On Friday Oct 18th, at St. Gregory the Great Church in Chicago IL, a Holy Mass for artists was celebrated on the Feast of Saint Luke, patron saint of painters.
We give thanks to God for the generous response of the faithful that made this event possible: for those who filled the pews – artists of all disciplines and lovers of art; for those who served at the altar and offered the Sacrifice – Bishop Mark Bartosic our presider and homilist, Father Jonathan Harmon, Jesuit and professor of art at Loyola University, Father Alejandro Lopez, Pastor of Mary, Mother of God Parish, and Father Thomas Getz, OFM Conv.; for the singers and musicians who offered their talents for the glory of God; for the volunteers who organized the reception in the art studio after Mass and brought food and refreshments; for the staff of St. Gregory’s Hall, especially Mark Franzen, who hosted us and helped to organize and publicize the event.
Together in prayer at the Mass, and in fellowship in the art studio after, we rejoiced in the beauty of God and in the growth of this community of Catholic artists called together to support each other in our shared commission to holiness and service to God and neighbor through the arts.
On my studio door, I have a painting by Francisco de Zurbarán of Saint Luke standing beneath the Cross looking up at his Crucified Lord holding a palette of colors (the same that would have been used to make this painting) in his hand like an offering. The artist, Zurbarán, identifies with the evangelist and painter Saint Luke through his imaginative artwork re-envisions the evangelist alone at the foot of the cross where he was not. Alone doing what? Not painting, but simply offering his art. It is as if the artist could, through the person – the intercession – of Saint Luke, travel back to that mysterious hour of deepest desolation and greatest victory when God offered His life for humanity and console the Lord when he was abandoned by nearly all of his disciples. Console him through the offering of his artwork, which, like the holy sacrifice of the Mass, re-presents the saving passion of the Lord, not mystically and concretely like the Holy Eucharist, but symbolically for our contemplation and prayer. The artist is a kind of priest, making visible invisible realities. Yes, for the edification of souls, but first and foremost for the glory of God and the consolation of His heart. This is why we need a Mass for artists. To love and honor Him together by offering ourselves and our talents through and with and in Him, and being thus rooted and grounded in charity, to make art that flows from and returns to the high altar of the Cross: the throne of Beauty Incarnate.
In his homily, Bishop Mark Bartosic spoke about another beautiful painting that graced the flier for the Mass: Rogier van der Weyden’s Saint Luke painting the Virgin. He reflected that the mother of God depicted holding her Son is also our mother – Mother Church who holds us, her children, in her arms. Sharing his personal love for Evelyn Waugh’s novel, Brideshead Revisited, he drew out for us the novel’s theme of the allure and beauty of the Church as it is personified by a Catholic aristocratic family and their ancestral home Brideshead. He noted how the matriarch of this family, Lady Marchmain, is largely despised by the family and yet perseveres in love like our Mother Church. My own reading of this novel is as the story of how, like the protagonist Charles Ryder, we search for love and beauty in one form after another, until we are finally, often stumbling, encounter the love that is the source and end of all our desires: God Himself and his saving grace flowing through the maternal embrace of the Church. Bishop Bartosic says of reading Brideshead Revisited: “It should be required for all Catholic artists.” It also happens that the 1981 TV series adaptation (available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVnkvM_v6N0) is that very rare item, a good retelling that conveys the spirit of the novel in sumptuous visual and theatrical detail.
Today is the feast of Saint Pope John Paul II, himself an actor and a great champion of the arts, whose 1999 “Letter to Artists” (https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/1999/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_23041999_artists.html) I also put forward as “require reading” and a profound source of encouragement for those of us who have an artistic calling. He was poignantly aware of how every human being has the Gospel written upon their hearts, and of how artists are especially attuned to matters of the heart, restlessly seeking after beauty, truth, and love and rendering these visible and comprehensible through the myriad forms of our art. He writes: “Creation awaits the revelation of the children of God also through art and in art. This is your task. Humanity in every age, and even today, looks to works of art to shed light upon its path and its destiny.”
In joy and gratitude,
Sarah Crow
