Just Because I Like It, It Doesn't Mean It's Good

If I can't trust my taste in food, can I trust my taste in art? I like chocolate cake. I don't know for certain, but I am guessing that there aren't many nutritionist out there who would argue that chocolate cake is good food. So here's the point. If the food I like isn't necessarily good food, might it be true also for the art I like?

Good art, I would maintain, communicates and reflects truth; and it is beautiful. There should never be any conflict between the good, the true and beautiful for they are all aspects of being and exist in the object being viewed, for example a painting. However sometimes it might appear as though there is a conflict. We might think something is false, yet find it beautiful for example.

Or that something is ugly but good. I have heard some people say that they like Picasso’s Guernica, see below, because its ugliness speaks of suffering. I would say contrary to this that if it is ugly, and it looks it to me, it must be bad. (I might go on and explain that this is contrary to truth because Christian art reveals suffering, but always with hope rooted in Christ, the Light of the World who overcomes the darkness. Such a painting, if successful will always be beautiful. what Geurnica lacks is Christian hope. ) In regard to the general principle, who is right? How can we account for these apparent contradictions between the good and the beautiful?

Many today would respond by asserting the subjectivity of the viewer. That is, they would say that my premise is wrong and the qualities good, true and beautiful are just a matter of personal opinion; and they are not necessarily tied to each other in the way I described. If they are right then there is nothing disordered about liking ugliness; or hating beauty; or thinking that something is both ugly and good at the same time.

I do not accept this. The answer for me lies in accepting that we have varying abilities to recognize goodness, truth and beauty. This gap between reality and our perception of it has its roots in our impurity. Since the Fall, we see these qualities only ‘through a glass darkly’ so to speak and our judgement, to varying degrees, can be disordered. This is where food comes into the discussion.

Now, more than chocolate cake, I love fluorescent-orange cheesey corn puffs. In England are they are called Cheezy Wotsits (pictured right...and don’t they look delicious!). I have an insatiable appetite for these wonderful dusted pieces of crunchy manna. The dust they are coated with is 'cheese-flavoured' - there's no pretence that there is any real cheese involved (and those brands where the manufacturer claims that real cheese is one of the ingredients, are inferior in taste in my opinion).

I could happily enjoy three meals a day consisting of nothing else and never get tired of them. But I don’t do that because I know that however much I like them they are not good food…or not if you eat them in the quantities that I want to eat them anyway. I would end up overweight and have permanently colour-stained fingers and lips.

So where does this leave us in trying to decide if a work of art is good. There are no rules of beauty by which I can decide how beautiful something is on a scale of 1-10. There is no artistic expert doing the equivalent what the nutritionist has done for the Cheesy Wotsit: a scientist with beauty meter that gives a definitive answer. For all that I might use ideals of harmony and proportion when creating art, the process of apprehending beauty after the fact is always intuitive. When I see a tree, I don’t go out and measure to see if it’s beautiful. I look at it and decide that it is. It’s just like harmony in music. The composer follows the rules of harmony, but listener just listens and decides if it is beautiful.

But the fact that it is difficult to discern, doesn't mean that it is not an objective quality. It just means that I should try to be as discerning as I can. And here's how I approach this problem: because I know that the good and the true and beautiful must all exist in equal measure in any particular object, I ask myself certain pointed questions to help me judge them and only if the answer is yes will I select the piece:

Is it communicating truth? This means that I look at the content and the form (see Make the Form Conform) and ask myself if what is being communicated is consistent with a Catholic worldview. If it isn’t I reject it, regardless of whether or not I like it.

The second question I ask myself is do I think it is beautiful? If I at least try to make a judgement on beauty then at least I stand a chance of getting it right. And this probably isn't as unreliable as you might think. When I go through this process with the classes I teach I ask them if they like a piece. Very often there is a split within the class. However, when I ask the question: do you think this is beautiful? There is almost always a much higher degree of consensus. Christopher Alexander, an architect, wrote a book in which he described an experiment he carried out. He presented people with an object and then asked a range of questions and observed the degree of consensus. He found ‘do you like this’ had a low degree of consensus; ‘is this beautiful?’ was higher; and ‘would you like to spend eternity with this?’ gave almost complete unanimity. He was framing the questions so as to get people to think gradually more about the nature of beauty, and when he did, there was consensus.

And finally do I like it? So it’s not that taste is completely unimportant, but that it is just one aspect of choosing.

If the answer to all of these is yes I choose it. Even then, does this mean that I have made an infallible choice? No. As I mentioned before, there is no visible standard of perfect beauty by which I can measure something on any verifiable ‘beauty-scale’. God who is pure beauty is the standard, and I can’t see Him. However, what this does do by using reason to some degree, is to increase my chances of getting it right.

If I was choosing a piece for a public viewing, and especially a work of art for a church, I would play safe and seek not only those works that passed the above criteria when I consider my own opinion, but also for which there is a broad consensus that they are good, true and beautiful. How do I know which these are? Tradition tells me. Tradition is Chesterton’s democracy of the dead – taking the highest proportion of yesses, when considering all time, and not just the present. So for liturgical art, the authentic traditions are the styles of the iconographic, the gothic and the baroque. These styles have passed the test of time and I would choose art in these forms.

One last point, art is like food in another way. The more I am exposed to what is good, the more I learn to like it. My taste can be educated. So the more I expose myself to traditional art, the better my taste will become. Just as the more I eat salad, the more I will like it and the maybe one day I will grow out of Cheezy Wotsits...although I hope that day never comes.

Neo Beuronese Sacred Art from San Diego

Thanks to Roberto for pictures of this work by Enzo Selvaggi in San Diego, California. Enzo is an artist based in the US who has a team of designers and artisans in his atelier. (While the work is impressive, I would make the comment that the website is hi-tech to the point of being confusing - I got lost in trying to negotiate it, but then again I am a techno-dunce.)

Anyway, website aside, here are photos of murals in St John Chrysostom Church, Inglewood, CA. It clearly draws on Egyptian art for inspiration and reminds me strongly of art from the Beuronese school which did the same.

The Beuronese school of art was a movement that flourished briefly in the latter half of the 19th century and it drew its inspiration from Egyptian, hieratic art. It was a reaction to the over naturalistic sacred art of the period that dominated (artists such as Beaugeureaux) and sought to redress the balance between naturalism and symbolism that all Christian art must have. Rather than looking to traditional forms of Christian art to do this, the monks based in the abbey at Beuron in Germany looked to the idealised forms of Egyptian art. These were praised by Plato and it has been suggested that they were the inspiration for the highly idealised classical Greek style typified by art of the period of the 5th century BC and has been an inspiration for many Christian artists over the centuries (you can see it in the work of Raphael and Michelangelo, for example).

First we have pictures of the church and mural in San Diego, and then at the end some examples of 19th century Beuronese art.

Here is the only photo of the exterior I could find, sorry its so small!

Here is an example of work from the 19th century

A Weekend on Sacred Art and the New Evangelization, a Five-Day Icon Painting Class in Kansas City

July 11-13, and July 14-18...still some places left. I am very excited to announce a brand new residential weekend program: Dr. Caroline Farey, from England, will be presenting,  Sacred Art and the New Evangelization, in Kansas City, Kansas.  It precedes a five-day painting class in which students can learn the style of the English School of St Albans of 13th century artists such as Matthew Parris.

I will be working with Caroline on the weekend and will teach the painting class. In the weekend we will focus on what one can learn from art and Catholic culture of the past to shape the present and contribute to the New Evangelization. Running from July 11 – 13, it is extremely good value at just $250 (includes room and board). It will take place at the Savior Pastoral Center run by the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas.

An internationally recognized authority on Catholic culture and sacred art, Dr. Farey is an extraordinary speaker and teacher and is an adviser to the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization in Rome. This program will be of interest to anyone – artists and non-artists alike – who have an appreciation of the wonders of the beautiful Catholic culture of the past and is not to be missed.

This program takes place immediately before the five day Icon Painting Class and is designed with the idea that many people will wish to attend both. The content of Sacred Art and the New Evangelization supports and illuminates the practical lessons learnt in the Icon Painting Class. Both will be permeated by the opportunity to participate in and learn chanted liturgy and prayer.

For more information and to register for both events:  http://www.archkck.org/evangelization/sacred-art-and-new-evangelization

For specific questions not answered in the Residential Information Packet or on the Registration Form, please contact Kimberly Rode at ecat2@archkck.org

Making the Workplace Beautiful - A Seascape in Oakland, CA

I now have some pictures of the seascape I painted for Ray Tittman, a Catholic lawyer in Oakland in situ.   

Below you can see a number of shots of Ray in the office and the office building in Oakland, just across the Plaza from the recently completed Catholic cathedral. This is an ultra modern cityscape and the task was to put something in there that might raise it up without fighting against it. I wrote about the commissioning and painting process in an article here From the Atelier of Thomas More College

Pictures below: Ray with the art in the office itself'; the office building and the nearby Catholic Cathedral of Christ the Light.

A Processional Cross by Philippe Lefebvre

Here is a newly completed wood polychrome and gilded processional cross made by Frenchman Philippe Lefebvre. I love the balance of naturalism and subtle abstraction that he has incorporated into this. In Mediator Dei, Pius XII said, you may recall: 'Modern art should be given free scope in the due and reverent service of the church and the sacred rites, provided that they preserve a correct balance between styles tending neither to extreme realism nor to excessive "symbolism," and that the needs of the Christian community are taken into consideration rather than the particular taste or talent of the individual artist.'

He is telling us that the Christian artist must represent natural appearances and through the medium he chooses reveal also the invisible truths of the human person ('symbolism'). There is wide scope for individual interpretation of how this might be done, even when working within the forms of an established tradition. It is incumbent upon each artist to find the balance that appeals to people of his day. This may mean working precisely in the way of the past, or adapting and building on the past in order to achieve this end and create something new. In doing so he must avoid the errors of straying too far in either direction, towards extreme naturalism ('realism') or abstraction.

When I see this work by Philippe it strikes a chord with me - it is almost as though it is a three-dimensional Fra Angelico.

Beauty for Truth's Sake - A Book Linking Liturgy and Education by Stratford Caldecott

This book is recommended reading for all serious travelers on the via pulchritudinis. It is an argument for the inclusion of the ‘quadrivium’ in education as an important part of the antidote to modernism. I posted this review when the book first came out about three years ago. I re-post it now because my friend Strat is very ill and will most likely not live through the summer. It is by way of a tribute to him and that I would like to draw attention to his work. Here, Strat pulls together and builds with great insight on themes raised earlier and discussed in issues of the journal of faith and culture,  Second Spring, which he c0- edits. I was lucky to be able to contribute some of these articles to this journal myself. The articles of mine are the product of many enjoyable hours of conversation between Strat and myself over the years and I am flattered that he refers to our conversations in the forward to this book.

Stratford has been one of the main influences on my thinking over the years and one the people who first encouraged me to start writing about my ideas. To the degree that I have done so, I could not have written anything worthwhile without his help. I first went into his office in Oxford 15 years ago looking for help in establishing a new sort of Catholic art school. I had phoned him up out of the blue because someone had told me that he was interested in similar things. He instantly agreed to see me and I travelled up to Oxford from London a week later. In this meeting he patiently listened to me and said that he would like to help me. He then invited me up to Oxford and took me through a week of guided reading and helped me to write the first article I had ever written containing these ideas. This was published in Second Spring and was entitled the Way of Beauty (this is where the name for this blog came from!). I remember two things about this, first of all how slow and difficult writing was for me at that point (I hadn't written an essay for the consideration of others since I was sixteen years old!). Second was how patient he was in molding it, suggesting changes for reasons of both style and unorthodox content in such a way that the elegance and clarity of the prose were improved dramatically, but somehow he preserved the essential ideas in such a way that it was my voice that was talking. Several articles followed this, the next was connecting the patterns of the liturgy to the patterns and beauty of numerical description of the cosmos and was called the Art of the Spheres. It was these articles that caused me to be noticed by Catholic institutions such as my current employer, Thomas More College and by Shawn Tribe when he was looking for an art writer for the New Liturgical Movement website. He opened the door that led to what I do now.

The theme of liturgy and number is one that Strat picks up on in his book here, discussing them in the context of the formation of man in education.

Translated as the ‘four ways’, the quadrivium is the collective phrase for four of the seven liberal arts: number, geometry, harmony (music) and cosmology.

The quadrivium is concerned with the study of cosmic order as a principle of beauty. The patterns and rhythms of the liturgy of the Church reflect this order too. As it is all expressed mathematically it allows for the possibility of the liturgical ordering of all our work - the whole culture - to the divine. The patterns of our days, the dimensions of our buildings, the ordering of our institutions can all be in harmony with heaven, creation and the common good.

Interestingly, Pope Benedict XVI drew our attention to the quadrivium in a recent address about St Boethius, (a patron of this blog). He described Boethius's work in adapting this aspect of Greco-Roman culture into a Christian form of education. Boethius wrote manuals on each of these disciplines.

Stratford describes how at a medieval university, around say 1400AD, students received a Bachelor of Arts for the 'Trivium' or 'three ways' (rhetoric, logic, grammar - the other three liberal arts). After this they progressed onto a Master of Arts by studying the quadrivium. This prepared them for the final and longest stage of study, for a doctorate in for example Theology or Philosophy. For Caldecott does not wish to eliminate or undo progress, but rather to add a unifying principle to all that is good about the developments of the modern world and which binds it to its ultimate purpose, and ours.

In his beautifully clear, penetrating prose he describes how each of these subjects is linked to the traditional idea of beauty. I found the chapter on music particularly interesting in this respect. He even speculates on how these areas could be developed in the light of modern scientific developments, for example in his chapter on the Golden Section.

Then in the final chapter he sets out his stall, explaining how he feels this will benefit modern society. He writes: ‘The modern era can be characterised by a certain outlook shaped in part by the overthrow or displacement of ancient metaphysics. We call this outlook 'secular,' and it may take the form of an extreme form of materialism, though it may also take religious forms...even the protection of religion often takes the form of privatization, with faith being exlcluded from any real influence over public life, morality and technology...The modern person feels himself to be disengaged from the world around him, rather than intrinsically related to it (by family, tribe, birthplace, vocation, and so forth)...'

'This all pervasive modern mentality is what we are up against, in education as everywhere else. So the question is now, what can be done about it, if anything? The Enlightenment is not something you can simply unthink. So how do we combat the negative effects of individualism, without losing the benefits of self-consciousness and rationality? The key lies, I believe in revelation and worship. What defines secularism more than anything is inability to pray, and he modern world in its worst aspects is a systematic attack on worship, an idea that begins with the acknowledgement of a Transcendent that reveals itself in the immanent. [Hans Urs von] Balthasar was right: once we lose the sense of objective beauty, of the Forms of the fabric of the world (confirmed and strengthened by revelation), then the ability to pray goes too. The fully ‘buffered’ self has no Forms to contemplate in the cosmos, no reality higher than itself, it has no God to turn to. Prayer is a vital dimension of fully human living. But while we can all pray on our own, it is always in some sense a community thing. It turns us away from ourselves toward God, and in so doing it turns us toward each other (or should do). In fact human civilization had always been build around an act of worship, a public liturgy. Liturgy (from the Greek leitourgia: public work or duty) technically means any kind of religious service done on behalf of a community. Liturgical prayer is a way of being in tune with our society, with other people. But if we are to renew our civilization by renewing our worship, we must understand also that liturgy is a way of being in tune with the motions of the stars, the dance of atomic particles, and the harmony of the heavens that resembles a great song. And Catholic liturgy takes us even deeper than that. It takes us to the source of the cosmos itself, into the sacred precincts of the Holy Trinity where all things begin and end (whether they know it or not), and to the source of all artistic and scientific inspiration, of all culture.’

These are words that even the colleges who think of themselves as faithfully Catholic should take to heart. How many I wonder, truly integrate the liturgical life with the academic life rather than viewing the liturgy as a supporting player that is practised peripherally, however beautifully, to the activities of the classroom?

Back issues  of Second Spring and subscriptions can be obtained online here.

To buy Beauty for Truth's Sake, go through to Amazon.com here.

Paintings of Popes and Saints John XXIII and John Paul II by Clemens Fuchs

Here are paintings of the recently canonized saints by Clemens Fuchs, who is an Austrian artist trained in the academic method. He was studying at the Charles H Cecil when I was there about 10 years ago and later taught there (along with another artist who has been featured on this site and some may remember, Matt Collins). You can read more about Clemens at his website http://www.clemensmariafuchs.com/. The church, incidentally is St Charles Church ( that's St Charles Borromeo), a splendid baroque church in Vienna.

How Liturgy, Prayer and Intuition Are Connected - Recognition of Pattern and Order

Modern research into how firefighters and nurses respond to a crisis supports the idea that a traditional education in beauty will develop our powers of intuitive decision making. In a great series of recorded lectures entitled The Art of Critical Decision Making, former Harvard business school professor and current Trustee Professor of Management at Bryant University, Michael A Roberto discusses the importance of intuition in making decisions; and the factors that influence the reliability of our intuitive faculty. He illustrates his points with some striking real-life stories of people relying upon or ignoring intuition (sometimes with dire consequences); and backs up what he says with modern psychological research.

For example, he tells of a number of occasions when nurses in cardiac intensive care units predict that a patient is going to have a heart  attack. This is despite the fact that the specialist doctors could see no problem and the standard ways of monitoring the patients' condition indicated nothing wrong either. When such nurses are asked why they think the situation is bad, they cannot answer. As a result their predictions were disregarded. As it turned out, very often and sadly for the people involved, the nurses were right. In order to protect patients in future people started to ask questions and do research on why the nurses could tell there was a problem. What was it they were reacting to, even if they couldn't say initially?

The most dramatic tale he related was of a crack team of firefighters who were specialists in dealing with forest and brush fires and would be helicoptered into any location  within a large part of the West to deal with fires when they broke out. The leader of the group was respected firefighter who was a taciturn individual who lead by example. He was not a good natural communicator, but usually this did not matter. One day they responded to a call and went to a remote site in California. When they assessed the situation they discerned the pace of spread of the fire, the direction it was going and so worked out how to deal with it safely. These judgments were important because if they got it wrong the brush fire could move faster than any man could run and they would be in trouble. Initially things went as expected but then suddenly the leader stopped and told everybody to do as he was doing. He threw a match to the ground and burnt an area in the grass of several square yards and then put it out. He then lay down on the burnt patch and waited. When asked why, except to say that he thought they were in danger he was unable to answer - he couldn't articulate clearly the nature of the danger or why this would action help. As a result even though he was respected, his advice was ignored by the team. Suddenly the fire turned and ran straight at them, in the panic the reaction of even these firefighters, was to run. This was the wrong thing to do, as the fire caught them and tragically they died. The only survivor was the leader. He was lying in the already burnt patch that was surrounded by brush fire as it swept through the area, but was itself untouched by the advancing blaze as there was no grass to burn within it. He just waited until the surrounding area burnt itself out and then walked away.

In both cases, the practitioners were experienced people who got it right, but weren't believed by others because people were not inclined to listen to the intuition of others if it couldn't be supported by what they thought was a reasonable explanation.

Dr Roberto describes how research since suggests that it is the level of experience in situ that develops an intuitive sense that is accurate enough to be relied upon. What experience teaches is the ability to spot patterns of events. Through repeated observation they know that when certain events happen, they are usually related to others and in a particular way. Even in quite simple situations the different possible permutations of events would be quite complex to describe numerically and so scientific theorems may have difficulty predicting outcomes based upon them. However, the human mind is good at grasping the underlying pattern of any given situation at an intuitive level, and then can compare with what usually happens by consulting the storehouse of the memory of past events. In these situations described, of the fire and the cardiac unit, all the indicators usually referred to by the text books were within the range of what was considered safe. However, what the experienced nurse and firefighter spotted was a particular unusual combination that pointed to danger. This apprehension of truth was happening at some pre-conscious level and is not deduced step by step, hence their difficulties in articulating the detail of why they felt as they did.

While this ended in disaster at first, lessons were learnt. As a result of this, it was recognized that a good decision making processes ought to take into account at least, the intuition of experienced people. Prof Roberto described how hospitals and firefighters and others learning from them, have incorporated it into their critical decision making processes. This should be done with discernment - intuition is not infallible and the less experienced we are in a particular environment, the less reliable it is so this must be taken into account as well.

It also depends on the person. Some people develop that sense of intuition in particular situations faster than others because the intuitive faculty is more highly developed. This, in my opinion, is where the traditional education in beauty might help. In order to develop our sense of the beautiful, this education teaches us to recognize intuitively the natural patterns and interrelationships that exist in the cosmos. When we do so, we are more highly tuned to its beauty and if we were artists we could incorporate that into our work. For non-artistic pursuits we can still apply this principle of how things ought to be to make our activity beautiful and graceful. Also, we have a greater sense of the cause of lack of beauty, when something is missing and the pattern is incomplete or distorted. In these situations we can see how to rectify the situation. This is the part that would help the firefighter or nurse, I believe. The education I am describing will not replace the specialist experience that gave those nurses the edge, but by deeply impressing upon our souls the overall architecture of the natural order, it will develop the faculty to learn to spot the patterns in particular situations and allow them to develop their on-the-job intuition faster.

The greatest educator in beauty is the worship of God in the liturgy and especially when the liturgy of the hours harmonized with our worship of the Mass with the Eucharist at the center. When we pray well it should engage the whole person, body and soul, in such a way that we conform totally to that cosmic pattern. In our book, The Little Oratory, A Beginner's Guide to Prayer in the Home, I describe both the nature of that pattern and also how in the home we can even reinforce certain aspects of it in the formation of children. In God's plan that intuitive sense is developed to help us in ordering all our daily activities to his plan (which would include potentially firefighting and nursing and indeed most human activity). This development of intuition not only improves decisions made in a crisis, but also makes us more creative. I discuss the connection between intuition and creativity in a past article about creativity in science. Through this at work, in the home or in our worship, we can contribute to a more beautiful culture of living for everyone. This is the hoped for New Evangelization and John Paul II's 'new epiphany of beauty' that draws people to the Faith.

Re-forming the History of the Reformation to Reflect the Truth

...and here's the surprise, it's the mainstream media that is doing it. From the English national daily newspaper, the Daily Telegraph (h/t Catholicism.org) - this is a very unusual pro-Catholic feature. It explains amongst many other things the importance in English daily life (beyond the popular and thriving religious piety of the ordinary Englishman) of the guilds which sponsored festivals, revelry and mystery plays on about 50 holy days a year. This was the common culture that bound the society together. It is this England of St Thomas More that points the way to a vibrant Catholic culture of today, and much of what we do at Thomas More College is drawing on this to picture in consideration of how to re-establish a modern but truly vibrant Catholic culture today.

The article even draws parallels between the attitude of modern government in manipulating history to that of Henry VIII and Kruschev. This is not a hysterical rant but a serious article by a historian.

Dominic Selwood's excellent piece entitled How A Protestant Spin Machine Hid the Truth About the English Reformation is here

Can an Institution Such as a College (or a Family) Actually Pray? or Just the Individuals Within It?

Personal Thoughts on Thomas More College's Response to the Harvard Black 'mass'. And how it relates to prayer in the home and the family. We often hear that there is an over-emphasis on individualism in the West today. I many respects I agree with this. The Christian worldview sees man essentially as a person. A person, as distinct from an individual. A human person is always in relation with others, starting from birth. No one, by choice, disengages from society altogether (not even a hermit) and is happy. The relationships that exist between people are real entities that ensure that two people working together create a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. The seemingly incongruous mathematics of this, one plus one equals three (two people and the relationship between them) reveals the principle of superabundance in which something is created out of nothing and is always invoked when love exists between two people.

From these differing anthropologies - emphasizing either the personal or individual - two differing views of what society is emerge. On the one hand the Christian worldview sees society more as the aggregate effect of the network of the personal interactions that exist between people; the other sees society as simply the vector sum of all individual actions. This is important, how you view this can govern your idea of good economics and good politics, for example.  

This attitude of individualism can creep into and affect all institutions and communities in the modern world, including the Church. It seems to me that even some genuinely pious and traditional Catholics seem to view the Church as a provider of services (sacraments) which are provided to them as consumers, so that they can do the things that set them right in God's eyes then go to heaven.

Where this attitude pervades there is a diminished understanding of the importance of the ideas of the service to God and others. In the practice of religion, the thought driven by individual is characterized by the phrase, what's in it for me? Now, I should say that I wouldn't do anything the Church asked me if I didn't think that I would get something good out of it. I am like all people and do what I believe will make me happy. But in this context, I believe, the rewards are indirect. The maxim I try to keep in mind is that it is in giving that we receive. The dynamic runs something like this: God has given Himself to us; through our worship we cooperate with Him, accept that gift and give ourselves back to Him; and then this opens the path to joy and holiness (to the degree that I fulfill the ideal).

So what's the answer to my opening question in the heading above? Can a college pray as a college? If we take an individualistic view of society, then the answer is no. Or at least, only to the degree that all of its members pray in harmony.

However, if we take the Catholic understanding of society, the answer is 'yes'. By virtue of the network of relationships that exist within  it and from which no one is excluded, even if only a few members of that society do actually pray, those who pray to God can do so as advocates for the community as a whole, thereby bringing everyone into the picture in some way. This advocacy is most powerful and effective in the context of the liturgy; and when that prayer is the public worship of that institution - a Mass or Vespers in the college chapel and devotions ordered to it - then it is most powerful. I thought about this recently when Harvard University announced that it would allow a Black Mass on its campus. In response the President of Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, Dr William Fahey, wrote a public letter to the president of Harvard University asking for a change of heart. His open letter was well written and had great effect judged simply, by the degree to which it was noticed and reported on nationally. But more interesting, and I think even more powerful in effect, was what he encouraged us to do.

He asked us to attend Mass on that day. The Mass was offered for this cause we heard prayers a brilliant homily from one of the Benedictines from Still River directed to this end. He asked us also to attend the recitation of the Divine Mercy chaplet in the afternoon in chapel, which he lead; and then to attend a sung Vespers in the evening. Vespers was the the eve of Our Lady of Fatima, accordingly we invoked prayers to Our Lady, especially invoking the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to whom the college is dedicated and the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the USA (as well as Our Lady of Walsingham, patroness of England; and the Virgin of Coromoto, the patroness of Venezuela - two other countries in need of prayer at the moment). We asked also for the prayers of St Thomas More as patron of the college and closed with a threefold repetition of prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to whom the college is dedicated. As we invoked these saints we turned and faced their icons in the chapel. For example here is the Sacred Heart:

And Our Lady of Merrimack below, the gothic image, both were painted especially for our chapel.

As President of the college, he lead from the top, so to speak and was present on each occasion. Then, the next day, in response to what happened  - the Black 'mass' was cancelled - we gave thanks, again in the context of the liturgy, by reciting the Te Deum at Mass.

What he had proposed was, it seems to me, a profoundly Catholic program of prayer - liturgy and devotions in harmony. As a result, those students and faculty present were praying for and on behalf of the whole community including those who were not present. As prayer ordered to the liturgy it was elevated above individual prayers in other settings through being united to Christ in a special, who is our advocate to the Father and through Christ. The Son prays to the Father in the Spirit and we participate in His prayer for us. By this, the college was an entity and a society truly at prayer.

I do not want to exaggerate the visible response in terms of numbers. I would love to be able to say that the attendance at each event was high but it wasn't. Each took place and was offered beautifully, but I have to say that the numbers really could have been much higher (even to the degree that we asked how we can communicate more effectively the importance of the liturgy in an educational institution and for the lives of the students). But here is the point. The liturgical ordering of the prayer ensured that the few who took the trouble were the soul of the society, praying on behalf of all, and for all.

This pattern of the few taking on the prayer and acting as leaven for the many is an ever present truth of the Church, so I am not so surprised or disappointed at the numbers, even at a Catholic institution. Sometimes of course there are very good practical reasons that we cannot make it. This is the wonderful thing about the idea of advocacy of one on behalf of others. It rests on an assumption that it is rare that everyone can always attend even with the very best of intentions. I have in mind the ideal of enough participation to keep the regular pattern of liturgical worship going on campus; then, I believe, the benefits for all can be profound.

Aside from special instances like that described above the institution as  whole and the surrounding community benefits from the few ensuring that the liturgy is prayed for the many. Here is one way: the liturgy of the whole society shapes its culture powerfully, through this network of personal interraction. The culture in this case means the natural way that people do things and relate to each other. The culture thus created is not only a reflection of core priorities and beliefs, it is also the most profound influencing factor especially on those who are not participating in the liturgy. At an educational instution, this is what above all else, forms the students. This may surprise some, but Blessed John Henry Newman no less, in his Idea of a University, went so far as to say that it was this forming influence in the daily living of an educational community that was the single most powerful influence on the formation and education of the individuals; more important, he said, than attendance at lectures, classes and tutorials, than the taking of exams or considerations of what curriculum is taught.

This tells us, therefore, that it is the liturgical life of the college that should be the first thing that is considered when forming a college and that everything else that is done should be ordered to this primary consideration.

The same, can be said for a home as well, I believe. It is the liturgical life of those in the home that affects this society in microcosm most profoundly. We worry much about the influences that might affect our children adversely and that is right I think to be aware of these things. However, the most important thing to worry about in regard to the Catholic education and upbringing of our children is liturgical piety. This is what will transmit the Faith most profoundly and, other things being equal, will have the power to overcome the negative aspects of modern society. This is a relief to me because I feel that this is something we can control far more easily. It also highlights the special role of the father in the family as the advocate for the family to God in prayer. He is head of the family is Christ is head of the Church.

The book, The Little Oratory: A Beginners Guide to Prayer in the Family is written rests on this understanding of the nature and power of liturgical prayer on us and those with whom we associate.