BEAUTY, ART, PRIESTS, MORE!: Barbara Nicolosi of Church of the Masses addresses people who work in the formation of seminarians. Tons of great stuff. Here are some quotes that spoke especially strongly to me: “…I have no business talking to you about how to form priests–but I can speak about some of what we have come to in trying to form artists and in the same way that we are trying to realize the priesthood of the artist, perhaps you can begin to brood over the artisthood of the priest? …

“Of course, the arts are also inadequate. People told me that the movie The Passion of the Christ was too much for them. Without getting into a discussion of the artistic merit of the film, it is still worth saying that, as bad as all the violence was in the film, it still doesn’t even come near to representing with any accuracy, the horror of one venial sin. …

“[Pope John Paul II] goes on to make the pretty radical statement–particularly in this moment of ecclesial and artistic ‘disengagement’–that art is not just an object that proceeds from theological brooding, but is actually a source of theology.

“That is, if you don’t reference the arts when you are studying the Annunciation, for example, in theology, you are missing other layers of meaning. You need to listen to the movements in Bach’s Gesu, Word of God to more completely ‘get’ the Incarnation. I love this. It points to the fact that the sacred artists is as much a vehicle of divine inspiration as are theologians. …

“‘The Church that marries the spirit of the age is a widow in the next generation.’ (Dean William Inge) …

“Beauty makes us homesick for heaven. It is a ‘holy sadness.’ …

“Beauty is expensive to produce: time, details, talent, money. The little things like getting the lighting just right, having the flowers arranged, rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing. You are going to have to pay your artists to practice and produce. (My sister is a professional opera singer. She used to get $100 a week to cantor at the local Episcopalian church which has an endowed chair for a mezzo soprano. At our parish church, they want to pay her $40 a week, and as she has said to me wth a shrug, ‘And they want me to sing crap.’

“It has to be said. Much of the art we are making as a Church is ugly and painful. It has the opposite effect that it should. There is a problem when the Church is singing music that would be better suited to an episode of Barney, and Nora Jones is singing music that stings people to the heart.”

more!