On Wednesday Pope Benedict XVI challenged the men and women of today’s world to recover
the deepest meaning of art, in its multitude of expressions, but particularly as the
path of beauty which leads to God. And in doing so he also shared personal memories
of how art had moved him to God with the five thousand pilgrims gathered for the general
audience in the tiny village of Castel Gandolfo.
He said “On several occasions
during this period, I have recalled the need for every Christian to find time for
God, for prayer, amid the many occupations of our daily lives. The Lord Himself gives
us many opportunities to remember Him. Today I will touch briefly on one of these
channels that can bring us to God and also be of help in encountering Him: it is the
path of artistic expression, part of that "path of Beauty ", of which I have spoken
several times and which man today should recover in its deepest meaning”.
Pope
Benedict continued "perhaps sometimes, before a sculpture, a painting, a few verses
of a poem or a song, you have experienced deep within an intimate emotion, a sense
of joy, that is, you have clearly perceived that in front of you there was not only
mere matter, a piece of marble or bronze, a painted canvas, a series of letters or
a combination of sounds, but something bigger, something that speaks, capable of touching
the heart, of communicating a message; of elevating the soul. "
"Works of
art are the fruit of human creativity, which question the visible reality, trying
to discover its deep meaning and to communicate it through the language of shapes,
colours, sounds." The work of art, in short, "is an open door on the infinite," which
"opens the eyes of the mind, of the heart."
However, he added, “there are
artistic expressions that are true paths to God, the supreme Beauty, indeed they help
nurture our relationship with Him in prayer. These are works that are born of faith
and express faith. One example of this is when we visit a Gothic cathedral; we are
enraptured by the vertical lines that shoot up towards the sky and draw our eyes and
our spirits upwards, while at the same time, we feel small, and yet eager for fullness
... Or when we enter a Romanesque church: we are spontaneously invited to recollection
and prayer. We feel as if the faith of generations were enclosed in these splendid
buildings. Or, when we hear a piece of sacred music that vibrates the strings of our
heart, our soul expands and helped to turn to God. A concert of music by Johann Sebastian
Bach, in Munich, directed by Leonard Bernstein, again comes to my mind. After the
last piece of music, one of the Cantate, I felt, not by reasoning, but in my
heart, that what I heard had conveyed to me truth, something of the truth of the great
composer’s faith and this pressed me to praise and thank the Lord and beside me was
the Lutheran Bishop of Munich and spontaneously, feeling this, I said to him, you
know, its true, a faith and beauty so strong irresistibly expresses the presence
and truth of God".
Pope Benedict then spoke of how certain artists have touched
our lives : "How many times have paintings or frescoes, the fruit of the faith of
the artist, in their forms, their colours, their light, encouraged us to direct our
thoughts to God and nourished in us the desire to draw from the source of all beauty.
What the great artist, Marc Chagall, once wrote remains true, that for centuries painters
have dipped their paintbrush in that coloured alphabet that is the Bible. How many
times, then can artistic expressions be occasions to remind us of God, to help our
prayer or for the conversion of the heart! Paul Claudel, a poet, playwright, and French
diplomat, in the Basilica of Notre Dame in Paris, in 1886, while he was listening
to the singing of the Magnificat at Christmas Mass, felt God's presence. He had not
entered the church for reasons of faith, but to in search of arguments against Christians,
and instead the grace of God worked in his heart".
The Holy Father concluded:
“I invite you to rediscover the importance of this path for prayer, for our living
relationship with God. The cities and towns all over the world preserve works of art
that express the faith and remind us of our relationship with God. Visiting places
of art, it is not only an occasion for cultural enrichment, but above all it can be
a moment of grace, an encouragement to strengthen our relationship and our dialogue
with the Lord, to stop and contemplate, in the transition from simple external reality
to a deeper reality, the ray of beauty that strikes us, that almost wounds us in our
inner selves and invites us to rise towards God. "
And then he greeted all
English speaking pilgrims present: I am pleased to greet the English-speaking pilgrims
and visitors here today, especially those from Scotland and Malta. Today we reflect
on the need to draw near to God through the experience and appreciation of artistic
beauty. Art is capable of making visible our need to go beyond what we see and it
reveals our thirst for infinite beauty, for God. Dear friends, I invite you to be
open to beauty and to allow it to move you to prayer and praise of the Lord. May
Almighty God bless all of you! Listen to Emer McCarthy's report: