned down greens - grey greens, blue greens, brown greens although sometimes retaining sepia for deep shadow when the composition requires it. As with Turner, the choice depends upon two factors: consideration of whether or not the area being painted is in sunshine or shadow; and how far in the distance the area is. Distance and degree of illumination both of these factors affect our perception of colour and tone and so these two variable must be reflected in any scheme that the artist devises. John Constable (1776-1837) is happy to use compositions that involve deep shadow in the foreground and he uses sepia for these areas. But he also renders areas in sunshine well. He also seemed happy to turn his hand to a wide variety of landscapes and seascapes. His watercolours or sketches, painted in situ are of interest to the modern eye (or mine at least) because of the spontaneity with which they are rendered. These would not have been considered finished works of art at the time but preparatory works for the pictures done in the studio.

This is speculation on my part, but I wonder if this use of watercolour especially as the means of capturing the moment is influential the form of the finished works of the artists of this time. The finished studio based work will have been a composite of detail from a number of spontaneous sketches - and so in this case oil paint copies of watercolours. Turner almost seemed to use oil paint as though he was painting in watercolour - lots of thin washes.

Constable is one of the first that I know of to be able to render the balance of broad form and detail in foliage and trees well. He simultaneously represents the broad shape through light and dark, and provides some detail without overloading it, importantly, in a way that allows that mind to infer what the whole is comprised of. This is one of a series of article intended to read as such: Baroque Landscape Baroque Landscape: Chinese Baroque! Romantic Baroque: the Landscapes of William Turner Paintings above, from top: Lighthouse at Harwich; Wivenhoe Park

View of Salisbury

Cornfield

Weymouth Bay

Brighton Beach with Colliers

Appearance on Catholic TV to talk about beauty, the New Evangelization and the Way of Beauty online courses

Here's a bit of bare-faced self-publicity (as opposed to my usual more restrained brand of self-publicity!)...I appeared on Catholic TV during the week talking about the Way of Beauty and the New Evangelization. I was invited on to talk about the new Way of Beauty online courses which have the Catholic TV series at their heart. The interview took place in Boston on Tuesday and was aired live.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdpk1kyC7ZY  

Romantic Baroque: the Landscapes of William Turner

It might seem contradictory that the landscapes of the Romantic movement (with which William Turner’s work is usually associated) are so beautiful. The Romantics of the 18^th and 19^th century were responsible in many ways for destroying the traditional forms that preceded them and opened the way to ugliness of modern art. Their emphasis on personal feelings and especially intense emotion of the artist is contrary to the traditional idea of painting in conformity to objective standards for the greater glory of God. There is a desire to communicate emotion in the baroque also, but it is not the emotion of the artist that is emphasized. Rather, it is the emotion of the person painted or sculpted that is portrayed. Bernini’s St Theresa of Avila, for example, reveals her emotional state, not his.

Subjectivity is not necessarily a bad thing however: when those subjective feelings coincide with what is objectively true, there is the possibility of something good. Broadly speaking, this is the case for Romantic landscapes, provided the desire of the artist is to communicate the beauty of nature (and other things being equal). The training the artists received in the 18^th and 19^th centuries was essentially the same as that from the previous period: which was an adaptation of the academic method - originally developed for the study of the human person -for landscape. It transmitted the baroque visual vocabulary of form without departing from core Christian principles (although steadily becoming more and more detached from a Christian understanding of them).

As mentioned before, baroque landscape employed control of focus and intensity of colour that corresponded to the way that the human person naturally perceives the world around him. The inclination in the 17^th century baroque was to represent those areas where the colour is muted in sepia. This meant that they very often gave the appearances of very deep shadow everywhere that was not  the primary focus of interest. This of course, is not always appropriate. To overcome this artists started to become more sophisticated in the range of colours they used for those areas rendered tonally.

The great English artist, William Turner developed a striking answer to the problem. Drawing on the colour theory of Goethe, he developed a system in which he rendered form tonally, but in a variety of colours rather than just sepia. It is not easy to discern a strict format, but broadly speaking and as best as I have been able to discern it, in the foreground he used yellow for those areas in sunlight, and red through to deep red ochre and finally sepia for shadow.  Then those areas that are in the distance he used blues for sunlight and, violets and blacks for shadow. All this is varied subtly dependant also upon the natural colour of the objects. The skill needed to combine all of this and yet still give the painting an impressional unity is immense. What I have described applies to land, building and trees. His skies are rendered in blues, greys and if painting sunsets, red and yellow; and seas in this system seem to sit between the two because the water reflects the light of the sea and land.

It appears to me that in many of his watercolours, which would be painted quickly, he relies on this more (perhaps he is developing and perfecting the technique through them). In his oil paintings he uses this variation but the control is more subtle – after all the background areas, which these are, should be subordinate to the main foci of interest, which are going to be rendered more literally.

Another feature of Turner’s art is the reduction of the area which is sharp focus (with a corresponding decrease in the areas which are painted blurred. The out-of-focus areas are painted as though in peripheral vision. Turner used to practice painting his peripheral vision. This accounts for the looseness of many of his works. However, he never abandons the points of focus altogether. The oil painting Snowstorm, left, for example, is almost all blurred blizzard, there is, nevertheless the sharp line of a mast and a daub of bright colour for the boat, so that the eye has somewhere to rest. Many of his later oils are painted as thin washes of colour, mimicking his watercolour method there are many of these in Tate Britain museum in London - I am not sure if Turner considered all of them finished although to the modern eye they look splendid.

What is interesting is that to my knowledge the colour theory of Goethe is not consistent with ideas of modern physics, yet it works well in Turner’s paintings. It may be a lucky inspiration (or perhaps there is something to Goethe after all!). Regardless of the validity of Goethe’s theories, the success of the paintings is a tribute to Turner’s great skill and intuitive sense of what works once he has painted it.

The paintings shown are watercolours except for Snowstorm, above and the two at the bottom of the series below, which are oils.

Two 11th century opus sectile floors in Jerusalem

I was contacted by an archeologist who is working on sites in Jerusalem who wondered if I knew anything of the origins of two opus sectile floor patterns that appear in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and were laid in the 11th/12th century Crusader renovations of the church. The architect, Frankie Snyder tell me that the first shown below appears in 4 places:

1. Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Chapel of the Apparition (just north of the Rotunda) -- late 11th century (with 20th century repairs to the starburst patterns)

2. Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Chapel of the Franks -- 12th century

3. St. John the Baptist Church in Ein Kerem, under central dome -- 12th century

4. St. John the Baptish Church in Ein Kerem, grotto, birthplace of John the Baptist, home of Zachariah -- 12th century

5. Tile remnants of these tiles have been found on the Temple Mount, so there was evidently another chapel with this same floor built by the Crusaders on the Temple Mount during the 12th C.

And the second appears in 2 places:

1. Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Latin (Franciscan) Chapel of Calvary -- 12th C (20th C replica of original)

2. Inside the Dome of the Rock -- used by Crusaders as a church during the 12th C

 All are made of local black bituminous limestone and hard red limestone, and imported white marble. All tile sizes seem to be based on the inch.

If anyone has any information please let us know. You can email Frankie on frankie.snyder@gmail.com

Two Beautiful Newly Completed Icons of Western Saints by Marek Czarnecki

I have just been sent images of these two beautiful icons of St Cecilia and St Hildegard of Bingen painted by Marek Czarnecki. Marek is a Catholic iconographer based in Connecticut. (www.seraphicrestorations.com). They were another pair of commissions for Our Lady of the Mountains in Jasper, Georgia. Fr Charles Byrd the pastor and the congregation have been working together to commission a whole series of new works of art in their little church.

Don't forget the Way of Beauty online courses www.Pontifex.University (go to the Catalog) for college credit, for continuing ed. units, or for audit. A formation through an encounter with a cultural heritage - for artists, architects, priests and seminarians, and all interested in contributing to the 'new epiphany of beauty'. 

Why All Catholics Should be Interested in the American Constitution

A book that explains why the American ideal of ordered liberty is consistent with a holistic view of human flourishing that is described in Catholic social teaching: Tea Party Catholic: the Catholic Case for Limited Government, a Free Economy and Human Flourishing, by Samuel Gregg  (www.teapartycatholic.com)

If you want to know what this book is about, at least read the whole of the front cover. If you got no further than Tea Party Catholic, it would be easy to mistake it as a piece of current affairs and contemporary social commentary. This is much more than that.

Although not unconnected with the values of the modern Tea Party movement that the title evokes, it is more a reference to the original Boston Tea Party and describes the influence of the sole Catholic signatory to the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll.  Through papal writings especially those of Leo XIII, John Paul II and Benedict XVI he demonstrates that the free market, liberty, limited government  and other ideas that characterize the American conservative mindset are consistent with Catholic teaching on the human person, freedom and capitalism. I suggest that it is important enough that it should be standard reading in the general education of all students - not just Catholics and not just Americans - for years to come.

For Catholics it is a great introduction to the basic principles of Catholic social teaching, freedom and the human person and the nature of a society in which the human person can flourish.

For American Catholics and especially those who doubt that the American constitution and characteristic American values are consistent with the Catholic worldview, he demonstrates the harmony between the two visions of society. I have often felt that some are  too quick seize upon the fact that each defines the terms 'freedom' and describes the human person differently and use it as a reason to dismiss the principles upon which America is founded as contrary to Catholic thinking.  As Gregg explains although some of the language of the Founding Fathers is characterized by that of Enlightenment thinking - the principles that they are describing can be shown to be consistent the Catholic thought, developments in CST which occurred much later.

If you could get any of them to read it, it would be an eye-opener to the large numbers of Europeans who are like I used to be:  anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-business and pro-socialist; who are taught to believe that the interests of business are fundamentally opposed to the good of society as a whole and the well being of the poor in particular; and have no knowledge of the principles upon which America was founded or any sense that they were even worthy of investigation.

This book will counter these prejudices on two fronts.

First, Gregg clearly articulates how Catholic social teaching describes the principles by which society can be ordered so that it is prosperous and the human person can flourish. Furthermore, CST is quite specific that this cannot include socialism and that a society that favors markets, the free economy, business and entrepreneurs, and is built on a culture of faith, morality and trust is the one that offers the greatest hope for all people, especially the poor.

Second, his description of the meaning of traditional American values demonstrates, I believe, that America offers hope to the West in a time of crisis. The cultural foundation upon which so much that is good in the modern age and upon which the West is founded is more than Christian, it is Catholic. This being so, these American values which are so smugly rejected by many - especially the university educated -  in fact represent a beacon of light in the West that is otherwise throwing away so much of its Christian heritage. If this is not stopped we are on a path to disaster.

This last point could be noted as well, I think by many Americans who are, as I was surprised and somewhat dismayed to discover when I moved here, ashamed of their own culture and starry-eyed about Europe. Perhaps because I am English, it seems to bring this side out of them and they will quickly find a reason to apologize for their own culture and praise that of Europe, which they view as inherently superior. They identify European culture, I am guessing, with that which produced the beautiful buildings and art they see in European cities and do not seem to realize that modern European culture is far removed from the one that created these wonders.

If you want hope for the future it is not to Europe we must look, but  to that part of American society that still espouses its traditional values and therefore, whether they know it or not, Catholic Social Teaching. That is not to say the American culture is perfect (although it is far better than most of these negative Americans and Europeans give it credit for). Rather it is that American society still has far more of what is necessary for such a transformation. From this starting point there is still, in my opinion, the possibility of infusing it with more so that it can be culture of greater beauty and in which the human person can flourish. My conviction about this arises not from a deep knowledge of the history of the founding of the United States, of which still am no expert, but from personal observations of American society. But I see support for this view in Gregg's book.

As Gregg put it it: 'Subsidiarity tells us that the primary responsibility for limiting the temptations associated with the affluence generated by market economics lies with non-state organizations, especially families and churches. Parents are usually better placed than government officials to teach their children how to value material goods, to use mass media, and apply their minds critically to what they see and hear so that they can make clear judgments about what they are being told in advertising. The long-term goal is to root free markets in a moral culture that enables us live in societies akin to the Florence of the High Middle Ages and the Renaissance; communities in which widespread commerce, banking and trade went hand in hand with the literature of Dante and the art of Michelangelo.'

Well I might say Duccio or Giotto rather than Michelangelo but I don't want to quibble! The point is very well made.

To read more and to buy the book go to www.teapartycatholic.com

Sam Gregg will be teaching at Acton University - the annual conference of the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan, June 16-19 which is open to everyone, and thoroughly recommended to all.

Don't forget the Way of Beauty online courses www.Pontifex.University (go to the Catalog) for college credit, for continuing ed. units, or for audit. A formation through an encounter with a cultural heritage - for artists, architects, priests and seminarians, and all interested in contributing to the 'new epiphany of beauty'. 

Lenten Art Meditations on streaming video by Fr Michael Morris

This is great stuff...but how do we make best use of the information?

Here is an excellent series of recorded commentaries on works of art by Fr Michael Morris of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology. Fr Morris, who is on the full-time faculty of the school, heads their Religion and the Arts program and writes the sacred art meditations for the monthly Magnificat magazine. He has been posting one a week during lent and they call be viewed here.  I encourage readers to visit this site watch these videos. At the end of this article is his meditation on the Ecce Homo by the Flemish artist Quentin Massys. The original painting is in the Prado in Madrid.

This does raise the question of what is purpose of such meditations? How do we make use of all the great information they contain? Do they help our participation in the liturgy? If so, how? If we cannot answer these questions satisfactorily then perhaps what we have here is just a bit of pious relaxation, one step up from vegging out in front of a documentary on the television - Catholic PBS!

The first point for each of us to ask ourselves, I suggest, is this: am I doing this as an exercise in understanding the work of art, or treating the work of art as a means for enhancing my knowledge and understanding of the Word. If it is the former then, and I speak for myself here, I am indulging in intellectual pride or a cultural affectation. I might as well be be taking a benign secular art history course which, while acknowledging the Catholic intentions of the artist, is detached from them.

Even if my goal is the latter - enhancing knowledge and understanding of the Word - then unless it is conformity to the ultimate end, it becomes another form of intellectual pride in which I am seeking theological knowledge and understanding, rather than artistic.

The answer has to be that, like all other human activity, it can be ordered to the purpose of deepening my participation the Sacred Liturgy, But how? Here is my approach:

I suggest that it is analogous to the study of scripture, which when done well internalizes what is learnt so that our worship of God is more worthy. This last point raises yet another additional question. If meditation of art is analogous to study of scripture, why bother with the study of art at all? Why not just study scripture directly?

The answer is given to us in the Catechism. In the first item that comes under the heading Truth, Beauty and Sacred Art, we read: 'Truth is beautiful in itself. Truth in words, the rational expression of the knowledge of created and uncreated reality, is necessary to man, who is endowed with intellect. But truth can also find other complementary forms of human expression, above all when it is a matter of evoking what is beyond words: the depths of the human heart, the exaltations of the soul, the mystery of God.' (CCC 2500)

This suggests then that the words of the art meditation are just a first step. They lead us into a receptivity of those aspects of the work of art that is not said in the mediation, and which are 'beyond words'. This is a passive, contemplative mode of study. It is, when understood in this way, a sort of visual lectio divina. This is not a new idea, Claire of Assisi, for example, is often credited with the development of a technique of meditating art in this way. I suggest that in fact, unless art is studied in conjunction with this contemplative mode, then one might as well just be reading the theology truths contained from a written script. For we are not gaining beyond the words by looking at the picture.

And then we must go further still. Just as Benedictine spirituality as outlined in the Rule does not end with lectio divina but rather with the Opus Dei, the work of God - worshiping him in the Sacred Liturgy - so our meditation and contemplation of art must be directed towards this higher goal.

There are two ways in which this can be so, I suggest. The first, is an intellectual process that transforms us - those aspects of the Word that have been internalized by both meditation and contemplation are brought to the altar and affect our response in the Eucharist.

The second is that the meditation and contemplation of the art has developed our faculties of meditation and contemplation to a higher place. So when our worship is done in conjunction with appropriate holy images we use those faculties within the context of worship and are more engaged with that imagery in a way that raises our hearts and minds to God in our worship. Those truths that are beyond words are with us in the liturgy too.

This last point presupposes, of course, that there is some decent liturgical art where the liturgy is taking place!

As students we are more likely to make this connection right up the hierarchy of ends and put it into practice if we are made aware by our teachers and develop the habit of using art work in our prayer and especially in the liturgy. Without this there is a real danger that such meditations will be just the empty intellectual exercises that give academia a bad name.

The Church tells us that when it offers a Catholic education, 'A school is a privileged place in which, through a living encounter with a cultural inheritance, integral formation occurs.' ( The Catholic School, 26; pub. The Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, 1977) This encounter with our cultural inheritance is not a 'living' encounter that provides 'integral formation' unless it is in conformity with its highest purpose - the worship of God in the Sacred Liturgy. It is the job of those us who teach to transmit this to our students how to use the information we give well, in conformity with our ultimate end, otherwise we let them down...and waste many wonderful resources such as those provided by Fr Morris.

https://youtu.be/1Aw0c1SgC8Q

Don't forget the Way of Beauty online courses www.Pontifex.University (go to the Catalog) for college credit, for continuing ed. units, or for audit. A formation through an encounter with a cultural heritage - for artists, architects, priests and seminarians, and all interested in contributing to the 'new epiphany of beauty'.