The Need for Beauty in our Churches and Schools

“Art imitates life.” That’s true, no doubt, but the converse is also true, and more frightening:  that “Life imitates art.” The technological know-how to produce stunning HD video, the ability of advertisers to manipulate our emotions through images, colors, sound, and music, the use of headlines to provoke us to “click” on a link —all conspire to manipulate us and appeal to our lesser angels, the voyeuristic part. Our attitudes and values are "artfully" shaped by those who wish to sell us something, creating a culture that sweeps us and everyone else downstream, 

This cultural current can not be resisted merely by force of will. We need God’s grace to overcome our creaturely vices. 

But we also need beauty—to see it and to immerse ourselves in it. We are not philosophers who revel in the abstract; rather, we must see, touch, taste and smell. 

This is the reason for our sacramental tradition, that through the “portal” of physical signs we are drawn into the invisible world,  so as to experience God’s love and mercy for us.  It is why we build churches and cathedrals, filled with sculptures, artwork and stained glass windows: to avert our eyes from the mud wrestlers, the broken and the profane, and to instead help us contemplate “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, excellent or praiseworthy.” (Philippians 4:8). 

May our Churches and our schools inspire more artists, and may these artists bring us more fully into the world of the beautiful! Therein is God.