“Sacred art is true and beautiful when its form corresponds to its particular vocation: evoking and glorifying, in faith and adoration, the transcendent mystery of God.” From the Catechism of the Catholic Church
A few weeks ago I participated in a conversation with Matt Swaim, JonMarc Grodi and Seth Paine of the Coming Home Network International about sacred art. Since the Coming Home Network International largely ministers to non-Catholic Christians who are seeking to join the Catholic church, the question of sacred art is pertinent, as it is one of the practices which is divergent between Catholic and Protestant traditions.
Sacred art played a very large part of my journey to the Catholic Church. I write about that in more detail in a recent post I wrote at visualgrace.org. While studying art history and studio art in Italy, I delved deep into the narrative subject matter of the images I was studying. I began to ask questions about the theology (“Why Mary? Why juxtapose these two Bible stories together?”) And I began to worship in Catholic churches (largely because there were no Protestant churches in the small town of Orvieto), full of sensory stimulation where the entire body and all five senses were active participants in the worship service.
View our conversation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COUn9n1AaEI
Is there a piece of art that spoke to you in your spiritual journey?
