When speaking of my faith journey, I have referred to myself, only partly in jest, as a “revert,” as opposed to a convert. A revert is a cradle Catholic who ventured off and then swam back across the Tiber, returning home to Rome and the loving embrace of Holy Mother Church.
At a particularly crucial time for me, I was talking with a friend who was a Benedictine monk, a man who had helped save my life. I spent a few minutes telling him my doubts about the faith, then said, “But do you think it’s OK to go to Mass for no other reason than it is beautiful?” With a wry grin he said, yes, he thought that was OK.
What he knew and I didn’t was that eventually I would come back to the Catholic Church for good. But I did so less because of theology and more because of beauty – beauty in a sense which is hard to describe because it is so tied to theology. There is first the beauty of the theological precepts that serve as the foundation of our faith: grace, incarnation and transubstantiation. I refer also to the sacraments themselves, to the angels, and to the Communion of Saints, those canonized and those springing forth into eternity from our own homes. All these theological notions are, to be sure, beautiful.
They come alive in visual art, in music, in poetry, in the movements of sacred ritual and custom that guide our worship and, in particular, in the Mass itself. Once I began to contemplate these tangible forms of beauty, the connections between beauty and faith began to inform my mind and heart on a deeper level.
I remembered as a young man traveling in Europe and standing before astounding masterpieces of religious art. At the Galleria dell’Accademia, in Florence, I walked down a hallway of unfinished Michelangelo sculptures to the prize in the rotunda at the end: David, the most impressive statue I could ever imagine.
At one museum I saw, on a wall two rooms opposite from where I had entered, a face that drew me in. I skipped the two rooms of priceless art and went directly to El Greco’s portrait of Christ. Something reached inside me that would take decades to unfold.
The classical music of Christendom reverberates in the acoustics and ambiance of high-ceilinged sanctuaries. From Gregorian chant to Mozart Masses, the faith found witness and expression in beautiful, stirring sound. And yet I have also heard reverential joy in the celebratory jazz Mass composed by Dave Brubeck. In the sad chords of the blues, I have heard the lonely walk of Christ to His cross.
Dana Gioia, a contemporary Catholic poet and scholar, has charted some of the characteristics of artists expressing a Catholic worldview. For instance, Flannery O’Connor, one of the foremost short story writers of the 20th century, very seldom wrote about Catholics but embodied in her work a kind of mysticism and sacramentality representative of that worldview. In “The Catholic Writer Today,” Gioia identifies those traits as a focus on “humanity struggling in a fallen world”; a “longing for grace and redemption with a deep sense of human imperfection and sin”; a view of reality as being “mysteriously charged with the invisible presence of God”; and a “mystical sense of continuity between the living and the dead.” This is the beauty sought by a Catholic worldview.
Then there are the poets, going back to the Psalms, to the poetic flares of St. Paul in his letters, to Dante Alighieri and his “Divine Comedy,” up to Gerard Manley Hopkins in modern times. The 21st century has seen poets such as Czesław Miłosz (Poland), Paul Claudel (France), Seamus Heaney and Patrick Kavanaugh (Ireland), Denise Levertov and Paul Mariani (U.S.) and, of course, Dana Gioia himself.
The crowning achievement, however, of high art and theology coming together would have to be the Mass itself. The Holy Sacrifice has history, from the catacombs to our current controversies. I am one of the last of a generation to serve the Traditional Latin Mass as a child, so I did have a taste of it. With the Novus Ordo, a different culture emerged. Some say perhaps we sacrificed beauty for utility, although there were truly legitimate and even beautiful trade-offs.
I fear, however, that instead of promoting unity within the Church, Pope Francis’ recent document “Traditionis Custodes” may do anything but that by placing limitations on “extraordinary” liturgies. Yes, some have used the Traditional Latin Mass as a platform for their rejection of Vatican II. And yes, sometimes the “piety” of Traditional Latin Mass enthusiasts comes across as manufactured, with a twist of condescension. But I have a feeling most of those with a new or renewed interest in the Traditional Latin Mass are young people who never had the chance to attend one as a kid and who are seeking what I was seeking when I asked if I could go to Mass because it was beautiful.
Souls yearn for beauty. Just as I have experienced the exquisite beauty of our faith in many varied expressions, I hope we will still be able to experience the Traditional Latin Mass as a singular embodiment of theology and beauty, wedded to symbolism, reverence and humility.
Seeing what stirs people and responding in charity seems the right approach – with the Novus Ordo and the Traditional Latin Mass; with the wealth of varied artistic expression in visual art, music and literature informed by a Catholic worldview; with our need for transcendence; with an appreciation and love for the greatest poem there is, the Incarnation. Let us all find a way to revert to beauty.
Fred Gallagher is an author and editor-in-chief with Gastonia-based Good Will Publishers Inc.