Lent~Sunday~March 11

Think

Macarius the Great speaks of the transfiguring and liberating beauty of the Risen Lord in these terms: "The soul which has been fully illumined by the unspeakable beauty of the glory shining on the countenance of Christ overflows with the Holy Spirit ... it is all eye, all light, all countenance."

Every genuine art form in its own way is a path to the inmost reality of man and of the world. It is therefore a wholly valid approach to the realm of faith, which gives human experience its ultimate meaning. That is why the Gospel fullness of truth was bound from the beginning to stir the interest of artists, who by their very nature are alert to every "epiphany" of the inner beauty of things. (John Paul II, Letter to Artists)

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Pray

Beauty is a key to the mystery and a call to transcendence. It is an invitation to savor life and to dream of the future. That is why the beauty of created things can never fully satisfy. It stirs that hidden nostalgia for God which a lover of beauty like Saint Augustine  could express in incomparable terms: "Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you!."

Artists of the world, may your many different paths all lead to that infinite Ocean of beauty where wonder becomes awe, exhilaration, unspeakable joy.

May you be guided and inspired by the mystery of the Risen Christ, whom the Church in these days contemplates with joy.

May the Blessed Virgin Mary be with you always: she is the "tota pulchra" portrayed by countless artists, whom Dante contemplates among the splendours of Paradise as "beauty that was joy in the eyes of all the other saints."

"From chaos there rises the world of the spirit". These words of Adam Mickiewicz, written at a time of great hardship for his Polish homeland, prompt my hope for you: may your art help to affirm that true beauty which, as a glimmer of the Spirit of God, will transfigure matter, opening the human soul to the sense of the eternal. (John Paul II Easter Sunday 1999)

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Give

You are created in the image of the Creator--be an artist! Make a special meal; sew something for your home; plan your garden; fingerpaint with your three-year-old; dance in the living room; sing in the shower. See His creative fingerprints on your soul and be everything He intended you to be.