April 11, 2004

Opening to reality

Good religious art has the effect of breaking through our day-to-day blur.

As I write, we’re six days from Easter, preparing to celebrate the Passion and in short order the glory of the Resurrection. And now that I’m part of a church choir, Holy Week means more to me.

When we read or hear the familiar Gospel events proclaimed, the pace is rapid, moving us from scene to scene without a pause. But in song, we have time to pause, to dwell on each moment: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”; “O my people, what have I done to you? How have I offended you?”; “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam which gained for us so great a redeemer”; and so on.

As many have commented, scenes from the film The Passion of the Christ now color our images of Christ’s suffering and death. When we recently sang the “Stabat Mater” (the account of Mary’s standing by the cross, weeping), new pictures of the Madonna appeared to me, deepening the meaning of the words.

Religious art—whether visual or musical—stirs us, helps make real what can so easily become abstract with familiarity and repetition. Indeed, imagery has power, as both artists and advertisers know.

Surprising the critics and probably director Mel Gibson too, The Passion was No. 1 at the box office for more than three weeks and now stands in 10th place among the top-grossing domestic movies of all time.

Clearly, millions were willing to take a gamble on this movie, despite the initial buzz that branded it an anti-Semitic gore-fest. I can’t remember a movie that’s come up in more conversations.

It’s obvious the movie’s imagery touched people profoundly. Why not use this moment to open ourselves to other religious art as well?

I’ve just been reading about the late-16th-century Italian painter Caravaggio—whose works reportedly helped inspire Mr. Gibson’s portrayal of the Passion. An art website described Caravaggio as “probably the most revolutionary artist of his time” because of the realism of his works. He was fiercely criticized for abandoning the more idealized style of his predecessors, and his art shocked people. I can believe it: I gasped when first viewing his painting “The Incredulity of St. Thomas,” which shows Thomas poking his finger into the side of the risen Christ.

Engaging our senses and emotions, art takes us out of our day-to-day blur and opens us to reality, which I suppose explains why the Catholic Church is historically the greatest patron of the arts.

As the Catechism puts it, “Arising from talent given by the Creator and from man’s own effort, art is a form of practical wisdom, uniting knowledge and skill, to give form to the truth of reality in a language accessible to sight or hearing” (No. 2501).