The Philosophy of Mainstream Art Education and Criticism: Part 3

How Marxist theory has entered the mainstream, and more on how radical, Christian ‘counter-revolutionary’ beauty is the response that will save the world.

This the third in the series. In part 1 and part 2, I discussed how the contemporary art world presents itself as Postmodern, but in fact is in fact just Marxist ideology intent on destruction of the tradition, faith, family and the Church. Here I consider the various forms that it appears in the contemporary worldview, going beyond the art world, and how a Christian culture of beauty ought to be part of the response.

Giotto, fresco, St Francis Preaching to the Birds, Italian 13th century.

The assumptions of Marxist ideology have seeped into the mainstream and have been adopted by people who very often are not aware of the implications of what they think. This is true of many who call themselves Christian. As already stated, many Catholics, for example, accept the Marxist critique of capitalism and the free economy without realising that this critique promotes a worldview that is contrary to their own faith. It is not common for people to see private property as necessary evil rather than a good upon which a Christian society must be founded. Similarly there are many Christians who are sympathetic to other socialist or Marxist ideas and who are unaware that they are working with a force that is directed towards the destruction of their Christian faith and all the main institutions of society. It sounds virtuous to be in favor of diversity and equality, for example, as long as we don’t investigate too far the consequences of the policies proposed to rectify the supposed lack of diversity and inequality.

We should be under no illusions that Marxism and Christianity are mutually exclusive and one cannot profess both simultaneously.

It is difficult to know why the art world claims that post-modernism as defined above is the ethos of contemporary art when it is clearly following a Marxist path. One suspects that this is not subterfuge. Rather, that the Marxist worldview is so deeply embedded in the psyche of modern academia that many are simply unaware of the axiomatic principles that become the measure of truth. So perhaps Chris Ofili, described in part 1, thinks he is a postmodernist, and does not realise that he is only permitted to be one insofar as it doesn’t contradict the Marxist narrative of what constitutes truth. To highlight one other example of how the battle of ideas has played out in the art world. Marxist philosophy is the main driving force behind the frequently stated, but false, claim that Christ is traditionally painted as a Caucasian, and that this has been done in order to promote a white patriarchy. It displays a shocking ignorance of Christian art (as I described in this article here), and of the origins and attitude of Christians through centuries, yet it is a story that surfaces regularly.

For example, a random search on the internet revealed that on April 19th, 2019, an article appeared in the New York Times headed, ‘As a Black Child in Los Angeles, I Couldn’t Understand Why Jesus Had Blue Eyes’. If the writer in question had seen authentic Christian liturgical art, and had a good appreciation of the traditions from which it comes, then he wouldn’t have asked such questions. There are images of Christ with blue eyes, no doubt, but they are not representative of the norms of Christian tradition through centuries.

A Byzantine image of Christ, a mosaic, created in the 13th century in modern day Turkey. There is no Western European influence on either the style or content of Byzantine art of this period. I’m looking in vain for blue eyes, by the way. The white highlights are not representative of the skin color (which is brown) but artistic portrayals of uncreated light emanating from the Light of the World

Consistent with this broader narrative, art history for the cultural Marxist is always described through the lens of class struggle, defining categories of people by race or gender, for example, in which one category, for example, caucasian males, are oppressors who exerts power and domination over all others, who are the oppressed. Rarely, for example, is an artist or his patron of the past assumed to be motivated by an authentic faith and by the love of the Church. Human motivation, in their eyes, is always attributable to socio-economic factors and to promote the power, the wealth and the status of the oppressor class.

As Christians we must be aware of this narrative and be ready to counter it forcefully. Striving for an authentic and beautiful culture is part of how we wage the war for the good and, contrary to the effect of Marxism, the measure of our victory is peace. The culture war is a real one, and those against whom we are pitted are setting a trajectory that has the elimination of the Church as one of its goals.

As part of our response, we must first appreciate the importance of culture in transmitting values, just as the socialists have done, and then strive to create a beautiful culture that reflects our values and will displace the Marxist inspired culture. We should reject the assertion that cultural diversity is a good and assert, rather, that a Christian culture is superior to, and more beautiful, than all other cultures.

In the context of sacred art it means that we assert the value of the traditions of Christian sacred art forcefully and counter the Marxist narrative of history with the Christian salvation history. It means also, working to change or replace existing art schools, and providing a more compelling critique of art than that of the critics in the mainstream media. Nearly every newspaper or TV station art correspondent is pushing Marxist ideology in the form of Critical Theory. In order to do this we must be aware of both what we stand for and what the Marxist theorists stand for.

 

Liberation theology, condemned by the Church, is a failed attempt to reconcile Marxism and Christianity

The most powerful way to counter this threat to the Church is by creating a culture that reflects the beauty of God and the divine order that is more desirable than all others. A Christian culture is a beautiful gift that should be offered to all peoples, along with the Faith that it emanates from and directs us to. A Christian culture should characterize the society from which emanates and so, as Americans, we should aim to reestablish American culture, a culture that is beautiful, Christian, and characteristically American.

American gothic: Duke University Chapel, exterior and, below, interior

We Must Recognize the Utility of Beauty if We are to Transform American Culture

It is common for people who wish to see beauty in contemporary culture to be critical of architecture, say, for being ugly because it is designed on ‘utilitarian’ principles. What they mean by this is that the architect has not considered how to make his design beautiful, because he is only interested in creating a building that serves its function. For example, a newly built library is ugly because the architect only considered how it could house and give people access to books, and made no effort to incorporate a beautiful design. The critics of such a library would argue, typically, that the artist ought to have made the library beautiful as well as creating a design based upon its utility (or to use another word, ‘usefulness’). 

I would argue slightly differently. I would say that when any human artifact is made well it is beautiful. Beauty is not something that is an add-on to its usefulness. Rather when the library is as useful in the fullest sense of the word, it is inevitable that it will  be beautiful. Beauty, as I see it, is intimately bound up with utility, because when it has integrity, everything about it is in conformity to its purpose.  

The problem with our ugly library is not that the architect was utilitarian. Rather, because he only considered the material instead of the spiritual needs of readers, he did not understand the full purpose of a library. In fact he was not utilitarian enough! If people are to be at ease and able to read in peace and tranquility, the building must be a beautiful environment for reading. These functions of a beautiful library are related to our spiritual needs. Any information that we read and which is grasped by the intellect will have an impact on our spiritual lives too and it is important that the environment predisposes us to open to both spiritual and intellectual formation through what we read. Traditional church architecture has been proven over time to create the environment leads to contemplation of God. The main focus on the design of churches is as a place of worship, however activity of worship properly  includes the engagement of the intellect through the reception of information that is imparted to us via written and spoken word. It is appropriate, therefore that the design of a library should draw on that of a church, so that we learn what we read in such a way that it raises our hearts to God. And, traditionally this is precisely what we see. It is no accident that the libraries of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges are built in the gothic style. The design of the library is not identical to the college chapel, being proper to the function of a library, but it is closely related to it.

The cloister at Boston Public Library, early 20th century

This is not suggesting that every human activity has a spiritual component. Rather, since the human person is a unity of body and soul,  even activities directed primarily towards the good of the body,  must impact the soul as well. 

Take the most mundane of activities, say, cleaning our teeth. I brush my teeth every day because I want to be healthy and I don’t want my breath to smell bad. I cannot for the life of me see how I can brush my teeth spiritually! However, to have bodily health contributes to my well being as a person and hence contributes in some indirect way to my spiritual health too, thereby enhancing my capacity to undertake the work of the Lord. A toothbrush suited to its purpose will therefore have a beauty that speaks of this greater picture of the benefits of cleaning our teeth in a way that is in harmony with its primary purpose, and will incline us to use it for the benefit of our health. This is the utility of beauty in a toothbrush! It would be perfectly reasonable, therefore, to incorporate traditional proportions, which are rooted in the beauty of the cosmos, into the design of toothbrushes. 

The mundane: English Edwardian toothbrushes

When, unlike a toothbrush,  the object we are considering does have a direct impact on the spiritual life, such as how we pray, then it is all the more obvious that its beauty, which directs us to God, has a direct impact on our ability to carry out that activity well. The beauty of sacred art plays a direct role in raising our hearts to heaven which is what we must do to pray well. This means that everything associated with the liturgy for example, the art, music, architecture, vestments and so on, must be appropriately beautiful in order to serve its purpose well. 

And the sacred! Both should be beautiful

The Mysteries of the Mandorla in the Our Lady of Guadalupe Icon

The story of the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe is remarkable in many ways. An important part of that story, that of the image that was given to St Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, is itself enigmatic. What follows is personal speculation - I am describing what strikes me as so mysterious when I look at this image.

As a revealed image, it is a rare Western example of a small category of sacred art called in Greek acheiropoieta - not made by human hands. In this example, we have some details clearly derived from Aztec culture and some from traditional Christian culture, including some features not normally associated with the Spanish Christian culture of the day. Something else that is striking about this image is how these aspects are combined so as to create something that has great power to convince one of the truth of what it conveys. This apparition caused millions to convert, and a large part of that was due to the persuasive influence of the visual vocabulary employed by the “artist” of this image. It spoke simultaneously to both the Aztecs and the occupying Spaniards, and continues to draw devotion today from Christians from all over the world.

The subject of this sacred image came up in a lively podcast in which I was in conversation with Christopher West (of the Cor Project and the Theology of the Body Institute). We discussed the broader subject of the place of contemporary popular culture in a Christian culture and whether or not it has a place for Christians as a tool for evangelization. In the course of this, we touched on subjects ranging from 1970s rock music (British, Irish and American) to Gregorian chant. (You can listen to the podcast here, or watch it on YouTube, here).

In the course of this exploration, we spoke of how the liturgy is the wellspring of Christian culture, and it is the culture of faith, connected to the liturgy, that is the strongest contributor to the universal human aspects of culture. In addition, this can be integrated discerningly with the contemporary culture so that it also reflects a particular time and place. If this integration is done well, the effect of the combination is to powerfully connect the universal truths to contemporary society; if, on the other hand, it is handled clumsily, it will have the opposite effect, and will lead people away from salvation.

As an example of such an integration that is successful, Christopher referred to the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and spoke beautifully of some of its elements that are particular to the culture, and of which I had not been fully aware before. So referring to this detail:

Our Lady’s hairstyle, parted in center, was in 16th-century Aztec culture the sign of a maiden, a virgin, but the ribbon and bow around her waist signified that she was pregnant. This is therefore a young woman who is portrayed simultaneously a virgin and pregnant. The quatrefoil roses articulated in sepia lines on the pale brown-ochre shawl signify royalty in the visual vocabulary of Aztec culture.

But this image spoke to the Aztecs of more than their own culture, because it has elements that come from traditional Christian culture as well. These are universal in that they speak to all Christians (one might make an argument in some cases for non-Christians too). It is these that speak to 16th-century Spaniards and to many Christians from all over the world since.

We can see, for example, the blue shawl, a common color for Mary’s outer robe. It is said to denote royalty. and Marian chapels often have their walls painted in this color. The exact shade of blue is unusual in that it is not lapis lazuli blue (French ultramarine), which a contemporary painter of the High Renaissance period might have used, but rather a turquoise blue often described as cerulean. I have no explanation for this difference. Also, I am curious to know more about the pigment that provides this color than Wikipedia can tell me. Cerulean blue pigment is only known since the late 18th century, when it was chemically created; it is not from a naturally occurring mineral. It might be that there is no great mystery here and that it is an effect created by a simple combination of other, naturally occurring green and blue pigments available at the time.

The eight-pointed stars represent her connection with the “eighth day” of Creation, her Son, Jesus Christ, who rose on the eighth day of the week. Traditionally in Eastern icons, there will be just three stars, symbolizing the perpetual virginity of the Theotokos - God-bearer - before, during and after her pregnancy. There are many more than three stars here. Perhaps it was deemed unnecessary by the Divine Artist to stay with three stars because her virginity is indicated in a different way, as already mentioned. There is also the moon, which is consistent with Scripture in that it shows Our Lady as the woman of the Apocalypse (12, 1), with the upturned crescent moon.

Another feature which interests me greatly is the nimbus of light around her. The account of the woman in the Book of the Apocalypse describes her as being “clothed in the sun.” The golden nimbus around her whole person might correspond to this. However, this is more complicated, there is something else going on here I believe that relates to the symbolism of the mandorla.

A mandorla is an iconographic symbol in the shape of a circle or an almond-shaped oval signifying heaven, divine glory, or light; mandorla is Italian for “almond.” It is an indication of the divine light of sanctity, but the mandorla of this type is generally reserved for Christ, at least in traditional iconography. I suggest that it is included here to indicate the presence of Christ within her womb. It is not there so much for the God-bearer, but for God! This is the Christian way of indicating that Our Lady is with child, the divine child, which complements the symbolism of Aztec culture. Remember that if this image had not spoken to the Spanish occupiers too, no one would have taken Juan Diego seriously.

Furthermore, take a close look at the gold envelope that surrounds her. This is not, as one might first suspect, a series of bright gold darts emanating from Our Lady. Rather it is a series of dark darts emanating from her on a gold background, the outer limits of which describe the mandorla shape, which is a smooth almond. In other words, this mandorla is getting darker the closer it is to her. Why should this be?

She really is, to use a familiar phrase, a riddle wrapped up in an enigma!

The answer is that this is how it is painted in traditional iconography. As I wrote in a previous article on the subject, “The mandorla surrounding Christ usually shows concentric bands of shading which get darker toward the center, rather than lighter. It is painted in this way so as to communicate to us, pictorially, the fact that we must pass through stages of increasing mystery in order to encounter the person of Jesus Christ. This encounter, which takes place in the Mass with the Eucharist at its heart, is one that transforms me supernaturally so that I can begin to grasp the glory of Christ more directly.”

You can see an iconographic mandorla here in an icon of the Dormition painted, by Theophan the Greek in 1392.

In the following icon, the sense of a mandorla getting darker as it moves towards the center is done in a different way.

As we can see above, the hidden “heart of darkness” is suggested visually by darts of darkness that come from a point obscured by the figure of Christ. This is similar, but not identical, to the device used by the artist in the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Notice also, incidentally, that while the Apostles are able to perceive the glorified Christ, they still do so dimly. They are partially and temporarily deified, but not fully, and so are partially blinded by the Light and knocked off their feet. To indicate this we see the rays that strike them as shafts of darkness, and the Apostles themselves will not receive halos until Pentecost, in contrast with the Prophets who are already in heaven, flanking Our Lord.

It is interesting to note that virtually every copy of the Our Lady of Guadalupe icon gets this detail wrong and inverts the direction of the lines. For example, here is one painted around 1700.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Book Recommendation: A Journey with Jonah, Part Three - Art and Literature Through Centuries

Life Imitating Art: How the Culture Communicates the Faith to the Skeptical and So That They Might Convert 

A Journey with Jonah - The Spirituality of Bewilderment, by Fr Paul Murray O.P. including God Took Pity a commentary of the Book of Jonah by Joseph Ratzinger. Pub. Word on Fire Institute, 2021.

In this third posting about this little book, I consider how artists might apply an understanding of both the Faith and the beliefs of non-Christians to channel their creativity, and create works of art to engage with all people through contemporary culture. I focus mainly on visual art, and secondarily on literature and poetry, but the principles apply just as much to any creative field.

In his extended essay on Jonah, Fr Paul Murray refers to the fresco painted by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel of Jonah awakening under a shrinking gourd. Michelangelo’s image is unusual, although certainly not unique in the canon of sacred art, as we will see, in showing Jonah under the gourd. 

The most common representation of Jonah tends to focus on his being swallowed by, present within, or emerging from the fish. For example, this contemporary icon carved by Canadian iconographer Jonathan Pageau follows a typical iconographic prototype.

We see Jonah emerging from the fish with the city of Ninevah in the distance. He is holding a scroll of the prayer of Jonah, sung at Orthros in the liturgy of the Byzantine Churches:

I called to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and thou didst hear my voice. For thou didst cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood was round about me; all thy waves and thy billows passed over me. Then I said, 'I am cast out from thy presence; how shall I again look upon thy holy temple? The waters closed in over me, the deep was round about me; weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet thou didst bring up my life from the Pit, O LORD my God. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD; and my prayer came to thee, into thy holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their true loyalty. But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to thee; what I have vowed I will pay. Deliverance belongs to the LORD!

The following Western examples from the late Romanesque and gothic periods follow similar themes. This one dates from 1280:

This next one is from a 17th-century Armenian hymnal, completed in Constantinople by a priest named Yakob Pēligratc‘i:

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Book Recommendation: A Journey With Jonah, Part 2 - The Themes of Jonah in Non-Catholic Cultures

By What Authority? Understanding the Persuasiveness of Argument from Authority to Transform the Culture

A Journey with Jonah - The Spirituality of Bewilderment by Fr Paul Murray O.P. including God Took Pity a commentary of the Book of Jonah by Joseph Ratzinger. Pub Word on Fire Institute, 2021.

I am recommending this short book, just 84 pages long, as part of a formation in the Faith for creative artists who wish to contribute to the evangelization of contemporary culture. In part 1, posted last week, of this three-part article I summarized the message of the book of Job itself. This week, I will consider the value of the wide range of commentators and biblical authorities whom Fr Murray presents in The Journey with Jonah in order to illustrate his points. He draws on sources both Catholic and non-Catholic, and from the early days of the Church until now. Finally, in part 3, I will consider how artists might apply this understanding of common ground, and differences between different groups in society, to channel their creativity into the making of artworks that engage with all people through contemporary culture and draw them to the Faith.

The value of citing a variety of sources
Fr Murray quotes a wide variety of sources, some commenting on the book of Jonah, while others are more broadly theological writers whom he uses to illustrate the broader points he is making himself. He cittes, for example, both Catholics such as Augustine, Methodius, Jerome, Theresa of Avila, John of the Cross and Louis Reau, and Protestants such as Luther and John Jewell from the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as more recent figures like Geoffrey Bull and Hans Wolf. He draws also on medieval rabbis and Islamic commentators, and contemporary secular theorists such as Erich Fromm (a Marxist who helped develop critical theory), psychologist Carl Jung, and philosopher Martin Buber. He does not, of course always endorse their views; sometimes he is quoting them so as to illustrate non-Christian counter-arguments that he wishes to address.

What is the value of doing this? Why not stay firmly in the Catholic tradition, by, for example, relying solely upon early Church Fathers?

The answer lies, I believe, in the desire to demonstrate the book of Jonah’s broad appeal, and what it has to say about the human condition to all cultures and times. In many ways, each of the people he quotes is representative of beliefs and cultures of the time and place that they lived in. It is by understanding both what those outside the Church believe, as well as orthodox Catholicism, that Christians are able to engage with others constructively.

By ‘constructively’, incidentally, I do not mean in order to seek agreement, so that we might respect each other (although that might be a starting point for discussion); rather, I mean engaging with people with evangelization and their conversion to Catholicism as the end in mind. As a Catholic, I want to persuade others to agree with the Church and become Catholics too, so that they might also be blessed with the joy that comes with the fullness of truth. We should never apologize for our apologetics!

In order to be able to do this, we need evangelists who not only know and believe what the Church teaches, but also know (or at least be prepared to find out) what their colloquist believes, and consequently, what the differences and similarities in belief are. We use this knowledge first to connect by highlighting the common ground, and then we aim to convert by demonstrating, where there are differences, the error of their stance, and the correctness of ours. By focusing, with the help of this book, on how this all applies to the book of Jonah, we learn to develop this approach as a skill that can be applied in many other scenarios.

As one example used in this book, after describing the passage from Jonah in which he is asleep below decks while the storm is raging, Fr Murray looks to Martin Buber to articulate an error of the modern age that we can seek to understand for the purposes of evangelization, that is the tendency of people to identify themselves as ‘spiritual’ and not religious:

There is a new fascination amongst our contemporaries amongst the things of the spirit. Unfortunately, that interest doesn’t always translate into a capacity to attend to the living voice of God or to surrender with faith and hope and love to the transcendent beauty and pressure of divine revelation. Instead, there is a tendency to live one’s spirituality within the bubble of the self, and practice what Martin Buber has called, in a memorable phrase, ‘the religion of psychic immanence’.

Buber describes this further, Murray writes as

An exclusively immanent spirituality at least in extreme manifestations, and represents a regress back to a safe, controlled environment, a ‘return to the womb’. In terms of religion, it is nothing less than a spiritual manifestation of ‘the Jonah syndrome’.

Spiritual but not religious! 

If we recognize this and explain the good of reaching beyond the self to God, and demonstrate in our lives the joy this brings to us, then those who accept this will convert.

Both religious and spiritual

This approach to evangelization, if applied well, will be successful; of this there is no doubt. And on the face of it, it all sounds quite simple, but there is one big problem. How do we find people who want to talk to us and are open to the persuasion of such an approach?

This is where the artist steps in and helps us. It is the role of a contemporary Catholic culture of beauty to open people’s hearts so that they are willing to engage with us. An authentic Catholic culture that manifests these themes with grace and beauty will open people’s hearts so that they desire to know more about the source that inspired such beauty. When knowledge is imparted in this way, the more people know, the more they want to know, and this ultimately will lead them to Christ.

We need creative artists who are capable of creating such a contemporary Catholic culture. Next week, we will discuss in more detail how reading this and other books like it might help them in their formation to be capable of fulfilling such responsibility.

The risk of quoting a variety of non-Catholic or heterodox sources
The risks of this approach are that, like it or not, in quoting someone, the author is also giving each person the status of some sort of authority on the matter, and this can create dangers. For all that an argument from authority is considered weak in logic, it is often the most persuasive. Propagandists and advertisers make use of this principle all the time, because they know that most people rely on authorities for their opinions and understanding of most things that they claim to know. In short, we think something is true, usually, because someone has told us that it is. Most of us simply don’t have the time to test every assertion by running through the train of logic from first principles.

So in the case of A Journey with Jonah, most readers will not judge the validity of the assertions made as a Scripture scholar would judge them, for they are not academically equipped to do so. Instead, they try to make a judgment as to whether or not they can trust the source who is making the claims.

For example, I am for the most part assuming that I can trust the book, not because I know Fr Murray (I had never heard of him before), but because it accords with the little bit of Scripture interpretation that I do know and received from other trusted sources; because I trust the publisher; and because I trust the other contributor, Joseph Ratzinger.

This is not a bad thing in itself, but there is a risk, therefore, in using non-Catholic sources. Catholics who are uncertain in their faith may, on seeing quotes from Luther or Jung made by a Catholic, assume that these non-Catholics might be trusted on other matters too and so be prone to accepting error from them. The result of this is, in extreme cases, a universalism that undermines the Faith and leads people out of the Church - why remain Catholic when I believe, albeit falsely, that Lutherans and Jungians believe what Catholics do? For similar reasons, it might communicate a message to Lutherans and Jungians that there is no point in becoming Catholic, as they may conclude that Catholics think that Luther or Jung have as much authority as the Church does.

On the other hand, there may be Catholics who are pious believers, and who are accustomed to relying unthinkingly on authorities they trust as sources for the Truth, perhaps their local priest. They may not likely be swayed from their faith by a statement from Luther or Jung. Rather, being unable or unwilling to make a critical judgment for themselves as to its validity, their knee-jerk response may be that Luther and Jung can’t be trusted as a source of information on any matter, and therefore conclude that Fr Murray is heterodox, pandering to the woke mob by trying to be culturally diverse. They might simply not bother to read the book further and miss out on the value of what it contains. The result of this general attitude, incidentally, is the reinforcement of the Catholic-ghetto mentality that leaves people within it less able to engage self-confidently with contemporary culture.

The way to counter all the above risks is, it seems to me, to make explicit the principles by which truth is being judged. As we know, without an understanding of the Tradition of the Church, even Scripture is robbed of its authority. Tradition is the measure of the truth of any personal interpretation of the modern age. An emphasis on the Scriptural interpretation of the Church Fathers is foundational to establishing this, the assumption being that those who lived close in time to that of the Apostles, and those who had direct contact with Christ, are likely to reliably reflect Tradition. Fr Murray assumes an awareness of this, but does not make it explicit. This is fine for the narrow and highly Scripturally literate readership for whom it was originally intended, but not for a wider readership. However, the hope in republishing it now, one imagines, to appeal to a readership beyond the narrowly academic, and I am guessing this is why the publisher included the Joseph Ratzinger interpretation in this edition. Aside from the great value of its content, the weight of authority attached to his name for many Catholics might also reassure the doubting and guide the credulous. 

A 12th century mosaic of St John Chrysostom, the “golden-mouthed” interpreter of Scripture, who lived in the later 4th century and early 5th century.

The risk is necessary

The fruits of looking discerningly at commentaries and ideas from outside the Church go beyond the ability to understand their way of thinking so that we can convert them. We should always be ready to concede that sometimes non-Catholics, and even non-Christians, may have fresh insights that we can learn from. Again, the caveat applies that such insights cannot be contrary to Tradition and must be in harmony with it. Christianity has always looked to incorporate the good, the true, and the beautiful from other intellectual traditions and other cultures - including visual art, as I will discuss in part 3 of this posting - and it is the better for it. It is well known, for example, that St Thomas cited Aristotle as an authority whom he quoted so often that he simply referred to him as “the Philosopher”. I will admit I hadn’t realized until recently that he also regularly quoted the 12th-century Jewish commentator Maimonides, as well as Cicero, an authority with whom he at times agreed and at others disagreed (for example, ST IaIIae Q24,2), and the Islamic philosopher Averroes, whom he quoted so often that he simply called him “the Commentator”. 

If we are to build a Christian society once more, one that is founded on Christian teaching, we must continually refresh the presentations of the Faith to tell the story anew to each generation. Self-confidence in the truth of the Faith as we engage with others outside the Church, and as displayed by St Thomas, Fr Murray, and Benedict XVI, is a necessary component of this. 

Pontifex University and the Theology of the Body Institute Launch a New Masters Degree

The Theology of the Body Institute and Pontifex University have formally partnered to offer a unique Master’s degree that guides students along the via pulchritudinis (“the way of beauty”), and equips them with the necessary catechetical tools and theological and cultural understanding to engage a world desperately in need of revitalization. The program includes the study of theology and philosophy, and the history of Catholic culture, with a focus on the sacred arts, and the writings of Pope St John Paul II, with a particular emphasis on the Theology of the Body.

The degree is granted by Pontifex University and is awarded after the successful completion of 36 credit hours, graded from an exam and essay for each course; and a final thesis. Twenty-two (22) of these credits will be acquired by completing 11 five-day on-site courses offered by the Theology of the Body Institute. The remaining 14 credits will be acquired via Pontifex University’s online platform. For more information go to our website www.Pontifex.University or the Theology of the Body Institute website: tobinstitute.org/master-of-arts.

Every single one of us, ordinary Catholics leading ordinary lives, can be extraordinary people following our supernatural and joyful calling leading others onto the Way of Beauty.

A New Online Resource for Researching and Preparing a Latin Mass Wedding

A young, enterprising, very organized and well-informed lady named Sharon Kabel has put together a fantastic website dedicated to “the Latin Mass Wedding.” This is a resource that has long been urgently needed, with the growing number of “Benedict XVI” and “Francis Effect” Catholics who are interested in tying the knot with a ceremony and Nuptial Mass in the usus antiquior or Extraordinary Form. Years ago (as when my wife and I got married with a Missa Cantata on the feast of St. John, December 27, 1998), this was still fairly far-out, in the misty fringes of possibility, but nowadays one reads about it happening pretty often, and pictures and videos are abundant. Nevertheless, it should be much more frequent than it is, and I wonder if the lack of easily accessible information is part of the problem.

After all, there are a LOT of differences between the Novus Ordo approach and the traditional approach. In the Novus Ordo, the vows are sandwiched into the Mass between the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, in a pattern that Nicola Bux complains about as depriving both the Mass of its integrity and the inserted item [sacrament, commissioning, exercise, etc.] of its own dignity. In the old way of doing things, in contrast, the bride and bridegroom exchange their vows at the foot of the altar prior to the start of Mass — almost, you might say, their own version of the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar — and then they assist at Mass for the first time as husband and wife. (I remember how special it was at my own wedding to kneel with a ring newly on my finger, with my wife next to me, and hear the priest say: “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. Introibo ad altare Dei...,” knowing that we were going unto the altar of God, united by the God of Israel about whom the schola was singing: “Deus Israel conjungat vos.” As always, the timing of things in the traditional liturgy is magnificent.)

This preceding matrimonial ceremony is usually more elaborate, with some very beautiful prayers (though these have varied and still vary a great deal from country to country, and from century to century); for its part, the ancient Nuptial Mass is extremely rich in its antiphons, readings, and prayers — all of which are required, none optional.

The Nuptial Mass, especially in the form of a Missa Cantata or a Solemn Mass, can be a particularly splendid and festive way to introduce family and friends to the traditional Roman liturgy, a real opportunity for “evangelizing through beauty.” If a young man and woman are serious Catholics, they will already seem strange to many of their relatives and acquaintances, so they might as well go all out rather than trimming the liturgy down to the imagined expectations or tolerance threshold of attendees. You can count on there being many more guests who afterwards say they were moved by the beauty and solemnity of it than there will be grumblers and complainers. No matter what your congregation will be like, it is helpful to provide a missallette or a handout that helps those in attendance to have some clue about what is unfolding before their eyes and ears.

Sharon understands all these things, and she is thorough in providing resources and references. The page “Rite of Marriage” talks about the history of the ceremony and furnishes a full text of the rite found in the 1962 Rituale Romanum for the region of the United States. The page “Wedding Mass” gives in full the English texts of the Missa pro sponso et sponsa. Then comes the page “Resources,” which is fun to explore:

Note that Sharon provides ample information about and links to the text of the traditional Rite of Betrothal, which is also happily returning to the Catholic world after a long period of desuetude. (Just recently, NLM published a piece on it, with photos: check it out.) Betrothal can best be understood as a solemn promise to marry, made before God and His minister, and asking of the Lord the grace of a chaste engagement blessed by His favor. It is really worth doing; my fiancée and I, and many of our friends, and now the children of our friends, have done it. It fits into the general pattern of the Church wishing to bless all created realities: homes, fields, animals, equipment, wine, throats, candles, and the rest. In addition, it serves as a countercultural witness in our times of a serious intent to lead a life in accord with the commandments and virtues. (The U.S. bishops not long ago cobbled together and published a “blessing of an engagement,” but, like all postconciliar liturgical rites, its lameness beggars belief. It will deserve a proper dressing-down someday, not right now.)

Sharon provides a page of FAQs that assume no prior knowledge, so if you are new to all of this, you have found a good place to go.

The website will also be valuable to priests; among other things, Sharon has included Haydock and Catena aurea commentaries on the Scriptural texts of the antiphons and readings of the Nuptial Mass, which could be mined for homilies.

On the website Sharon says she wants feedback about any ways to improve her site, or any further resources to include. Please take her at her word! Let’s make this the single best go-to place on the web for traditional Roman-rite weddings.

(Other wedding-related articles that may be of interest to NLM readers:

• Problems with Weddings and How We Might Remedy Them
• Solemn Music for a Wedding
• The Velatio Nuptialis: An Ancient (and Forgotten) Part of the Latin Marriage Rite
• The New Lectionary and the Catholic Wedding
• When in Florida: The Priest Who Refused My Wedding
• The Wedding: How to Be a Catholic Music Patron, at Least Once)

Catholic Kenesiology - How We Can Evangelize Through Sports Psychology

Last month I spoke at the annual conference of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, which took place at Montreal in Canada. While there I met Dr David Cutton, who teaches in the Department of Health and Kinesiology at Texas A&M University, Kingsville.

Kinesiology is the study of the mechanics of body movements, and it incorporates not only the purely physical aspects, but also the related psychological aspects, especially in relation to improving performance through motivation.

This is not a Catholic university, and the field is not taught from a particularly Catholic perspective, but David has been telling me how his study of Christian anthropology has given him deeper insights into what is taught there, and why certain aspects of it work so well. I wanted to know more about this. I have a growing conviction that greater recognition of the unity of body, the soul and the spirit in the human person, especially in relation to people’s general health and happiness, could be the driving force for the evangelization of the West. We have to see it more clearly first ourselves, I think, before we can articulate it to others. My hope is to see the development of a Body, Soul, Spirit movement founded in Christian principles that supplants the neo-pagan Mind, Body, Spirit movement that began the 1970s that has driven much of what passes for spirituality in the West today. I wrote about this recently here. So much “wellness” and yoga-inspired meditation, for example, comes out of this. People are searching for God - even if they don’t know it - in order to escape the dullness, and the fear, anxiety, even dread, that goes with an atheist materialist worldview. We can give them what they truly desire if we can communicate the Good News to them in a way that can understand.

When I asked David for some examples from his experience, he directed me to a paper he had written for the winter 2019 edition of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly entitled Interior Dialogue, or Self-Talk: Psychological and Theological Foundations. He describes how sports psychologists recognize that we dialogue with ourselves. The dialogue takes place because there are thoughts that occur to us first, and then there is part of us that observes those thoughts and responds to them. “Self-talk” is the name given to this interior dialogue. In a book to which he refers in the paper, Charles Fernyhough’s The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves (New York: Teachers College Press, 2016), the author even describes how so many people attribute the source of this natural process of inner dialogue to divine inspiration.

In the context of sports psychology, this dialogue is then directed so as to help the motivation of the sportsman and enhance performance, perhaps, or to aid in the motivation to complete rehabilitation. In very simple terms, this method teaches the person to distinguish good thoughts from bad thoughts, and then to reinforce the good while discarding the bad. In this context, good is a thought that will help a weightlifter, for example, to lift more weight - perhaps a strong internal affirmation that it is possible for him to do it. A bad thought might be a doubt that it is possible. It is broadly accepted that these techniques have measurable effects on the performances of sportsmen and women.

Cutton then goes on to point out that some traditional methods of Christian contemplative prayer are techniques whereby we do just this, and it can help us to strive for virtue.

As I read the paper, I could immediately see possibilities for engagement with the secular world through this. It occurs to me that we could offer the sportsman techniques in Christian contemplative prayer (perhaps without even letting them know initially that they are Christian, if this is likely to arouse prejudice) as a technique for developing within us that faculty of good self-talk.

If we get this far, we are already making great progress, for this is introducing what will be very likely to be perceived as just another meditation technique, but one that is crucially different from the usual techniques that come from Eastern non-Christian religions and philosophies. This is not a process of no-thought, or even one of indifference to thought; rather, it is one that recognizes a distinction between good and bad thoughts. This is opening the door in their hearts to the recognition of objective truth and leading them away from the relativism that New Age movements encourage. Even if there is no discussion beyond this as to what the good is, or no explicit introduction of the Christian message, it is still good; it is sowing mustard seeds that might germinate and grow into trees of faith in time.

A mustard tree

Furthermore, the recognition of this internal dialogue is consistent with the person who is not just aware, but aware that he is aware. The faculty of this self-observation is the spirit of man, as it is understood in Christian anthropology. So when we explain to the person why it works, we can start to talk of a Christian and scriptural anthropology of body, soul, and spirit.

Where it goes from there will depend on the situation. But I could envisage, for example, a situation in which the sports psychologist or coach could go on to introduce discerningly and by degrees a steadily deeper description of the authentic spiritual life. We might gradually introduce the idea, for example, that this is not exclusively a conversation within ourselves; some of those thoughts, especially the good ones, are the result of openness to inspiration from beyond. As they are spiritual in nature, the source, it might be argued, is a spiritual being that is good and divine. If the research referred to is correct, the seeds of such ideas are likely to be occurring to them intuitively already.

Going further, one can imagine that we could get to the point where we say that the most powerful encounter with that source of inspiration and which will encourage the most beneficial “self-talk” is the worship of that being, God, whereby the whole person - body, soul, and spirit - is engaged in the greatest conformity to an attitude of receptivity... “And would you like to come to Vespers with me this evening?”

What will make non-Christians take notice is a positive experience of this prayer. The reason that people immerse themselves in yoga is that they feel better for doing it, and they are curious as why. While wanting to do well at sport is not the noblest goal in life, it need not be a bad one, and it might be the first step that leads to the best end in life, God.

I see no reason why such techniques might not just aid in their physical performance but simultaneously lead to a greater and more general sense of well-being. It is this that will stimulate their yearning for something nobler also.

This is the pattern of my own story of conversion. As described in my book The Vision for You, I was offered a series of generic “spiritual” exercises in order to help me to be an artist. I had no interest in God whatsoever. Even as I noticed that these exercises were helping me in my goals, and began to see that some sort of Loving Power was in my life, I first thought of this newly found God as a means, not an end. This changed in time, however, as I started to desire more the happiness that it gave me. Ultimately, this led to my conversion and reception into the Catholic Church. However, while my reason for doing so might have changed over the 30 years since I started this journey, I have never stopped wanting to be an artist.

“Mass of the Americas” and the Flourishing of Religious Culture: Guest Article By Roseanne T. Sullivan

In our era, new musical Mass settings are rarely commissioned. So, it’s notable that a new musical Mass was commissioned and celebrated by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone in San Francisco last December. For this article, Roseanne T. Sullivan interviewed by email the respected Bay Area traditional sacred music composer, Frank La Rocca, who composed the Mass. They discussed when it is legitimate to call a musical composition a “Mass,” and how he was able to incorporate multiple languages and non-traditional musical instruments and elevate them into a composition suitable for the sacred liturgy of the Catholic Church. This article was previously published on the blog Dappled Things.

On December 8, 2018, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the “Mass of the Americas” premiered at San Francisco’s Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption. The Mass was celebrated by Archbishop Cordileone at the end of the 25th annual “Cruzada Guadalupana,” a 12-mile pilgrimage in honor of our Lady of Guadalupe—which is held every year on the closest Saturday to her feast day December 12. This popular annual event draws thousands, many of them Mexican-American, from around the Bay Area.

Mark Nowakowski—who is also a composer and who attended the “Mass of the Americas”—wrote in his review “Return to Liturgical Glory?” that even though many mass goers were exhausted from the pilgrimage, the music elicited their rapt attention.

This reaction was confirmed for me personally by Lety (Letitia) Hernandez, who cleans house for me once in a while. She lives in San José, which is an hour’s drive from San Francisco. She told me the next Monday—with great enthusiasm, in a mixture of Spanish and a little English—that she took part in the walk, attended the Mass, and (¡Me gusto mucho!) she liked the music very much.

The Mass was sung by a 16-voice choir and by soloists singing different parts, in Spanish, Latin, English. One hymn was sung in Nahuatl, the language in which Our Lady of Guadalupe spoke when she appeared to Saint Juan Diego. The singing was accompanied at various points by an equally unusual ensemble of organ, string quartet, bells and marimba.

Frank La Rocca, who composed “Mass of the Americas,” is a classically trained musician and composer, and he is the composer in residence for the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship—which was founded by Archbishop Cordileone.

When I first read the announcements at the Benedict XVI Institute website about the planned inclusion of multiple languages and non-traditional instruments in “Mass of the Americas,” I feared the result might be a hodgepodge that departed from the accepted traditional norms of musical Mass settings. But in the process of researching the Mass and interviewing its composer, I became convinced that composer La Rocca deftly incorporated the non-traditional elements with the best possible understanding and reverence for what a Mass is supposed to be.

How It Came About

Mass of the Americas was envisioned by Archbishop Cordileone as an intertwined tribute to our Lady of the Immaculate Conception as Patroness of the United States and our Lady of Guadalupe as Patroness of all the Americas, with sacralized folk music. “I’m trying to model how the Church has always appropriately enculturated the Gospel by adapting aspects of the local culture, but within the sacred tradition” — Archbishop Cordileone

The quotes in this section are from “The Making of the Mass of the Americas” by Maggie Gallagher, the director of the Benedict XVI Institute, from an interview with La Rocca. More specifics about why and how La Rocca used various languages in the parts of his “Mass of the Americas” are in the Gallagher interview and in my own interview at the end of this article.

La Rocca at first resisted Archbishop Cordileone’s request. “I am a dyed-in-the-wool Western European classical composer. All of these things take me well outside the orbit of what I know.” However: “It is the job of a composer-in-residence to respond to commissions.”

In response to the commission, La Rocca researched the Mission period, the music, and the various versions of Mexican Marian folk hymns that the archbishop suggested, including Las Mananitas and La Guadalupana. “La Mananitas is the Mexican equivalent of Happy Birthday, although originally the tune was created for a text about the Virgin Mary and King David, so it has a devotional history even though it’s not used that way now. . . . La Guadalupana has always been, and it sounds like, a typical Mexican Mariachi tune: the oompah, oompah guitar, the crooning violins, and the two robust male singers. The challenge before me was to make the tune recognizable enough so anyone paying attention would sit up and say, ‘I know that,’ but with the words changed and the sounds of the guitars, the violins, and the voices lifted up and transformed.”

“That occupied a great deal of my time trying to figure out how close to the surface to bring the tune – how close to what listeners would be literally familiar with — in order for it to be recognized, and yet still get absorbed into the fabric of reverent music for the liturgy.” His challenge was to do it “in a musical style appropriate to the tune while taking it to sacred places that, for all I know, no other arranger ever has.” In some ways, it’s not that different than what many classical music composers have done over the centuries in incorporating folk tunes into the classical tradition.

Frank La Rocca, “Mass of the Americas” Composer

Sixty-eight year old La Rocca has a B.A. in Music from Yale, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Music from University of California at Berkeley. He was a cradle Catholic who left the Church as a young man and returned after forty-two years of being away. The first piece of sacred choral music he ever composed as a Catholic was his Ave Maria, which is included the Mass of the Americas.

He dedicated his Ave Maria to a friend, an old Cistercian Nun, Sister Columba Guare, O.C.S.O. When he sent it to her and told her he had come back to the Church, Sister Columba told him that her whole community at Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey in Iowa had been praying for his return! (You can listen to La Rocca’s Ave Maria here).

La Rocca has said he approaches his work in sacred choral music as “a kind of missionary work” and regards himself in that role “as an apologist for a distinctively Christian faith—not through doctrinal argument, but through the beauty of music.”

MOTA’s Use of the Ordinary

La Rocca stayed true to the traditional practice of using the words of the Catholic Mass for his settings of the Ordinary. For example, La Rocca set the text of the Kyrie with each Greek verse preceded by a Spanish invocation (trope) from the Spanish translation of the Missal. For example, “Tú que vienes a visitar a tu pueblo con la paz. Kyrie Eleison.”

MOTA’s Use of Historic Hymns

La Rocca’s Mass included the music for three hymns that have deep roots in California history. The Processional (Entrance Hymn) “El Cantico del Alba,” the “Canticle of the Dawn,” is a morning hymn in Spanish to Our Lady. Historians have recorded that hymn was sung upon rising and on the way to Mass, by almost everyone, every day, and everywhere Catholics lived throughout Alta and Baja California, in the missions and the pueblos, during the years of Spanish and Mexican rule.

A unique musical setting by La Rocca was used for the Communion meditation. He set the text of a translation of “Aue Maria,” “Hail Mary” in the Nahuatl language, which he discovered in a collection used for teaching Nahuatl-speakers that was written in 1634 by a mixed-race missionary in Mexico who was fluent both in Spanish and in Nahuatl.

La Rocca’s Mass ended with a Recessional setting of the Latin Marian Antiphon for the season, “Alma Redemptoris Mater,” which melded gradually into counterpoint between “Alma” and the melody of “La Guadalupana,” a musical symbol of the unity Archbishop Cordileone asked La Rocca to embody in the work. As La Rocca explained, the tune of La Guadalupana was “elevated into a high classical sacred musical language” to suit the reverence due the liturgy. The tune was also subtly woven into a number of other movements, most notably the Gloria.

The words themselves are charming; they tell about how Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego, in the form of a young native woman, how she asked for an altar in her honor to be built on the hill where she appeared, and how from the time she appeared she has been the mother of all peoples in Mexico. Pope John Paul II canonized Juan Diego in 2002 and declared Our Lady of Guadalupe the patroness of the all the Americas.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Liturgical Beauty and Joyful Evangelization

The following is a translation of a conference given by Fr. Roberto Spataro on September 30, 2017, in Mantua, Italy, at the Church of Ss Simon and Jude. The conference was entitled “La bellezza della liturgia si fa evangelizzazione (EV 28)”, given on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. It is included (along with another that has appeared on NLM) in a volume of Fr. Spataro’s essays soon to be published by Angelico Press. This translation by Zachary Thomas has also been published on Canticum Salomonis.

“Liturgical Beauty and Joyful Evangelization”

The experience of the Tridentine Mass

It is a great joy for me to speak this evening in the artistic setting of the church of Saints Simon and Jude, in a city so rich in history, culture, and faith. Mantua, a city that boasts so many illustrious citizens: Virgil, quel savio gentil, che tutto seppe (“That gentle sage, who knew all things.” Inferno, Canto VII); Sordello, the troubadour who inspired the Supreme Poet’s invective against Italy, di dolore ostello, nave senza nocchiere in gran tempesta, (“Inn of sorrows, ship without a helmsman in harsh seas.” Purgatorio, Canto VI, Mandelbaum translation) a sentiment which is true today more than ever; Vittorino da Feltre, Christian pedagogue; the Gonzaga princes, who gathered famous artists in their court, among them the composer Angelo Monteverdi. The fiftieth anniversary of this eminent musician is related to another event. In 2017 we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the publication of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum by which Pope Benedict XVI restored dignity to the venerable Tridentine liturgy, calling it the “extraordinary form” of the one Roman rite. Reflecting on the characteristics of this liturgical form, a passage from the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium comes to mind as a springboard for this conversation:

Evangelization with joy becomes beauty in the liturgy, as part of our daily concern to spread goodness. The Church evangelizes and is herself evangelized through the beauty of the liturgy, which is both a celebration of the task of evangelization and the source of her renewed self-giving.

I would like to develop my thoughts in two points.

1. The Tridentine liturgy is beautiful

Mass celebrated by the community of the FSSP’s German seminary at the Buxheim Charterhouse, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, 2016. (Reproduced by permission of the FSSP.)

We might say that there have been two complimentary conceptions of beauty in the history of Western civilization . The first considers beauty as the pulchrum, a proportion and harmony of parts, the perfection of form, integrity and elegance. It is an Apollonian conception found especially in the art of Greece. It appeals to reason and insists on the objectivity of the beautiful. The other conception, expounded especially by Kant, interprets beauty as a species, a sort of luminosity that breaks in upon an object, expands its substance, orienting it outside of itself and putting it in relation with the subject . The whole is in the fragment, as Urs von Balthasar would have said, that great Swiss theologian who, in his monumental work The Glory of the Lord, developed a convincing re-reading of theology in an aesthetic key. It is not by chance that there was a great harmony of thought and feeling between Hans Urs von Balthasar, theologian of beauty, and Joseph Ratzinger, pope of the liturgy and vindicator of the rights of the Latin Mass. They share a Dionysian conception of beauty that appeals to the senses and focuses on the subject. Both these aesthetic conceptions are in agreement that beauty is always very attractive. For this very reason, in Thomistic philosophy it is associated with the other transcendentals of being--unity, truth, and goodness--as part of the moral and spiritual fruition of the subject who experiences it. Now if we apply these categories to the Tridentine liturgy, we will easily grasp why it is beautiful.

The Tridentine Liturgy is harmonious. Like a perfect diptych, its first panel opens with the “Mass of the Catechumens,” and the second with the “Mass of the Faithful.” The second part is the more important since during it the Sacrifice is offered, and so it also lasts longer. The first part has its own interior coherence: it humbly leads us into the presence of God through the prayers at the foot of the altar, with their sublime penitential orientation. Out of this humility, which is the proper basis of the relationship between creature and Creator, sinner and Redeemer, springs the supplication of the Kyrie and the prayer of the Collect. At this point, we are ready to be instructed by the Wisdom of God that is revealed in salvation history and unfolds the truth that leads us to Heaven, for only the humble will “hear” and be glad, as the Psalm says. We find a copious sprinkling of Scripture passages and Psalm verses—a prayed Bible!—that make up the text of the Introit, Gradual, Tract, Alleluia, and then the pericopes of the Epistle and the Holy Gospel. In every place we find the proportion that is the intrinsic property of beauty: texts that, except on a few special occasions, are neither too long nor too many, as is the case with the biennial or triennial cycle of the Novus Ordo. Though it had the laudable intention of offering a semi-continuous reading of the entirety of Sacred Scripture, this cycle ends up “wasting” a great number of texts that the average faithful cannot remember and, sometimes, not even hear, not only because of the length and difficulty of certain passages, but also because they are read by lectors insufficiently prepared for their task, chosen in obedience to the equality called for by an erroneous understanding of actuosa participatio. Length and bad diction are signs of vulgarity, not beauty.

The Diptych of Jeanne of France, by the workshop of Rogier van der Weyden, 1452-70 (Musée Condé, Chantilly)

The Offertory begins. The sacred silence and the kneeling position of the faithful give the moment its peculiar solemnity. The prayers of the priest have an especially harmonious structure: the offering of the host and chalice, the personal apologies, the prayer to the Most Holy Trinity. As these ancient and venerable prayers are being offered, they are accompanied by the precise, delicate gestures typical of the Tridentine liturgy, and that give the rite its unmistakable pulchritudo. These gestures are just one example of the ordered variety that makes the liturgy Vetus Ordo so truly beautiful. There are also the bows toward the cross, the kissing of the cruets by the ministers and of the altar by the priest, and even the affectionate glances toward the sacred vessels and their contents. Christ, Our Lord, is loved because he is beautiful and is beautiful because he is loved. I could go on showing how the extraordinary form of the Roman rite is beautiful because it unfolds without excess or imperfection, with calm and proportion like a melodious chant. But we should move on to other considerations.

Let us try to apply the other conception of beauty to the Tridentine liturgy. The senses of one who assists at it are touched by the Sacred, the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, to use the famous definition of Rudolf Otto. They are pervaded by a thrill of spiritual joy, to invoke the great bard of the divine beauty, Augustine of Hippo. The Sacred, i.e. the perception of God that follows his manifestation, excites both reverence and adoration, because he is tremendum; and love and attraction, because he is fascinans. Can anyone deny that reverence and adoration are especially present in the Tridentine liturgy, while unfortunately they are not well preserved in the Novus Ordo? Who would not agree with the claim that the priest—mark you, the priest, the sacrum dans and not the president of the assembly—ministers, and faithful, are all intimately drawn, (while each remaining in his proper place), toward the center of all and everything, the Crucified One enthroned on the altar, where the Sacrifice of the Cross is presented to everyone’s gaze, so that everyone may love it? This manifestation of the Sacred, transcendence and immanence, Heaven and earth, divine and human, is not merely the religious archetype identified by Otto, but the incarnation of the divine Word that wills to use the Sacred to reveal his Beauty in a human form: the divine person of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has united human nature to his divine nature, and thus rendered his divinity accessible to human senses. This logic of the incarnation extends to the sacred liturgy because—as the Fathers of the Church taught and the Catechism of the Catholic Church has recalled in a timely manner—quod redemptoris nostri conspicuum fuit, in sacramenta transivit. (“what was visible in our Savior has passed over into his mysteries”: CCC 1115, citing Pope St Leo I, Sermon 74, 2). Beauty strikes the senses, and the Tridentine liturgy strongly affirms the aesthetic dimension.

Ss Paul Miki and Companions

In the Latin Mass, our view is directed to a triple focal point: the crucifix, the altar and what takes place there, and the tabernacle. Our attention is seized by the fairest among the children of men: “they will look upon the one whom they have pierced” (John 19:37). Our eyes linger, feasting on the beauty of the colors of the walls, their costly ornament. We follow the ministers’ sacred dance, sober and constrained to careful, rhythmic movements, and from time to time our eyes wander to the decoration of the Temple, which recounts, in various styles, the story of the salvation recalled in each holy Mass. We hear words uttered in a raised voice, in a language different from our ordinary language, because it is reserved for dialogue with God, like a code that heightens understanding and connection between those who adopt it, a sort of familial register sons use to address their Father. It is a beautiful language, as only Latin can be, with its figures of sound and word, with a compact but still mobile construction that comes from its unmistakable literary style. Further, we hear the great silence that shrouds the priestly prayers, above all the Canon Missae, because the Mystery of God who pours out his blood for me, a sinner, because he loves me and saves me, can only be uttered submissa voce. Like all great and sublime things, he loves silence, which invites everyone to recollection and earnest prayer. We are charmed by the celestial charms of the sacred music, the sound of the organ, the Gregorian chant that floats mystically on high. We smell the delicious perfume of the incense that rises to Heaven just like our prayer, and the odor of the candles, symbols of the hearts that pine with longing for Heaven. All this proclaims a hope that the world does not know, and the Church of the last few years, not comprehending the grandeur of the Vetus Ordo, seems to have forgotten. Immersed in secular matters, and entranced by transient fashions, she has become like chaff scattered in the wind.

The sense of touch is also involved: kneeling at various points in the Holy Mass permits the faithful to touch the earth, and from this position to render adoration, thanksgiving, supplication, and impetration. The sense of touch is denied contact with the eucharistic species because the consecrated Host is received directly on the tongue, an eloquent gesture that expresses all the sanctity of the Sacrament received with faith. Only the priest is permitted to touch the Body and Blood of Christ, and only with extreme delicacy, as if caressing it. In fact, on the day of his priestly ordination, his hands were anointed with the chrism, a biblical-liturgical sign of the Holy Spirit, the divine Person who through the epiclesis performs that miracle of miracles, the consecration. “Taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 33:9), the Psalmist exclaims. The Vetus Ordo liturgy frequently repeats this verse to dispose the faithful to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ with a hunger at once spiritual and material, provided they are suitably disposed to do so.

To sum up, dear friends, we must find, perceive, and enjoy the beauty of the One who has been pierced. This is a “synaesthetic” experience that affirms sensual richness—for the sacraments are propter homines (“for us”), as Thomas Aquinas would say—so that the manifestation of the All in the fragment, of God in the space and time of the unbloody renewal of the sacrifice hic et nunc, may irradiate the Divine Mystery that is in itself the revelation of beauty. Confronted with this liturgy that is so potently theocentric and therefore respectful of all anthropological structures, we cannot help but remark, with a note of sadness, that the Novus Ordo is more impoverished, more rational, more prolix, even to the point that it becomes irritatingly and insufferably wordy in the hands of certain showman priests and ministers. A liturgy celebrated in this way is relentlessly narcissistic and vulgar.

Permit me to conclude this point about the beauty of the old liturgy with a Marian reflection. Our Lady, Tota Pulchra, is the creature in whom all beauty, insofar as it is pulchritudo and speciositas, is gathered to a Mass. The Tridentine liturgy cannot help but invoke her in the heart of the Mass: in the prayer that offers the sacrifice to the Most Holy Trinity, and in the Communicantes of the Canon. An irrepressible longing for Heaven rises from the thought of the Holy Virgin, who descends more beautiful than the dawn (Cant. 6, 9) to soften the pains of this life, where we can always count on her powerful patronage.

The Christ Child and Virgin Mary in the Company of the Saints, by Duccio di Buoninsegna, the central front panel of the dismembered altarpiece of Siena Cathedral known as the Maestà, 1311, now located in the cathedral Museum. (Public domain image from Wikipedia.)

2. The Beauty of the Tridentine Liturgy and Evangelization

Recall the opening citation from Evangelii Gaudium, which pointed out the relationship between the via pulchritudinis of the liturgy and the two-fold evangelical movement of the Church. The Church first allows herself to be evangelized so that she can then evangelize the world. Let us explicate this point. More than ever, the Church today needs to be oriented to Christ, her Head, her Spouse, her Founder. Christ is her Gospel, the good news that brings joy to her youth and fills her with authentic joy and hope. Unfortunately in the past few years, with a rapidity that should raise serious questions and concern, the Church has become engrossed with issues of a sociological nature, all affecting more or less the Church’s moral teaching. Many dubious proposals have been made by pastors, even those who bear serious ecclesial responsibilities, that are frankly incompatible with Gospel. The Church feels the need to be re-evangelized and led back to Christ. Pope Benedict XVI made extraordinary efforts in this direction, and his trilogy on Jesus of Nazareth is an expression of a Christocentrism founded on Scripture and the sound doctrine of Tradition. He always wanted to promote a reform of the liturgy, and this program found a great expression in Summorum Pontificum.

The Tridentine Mass is truly evangelical because it is Christocentric. Just think of its conclusion: the proclamation of the prologue of the Gospel of John. It is like a hinge joining the liturgy to the daily life to which we are about to return. It proclaims the heart of the Gospel, the Mystery of the incarnation, with the beauty we have been speaking of: the hieratic movement of the priest toward the Gospel side, the reading, the genuflection at the words et Verbum caro factum est, and during the Sung Mass, the musical piece performed by the schola cantorum. The Church is evangelized during the celebration of the Tridentine Mass because, as the fourth-century Father of the Church and author of very valuable liturgical-mystagogical catecheses, Cyril of Jerusalem, said, the teachings of Sacred Scripture must be gathered into a summary, the regula fidei (“the rule of faith”), the Creed of the catechism. But the Tridentine Mass itself is a catechism in action, tying us intimately to the Gospel of Christ. “What are the two principal mysteries of the Faith?” asked the unsurpassable Catechism of St Pius X. The Mass tells us. We profess our faith in God’s unity and trinity when we turn to the three divine Persons at the beginning of the Mass in the nine-fold Kyrie eleison, three times invoking the Father, three times Christ, and three times the Spirit. We adore their majesty when we sing the Gloria. We implore them to accept our offering at the Offertory. We express our desire for them to accept the sacrifice in the prayer just before the final blessing. As for the mystery of our Lord’s incarnation, passion, and death: how many signs of the cross does the priest trace out, especially during the Canon? The whole ancient liturgy and all of its texts are steeped in the theology of the Fathers of the Church, rather than the ideas of the experts and specialists of the twentieth century, and its rites are a compendium of the Holy Gospel, the Church’s real treasure that has been translated into doctrine and summarized in the Catechism.

We could continue to multiply examples of how the Tridentine Mass is a catechism for everyone, including faithful evangelizers and non-believers in need of evangelization. The plan of salvation history—creation, sin, incarnation, redemption, grace, glory, and eternal life—is taken up and synthesized in the great prayers of the Church. For instance, think of the words that the priest says as he pours the water into the chalice:

Deus qui humanae substantiae dignitatem mirabiliter condidisti [creation] et mirabilius reformasti [redemption], da nobis per huius aquae et vini mysterium eius divinitatis esse consortes [divinization and the life of grace], qui humanitatis nostrae fieri dignatus est particeps [incarnation]. ~ O God, who did wonderfully create human nature, and more wonderfully still restore it, grant us through the Mystery of this water and wine, that we may be made partakers of His divinity, who deigned to become a partaker in our humanity.

The Confiteor in the Carthusian Mass

Now take the Confiteor. The ritual gestures surrounding it reinvoke the whole drama of sin with great clarity and poignancy, as we kneel, beat our chests, recite the prayer, and await the priest’s absolution so sadly abolished in the Novus Ordo: Indulgentiam, absolutionem, et remissionem peccatorum vestroum tribuat vobis omnipotens et misericors Dominus. In the Roman Canon, the priest asks the Father for the grace to pass the final judgment, the judgment that should be our only concern, though a serene one for Mary is praying for us: ab aeterna damnatione nos eripi et in electorum tuorum iubeas grege numerari.

Once she has been evangelized, the Church is ready to evangelize. The Tridentine Mass furnishes the grace that makes her disciples into zealous apostles, and her faithful into courageous missionaries. Is this not the Mass that inspired generation upon generation of our forefathers to spread the Gospel to faraway lands, often in the midst of grave dangers? When we read the chronicles of the missionary expeditions of the Jesuits and Franciscans in Asia and Latin America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, we are surprised and moved by how concerned they were to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass in this liturgical form that casts itself completely upon God as the giver of all things, especially the grace to make efforts of evangelization fruitful.

The usus antiquior is an effective evangelizer for another reason: it speaks to the heart of those who have lost the faith or never had it. For example, today in our western society that denies its Christian roots, some people, thirsting for recollection and interior peace, turn to oriental philosophies that, despite whatever good is in them, leave the soul in its existential loneliness. They have no God to love them, to feel loved, to love. The silence and sacrality of the Tridentine Mass is a discovery that often becomes the first step toward the faith. Others, especially the young, find our “pastoral initiatives” banal, if not outright heterodox! They are looking for solid spiritual food. The Tridentine Mass offers them this substantial nourishment. Its theology coincides completely with the fides quae (“what is believed”); here the lex credendi is the lex orandi. The simple, who are the beloved of God, intuitively recognize that something very great is taking place in the Tridentine Mass, where the priests speaks with God and all are on their knees before him. The sacred mysteries teach and evangelize them too. Every kind of person feels the fascination of the splendor of this Mass that, even when offered in a small place or with modest means, is always solemn and majestic because it is truly beautiful, beautiful with a beauty mediated through vestments, words, gestures, but founded in God the supremely beautiful. To be at this Mass is to set out on a Platonic itinerarium pulchritudinis in Deum, which begins from material signs and ascends in steps up to Reality itself. It gazes upon creation in order to rise to the creator. The experience was described by Augustine, and I will close our conversation with his words:

Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air, amply spread around everywhere, question the beauty of the sky, question the serried ranks of the stars, question the sun making the day glorious with its bright beams, question the moon tempering the darkness of the following night with its shining rays, question the animals that move in the waters, that amble about on dry land, that fly in the air; their souls hidden, their bodies evident; the visible bodies needing to be controlled, the invisible souls controlling them; question all these things. They all answer you, ‘Here we are, look; we are beautiful.’ Their beauty is their confession. Who made these beautiful changeable things, if not unchanging Beauty? (St Augustine, Sermon 241. Translation slightly modified from the Vatican website.)

The Creation, and God Introducing Adam to Eve, by Jean Fouquet, ca. 1470