The Priest and Sacred Art
Sacred art if of great assistance to
Priests only for their life as men and Christians, but also for their
priesthood, as pointed out by the Holy Father Benedict XVI in his 2007
Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum
Caritatis, where he referred to the beauty of art as one of the “concrete
ways in which the truth of God’s love in Christ encounters us”” (No. 35),
thereby strengthening the “deep bond between beauty and liturgy”. In view of
this bond, the Pope goes on by saying that “it is essential that the education
of seminarians and priests include the study of art history, with special
reference to sacred buildings and the corresponding liturgical norms.” (No. 41)
These words have their roots in a timeless Catholic tradition, which has
always encouraged, explained and defended – when necessary – the importance of
art for the spiritual growth of believers in the pastoral mission of the
Church. Already at the end of the patristic age, Saint Gregory the Great summed
up the experience of the first Christian centuries with a phrase which
tradition has summarised with the words ‘Biblia
pauperum’, ‘ the Bible of the Poor; in a letter to an iconoclastic bishop,
he underlined the spiritual aim of sacred images thus: “One thing is
worshipping a painting, another thing is to learn from a scene what is to be
worshipped”, and added, “the brotherhood of priests is bound to admonish the
faithful so that they would feel moved to compunction by the drama of the scene
portrayed and humbly prostrate themselves in adoration of the One and Almighty Holy
Trinity” (Epistola Sereno episcopo
massiliensi, 2,10). With the same sensibility,
in our own time Pope Paul VI suggested a close affinity between the work of
priests and that of artists: “We greatly honour the artist”, he said during the
Audience of 7th May 1964, “since he offers a para-priestly ministry
supporting ours. Our priesthood is based on the mysteries of God; his is based
on human collaboration, which makes this mystery present and accessible.” And John Paul II, with the most important
document in this field, the 1999 Letter to artists, reinforced the same
point when he said that “in order to communicate the message entrusted to her
by Christ, the Church needs art. Art must make perceptible, and as far as
possible attractive, the world of the spirit, of the invisible, of God.” (No. 12)
These texts of the Magisterium were the background from which the then
Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger, drew
inspiration in his introduction to the Compendium
of the Catechism of the Catholic Church , for which he had chosen a series
of images from different ages and cultures. The future Pope pointed out that
“artists in every age have offered the principal facts of the mystery of
salvation to the contemplation and wonder of believers by presenting them in
the splendour of colour and in the perfection of beauty”, and he concluded with
a pastoral note, by defining the role of art in the past as “an indication of
how today more than ever, in a culture of images, a sacred image can express
much more than what can be said in words, and be an extremely effective and
dynamic way of communicating the Gospel message.”
The priest, whose personal and professional spirituality is linked to
the sacramental signs he administers, can easily understand the connection
between visual art and Christian faith. He knows that the Word of God was made
visible in Jesus Christ, who became the “image of the unseen God” (Col 1,15),
and therefore he understands that the role that human images play in the life
of Christians is somehow analogous to that of the Incarnate Word in
history. “At one time it was not
allowed to create an image of a God who was without un-embodied and without
psychical limitation”, recalled Saint John Damascene, evoking the Old Testament
prohibition of any representation of the Divinity. “But now [he continued] God has
been made visible in the flesh and has involved himself in the life of men, so
much so that one is allowed to create an image of what has been seen of God” (Treatise on images 1,16). In 1987, by quoting this work of the 8th
century, John Paul II wrote: “Church art must aim at speaking the language of
the Incarnation and, with the elements of matter, express the One who
"deigned to dwell in matter and bring about our salvation through matter”
(Duodecimum saeculum, no. 11).
And even if we are still use the phrase ‘the Bible of the Poor’, it is
not that it is a matter of didactic images taking the place of the written text
in particular circumstances. Rather, within the Catholic understanding, images
can touch the intimate moral and spiritual dimensions of a person. And John
Paul II went on, “our most authentic tradition, which we share with our
Orthodox brethren, teaches us that the language of beauty placed at the service
of faith is capable of reaching people's hearts and making them know from
within the One whom we dare to represent in images, Jesus Christ, Son of God
made man” (Ibid., no. 12). In a
parallel document of 1987, Patriarch Dimitrios I of Constantinople stated that,
according to the Orthodox tradition, “images (...) have become the most
powerful expression of dogmas and preaching” (Encyclique sur la signification théologique de l’icone, 14.9.1987).
As a matter of fact, in both traditions – in the Western Church just as
in the East– the use of sacred images in the liturgy has served to testify to
the particular relationship which, due to the Incarnation of Christ, exists
between “sign” and reality” within the sacramental economy. This relationship is actually visible in all
the works with which man embellishes divine worship: sacred vessels and vestments
to the greatest architectural works, since the use of things in the
liturgy of the Church reveals and actualises the vocation of the created world,
called with and through Man to render glory unto God. Much more than things,
however, art speaks of men and women who create it, because as the Tuscan
bishops affirmed in a Pastoral Note of 1997, “artists”, in the manner in which
they ‘transfigure’ materials, “ reveal by analogy the structure of personal
creativity, the manner, that is, in
which every man and woman ‘plans’, ‘shapes’, and ‘gives colour’ to their life
the better to serve God and one’s neighbour” (La Vita si è fatta visibile. La comunicazione della fede attraverso
l’arte, no. 12). John Paul II would go on assign this observation to the
ethical goal of the individual artist, by saying that “those who perceive in
themselves this kind of divine spark which is the artistic vocation…feel at the
same time the obligation not to waste this talent but to develop it, in
order to put it at the service of their neighbour and of humanity as a whole.”
(Letter to artists no. 3). With shades
of brilliance and luminous colours, he recreates the experience of the artist,
in whom “the desire to give meaning to one's own life is joined by the fleeting
vision of beauty and of the mysterious unity of things”. He acknowledges the
frustration felt by artists when faced with “the unbridgeable gap which lies
between the work of their hands, however successful it may be, and the dazzling
perfection of the beauty glimpsed in the ardour of the creative moment”, of
whose splendour the actual painted or sculpted work is but a glimmer. But he
also shares the rapture of the believer before an artistic masterpiece,
explaining that, “they know that they have had a momentary glimpse of the abyss
of light which has its original wellspring in God” (no.6).
That is why at the end of the Second Vatican Council
Paul VI, addressing poets and men of letters, painters, sculptors, architects,
musicians, people involved in the performing arts and the cinema, said: “The Church has long since
joined in alliance with you. You have built and adorned her temples, celebrated
her dogmas, enriched her liturgy. You have aided her in translating her divine
message in the language of forms and figures, making the invisible world
palpable. Today, as yesterday, the Church needs you and turns to you. She tells
you through our voice: Do not allow an alliance as fruitful as this to be
broken. Do not refuse to put your talents at the service of divine truth. Do
not close your spirit to the breath of the Divine Spirit. This world in which
we live needs beauty in order not to fall into despair. It is beauty, like
truth, which brings joy to the heart of man and is that precious fruit which
resists the wear and tear of time, which unites generations and makes them
share things in admiration …” ( Messages
of the Council to mankind, (8th
December 1965).
It
follows that priests must seek out artists, come to know them and learn from
them. They are, in their own way, they continue to be men and women of ‘faith’
– even whey they claim to be non-believers – since they create things. Faith,
which is creative, generates works, and “if good deeds do not go with it, is
quite dead” (Jn 2: 17), just like a brilliant idea that the artist fails to
translate into a painting or a statue. Besides, faith is a familiar terrain for
artists, who each day have undertake the exertion of translating insights and
ideas, impressions and observations, making
of them concrete ‘works’. They know well that the only way to become perfect is
to set themselves to work, to push themselves, risking even failure — the waste
of time, material and energy: indeed, risking even ridicule. More than others,
they understand how for Abraham “faith was active
along with his works” and “faith was brought
to completion by the works” (Jm 2: 21-22).
But artists understand the dynamic of faith at an even more essential
level, identifying themselves with the ‘risk’ and the ‘pathos’ of the same Creator
God. They experience as an intimate hope, necessity and suffering the desire to
give expression to an idea which escapes our grasp, a “unique, manifold,
subtle, agile, clear, unstained” (Ws 7,22) conception, which nonetheless seems
to capture everything the artist knows to have within him and which he wants – indeed
must – share with others, to make them see through their own eyes, to
contemplate and to touch with their own hands something that in him “was from
the beginning” (1 Jn 1: 1-2). There is
no artist who does not identify himself with the Creator, who risked everything
even to make his “life…manifest” for men (1 Jn 1,1-2).
From
artists priests can learn that faith is in itself an art. Certainly, it is primarily a gift, but it’s a gift which, like human
talent, must be developed by those who have received it. I’m not thinking here ‘faith’ as a system, the wonderful compendium
of beliefs and traditions, but of the act of faith, the leap of
faith, the risk by which one passes from the life of an artisan, made up
of causes and effects, to a life experienced as art, seen as an
‘inspired’ work, open to self-giving, informed by grace. Causes and effects
can, alas, can lead to vendettas and wars, imprisoning man; grace, which is
truth freely given, pardons and sets free.
The
Priest must bear these things in mind when he prays, when he celebrates Holy Mass,
when he reconciles sinners with God. And he can learn it too, if God wills it,
from art and from artists.
* Mons. Timothy Verdon, A Canon
of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Florence and Director of the Office for
Catechesis through Art of Archdiocese of Florence, has been a Consultor to the
Pontifical Commission for the Cultural heritage of the Church.