Day 323: Truth, Beauty, and Sacred Art (2500-2513)

• It’s Day 323!!

• TRUTH, BEAUTY, AND SACRED ART

• The connection between truth and beauty is remarkable

• We also have MCNUGGETS

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we give you praise and we thank you. We thank you for this day. We thank you for the beauty of this day, the goodness of this day. We ask that you help us to recognize beauty in your creation. Help us to recognize beauty in each other. Help us to recognize beauty in what you have made. And help us to recognize the beauty with which you have created us. Help us to walk in the truth of that beauty and recognize its goodness as we give glory to you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• Human beings are ordered toward the truth by our very nature

• Why?

• Because we are made with an intellect

• That intellect is meant to grasp what is true

• Beauty has the capacity to reveal truth in a way that only belongs to beauty

• Paragraph 2500 says, “The practice of goodness is accompanied by spontaneous spiritual joy and moral beauty. Likewise, truth carries with it the joy and splendor of spiritual beauty. 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. Even before revealing himself to man in words of truth, God reveals himself to him through the universal language of creation, the work of his Word, of his wisdom: the order and harmony of the cosmos-which both the child and the scientist discover-’from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator,’ ‘for the author of beauty created them.’ [Wisdom] is a breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; therefore, nothing defiled gains entrance into her. For she is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness. For [wisdom] is more beautiful than the sun, and excels every constellation of the stars. Compared with the light she is found to be superior, for it is succeeded by the night, but against wisdom evil does not prevail. I became enamored of her beauty.”

• Art can be paintings, sculpture, music, etc.

• There is something that gets communicated when we see that painting or sculpture etc. and also when we hear that melody etc. 

• Even when we hear a simple instrument played excellently, like the cowbell!!! 😉

• It communicates something

• Let’s listen to Fr. Mike talk about his little brother and musical scores in movies…

• Fr. Mike wanted to learn the trumpet just so he could learn the theme music to Indiana Jones while jumping off a horse

• Beauty can reveal something that mere words can’t

• We can perceive the Creator from the greatness and beauty of created things

• God is the author of beauty

• Beauty can convey the truth of God

• Let’s listen to Fr. Mike talk about a book by Peter Kreeft…

• Because we are created in the image of God, we get to participate in this

• When we create art, we are in some ways corresponding and co-working with God

• Paragraph 2501 says, “Created ‘in the image of GOd,’ a 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 inspires 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.”

• Paragraph 2502 says, “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.”

• Our churches are actually mean to be beautiful

• There are numerous kinds of styles that evoke beauty in different ways

• All of those styles should point to truth and beauty

• They should serve to evoke and glorify the God of creation

• Paragraph 2503 says, “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.”

• The truth is what is

• There are such things as subjective truth

• There is also objective truth which is what is at all times, in all places, for all peoples

• Truth cannot contradict truth

• We are made in our very nature for truth

• Once we find the truth, we are called to acknowledge it, apprehend it, and live in the truth

• Especially in the truth of Jesus Christ

• The big prayer we all have is to always walk in the light, always walk in the truth in everything that we do and in everything that we say

• To avoid temptations towards gossip 

• To avoid temptations towards abusing the truth or manipulating or distorting or obscuring the truth

• To always walk in the truth and realize that every one of us is called to bear witness and be a martyr of Jesus Christ and His Church

• That is a high call

• That is a difficult call

• BUT…

• It is your call and it is my call

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT…