Anglican Ordinariate Liturgy at Sacra Liturgia 2016; and Other Ordinariate and Sacra Liturgia Matters

Just a couple of weeks before Sacra Liturgia 2016 I would like to mention a couple of things that caught my eye.

First is that once again the conference is promoting the liturgy of the Anglican Ordinariates. When I attended Sacra Liturgia 2014 in Rome I was heartened by the welcome that priests from the Ordinariates were given, as I wrote in an article, here, in which I said also why I think that their creation is so important for the whole Church.

I am please that the openness to the Anglican Use continues and that in the program of liturgy for the conference there will be a 'Solemn Mass (Divine Worship - Ordinariate Use)' on Friday 8th July at 7pm at the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street, London W1B 5LZ. Celebrant and preacher will be Mgr Keith Newton, the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Our Lady of Walsingham.

Most liturgies for the conference are taking place at the Brompton Oratory. This program includes a Solemn Pontifical Mass in the Ordinary Form celebrated by Robert Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments. The music will be by the London Oratory School Schola Cantorum directed by our own Charles Cole.

My own conversion to Catholicism was influenced profoundly by stumbling into a beautiful Latin Mass in the Ordinary Form at the Brompton Oratory over 25 years ago I am pleased to see this and so much of the conference liturgy at this church.

The point should be made that the program of the liturgy is open to all, not just those attending the conference. The full program of liturgies is here. The photo below is of an Anglican Ordinariate liturgy in Baltimore.

On another Anglican Ordinariates matter, I was lucky enough recently to bump into Fr Edward Tomlinson of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham at a conference in, of all places, Grand Rapids, Michigan (We were at the annual conference of the Acton Institute). Fr Tomlinson and I were both attending the EF Latin Mass which was offered at the conference and he introduced himself because I had my copy of the Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham under my arm. He told me of his CTS booklet about Ordinariates. This is an excellent short introduction for people who have questions about the Ordinariates and the reasons for their creation. Fr Tomlinson has written it with both curious non-Ordinariate Catholics and curious Anglicans in the UK in mind and so his answers refer to the Personal Ordinariate or Our Lady in Walsingham in particular.

I will quote one page from the booklet about the liturgy of the Ordinariates, simply because it addresses questions that cropped up on this blog when I posted an article about the Customary:

Does the Ordinariate have its own liturgical rites? Yes. Ordinariate texts exist for use in public and private worship. Ordinariate services are, of course, open to all.

What is the purpose of a distinct Ordinariate liturgy? Ordinariate liturgy exists to encourage an 'Anglican patrimony' - that is worship reflecting an English and Celtic spirituality, to connect Catholic liturgical life in the present with its pre-Reformation existence, reminding Britain that she was in truth, formed and forged in a rich Catholic culture.

Are the Ordinariate texts mandatory? No. Being a full part of the Latin Rite, Ordinariate groups and priests are free to choose between the Ordinariate resources for worship and those of the wider Church.

What is the Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham? The Customary is the 'office book' of the Ordinariate, that is to say it provides texts for Morning and Evening Prayer and other similar celebrations. Accessing aspects of the Book of Common Prayer, so familiar to Anglicans, it places heavy emphasis on readings from the English and Celtic saints to remind us of our pre-Reformation history.

The booklet is available from CTS here.

Dominican School Offers Formation for Artists- Now Including Sacred Geometry and English Gothic Illumination Practicum

Here is a reminder (with some additional details) of a four-course certificate intended as a formation for artists in any creative discipline. It is an exciting new course offered by the The Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, which is part of the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley University in California. The Certificate in Theological Studies is a Master’s level, four-course (12-unit) certificate which is recommended for those who already have a working knowledge of a specific art medium (visual arts, music, architecture etc.), and wish to augment their expertise with a specialized focus in the relationship of the fine arts to Catholic worship and culture. These courses are open to people not otherwise studying at the DSPT.

The new information is that I have been invited to teach the elective in the Spring 2017. I will teach a practical course which will include the creation of a gothic image in the style of illuminations of the 13th century School of St Albans; and sacred geometry. In the geometry course, students will construct a traditional geometric pattern as used in cosmati floors of the period. In support of the practical skills I will teach the supporting theory as described in my book, the Way of Beauty.

The approach to this certificate program assumes the “cross-disciplinary approach” between philosophy and theology that uniquely characterizes all DSPT curricula. Furthermore, in this particular program there will be a focus on the integration of theory with praxis, particularly as it applies to Catholic worship and culture. An emphasis on the outcomes of this course is on the evangelization of the culture through a well discerned engagement with contemporary cultures, so that the creativity of the artist may be directed towards the engagement of contemporary man, without any compromise of the core principles of a traditional Christian culture.

The Certificate program of studies is organized by the Academic Dean of the DSPT, Fr Chris Renz; readers may remember that I highlighted his excellent article on liturgy and culture recently published in Antiphon.

Fr Renz will use my book the Way of Beauty as one of the texts for the opening course of the Certificate program. Anyone who has read any of my writings over the years will see why I am enthusiastic about this – these themes of inculturation, worship and fresh creativity are at the heart of my own ideas about the evangelization of the culture.

The first course of the four to be offered this coming Fall is called the Foundational Principles of Catholic Liturgy and Worship. To complete the Certificate in Theological Studies program with a specialization in Sacred Arts, the student must complete the four courses indicated below, typically over two or more semesters.

1. Foundational Principles of Catholic Liturgy and Worship (next offered Fall 2016)

2. Liturgical Piety: Anthropological Foundations of Catholic Worship (next offered Spring 2017)

3. One elective offering from any advisor-approved Religion and the Arts course. These are the courses that will particularly focus on practical elements, such as painting.

4. Christian Iconography (offered Fall 2016)

The format for all courses is once per week for just under 3 hours. They will typically offered during the weekday, which means that you have to be within striking distance of Berkeley, California in order to take it.

The named outcomes are to:

• imbue students with an understanding of sacred art and its relationship to sacred liturgy;

• provide students with the philosophical and theological foundations for the anthropological as well as the transcendent aspects of art;

• provide basic principles for using the fine arts as a vehicle for “preaching the gospel” to the contemporary culture.

Application Process

Applicants must complete the DSPT Certificate of Theological Studies application (found at the DSPT website), including a statement of purpose, official transcript, and two letters of recommendation. Application is on a rolling admission process.

Tuition and Fees

Tuition rate for 2016-2017 academic year is $715 per semester unit (all courses are 3 units). For further information, contact Fr. Chris Renz, O.P. at crenz@dspt.edu, or 510-883-2084. You can read about this course on the DSPT website at www.dspt.edu/sacred-arts

Artists - Please Learn to Draw

One of the most common shortcomings in the works of artists today is poor drawing ability. There is a perception among some, especially if working in the highly symbolic styles of the gothic, the iconographic or even the style featured recently, the Beuronese style, that the artist can hide his lack of technical skill behind the stylistic elements. I have heard people say that they signed up for icon painting classes for example, because they think that they don't need to be so good at drawing.

The same thing happens in mainstream arts schools, students opt for Expressionistic styles because they know that they can't be held to account for how bad the drawing is - they can hide the lack of skill behind wild and flamboyant brush strokes. Many just forgo the paintbrush altogether, pick up a video camera and go for conceptual art.

This may be acceptable in the context of 20th century art styles, but I suggest this is not good enough for sacred art, no matter what style we want to work in.

In fact it is more difficult to work within a particular tradition and retain accuracy in drawing. It requires the artist to understand both where he must be precise in reflecting nature, and where he must be precise in deviating from natural appearances in accordance with the demands of the style of the tradition.

Artists quite often show me their work and one of the usual comments I make is, you need to improve your drawing. It is great that there are more and more people who are looking to traditional forms as inspiration for sacred art and so I always want to be encouraging. There is hope, drawing is a skill that can be taught. Someone who wants to learn to draw can spend time learning the academic method of drawing - this trains the eye to observe nature and then to render it in two dimensions. Another thing to consider is an illustrators' course, in which one can learn how to create new images without always having to set up a tableau of figures posing for the image. At some point the good artist does need to be able to go beyond simply drawing what he can see. He must be able to draw what is in his imagination too.

Here are two examples of faults that I often see. I don't like highlighting what is bad in other peoples' work, so I'll use examples of mine to illustrate (I have plenty to choose from!)

The first is the drapery of cloth. In sacred art, the figures are often portrayed with draped clothing. It is vital that the folds in the cloth look natural and that there is a sense of a properly proportioned figure underneath. The only way to understand this that I know is to study how material drapes over the human form. One of my frustrations when I was studying academic art was that we spent so much time studying the nude, but none devoted to studying clothes. This would have helped me.

Have a look at this painting of St Silouan the Athonite. At first glance, the folds in the cloth look natural, but if you look closer you can see that the deep red robe is done incorrectly in the region between the arms. The reason is that I didn't really understand what I was supposed to be painting and so just guessed.

In fact, it the red robe should have been doing what St Hubert's is below (in Aidan Hart's icon), hanging in a U shape between the arms.

and then the figure is rotated for a three quarter profile view as in this figure of Elizabeth Prout shown below. Aidan Hart has shown it with the line drawing in black on a plain brown robe rendered without additional shading or highlights.

If we want the figure to look natural underneath the drapery then there are certain pressure points at which the clothing is supported by the figure or otherwise directly acted upon by the figure, while else where it hangs free. This will usually be places such as the shoulders, elbows, knees and the crook in the elbow. If these pressure points are not place absolutely precisely the whole figure looks wrong.

We can see how well John Singer Sargent does this in the painting below, a portrait of Mrs Henry White. So much of the dress is swirling away from direct contact with her body. This means that in order for it to look as though it belongs to her he has very few of these pressure points to work with, but these must be absolutely right. In this case the shoulders and the tight fitting waist and her hips. Her left hip indicated with a tiny little detail, a conjunction of shadow and highlight. If these were not absolutely correct, the eye of the observer would pick it up instantly and everything would look wrong.

Another common area of error is in the drawing of the proportions of hands and faces. In the example below, I copied a famous icon of St Matthew. When I showed it to my teacher, Aidan, he instantly pointed out that his right hand looked distorted. I replied that I noticed this but thought that this was how it had looked in the original. Because I didn't know if I was allowed to change it, I had left it exactly as I thought it had been done by the original artist. (I believed that when I said it, but now that I looked at it, I wonder if I copied inaccurately as well! you can see the original below and judge for yourself). Aidan immediately replied that it didn't matter and if the original looked like that too, then the original was done badly and I should be copying errors unthinkingly. Here's the point: just because we are working in the iconographic style it doesn't mean that we accept anatomical inaccuracy. The goal is to be both anatomically correct and to work with the iconographic style, this is what all the great icon painters are able to do.

 

The image at the top is the Drawing Class by Sweerts (Dutch, 17th century)

Moments of Vision, A Poem by Andrew Thornton-Norris

Andrew Thornton-Norris offers readers his new poem, Moments of Vision, along with an explanation of its composition. An Englishman based in the west of England, whose work is admired and published on both sides of the Atlantic, Andrew teaches literature and poetry at Pontifex.University.

Andrew wrote an earlier blog posting called 'Redeeming Romanticism' by which he meant raising the purpose, or end of the genre to something higher, what it ought to be. In this poem he gives an example of what he was describing. I find it fascinating how he brings modern ideas of form into what has at its heart a traditional structure.

Moments of Vision

1. The Apophatic (After T.E. Hulme)

O moon hanging there not lighting up The darkness but just leaving it obscure, Reflecting light that's hidden for a time: You are the blessed sacrament that shines Upon the darkness of their majesty.

2. Helen's Face

The female body is the battlefield In the war that's taking place between The Word, the world, the devil and the flesh: The judgement cast upon it, lust that it Betrays and crimes that are committed there.

3. The Hymn of the Nuptial Mystery

In intimate relation we are in Eternal intimate relationship Within our souls and beating in our hearts The passion of transcendent being back Together that we thought we'd left behind.

4. Lent

The Forty Days and Forty Nights is when God's Kingdom is the desert where we meet Him in the hidden fasting and the prayer That separates us from the world outside And brings us to the peace of penitence.

5. Dead Souls

All beauty's holy and eternal and Destroyed by commodification, Which brings it back to dust in an Embittered fall from heaven earthward but The hope of faith is in the Death of God.

6. The Flower Bed

When I went back to the place where I Had slept and saw the mess of lying there I felt forboding of the grave and rushed To get away but now I see perhaps One heaven sent and love to contemplate.

7. WWW

When the whole world and all its life And history is here to hand and at The touch or click upon a button then The only way to turn to get away Is inwards, walk into the world within.

8. Sapperton Tunnel

Between the catchment of the Severn and The Thames, the way of life is different, The valley sides that crumble down into The houses flowing streamward down below, Suggestive of the valley of the Wye.

9. The Passion of the Lord is the Birth of Love

As fires from tiny flames great cities fell My love for you began with just a glance A word and then the conflagration grew Until the world was all aflame like stars That fall from skies above into our hearts.

10. The Walled Garden

Narcissus, yellow archangel, and then, Because of sympathetic magic, so Called lungwort: metaphysicians of the spring; But why are winter snowdrops purest white, O winter what has happened to your sting?

Brief note for students

This poem deals again with the subject of central concern to me: the deepest longings of the human heart, for love, joy, and peace for example, their frustrations, and how these experiences are most perfectly responded to, of any available belief system, by Catholicism. Its form is ten titled sentences of blank verse or unrhymed iambic pentameter. I chose this form because this is roughly how the ideas for the individual stanzas came to me as a group all around the same time. The idea of collage, or collection of disparate elements arranged around an overall theme rather than a logical narrative or argumentative structure is a modernist technique employed in other arts as well. Here it is combined with the most traditional form of English verse. The overall title is from a collection of poems published by Thomas Hardy in 1917.He is the last representative of a peculiarly English late-Romanticism, described as the last words of a dying protestantism by John Powell Ward in his book, The English Line. That line begins with Milton and only Philip Larkin was to attempt its resuscitation, describing himself as an "Anglican atheist". In Catholic terms, the title represents the moments of vision or contemplation when the pure of heart see God. It is therefore an attempt to redeem the Romantic form and subject through re-establishing the proper relationship of art to religion that I described in the last post.

The 19th Century Beuronese School, An Inspiration for Artists Today?

I have become aware over the last couple of years of contemporary artists looking to the 19th century Beuronese school for inspiration when painting for the liturgy. Time will be ultimate test of how appropriate this is, but my initial reaction is that this is good thing. I thought that I would give some thoughts as to why I think this.

Stylistically, Beuronese school is an interesting cul-de-sac that sits outside the mainstream of the Christian tradition. It is named after the town of Beuron in Germany which is the location of the Benedictine community in which the school originated in the mid-19th century.

The most well known artists who painted in this style in Europe are Desiderius Lenz (d 1928) and Gabriel Wuger (d 1892). In the United States, the walls and the ceiling of the abbey church of the Benedictines at Conception Abbey in Missouri, are decorated primarily with authentic examples of the Beuronese style. The abbey website tells us that the work was done between 1893 and 1897, by several monks of Conception, most notably Lukas Etlin (d. 1927), Hildebrand Roseler (d. 1923), and Ildephonse Kuhn (d. 1921), the latter two of whom had studied art at Beuron.

The original Beuronese artists were reacting against what was the dominant form of sacred art being painted for the churches of the Roman Rite at the time. This dominant style was an overly naturalistic and sentimental form of academic art, the product of the French academies and ateliers. The most well known artist of this decadent form is probably the Frenchman Bougeureaux. (For an in-depth discussion of this over naturalism in academic art read Is Some Sacred Art Too Naturalistic?)

Authentic Christian art has a style that is always a carefully worked out balance of naturalism (sometimes referred to as ‘realism’) and idealism. The naturalism in art tells us visually what is being painted – put simply if you want to paint a man it must look like a man, with a human body and limbs and so on. The idealistic element of the style is a controlled deviation from strict adherence to natural appearances by which the artist reveals invisible truths. The invisible truths that the artist might reveal, though style, are that man has a soul and a spirit that is intellect and will, for example.

It is this deviation from strict ‘photographic’ naturalism that characterizes the style of art (although in reality even a camera lens distorts appearances in a way that causes a photograph to be subtly different from what the eye actually sees). All paintings in any particular tradition will have in common particular methods of controlled abstraction that are carefully worked out to reveal the Christian understanding of what it portrayed. It is through perception of these that we are able to recognise the style. For example, we recognise the iconographic style because of, for example, an enlargement of the eyes, the dimunition of the mouth, and the elongation of the nose, in a particular way. These elements of iconographic style were developed to suggest to the observer a particular characteristics in the person portrayed that are appropriate for a saint.

It is as easy to distort appearances to hide truth and to create the equivalent of a visual lie through style, incidentally. Many advertising hoardings have photographs that are composed and then usually ‘airbrushed’ – that is, deliberately distorted - so as to to exaggerate in an imbalanced way the aspect of sexual attraction (and so, it is believed, sell products). This tells us that it is not enough to stylize, the Christian artist has a great responsbility and must understand deeply how his stylization is going to reveal truth, rather than hide it. If he gets it wrong he can lead souls astray. It's not just what he paints, it's how he paints it. (I hesitated to portray the image, below right, which I see as an example of art that has an anti-ideal. It is about at the limit of what I feel I can show and even then I felt I had to make is small.. Bear in mind it is intended for a children's comic.)

Aware of the deficiencies of the sacred (and mundane art) of their own time, Beuronese art sought to introduce an idealization into their style by seeking inspiration from ancient Egyptian art and from the Greek ideal. Visually it is easy to see the influence of the Egyptian papyri; but in addition the Beuronese artists used a canon of proportion that was said to be derived from that of the ancient Greeks (although this is speculative on their part, given that the canon of Polyclitus is lost). The link between ancient Greek art and Egyptian art is not an unnatural one. Plato praised the Egyptian style and it has been speculated that Greek art from the classical period (around 500 BC) was influenced by Egyptian art. The Beuronese artists themselves were trained in the methods of the19th century atelier and the result is a curious mixture, 19th century naturalism stiffened up, so to speak, by an injection of what they believed to be Egyptian art and Greek geometry.

What of the painting of Beuronese art today? In his encyclical about the sacred liturgy, Mediator Dei, Pius XII made it clear (in paragraph 195) that we should always be open to different styles of art for the liturgy provided any style under consideration: has the right balance of naturalism and idealism (he uses the words ‘realism’ and ‘symbolism’ to refer to these qualities); and that what drives its use is the need of the Christian community and not the whim of the artist or patron. In my experience, the Bueronese style does connect with people today in the right way so that it is appropriate for the liturgy. It has the sufficient naturalism so that one can recognise easily what they are looking at; and sufficient idealism that it does suggest another world beyond this one. Furthermore, contemporary culture does seem to provide naturally enough cultural reference points to allow modern people, even those without a classical education, to relate to this style. Art deco architecture, for example, is also derived from Egyptian styles. Strangely, many might find the Beuronese style with its Egyptian roots more accessible than a traditional icon in the classic Russian style of Andrei Rublev.

I have read an account of the geometric proportions used in the human form in translation of the book written by their main theorist Fr Desiderius Lenz, On the Aesthetic of Beuron. It was so complex that my reaction was that it would be very difficult for any painter to use the canon succesfully in any but very formal poses. As soon as an artist seeks to twist and turn a pose in the image, then the necessary foreshortening requires the painter to use an intuitive sense as to how the more distant parts relate to the nearer. Usually this means that in these cases he is less able to adhere to the cannon of proportion so well. This might account for that fact that when the figures are in less stiff and formal, Bueronese art seems to work less well, in my opinion. To my eye, the more relaxed poses produce art that looks like illustrations from the bible I was given when I was a child. Good in that context, perhaps, but too naturalistic for the liturgy I would say.

The approach of original Beuronese school is idiosyncratic – I do not know of any other Christian style of liturgical art that looked to ancient Egypt for inspiriation. Nevertheless the end result, when done well, does strike me as having something of the sacred to it and being worthy of attention. Perhaps their efforts to control the modern temptation to individual expression have contributed to this too. The school stressed, for example, the value of imitation of prototypes above the production of works originating in any one artist, furthermore the artists collaborated on works and did not sign it once finished.

Note, the icon detail is from a contemporary icon at St John the Baptist, Euless, TX, painted by Vladimir Grygorenk

Below I show some examples of Beuronese art that I think are less successful than the examples above. The first is less formal and ends up looking like a good illustration for a children's bible, but not so good for the liturgy, I suggest.

The next is highly skilled, but a little to close to 19th century naturalism for my liking.

A Pattern for Catholic Education that Places the Liturgy at Its Heart

When I decided I wanted to be an artist, I started to investigate the training that was given traditionally to artists in the past. This involved the study of a number of things: how the skills of the art, painting and drawing for example, were transmitted; the great works of Catholic culture so that the artists understands the tradition in which he is working; and a formation of the person, so that he is open to inspiration, and can apprehend beauty and work beautifully.

This article is an attempt to articulate concisely what I discovered (and describe in greater length in the book the Way of Beauty) - that a formation in beauty, was not only part of a general Catholic education, but in fact was identical with what a general Catholic education ought to be, and so rarely is.

The only difference between an artist's education and any good general education was the vocational element, in this case painting. It occurred to me that this could change according to the particular calling of each person. Then the  rest would benefit every person, regardless of his precise calling in life and could complement all other study and human activity.

I believe also, incidentally, that this is a program that could be also a formation of people as evangelists who can participate in the New Evangelization, shining with the Light of Christ as they go about their daily business.

The content of the syllabus, which I do not describe in detail here is superficially similar to many humanities and liberal arts educations. However, in contrast to many of these existing educations (the ones that I have looked at, at least), it emphasizes in its pedagogical method more strongly what I see as an essential element, that of praxis - putting into practice what is learnt and so developing the faculty of the creativity by creating beautiful things..

The other key element - perhaps the most important - is that of consciously ordering of everything to man's ultimate end and relating it to the highest form of praxis - the worship of God.

Teachers and students alike should be able to make the connection between any element of study and our purpose in life. Then the teachers know the answer to the question, why teach? And students know the answer to the question, why learn? And each will be motivated all the more to fulfill their role.

I will outline the pedagogical method first, and then articulate my understanding of what a Catholic education is. Finally I will list some quotations from Church documents that emphasize the points that I am making in regard to the goal of a Catholic education:

Pedagogical method

1. Wonder - the appreciation of divine beauty The first stage is to inspire in the student a natural and personal response to the divine beauty which is present in creation and in the beautiful works of man in both the culture of faith and the wider culture. This response should be a natural and joyful experience.

2. Intellectual Illumination - imparting knowledge and understanding This aspect examines how the good, the true and the beautiful participate in all that exists and are personified in God. As much as communicating the subjects taught - eg the liberal arts, philosophy and theology - a goal is to train people to think both analytically and synthetically so that we set them on a path of lifelong learning which they can direct themselves. By 'analytically' I mean examining the parts of the subject; by synthetically I mean understanding the whole in the light of what we know about the parts. The broadest synthetic thought is that which places all that we know in the context of our whole human life and its purpose.

3. Praxis 1 - creating a culture of beauty. First by imitating the most beautiful parts of the culture - eg the works of masters, with understanding. Second, by creating original works in art, music, literature etc. and so contributing to the culture.

4. Praxis 2 - participatio actuosa - active participation in the sacred liturgy: the realization of ‘liturgical man’. Teaching people the practice of the worship of God and all it entails. When students take these lessons to heart, participation in the liturgy becomes the ultimate act of creativity, by which they enter into the mystery of the Trinity and by grace participate in the creative love of God.

What is a Catholic education?

The aim of all Catholic education is to offer students a formation that might lead to supernatural transformation in Christ that each might be capable, by God's grace, of movement towards their ultimate end, and of contribution to the good of each society of which each is a member.

All other stated ends in education, for example, the re-ordering of society's culture, of bearing witness to Christ in their surroundings and the training of skills to enable the student to earn a living, while necessary are nevertheless ordered to this ultimate end and achieved in their fullest measure by this supernatural transformation.

It is common in the field of Catholic education to cite the creation of the virtuous person as a goal. This is true, and it is in effect another way of saying the same thing, for the highest virtue is a cardinal virtue, the virtue of religion. According to St Thomas (ST II-II, Q.lxxxi) it is a virtue whose purpose is to render God the worship due to Him as the source of all being and the principle of all government of things. It is a distinct virtue, not merely an aspect of another.

This supernatural transformation, made possible by baptism, is made real by an encounter with the living God. This encounter can happen in many ways but occurs most profoundly and most powerfully in the Eucharist and by it we are made capable in a new way, through God's grace, of loving Him and our fellow man. Love of our fellow man in all its forms is inseparably bound up with love of God: the encounter with God in the Eucharist renews our capacity for love of neighbor; and love of neighbor tends to deepen our participation in the worship of God in the Eucharist.

So profound is this connection between love of God and love of neighbor that there is no authentically human activity - thought or deed, sacred or mundane - that cannot be formed by and ordered to the Eucharist for the better of each person, society and the Church. In this sense the Eucharist is the form (as in guiding principle) of every aspect of the Christian life including all those pertaining to a Catholic school.

Any school or educational institution therefore should ensure that all that goes on is in accord with the end of all education. Accordingly, it should ensure that students are aware that their capacity to be educated and that every aspect of their lives as Christians, whatever their personal goals, will be enhanced when they participate actively in the Eucharist and live a liturgically formed life. This knowledge will help to motivate students in their studies and order all their activities to their personal goals in life, which in turn are ordered to their ultimate end.

Each student should be clearly aware of the profound desirability of a supernatural Christian transformation and, therefore, the need for grace in their education, as in all human activity; and that the Sacred Liturgy is the optimal encounter with Christ in this life that provides for this need. There are many ways that Christ can be encountered, and every activity of a school should be such an encounter of one form or another. However, each encounter, if it is real, points to and is derived from that optimal encounter in Sacred Liturgy. Students should be aware that the fruits of such a transformed Christian life, which are promised to us, are precisely those that a Christian education aims to provide in the ideal.

As well as imparting an understanding of the primary importance of the Sacred Liturgy as the form of their everyday lives and in their education, students need to be given religious instruction so that each, in accordance with his personal situation, might develop a sacramental life that will make the transformation possible. This religious instruction includes principles by which they can develop a harmonious balance of liturgical prayer, both the Mass and the Divine Office, devotional and personal prayer in which the non-liturgical elements are derived from and point to participation in Sacred Liturgy. By this instruction they will know, in theory at least, what is necessary continually to deepen their participation in the sacramental life, with the Eucharist at its heart; and continually to renew and increase their capacity for love of neighbor.

While it may be appropriate for the instruction of what is just described to be given to all in the classroom, the actual participation in the liturgically centered sacramental life must always be one that is voluntary. We must respect each person's God-given freedom to choose. Transformation itself can neither be taught nor enforced: it is derived from a personal and free response to God's love for us. The participation therefore, should be encouraged. Accordingly, the role of the school is to increase the freedom of each person to choose well by enhancing their knowledge of what is good in this regard and giving them, where humanly possible, the power and opportunity do to do so. In accord with this the college should make it a priority to make beautiful and appropriately celebrated Sacred Liturgy available to the students in a beautiful place of worship. Ideally the faculty will lead by example, so that their actions speak of the centrality of the Eucharist in a life well lived.

All subjects included in the curriculum, while not all relating directly to the subject of the Sacred Liturgy, must nevertheless be consistent with these twofold and inter-connected aims of love of God and love of man, consummated in a freely chosen liturgically oriented piety. Each faculty member should be able to explain the reason for the inclusion of the subject taught in the light of these principles and willingly direct the students to its liturgical end.

Moreover, beyond the classroom the college should strive to encourage a culture in which any aspect of community life is in accord with and reinforces its ultimate goals for the students.

Quotations from documents on education:

'A school is a privileged place in which, through a living encounter with a cultural inheritance, integral formation occurs.' (The Catholic School, 26; pub The Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, 1977)

'The proper and immediate end of Christian education is to cooperate with divine grace in forming the true and perfect Christian, that is, to form Christ Himself in those regenerated by Baptism...For precisely this reason, Christian education takes in the whole aggregate of human life, physical and spiritual, intellectual and moral, individual, domestic and social, not with a view of reducing it in any way, but in order to elevate, regulate and perfect it, in accordance with the example and teaching of Christ. Hence the true Christian, product of Christian education, is the supernatural man who thinks, judges and acts constantly and consistently in accordance with right reason illumined by the supernatural light of the example and teaching of Christ; in other words, to use the current term, the true and finished man of character.’ (Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri, 60; Encyclical on Christian Education, 1929, 94, 95, 96)

'The integral formation of the human person, which is the purpose of education, includes the development of all the human faculties of the students, together with preparation for professional life, formation of ethical and social awareness, becoming aware of the transcendental, and religious education. Every school, and every educator in the school, ought to be striving to form strong and responsible individuals, who are capable of making free and correct choices .' (Lay Catholics in Schools: Witnesses to Faith, 17; pub Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, 1982)

'No less than other schools does the Catholic school pursue cultural goals and the human formation of youth. But its proper function is to create for the school community a special atmosphere animated by the Gospel spirit of freedom and charity, to help youth grow according to the new creatures they were made through baptism as they develop their own personalities, and finally to order the whole of human culture to the news of salvation so that the knowledge the students gradually acquire of the world, life and man is illumined by faith.' (Paul VI, Gravissimum Educationis, 8)

'For a true education aims at the formation of the human person in the pursuit of his ultimate end and of the good of the societies of which, as man, he is a member, and in whose obligations, as an adult, he will share.' (Paul VI, Gravissimum Educationis, 1)

'First and foremost every Catholic educational institution is a place to encounter the living God who in Jesus Christ reveals his transforming love and truth' (Benedict XVI, Meeting with Catholic Educators, Catholic University of America, Washington DC, April 2008)

'The true Christian does not renounce the activities of this life, he does not stunt his natural faculties; but he develops and perfects them, by coordinating them with the supernatural. He thus ennobles what is merely natural in life and secures for it new strength in the material and temporal order, no less than in the spiritual and eternal.' (Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri, 60; Encyclical on Christian Education, 1929, 98)

'Since all Christians have become by rebirth of water and the Holy Spirit a new creature so that they should be called and should be children of God, they have a right to a Christian education. A Christian education does not merely strive for the maturing of a human person as just now described, but has as its principal purpose this goal: that the baptized, while they are gradually introduced to knowledge of the mystery of salvation, become ever more aware of the gift of Faith they have received, and that they learn in addition how to worship God the Father in spirit and truth (cf. John 4:23) especially in liturgical action, and be conformed in their personal lives according to the new man created in justice and holiness of truth (Eph. 4:22-24); also that they develop into perfect manhood, to the mature measure of the fullness of Christ (cf. Eph. 4:13) and strive for the growth of the Mystical Body; moreover, that aware of their calling, they learn not only how to bear witness to the hope that is in them (cf. Peter 3:15) but also how to help in the Christian formation of the world that takes place when natural powers viewed in the full consideration of man redeemed by Christ contribute to the good of the whole society.' (Paul VI, Gravissimum Educationis, 2)

'Every form of catechesis would do well to attend to the ‘way of beauty’ (via pulchritudinis). Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful.' (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium)

From documents on the liturgy:

'Nevertheless the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows. For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His Church, to take part in the sacrifice, and to eat the Lord's supper.' (Sacrosanctum Consilium, 10)

'A mystagogical catechesis must be concerned with bringing out the significance of the rites for the Christian life in all its dimensions – work and responsibility, thoughts and emotions, activity and repose. Part of the mystagogical process is to demonstrate how the mysteries celebrated in the rite are linked to the missionary responsibility of the faithful. The mature fruit of mystagogy is an awareness that one's life is being progressively transformed by the holy mysteries being celebrated. The aim of all Christian education, moreover, is to train the believer in an adult faith that can make him a "new creation", capable of bearing witness in his surroundings to the Christian hope that inspires him.' (Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, 64)

"The Sacred Liturgy is not a hobby for specialists. It is central to all our endeavors as disciples of Jesus Christ. This profound reality cannot be over emphasized. We must recognize the primacy of grace in our Christian life and work, and we must respect the reality that in this life the optimal encounter with Christ is in the Sacred Liturgy." (Sacra Liturgia 2013 conference, Rome. Opening address by Bishop Dominique Rey of Frejus-Toulon, France, published in the proceedings of the conference, p15, pub Ignatius, 2013)

'We can thus understand how agape also became a term for the Eucharist: there God's own agape comes to us bodily, in order to continue his work in us and through us. Only by keeping in mind this Christological and sacramental basis can we correctly understand Jesus' teaching on love. The transition which he makes from the Law and the Prophets to the twofold commandment of love of God and of neighbor, and his grounding the whole life of faith on this central precept, is not simply a matter of morality—something that could exist apart from and alongside faith in Christ and its sacramental re-actualization. Faith, worship and ethos are interwoven as a single reality which takes shape in our encounter with God's agape. Here the usual contraposition between worship and ethics simply falls apart. Worship itself, Eucharistic communion, includes the reality both of being loved and of loving others in turn. A Eucharist which does not pass over into the concrete practice of love is intrinsically fragmented.' (Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 14)

'There is nothing authentically human – our thoughts and affections, our words and deeds – that does not find in the sacrament of the Eucharist the form it needs to be lived to the full.' (Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, 71)

'The liturgy is a radiant expression of the paschal mystery, in which Christ draws us to himself and calls us to communion. As Saint Bonaventure would say, in Jesus we contemplate beauty and splendour at their source. (106) This is no mere aestheticism, but the concrete way in which the truth of God's love in Christ encounters us, attracts us and delights us, enabling us to emerge from ourselves and drawing us towards our true vocation, which is love.'' (Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, 35)

'Many manuals and programmes have not yet taken sufficiently into account the need for a mystagogical renewal, one which would assume very different forms based on each educational community’s discernment.' (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 166)

All the photographs are from St Edmund Hall, Oxford. This was established in the 13th century and was named after St Edmund Rich, also known as St Edmund of Abingdon (a town in Oxfordshire), or St Edmund of Canterbury. The design of each building, the layout of the college and still, the rhythms and the patterns of the educational year are all in conformity with a principle that places the worship of God as the highest activity of the student (although I'm guessing that most who now attend are unaware of this). For more detail read the Way of Beauty book.

A Beautiful Icon of the Mother of God

I was trawling the net and saw this in Google images.

I don’t know what you think of it, but I love it. The expressions on the faces show the love between Our Lady and  Our Lord without straying into sentimentalism; the grace, pattern and flow of line in the design is exquisitely handled and in harmonic rhythm, and the color harmony is perfect - bright and attractive, without ever looking like a fluorescent print on a nylon T-shirt.

It took some work and help from others but eventually I found out that it was painted by a Roumanian iconographer called Monica Vasiloaia, you can see her work here.

Beauty and the City - Architecture and Design

Geoff Yovanovic, who will teach a course on the principles of design in architecture for Pontifex University, describes some of the sources of inspiration for his ideas. I have always been fascinated by cities.  While cities have always had a fundamental role in shaping culture, I was always more mesmerized by the towering skyscrapers and sinuous interstates which stretched to the horizon.  The physical form of the city was what captured my imagination.  I followed this natural interest into architecture where I focus primarily on traditional design.  My interest in tradition has grown as I have been able to see past the aesthetic surface of a building and uncover the beauty and truth within the designs.  Through my course on Pontifex, I hope to pass along these discoveries, and foster an appreciation of design that transcends the shock, sensation, and “originality” which passes for most architecture today.

My search for beauty started as an observation in my undergraduate architectural history survey course.  I have always been interested in history so it was natural for me to create a timeline of major historical events and currents in the art world.  It became clear to me that there would be a noticeable change in art during the decades preceding a cultural or political revolution.   In France before the French Revolution, the architecture scraped off the barnacles of the Baroque and substituted a more rational Classical style.  Prior to World War I in Europe, we find the introduction of International Style Modernism.

These observations remained as interesting but unrelated historical currents until I began research for my undergraduate thesis.  I began studying whether architecture was used by the  founding fathers to support their personal political beliefs.  For example, was the Virginia Capitol designed by Thomas Jefferson as an aspiration to the ancient Roman Republic?  It was.  That was the easy question.  Instead, my advisor challenged me to explore a deeper understanding of the Enlightenment ideas that influenced Jefferson’s architecture.  He pressed me even further to look beyond the details and columns.  He taught me to observe how the rational Enlightenment ideas about man’s relationship to the cosmos was subtlety transforming the shape and space created by their architecture.  I first learned of beauty by recognizing its flight from Western art.  And in this recognition, I discovered a fundamental culture shift away from the ideas of the Classical and Catholic world with its inherent embrace of beauty; towards an embrace of the rational and secular world of the Enlightenment.

Viewing this change in architecture from the 21^st century is difficult.  We see that the buildings of that era have columns.  They are built of stone, not glass.  They appear Classical to us.  It is difficult for us to understand how Adolf Loos’ Looshaus in Vienna could have so insulted the sentiments of Emperor Franz Joseph that he would block the windows of his palace in order not to see the building.  But, these buildings were only mile markers in the retreat from a Classical and Catholic view of the cosmos.  We are surrounded and live amidst the yield of this Enlightenment world view.

I will begin to explore many of these themes in upcoming posts.  By highlighting individual examples of buildings and cities, my hope is that I will be able to communicate the truths in the built environment that we all inhabit.  Architecture is more than a style, and beauty is not captive to any specific style.

In my design work, I strive to recover what was discarded.  Like the other artists with Pontifex University, I do not believe that simply returning to the past is a way to transform culture.  I do believe that by learning the lessons of beauty and truth inherent in traditions we can advance our arts and culture.  Originality has become an idol in art and architecture today.  But while designing, I try to heed C.S. Lewis’ advice in the final paragraph of Mere Christianity:

“No man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.” 

One of the things that I realised in my work is that no building ought to be considered in isolation. As soon as it is placed in its environment, it is in relation to it. This may be the countryside, it may be other buildings - as in a city center - but if we want a beautiful environment, then we must take the effect on the context into account when designing buildings. This does not mean, as some interpret this, that every building must be of the same era or the same style, but it does mean that the relationships between the building and its surrounding is as important a consideration as the beauty of the building itself.

It is truth and its sister beauty that I try to incorporate in my design work, and hope to communicate through my Pontifex course on architecture and intend to explore in a series of blog posts over the summer.

Geoff Yovanovic is based in Atlanta where he is a key member of the design team of the architecture firm Norman Davenport Askins, Architect. He is a graduate of the University of Miami and University of Notre Dame architecture schools and is a winner of the Addison Mizner Medal from the Florida Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art in recognition of excellence in classical design. He is also a graduate of my Way of Beauty Summer Atelier at Thomas More College!

A Formation in Beauty - Pontifex.University will Offer a Unique Program of Catholic Studies

How what started as a budding artist’s quest for a formation in beauty and creativity became a manifesto for cultural renewal; and will now be available as a whole program of courses offered by www.Pontifex.University. It’s not just for artists. It's good for anyone looking for creativity and inspiration no matter what they do!

I started to research the material for my book the Way of Beauty about 20 years ago in England, where I am from originally, when I decided I wanted to be an artist to serve the Church. Of course at that stage I didn’t know that it would end up as the material for a book. I was fed up with the art I saw appearing in the churches around me and decided I wanted to do something about it by becoming an artist myself. I was full of the zeal of the newly converted and was on a mission to change the world.

The problem was how to get the necessary training. I knew that no existing art school would give me what I was looking for. I needed the traditional skills and although it was difficult to find people who still taught drawing and painting with rigor, it was just about possible. The real problem was knowing how to direct those skills once I had them.

Two things were necessary for such a formation. First, was a Catholic inculturation, so that I understood how to recognize what it is that makes some forms instrinsically Catholic – the iconographic, the gothic or the baroque styles of art for example; and others instrinsically anti-Christian and anti-Catholic – cubism or abstract expressionism for example.Secondly, I needed a spiritual formation that would develop my sense of the beautiful, and would engender creativity and an openness to inspiration.

No one I knew could tell me enough about either so I started to do my own research into both the traditional understanding of the basis of Catholic culture; and I how artists were trained.

The Way of Beauty contains all the details about what characterizes Catholic art, Catholic culture and the spiritual formation that engenders those personal qualities needed in the creative forces behind such a culture. In short a formation in beauty.

It describes how the worldview of the artist is manifested in the style of his art, for good or ill, by giving an overview of the all the stylistic characteristics of the great artistic traditions of the Church; it describes the mathematical basis of traditional compositional design principles and proportion (explaining why this does not include the Golden Section or the Fibonacci series!). We can see this manifest in the proportions of buildings and in geometric patterned art. The book also describes how the numbers that govern the patterns in art, ar the same as those that govern the pattern of right prayer. It describes the traditional prayer pattern of artists (which happens to be exactly what Pope Benedict XVI recommended for the New Evangelization by the way!)

Although the formation that it describes is, as best as I could discern, the perfect program of Catholic orientation for an artist, I realized that it offered something that would be of interest to many more. Every artist understands the need for inspiration, but in fact I realised that what I had discovered was training in creativity that could be applied to any human pursuit. Man has free will and ultimately, he is free to reject or accept God’s inspiration, but his freedom is increased if he has a greater awareness of what direction that inspiration is guiding him. Furthermore if he follows that inspiration he will flourish in what he does all the more, for it will be in accord with what he is meant to do. This formation could be used, therefore, as a Catholic orientation for any other, more vocational formal education – engineering or science for example. Furthermore, could be general formation for people at all levels of interest, even if they are simply looking for personal enrichment.

If I was going to argue that this formation should be part of everyone’s education, then I would have to know more about the traditional of understanding of the Church of the purpose of education, and what such a general education is comprised. So this set pattern for the next stage of my personal research and what became the first section of my book.

My discovery was exciting. As I read the writings of the Church Fathers, and others such as Newman and the popes since Pius XI on what Catholic education ought to be I found out that this program of inculturation and formation in beauty had always been right at the heart of every Catholic education. It was just that barely anyone around seemed to know it (even amongst those who are serious about being true to the magisterium). Divine wisdom is the goal of education, imparted by supernatural means!

The great Catholic artists were given this training in the past not so much because they artists, but rather because they were Catholics!

After the book came out, I was delighted to be invited to become Provost of  www.Pontifex.University which is a new explicitly Catholic online education platform to recruit teachers and create a program of courses as described in the Way of Beauty as first program. I am so excited about this. Now, this traditional formation in beauty will be widely available as a series of courses for all levels – from Masters level through to those who want to audit for personal enrichment. We are at pilot stage right now, but plan to launch the first part of the program later this year.

Photos from the top: Rembrandt: the Artist in His Studio, 17th century, baroque style; Zurburan: St Francis of Assisi at Prayer, 17th century, baroque style; traditional geometric patterned art in Rome, 13th century with 19th century restoration; Attingham House, 18th century, showing traditional proportion (look at the window sizes!); Fra Angelic: the Annunciation; 15th century gothic style (yes gothic, not Renaissance do - the courses and you'll find out why!)

Catholic Summer Camp in the Catskills, run by IVE, May 22-26

It's short notice but Fr Brian Dinkel of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, IVE, sent me this flyer for a 4-day summer camp in the Catskills of New York State. It is for young adults and college students. The topic is 'The Mystery of Man'. It takes place May 22-26 and it costs just $70.00 for the four days. You can register at www.iveamerica.org or email ive.universitas@gmail.com for more information. It takes place at IVE's St. Patrick’s Retreat Center, 19 Sunside Rd., Cairo, NY