St Peter’s Parish Church, Toorak, Melbourne, September 20, 2024.
Tonight I will begin with a quotation from Gerhard Nebel (1903–1974) who was a twentieth century German writer and cultural observer. He famously wrote that “Anyone enamored of beauty will shiver in the barn of the Reformation, just as Winckelmann did, and feel the pull of Rome”.
Winckelmann is a reference to Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) an eighteenth century German art historian who is considered by many as the founder of the discipline of art history. He was interested in the difference between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art, and he was one of the first people to separate Greek Art into different periods. His book History of Ancient Art (1764) became a classic of European literature. In 1754 Winckelmann converted to Catholicism.
Anyone who has ever been inside Calvinist churches, famous for their austerity, and in particular, lack of religious art, will understand what Nebel meant about shivering in the barn of the Reformation.
So, tonight, thanks to Fr Dean Mathieson, we are not shivering in the barn of the Reformation but enjoying an art exhibition here at St. Peter’s Parish in Toorak.
Within the Catholic Intellectual Tradition some of the names who stand out as great advocates for beauty are St. Augustine, St. Bonaventure, St. John Henry Newman, and in recent times, both St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict.
Beauty is what philosophers call a transcendental property of being. Other transcendental properties are truth and goodness and unity. The American co-founder of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, Fr Benedict Groeschel, wrote a book about these transcendental properties called Spiritual Passages. He argued that people tend to have their primary transcendental, the property to which they are most strongly attracted, and he illustrated this theory with reference to the personalities of the saints. St. Augustine stands out as the saint who was most into beauty. As he famously wrote in his Confessions, speaking of Christ: ‘Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you’. St. Thomas Aquinas is upheld at the paradigm example of someone for whom truth was his primacy transcendental. The motto of the Dominican Order is “Veritas” or simply truth, and the Dominican charism is associated with a life spent using one’s intellect to explain and defend the truth. Goodness can be seen to be the primacy transcendental of many saints – in medieval times one thinks of St. Francis of Assisi, and in our contemporary world we could think of Mother Teresa. Finally, St. Edith Stein, or St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, to use her religious name, is someone for whom unity was her primary transcendental. Her conversion to Catholicism occurred after reading a biography of St. Teresa of Avila in which was apparent the intellectual coherence of the faith.
Obviously all the saints are interested in truth, beauty, goodness and unity – it is not a matter of choosing one or other from a smorgasbord, but it is simply to say that people often have a “nose”, so to speak, for one more highly than the others.
The prime example in our times of someone who was deep into beauty was the late Pope Benedict. When he was a cardinal he remarked:
The only really effective apologia for Christianity comes down to two arguments, namely, the saints the Church has produced and the art which has grown in her womb.
He reiterated this statement in several interviews such as the following:
I am convinced that the true apologetics for the Christian message, the most persuasive proof of its truth, offsetting everything that may appear negative, are the saints, on the one hand, and the beauty that the faith has generated, on the other. For faith to grow today, we must lead ourselves and the persons we meet to encounter the saints and to come into contact with the beautiful.
In his book Co-Workers of the Truth he also wrote:
The Magi of the Gospel are but the first in a vast pilgrimage in which the beauty of this earth is laid at the feet of Christ: the gold of the ancient Christian mosaics, the multi-coloured light from the windows of our great cathedrals, the praise of their stone, the Christmas songs of the trees of the forest are all inspired by him, and human voices like musical instruments have found their most beautiful melodies when they cast themselves at his feet. The suffering of the world too – its misery – comes to him in order, for a moment, to find security and understanding in the presence of the God who is poor.
As Benedict XVI in his Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis he wrote that ‘everything relating to the Eucharist should be marked by beauty’. (2007: §41). He also argued that the Eucharist contains ‘something of that beauty which Peter, James and John beheld when the Master, making his way to Jerusalem, was transfigured before their eyes (cf. Mk 9:2)’. Beauty, he concluded, ‘is not mere decoration, but rather an essential element of the liturgical action, since it is an attribute of God himself and his revelation’. As a consequence, ‘we ought to be attentive to every work of art placed at the service of the celebration’ and ‘the education of seminarians and priests should include the study of art history, with special reference to sacred buildings and the corresponding liturgical norms’. (2007: §41).
In his book The Spirit of the Liturgy, he gave as an example of liturgical beauty, the fact that ‘the windows of the Gothic cathedrals keep out the garishness of the light outside, while concentrating that light and using it so that the whole history of God in relation to man, from creation to the Second Coming, shines through. The walls of the [Gothic] church, in interplay with the sun, become an image in their own right, the iconostasis of the West, lending the place a sense of the sacred that can touch the hearts even of agnostics’.
This point was also made by the philosopher Alain de Botton who once wrote a popular article comparing the architecture of the Byzantine style Westminster cathedral with the architecture of the McDonald’s restaurant situated opposite the cathedral. Botton is not a Christian. He was not brought up within any faith tradition but he does have a Jewish family background. He suggested that McDonald’s restaurants with their smell of cooking oil and the sizzling of chips frying tend to generate a sense of anxiety, while standing within the walls of Westminster cathedral one can almost believe that an angel might appear at any moment, blow a trumpet and deliver a celestial message.
So this brings me to the heart of our reason for being here tonight – to showcase beauty, to celebrate beauty, and to celebrate the beauty of our friendships with one another.
In 1999 St John Paul II composed a letter to ‘all those who are passionately dedicated to the search for new “epiphanies” of beauty so that through their creative work as artists they may offer these as gifts to the world’. To such as these he wrote:
Society needs artists, just as it needs scientists, technicians, workers, professional people, witnesses of the faith, teachers, fathers and mothers, who ensure the growth of the person and the development of the community by means of that supreme art form which is “the art of education”. Within the vast cultural panorama of each nation, artists have their unique place. Obedient to their inspiration in creating works both worthwhile and beautiful, they not only enrich the cultural heritage of each nation and of all humanity, but they also render an exceptional social service in favour of the common good.
All of us who are here tonight fit into one of those categories – witnesses of the faith like Fr Dean, mothers like Monica Russell, teachers like myself, but to those of you who are the artists and who have created the works on show tonight, a special thanks to you for your gift of beauty to the world. Your affirmation of beauty is also a source of hope and a contribution to the theo-dramatic project of restoring all things in Christ.
I now declare the exhibition open!