02/13/00

Artists and the Faith: Is God Beautiful?

Often enough we say that God is good or that God is truthful. Not too often do we hear that God is beautiful. God’s beauty, apart from consideration of the physical features of the Son of God become man, has to be different from physical beauty. There is a splendor about the mysteries of faith, however, that leads mystics in particular to experience in some fashion the beauty of God himself. Light, pure light, seems to be the physical reality most often used to speak of God as beautiful.

In a letter to artists last year (April 4, 1999), Pope John Paul II, himself a poet and playwright, says that “beauty is a key to the mystery and a call to transcendence. That is why the beauty of created things can never fully satisfy. It stirs that hidden nostalgia for God which a lover of beauty like Saint Augustine could express in incomparable terms: ‘Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you!’” Beauty evokes love because it is “the visible form of the good.”

The Holy Father connects artists to God by reflecting on the act of creating beauty. God creates beauty out of nothing; artists craft beauty out of something already existing. Artists reshape physical materials into works of art, fashion sounds into music, arrange words into poetry and plays and works of literature.

Artists as well, like every man and woman, fashion their own lives through moral actions which shape a person’s character. Each of us is a masterpiece, not just as we come from God’s hand but also as we take the structures of human nature and act to create our particular personality. Our handiwork, made possible through the effects of God’s grace in our lives, will finally be judged by a jury of One, when God looks at who we have become through our lifetime’s constant sculpting in acts and intentions, in the doing of what is right and good or in destroying ourselves through sin. Each of us crafts a human person using the materials given us by God through our parents and family.

Through their own lives given especially to the creation of beauty, artists can enjoy a privileged insight into God’s act of creating. Artistic “inspiration” gives insight into the action of the Holy Spirit, who “is the mysterious Artist of the universe.” The human artist therefore enjoys a special vocation in the Church and for the world, as necessary for the common good as the vocation of worker and professional person, teacher and computer programmer, scientist and technician. The faith has inspired great works of art through the ages in every medium: painting, sculpture and architecture; music and chant and polyphony; poetry, sermons and prayers. Art inspired by faith and serving the faith moves people to adore God.

The Church needs art in our age as in every age. Believers in the Incarnation desire to see the faith made visible and hear the faith expressed. And art needs the Church, even though the subject of artistic creation is now the expression of the artist’s subjectivity more often than the portrayal of the mysteries of the faith. “Artists are constantly in search of the hidden meaning of things,” the Pope writes, “and their torment is to succeed in expressing the world of the ineffable. How then can we fail to see what a great source of inspiration is offered by that kind of homeland of the soul that is religion? Is it not perhaps within the realm of religion that the most vital personal questions are posed, and answers both concrete and definitive are sought?”

The Pope calls for a more constructive partnership between art and the Church. During this Jubilee year, Feb. 18, the feast of Blessed Fra Angelico, a Dominican painter who died in 1455, is the day of the jubilee for artists. We will celebrate the jubilee for artists in the Archdiocese of Chicago on Feb. 11. Queen of All Saints Basilica in Sauganash will host musicians and painters in a celebration arranged by the Archdiocesan Office for Catechesis. Sometime during that week, it would be good for all Catholics to thank the musicians and choir directors in their parishes, who help us worship God in song.

On Feb. 14, I will talk to the students of the Art Institute. I hope to listen to those who want to give their lives to the creation of beauty in this new century. Some months back, Cardinal Keeler of Baltimore and I began speaking to officials at the Art Institute and others about how to invite artists to submit paintings on religious themes for a national juried art contest. “Christianity and the Arts”, edited by Marci Whitney-Schenck (P.O. Box 118088; Chicago, IL 60611) is a local magazine which explores the relationship between faith and artistic creation. The Archdiocese’s publishing house, Liturgical Training Publications, puts special effort into creating worship books of great beauty.

Each of these initiatives is an example of today’s dialogue between artists and the Church encouraged strongly by both Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II. Each of them is a recognition that the Church rejoices in human creativity and thanks God for the gift of artistic inspiration. If you have a “budding artist” in your family or among your friends, encourage them as the Church celebrates the Jubilee for Artists. God bless you.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Francis Cardinal George, OMI
Archbishop of Chicago

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