Doesn’t it Cost Too Much To Make Things Beautiful?

Why a culture of beauty pays off both economically and spiritually

On the whole, the beauty of artifacts is a function of design rather than materials. This means that, contrary to what many believe, mass production and industrialization are not processes that automatically create ugly products. It is as easy to mass produce something beautiful as it is something ugly. The ugliness of today’s culture is not driven by economics, but rather by poor design, because artists and designers are no longer aware of how traditional values are manifested in design, or else because they deliberately reject those values. A large basilica built in modern design is typically more expensive than one built in, say, a traditional Romanesque design, as evidenced by the recent building of the Neo-Romanesque church of St Mary in Kansas, which compares favorably with say, Los Angeles cathedral. 

The Immaculata church at St Mary’s Kansas. This is still under construction.

Sometimes the cost can be greater but not because designing beautifully is intrinsically more costly, but rather because, particularly for lower priced housing which might ordinarily rely on mass produced units, the current templates of mass productions, e.g., for window dimensions, are not reflective of traditional harmony and proportion.  But this could change in time if the demand for better proportioned units increases . Furthermore, even if greater cost is incurred before we reach that point, it is an investment that pays off economically. Houses that are now being built in traditional proportions typically have a higher price on the open market that more than offsets any additional costs in their building. This was the experience of building the experimental village in Dorset, Poundbury, which is an urban extension of the larger town of Dorchester.

I would argue that if we wish also to consider the souls of those who use what we create, then we must endeavor to make beautiful objects, and to do so in a cost effective manner. An ‘investment’ in the souls of men will always pay off. For example, when faced with the dilemma about whether or not money should be spent on beautiful churches and sacred art, some object and say that it would be better given to the poor.

This is an old but false argument that I would counter as follows: consider the Gospel account of Martha, Mary and Judas (John 12, 1-9). The two women acted as hostesses, Mary washed Jesus’s feet with expensive nard, while Martha attended to the other guests’ need. Judas, who was the keeper of the funds for the apostle, also complained that the money spent on expensive nard would be better given to the poor.

Tintoretto, Italian 16th century: Martha and Mary with Christ in Bethany, with Judas looking on,

Here is a lesson about allocation of resources: Mary made the right choice, we were told, in choosing Christ even before giving to the poor. There is an equivalent choice facing us today every time we have to decide about having beautiful churches and art, intricate vestments, ornate jewel-studded chalices and so on. Is it right to direct money to these things when there is poverty? The answer is yes, when these things, through the liturgy, elevate the souls of the faithful to Christ. This is greater than giving these resources to the poor directly. Why would we say this?

First, all of us, rich or poor, can go to church and we all need our souls saved. So in church the poor benefit from this spiritually as much as the rich do. Beauty is a common-good equally available, and equally beneficial, to all who encounter it, rich and poor alike.

But second, the poor will benefit materially as well. Faith inspires charity and so it will inspire the rich to give to the poor directly. Furthermore , it will allow for the creation of greater wealth for the benefit of the poor in such a way that their dignity is elevated. This is the principle of superabundance at work. Superabundance is the creation of something out of nothing, or of more from less. The Christian life, lived according to the principle of love is always fruitful in so many ways – and when it is it invokes the principle of superabundance.

Benedict XVI speaks of this principle of superabundance through charity in the economic sphere in his encyclical, Caritas in veritate (CV). He tells us how love might be present even in the ordinary economic transaction. When it is, it not only creates wealth, as all economic transactions do, but also builds up the dignity of all concerned, for even economic transactions suffused with love are raised to a level that goes beyond the material. A community is created which through every interaction, including the economic, builds up the dignity of those involved and in turn generates greater material wealth by encouraging more economic activity.   

Benedict writes:  

“Because it is a gift received by everyone, charity in truth is a force that builds community, it brings all people together without imposing barriers or limits. The human community that we build by ourselves can never, purely by its own strength, be a fully fraternal community, nor can it overcome every division and become a truly universal community. The unity of the human race, a fraternal communion transcending every barrier, is called into being by the word of God-who-is-Love. In addressing this key question, we must make it clear, on the one hand, that the logic of gift does not exclude justice, nor does it merely sit alongside it as a second element added from without; on the other hand, economic, social and political development, if it is to be authentically human, needs to make room for the principle of gratuitousness as an expression of fraternity.

“35. In a climate of mutual trust, the market is the economic institution that permits encounter between persons, inasmuch as they are economic subjects who make use of contracts to regulate their relations as they exchange goods and services of equivalent value between them, in order to satisfy their needs and desires. The market is subject to the principles of so-called commutative justice, which regulates the relations of giving and receiving between parties to a transaction. But the social doctrine of the Church has unceasingly highlighted the importance of distributive justice and social justice for the market economy, not only because it belongs within a broader social and political context, but also because of the wider network of relations within which it operates. In fact, if the market is governed solely by the principle of the equivalence in value of exchanged goods, it cannot produce the social cohesion that it requires in order to function well.” (CV, 34)

A Church whose liturgy inspires holiness will inspire an atmosphere of mutual trust that Benedict speaks of.

During his papacy, Pope Francis has made headlines with regular calls to charity towards the poor, citing St Francis of Assisi as a model. To this day, the Franciscan order is characterized by a mission of charity for the poor. But it should not be forgotten that St Francis was commissioned by God to rebuild Christ’s Church, and he did both lovingly and beautifully, for both missions, ministering to the poor and building up the Church, are connected. We must not forget that the regeneration of the Church that St Francis of Assisi inspired involved a powerful cultural renewal too. This was the Church that inspired Franciscans to help the poor. So many of the great artists from the time of Francis were third order Franciscans or were commissioned by Franciscans to work on their churches – Giotto, Cimabue, Simone Martini, Raphael, Michelangelo. There is no austerity in the Franciscan churches of the past - the basilica at Assisi is richly decorated from floor to ceiling.  

The interior of the Basilica of St Francis of Assisi. The Franciscan order felt that there is no contradiction between spending money on such decoration, and care for the poor.

If we are to help the poor of America, we must begin as the Franciscans did in medieval Italy, by transforming the Church into one that has beautiful liturgy and beautiful art and architecture. This will in turn evangelize the culture and change all men’s hearts so that they are more inclined to help the poor  as part of their own community. It will also create a national culture that will foster the rise in mutual trust by which the economy will grow in such a way that the poor will have jobs and greater dignity; in other words, they will cease to be poor.

Respect for Tradition is Vital if We Want a Culture of Beauty

Without it we have nothing to guide us

The traditional assumption is that when we apprehend beauty in the world around us, we are discerning a property that belongs to the objects regarded. Consistent with this, we call beauty an objective quality. This is to distinguish it from the subject - the person who views the object and makes a judgement on its beauty.

The strongest argument in favor of this assertion, I would say, is that when the assumption of the objectivity of beauty was broadly accepted, the culture that emerged from that society was more beautiful that it is today. Each of you ask yourself: which art, architecture or music is the most beautiful? Most people pick something from the past when people believed this. Similarly, I might ask which part of Oxford do the 10 million visitors visit each year? Or which part of Florence do similar number of tourists go to look at? Is it the part of town with the old buildings with designs rooted in the assumption of objective beauty and incorporating traditional harmony and proportion, or the new buildings built sine WW2 by architects who abandoned the old principles. It is the former. If you do not agree with me on this, you are entitled to your opinion, and you are very unlikely to accept the rest of my argument.

Would you rather pay for a holiday in Florence to see the Duomo…?

….or this 21st century student accommodation?

To categorize beauty as an objective quality is not to say that everyone makes the same judgements. Clearly there is a subjective element too, because we see differences in opinion from person to person on what is beautiful.

When there is a difference of opinion, one might ask, how do we know who is right? What standard is there to help us make such a judgement?

This is not an easy question to answer. In another context, if we were considering the morality of someone’s action for example, we might look to the Magisterium or to Scripture directly for an authoritative judgement. We can know that murder is wrong because Scripture tells us so!

However, there are no equivalent ‘Ten Commandments of beauty’ that God has revealed to us. As a consequence, it is usually fruitless to attempt to make rational arguments that one thing is more beautiful than another, or that my judgment is more accurate than yours, because there is no accepted visible standard that we can use to back up such a claim.

What about those criteria already mentioned - integrity, clarity and due proportion - some might ask? Can’t I apply these criteria to get a definitive answer?

These can help to a degree, but the difficulty here is that we still have to make a personal judgment on the degree of integrity, clarity and due proportion that the object possesses, and so are effectively left with the same difficulty, except multiplied by three!

The capacity of unaided human reason to judge beauty is so variable that we cannot be sure of the validity of any single judgment.

All is not lost, however; just because it is difficult to be sure that any single human judgement is good, it doesn’t mean that we have no measure at all. We know that human nature is drawn to beauty just as it is drawn to the common good, and so we can look at the broad pattern of likes and dislikes of most people over time in a society to consider what is beautiful. We might term this the ‘common taste’ and it is analogous to concepts such as common sense, common law and the highest of these, the common good.

This ‘common taste’ or, put another way, the common sense of what is beautiful, is that standard that emerges over time, and in the consideration of most people in a society. Another word for this common taste over generations is tradition. As an aspect of the culture, the artistic traditions of a society can vary from society to society even while retaining universal principles. So, for example, within the iconographic tradition of sacred art, each national church will tend to develop it’s own style: Greek icons are distinct from Russian icons, which are in turn distinct from English Romanesque icons.

The best way to decide if a piece of art is beautiful, therefore, is to ask what tradition tells us about it. If something has been considered beautiful by many people for a long period of time, there is a greater chance that it is beautiful than for those objects which only a few people appreciate for a short period of time. Tradition is not an infallible guide, but more reliable than a panel of elite intellectuals in a university art department!

In consulting tradition, we consider the society for whom a beautiful object was intended. So we would say that the cosmos was made for all men to behold and so if we want to consider whether or not the cosmos is objectively beautiful we ask ourselves if generally, men have thought that it was.

Similarly, when we look at sacred art, the best guide to the goodness of the style is consideration of the impact that it has on the worshipers in the churches for whom it was intended. Does it on the whole draw people to God as hoped? The pool of people to draw on in this latter category is much smaller than ‘all men’ and so the reliability of the judgment of the effect will be less certain, but nevertheless it is still the best that we have.

Popular culture vs tradition

This appeal to general opinion is likely to disturb some readers who, sensing that popular art and culture is low-brow and superficial, worry about an overreliance on democracy and popularity. However, if we give at least as much weight to the past as to the present, we have a good chance of overcoming the vagaries of fashion. Much of what is popular today will not even be known by the next generation. Some popular items will remain known and appreciated in subsequent generations, however, and it is these are more likely to be truly beautiful. Chesterton called this approach of considering both past and present opinion, the ‘democracy of the dead’. The more we look at the art that transcends its own time and has been considered beautiful by many people in the society for whom it was intended, the greater chance we have of being able to choose the best.

I would argue that we should be so respectful of tradition that in judging the best art we should adopt a general principle referred to by Benedict XVI as a ‘hermeneutic of continuity.’ By this principle, the default position is always with tradition. We assume that tradition has the best answer, the best content, the best style, unless we have compelling evidence that it does not. If current needs are identical to those of the past, we conform to tradition. Where needs are different, it must respond in accordance with the needs of the community (not to the mere whim of the artist). This principle was articulated in a different way by Pius XII in the encyclical Mediator Dei when he said the following:

What we have said about music, applies to the other fine arts, especially to architecture, sculpture and painting. Recent works of art which lend themselves to the materials of modern composition, should not be universally despised and rejected through prejudice. Modern art should be given free scope in the due and reverent service of the church and the sacred rites, provided that they preserve a correct balance between styles tending neither to extreme realism nor to excessive “symbolism,” and that the needs of the Christian community are taken into consideration rather than the particular taste or talent of the individual artist. (195)

These principles guide our judgment. There is room for much variation, and individual expression and taste even while remaining in conformity to the principles that Pius articulates. This is true of all artistic traditions. They conform to principles which can be applied differently according to different needs. This is not the same thing as having unbending rules that cannot be adapted to different situations. Indeed it is the mark of a living tradition that it can always adapt to contemporary needs without contravening the principles that define it. It is clear that Pius XII understood this.

Would you be more excited about studying here, Magdalen College, Oxford?

...or here, at Oxford’s 20th century Mathematical Institute, on the right?

Oh Happy Fault! God Permits Ugliness in the World So That Its Beauty Can Be Even Greater

Gargoyles and dissonant chords have a role in our appreciation of beauty, through the ancient Via Pulchritudinis Negativa - the Way of Beauty by Negation.

If beauty is good, and ugliness is the absence of beauty, then isn’t ugliness always bad? The answer is yes…generally. However, if we accept that all that is bad is permitted by God so that a greater good can arise from it, then this principle must apply to ugliness too. That is, that ugliness is present in this world so that a greater beauty can arise from it.

This was the view of some medieval commentators, who believed that the juxtaposition of ugliness and beauty can be used to enhance our ability to apprehend what is beautiful. For example the Irish Neo-Platonist philosopher John Scotus Eriugina wrote in the 9th century AD: 

For anything that is considered deformed in itself as part of a whole not only becomes beautiful in the totality, because it is well ordered, but is also a cause of Beauty in general; thus wisdom is illuminated by the relation to foolishness, knowledge by comparison with ignorance, which is merely imperfection and wanting, life by death, light by the opposition of shadows, worthy things by the lack of praise for them, and to be brief, all virtues only win praise by comparison with the opposite vices but without this comparison they would not be worthy of praise...As is the case with a beautiful painting, for example. For all that is ordered according to the design of divine Providence is good, beautiful and just. Indeed what could be better than the fact that the comparison of opposites lets us sing the ineffable praises of both the universe and the Creator?

De divisione naturae, V; quoted in The History of Beauty by Umberto Eco. 

Johns Scotus Eriugina depicted on the Irish 5-pound note.

One might perhaps think of this as a sort of apophatic aesthetics. We approach the apprehension of Beauty by contrast with what it is not. This is analogous to apophatic theology (apophatic is Greek for negation), alternatively referred to as the via negativa (in Latin the ‘road of negation.’) These are commonly used terms for a way of approaching God that emphasizes His unknowability and the inadequacy of positive theological attributes to define Him. By the via negativa we describe God by referring to what he is not. For example, He is not finite, rather he is infinite; He is not bound by time, rather He is eternal. By this principle, we can also follow what one might call the via pulchritudinis negativa - the Way of Beauty by Negation - help us apprehend beauty.

Artists and musicians have applied this principle creatively through centuries.

As a general principle, artists will know that in a painting if everything is in accord with a perfectly idealized template or pattern it tends to look sterile and dull. When he introduces judiciously small and occasional deviations and aberrations, however, suddenly the whole work looks richer and more interesting and, paradoxically, more perfect. As an artist, I aim to paint things that incorporate principles of order, symmetry, harmonious proportions, and balance in the application of tone and color. Nevertheless, I always introduce anomalies that subtly break free of a rigid application of the idealized pattern in small details because I have found that it adds to the beauty of the whole.

Through centuries, artists who paint in Christian figurative traditions have always deviated from strict adherence to natural appearances. This partial abstraction is present in all authentic Christian art. The fact that we recognize that a piece of art conforms to, say, the iconographic, the gothic or baroque styles is because artists deviates from strict naturalism in accepted ways. The fact that when we look at traditional paintings in these styles and typically it doesn’t even think of this partial abstraction as ugly distortion is testament to how well traditional practices employ the via pulchritudinis negativa to raise the beauty of the painting.

Christ Pantocrator, by the 20th century iconographer Gregory Kroug

Similarly, when a virtuoso musician plays a piece of music, they do not play precisely what the composer has written down. So when Glenn Gould plays Bach, or Alfred Brendel plays Bach, they deviate subtly from the precise rendition of the score, lagging slightly in the rhythm here, leading slightly there, as they interpret the score. These tiny subtle aberrations contribute to what becomes a brilliant interpretation of the piece as a whole. And again, if we are even aware of what the pianist is doing, the effect is so powerful that we never interpret his variations as mistakes. It is often said that the greatest artists, musicians and composers master the rules and then know how to break them. I would say that in fact, they are not breaking the rules, rather, they are transcending them. By this I mean that they understand that such rules are simply man’s attempt to capture the beauty of an ideal and will be incomplete. They are necessary, but can only get us so close. The virtuoso intuits the ideal to which the rules are directing us, but which they cannot capture completely.

So we see gargoyles in Gothic cathedrals, which are skillfully and intricately carved distorted figures arising from the imagination of the mason that add to the overall beauty of the edifice.

A gargoyle from Salisbury Cathedral

Similarly, when illuminating manuscripts, monks would deliberately introduce ‘mistakes’. The reason often given is that this reflects an acknowledgement that man cannot match the perfection of God; this helps to remind us that even the ‘perfect’ version that would have been produced without the deliberate mistake cannot in fact match the perfection of God. To the modern eye is is difficult to see the ‘mistake’, but the beauty of the whole is still apparent.

A folio from the Lindisfarne Gospel

Continue Reading this Article. . .

St Vincent de Paul

Today is the memorial of St Vincent de Paul (1581 - 1660). He was born in France, and his story is colorful, to put it mildly. As a boy, he was captured and enslaved by Turks, but escaped because he converted his master, and they both went to France. He is remembered as someone who devoted his whole life to the service of the poor, but this meant so much more than simply giving alms. He was aware that all people have both material and spiritual needs, and to support his work he founded a congregation of priests for missionary work, groups of laymen to help paupers and galley-slaves, and, with St Louise de Marillac, the Sisters of Charity.  See the article about him in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

Here are three very different images of him to aid reflection. First, an 18th century Baroque style portrait; second, a statue in the Parisian church that bears his name, where he lived much of his life; and third a wax effigy that contains relics. 

When I reflect on how his work was directed to the needs of the whole person, body and soul, I am struck by the fact that all people, rich and poor, need so much more than basic material needs. Where there is a lack of human love, which speaks of God’s love, there is no dignity. We all need an environment that speaks of God’s love, and that environment is furnished by a culture of beauty.

The measure of our success in this is not that the poorest part of the city is as wealthy as the richest. Equality of outcome is neither possible nor desirable. It is measured, rather, when the poorest parts of our cities are as beautiful as the wealthiest. This will be the outward sign that all, both poor and rich, live in dignity and are at home in the world; and that we are a society that really does care about their lives of the least amongst us, both in this world and the next.

Currently we are moving towards the polar opposite: every part of the city is as steadily becoming as ugly as every other. The richest part of town looks like a 1960s housing project; I refer you to my post last week on the new buildings on the Princeton Univ. campus. This is a sign that for all the rhetoric, our society has little regard for anyone, and assumes that once material needs are met, nothing else matters.

This first step to changing this is, as it was in the past, the building of beautiful churches that are open to all. When that element is missing, it is usually a sign that everything else that is important is absent too. When I think of our inner cities and their poorest neighborhoods today, I think we have a long way to go before we can consider ourselves a Great Society. As usual I have to start with myself and ask, what am I doing?

It is my struggle to answer this question satisfactorily that makes this week’s article so short.

St Vincent, please pray for me.

Scala Foundation - Playing a Crucial Role in the Evangelization of the Culture and Breaking the Mould of Education

Attend the spring conference: Art, the Sacred, and the Common Good, at Princeton, NJ, April 30th, 2022. Free to register and attend.

I want to highlight the work of Margarita Suarez Mooney who is the founder and CEO of the SCALA Foundation (named from the Latin word for ladder). The Scala Foundation’s mission is to renew American culture by restoring beauty and wisdom to the liberal arts. Scala’s seminars, reading groups, conferences, summer programs, and online resources help educators and culture creators engage the millennia-old tradition of liberal arts education and its power to form virtuous, purpose-driven citizens, form young leaders who are pivotal agents of cultural renewal, and build communities of like-minded cultural entrepreneurs and magnify their impact.

Some may remember that I recently spoke on the Scala webinar, listen here. She has also invited me to be on a panel for the SCALA 2022 conference - Art, the Sacred, and the Common Good - in Princeton NJ this April, which is free to attend.

The focus of Scala is in creating creative communities at a local level that are able to contribute to Catholic education locally and to the culture through the creation of art, music, literature etc (eg she organizes writers' workshops).

It occurs to me that Scala is offering programs that complement formal online education, such as that offered by www.Pontifex.University, where I work, and when the two approaches to student formation are combined offer a genuine opportunity. The zoom revolution that has happened as a result of Covid has opened up people’s minds to the idea of online education.

The advantages of this are that high-quality and standardized educational material can be delivered at a fraction of the cost of the traditional on-campus experience. However, I am conscious that providing community of learning - so important in education - is the weakness of online education and while things are improving, it is clear that Facebook pages and chatrooms don't fill the gap. This is where Scala comes in. They are guiding educators and artistic creatives who can contribute to a culture of beauty to form communities locally.

I am encouraging our Pontifex students to attend and participate the conferences and events and meet each other, (and me if they are interested!) so that they might be inspired to start to form communities with each other locally under Scala's guidance. It is these local communities, it occurs to me, which might be portals for grace and love that can transform the culture.

“Return to Beauty”: Catholic Art Institute Conference in Chicago, October 24

On Sunday, October 24th, the Catholic Art Institute, a Chicago-based community of artists, will host a major conference bringing together leading artists and scholars to rediscover the power of Beauty in the modern world.

The conference, entitled “Return to Beauty,” will feature Sohrab Ahmari, columnist for many publications including the New York Post and The Catholic Herald, and author of several books including The New Philistines and The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos. His presentation will be titled “Liminality, Communitas, and Beauty” in reference to cultural anthropologist Victor Turner’s defense of the Tridentine Mass.

Also presenting is renowned art historian, author, and Vatican tour guide Elizabeth Lev, whose recent books include the acclaimed How Catholic Art Saved the Faith. Her presentation, “Returning to Wonder – Lessons from the Giants of Italian Art,” will discuss why Christians initially became involved with art, and how they employed human creativity to underscore key Christian beliefs.

Filmmaker and podcaster Cameron O’Hearn, whose visionary work Mass of the Ages has garnered over a half-million views on YouTube, will also present. His talk, “Beauty Will Save the World”, will discuss how art changed the course of his life, and how artists can change the world by reminding us of our purpose.

This ground-breaking event opens with a Solemn High Mass featuring Renaissance choral music in the baroque splendor of Chicago’s historic St John Cantius Church, a parish well known for bringing beauty into Christian worship.

Conference presentations will take place at the The Drake Hotel, accompanied by a sumptuous lunch buffet, a four-course dinner banquet, culminating in a panel discussion with the speakers, moderated by art critic for The Federalist, William Newton.

“Beauty has been denigrated in today’s culture as a result of the prevalent utilitarian ideology. This unfortunately relegates those with artistic gifts to the periphery or worse, and tells them their gifts are useless,” says organizer and CAI President Kathleen Carr, who is also an award- winning fine artist. “This conference will shine a light on the necessity of Beauty in the modern world and offer an opportunity for fellowship, networking and a path to restoration.”

Everyone is welcome to attend: for tickets and details, please visit www.catholicartinstitute.org/conference2021

Inquires or requests for interviews can be directed to kcarr@catholicartinstitute.org

CMAA’s Fall Virtual Sacred Music Workshop - Beauty in Sacred Music: Philosophical Foundations and Practical Strategies

The Church Music Association of America is proud to invite you to join us in our Fall Virtual Sacred Music Workshop

Beauty in Sacred Music: Philosophical Foundations and Practical Strategies

October 14–16, 2021, Online

This Fall Workshop will be primarily focused on instruction in topics related to chant and the Catholic sacred music tradition, lectures and daily night prayer. During the three days, you’ll be able to participate in all these sessions via your home computer using the Zoom app. At the end of each breakout session there will be a short question-and-answer period. Sessions will be recorded and made available to participants to view immediately. Highlights:

• Saturday Morning Mass for the intentions of our generous donors
• Daily Breakout sessions on a variety of topics:
• The Fundamental Trajectory of Aesthetic Education
• Beauty in the Jesuit Model of Evangelization: the Jesuit Reductions
• The Necessity of Beauty in the Liturgy (Spanish)
• Gems of the Polyphonic Repertoire that a Parish Choir Can Sing Beautifully
• Beautiful Sacred Music in the Context of a Spanish-Language Liturgy (Spanish)
• The Beauty of Children’s Voices and Beauty in Sacred Music Education Programs for Young Singers
• What Makes Chant Beautiful
• and more
• Daily Spiritual Reflections provided by our chaplain Rev. Robert Pasley.
• Night Prayer (Compline)
• Questions and Answer sessions after each Breakout

Registration and more information are available here: https://musicasacra.com/events/fall-virtual-sacred-music-workshop/

A Classic Book on Art and Beauty to Be Republished: “The Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty”

Fr John Saward’s classic theological meditation on the works of Fra Angelico is to be re-published by Angelico Press, almost 25 years after it first appeared. You can purchase it here.

In October 2001, I decided to make a trip to the USA from London, where I was living at the time. I had just read John Paul II’s Letter to Artists. This short text, a survey of the range of Christian art over the centuries, and an exhortation for contemporary artists to emulate the greats of the past, was the first coming out of the contemporary Church that I had read that had any stamp of authority on it and which seemed to be making a case for the re-establishment of a Catholic culture of beauty. I knew nobody in the US, but wanted to try to connect with Catholic universities over here to persuade them to establish a new sort of Catholic art school that might create artists capable of responding to the Holy Father’s call.

I didn’t know the world of Catholic education at all, and approached, without any introduction and out of the blue, a number of big-name “Catholic” universities. In some cases, I just walked unannounced into the art departments on campus and asked to speak to the head. I was, naively, hoping to persuade them to stop teaching secular art and start forming Catholic artists.

Unsurprisingly, most couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. Here was a strange Englishman waving papal encyclicals at them and telling them they had been getting it wrong for years. It was not something they particularly relished, it seems. However, some did listen and explained that it was not as easy as I thought to transform the teaching goals of an established art school. They tried to connect me with students who they knew would feel as I did. As I started to talk to these two names kept on cropping up. Nearly all suggested first that I go back to England and approach someone called Stratford Caldecott, who lived in Oxford and published a journal called Second Spring (this I did, and he became a mentor to me). Second, they suggested that I read this book by Fr John Saward. By coincidence, Fr John also lived in Oxford, and Stratford Caldecott introduced me to him on one of my subsequent trips there.

I was captivated by this book, a work on Catholic art that was actually sympathetic to Catholic culture, and written by someone who unapologetically believed in the truth of the subjects portrayed in the paintings. Until then, every account of Catholic culture and painting I had read (with the exception of the very brief Letter to Artists) came under the category of art history, and was written by people who were clearly non-believers. They spoke of Catholic art - even if they appreciated its beauty - as the product of antiquated superstitious thought and formed by socio-economic factors (what I now realize is the standard Marxist critique, although they never said so). But this was different. Here was someone who not only talked about the content knowledgeably, but extended his discussion to the necessity for art and beauty in the culture. It was as much about philosophy and theology as it was about art. The name alone told me that this was different.

As a result, I understood that there was a Catholic way of discussing and appreciating art and culture that could begin to explain why the Church had been the source of so much beauty through the centuries...and why it had ceased to be so in recent times. The cleverness of the name alone captured my attention and told me that this was special. So much of what I have tried to do in the years since then in the mission to re-establish a Catholic culture of beauty has been inspired by what I read in this book.

Below are the reviews that appear on the book itself, including one by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whose The Spirit of the Liturgy was first published around the same time as Fr Saward’s book, and translated from German into English by Saward himself.

The first, unattributed, is the summary from the publisher:

“Beauty will save the world,” said Dostoyevsky. In this book, John Saward presents a study of two ways in which the saving beauty of Christ shines upon the world: in the lives of His saints, and in the works of Christian art—“the beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty.” This unique and unprecedented theological meditation centers on several works of art of the Dominican blessed, John of Fiesole, known to the world as Fra Angelico. Drawing on the wisdom of the Church’s Fathers and Doctors, Saward has written a book not on art history, but on the attractive radiance of Catholic truth. Its goal is to help Christians grow in wonder at the glory of Divine Revelation, to which both the Church’s saints and the Church’s art bear witness.

“The importance of this luminous book can scarcely be overestimated. The substance of Saward’s scholarship and his understanding of culture are dazzling. His vision is of utmost urgency. This is wise, deeply moving, and invigorating—a masterpiece!”

— MICHAEL O’BRIEN

“The more I read of John Saward’s work, the more I am inclined to include his name on the very short list of preeminently important twentieth-century Catholic writers. He opens to us yet another rich aspect of the Faith that seems scarcely to have been touched on before. Read it, and find your vision vastly deepened and heightened.”

— THOMAS HOWARD

“Professor Saward provides his readers a great service by his careful treatment of the connection between sacred art, the heroic virtue of saintly people, and the fullness of truth taught by Christ and His Church. The numerous citations of Catholic artists, poets, and musicians demonstrate how the Catholic Faith elevates civilization. Perhaps through efforts such as Professor Saward’s, we will see the prevailing culture of death in our day pale in the light of a civilization of life and love radiating from the beauty of holiness, and the holiness of beauty, that truth inspires.”

— CARDINAL JOSEPH RATZINGER

You can purchase it here.

FR. JOHN SAWARD is a Fellow of Blackfriars’ Hall and priest in charge of the parish of SS. Gregory and Augustine, Oxford.

The Four Qualities of Liturgy: Validity, Licitness, Fittingness, and Authenticity

Below is the full text of the lecture I gave at Queen of Peace Parish in Patton, Pennsylvania, on September 21, 2020, a video of which has also been posted at YouTube (here). Although certain ideas in this talk have been discussed in other articles of mine, the synthesis offered here represents, for me at least, an intellectual breakthrough in responding to what I have increasingly come to see as the impoverished state of liturgical discourse, which is typically limited to only two categories (validity and liceity). Although much attention is paid to fittingness in the realm of sacred art, it deserves to be considered a liturgical category alongside the aforementioned pair; and finally, joining these must be the category of authenticity or legitimacy, as an irreducibly distinct perfection. Only by considering all four qualities can we arrive at an adequate assessment. [UPDATED ON 11/12/20 with an improved version of the chart.]

The celebration of the traditional Mass of the Roman Rite is becoming more and more common; it seems that its popularity has been an unintended consequence of both the chaos of the current pontificate and the disappointment of many Catholics with their pastors and parishes during the COVID pandemic. “Enough is enough!” is a frequently heard reaction. People are looking for worship that is reverent, prayerful, God-oriented, and deeply refreshing, and for priests who are truly committed to the care of souls. This, of course, is the work of the Holy Spirit, tugging at the heartstrings of baptized and confirmed Catholics, in whom there was planted the seed of Trinitarian life, which urges us to enter into the divine mystery.

However, there are certain difficulties in our situation, too. A vast amount of information, good, bad, indifferent, and inaccurate, circulates on the internet. Lay Catholics are seldom equipped to be able to understand what they’re reading about, especially when we get “into the weeds” of liturgical history and reform. How are blogs going to equip us with the ability to navigate thorny questions about the pope’s authority, the Church’s fidelity to tradition, the duty of obedience (and the limits thereof), and so on? There is a great need for careful, thoughtful, well-informed presentations on liturgical matters, so that we can deepen our understanding of the complex issues involved, without losing the simplicity of our faith, or the spontaneity of our interior life as we strive to be the saints Our Lord is calling us to be.

After many years, I have come to the realization that a lot of the time, people are talking past one another in liturgical discussions, and that is because they are talking about different aspects or properties of the liturgy, while failing to make the necessary distinctions. There are, in fact, four properties that are always supposed to belong to any liturgy: validity; licitness; fittingness; and authenticity. All of them are important, none of them is dispensable. They are meant to work together, in harmony, to bring us the fullness of divine worship intended by Christ for His Church. The problems we have experienced in recent decades have a lot to do with an exaggerated emphasis on one or another of these qualities, at the expense of the rest. I will begin by defining each one, and then talk about how they are related.

Validity

First, validity. With validity we are looking at a fairly straightforward question: does a sacrament happen or not? At the Council of Florence, the Church officially adopted the scholastic language of “matter and form” to indicate the two parts of any sacrament — the material things it uses and the words spoken in connection with them. [1] This Council taught: “All these Sacraments are accomplished by three elements, namely, by things as the matter; by words as the form; and by the person of the minister who confers the Sacrament with the intention of doing that which the Church does. If any of these is lacking, the Sacrament is not accomplished.” [2]

So, for example, in baptism the water is poured over the person’s head, while the minister speaks the words: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” St. Augustine wrote: “Take away the words, what then is the water but water? The words are added to the element, and the Sacrament emerges.” The washing with water in the name of the Trinity then accomplishes spiritually what washing with water does physically, namely, cleanses and refreshes. That is why we say a sacrament “effects what it signifies.” And we can go through each of the seven sacraments this way, seeing what the material thing used is, and what the words are, and what effects are signified by the combination of the matter and form. This is a very rich topic but for my purposes, we are looking at validity, that is, why baptism happens, and our answer is: the correct words were said, with the correct matter, by someone capable of performing the action, who intends to do what the Catholic Church does, even if he doesn’t fully understand what that might be.

Sometimes Catholic theology strikes observers as arcane and esoteric, but in point of fact, problems with validity arise from time to time in Church history, and we need to be equipped to deal with them. The notorious recent case of Fr. Matthew Hood comes to mind. Fr. Hood, serving as a priest in the archdiocese of Detroit, discovered early last August that he had been baptized by a deacon who used the formula “We baptize you,” which was judged invalid by a decision of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published on August 6th. As a result, Hood realized he had never been baptized, and therefore had never been confirmed or ordained to the priesthood, since each subsequent sacrament rests on the foundation of the preceding ones. He had to receive all these sacraments for the first time — and then deal with the messy fallout that resulted for other people who had depended on his ministry. For example, all the confirmations he had done, all the marriages, all the absolutions, all the last rites — all of these were absolutely null and utterly void. Do we have need for any further proof that the words we say and the actions we perform make a difference?

I mentioned a moment ago that the one who performs the sacrament has to have the right intention. Some Catholics get themselves tied up in knots about what intention is necessary, and they tend to exaggerate the explicitness and orthodoxy of the required intention. All that is required is that the priest have a virtual (not even an explicit) intention to perform a ritual of the Catholic Church by following the words and actions of the rite as given in the liturgical book. He does not need to have a good theological grasp of what he is doing, and he might even have an heretical understanding of it, as, unfortunately, a lot of clergy may have nowadays, due to their poor seminary training. He might be doing the sacrament for money, or for personal vanity, or to get promoted to a better position, etc. Still, if he thinks he is doing what the Church does — though he misunderstands it, or sins because of personal unworthiness — that intention suffices for validity.

If a priest’s theological competence, subjective motivations, or personal sanctity were necessary components of a valid sacrament, we would be thrown into constant doubts about whether the sacraments are efficacious, which is clearly not what Our Lord desires, or what He instituted. He planned better than that. As the Church teaches, Christ Himself is the primary agent in every sacrament: He is the one who baptizes, who confirms, who absolves, who transubstantiates. The priest is an intelligent instrument — intelligent, yes, which is why intentionality is required; but still an instrument, like a hammer or a saw. [3]

(That, by the way, is why the Detroit deacon’s baptisms were invalid, as Matthew Hood discovered to his horror: the deacon was saying “We baptize you,” referring to the Christian community, which precisely contradicts the fundamental truth: “It is I, Jesus Christ, who am baptizing you through my visible minister, who lends his voice and hands to Me.” Interestingly, the Byzantine tradition uses a completely different formula in the passive voice: “The servant of God, N., is baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Although so very different, this formula makes it clear that it is not the local community or any individual man by himself who incorporates a person into Christ; rather, this happens by God’s gracious action: “The servant of God is baptized,” with Christ implied as the one baptizing.)

To sum up this point, I will quote from theologian Roger Nutt:

[A] sacramental celebration is understood to be “valid” if it is executed by the proper minister in such a way that the sacrament is truly brought into being. Invalidity happens when the celebration is executed by an unauthorized minister or when the matter and form are so defective that the sign is not brought about. An invalid celebration indicates, precisely, that a sacrament was never brought into being and thus, absent the sacrament, none of the sacramental effects are conferred. [4]

Now, who gets to determine what counts for validity? Canon law states that “the sacraments of the New Testament were instituted by Christ the Lord and entrusted to the Church” [5] (indeed, this is a de fide dogma), and then in Canon 841 draws this conclusion: “Since the sacraments are the same for the whole Church and belong to the divine deposit, it is only for the supreme authority of the Church to approve or define the requirements for their validity.” Hence, we can say without any doubt that what counts as a valid sacramental rite, and the conditions for its performance, are solely the competence of the supreme authority of the Church, which means either the Pope by himself, or the Pope together with the college of bishops, as at an ecumenical council.

It is not possible, if we hold to the Catholic Faith, to call into question or to doubt the validity of a sacramental rite duly and correctly promulgated. This means, for example, that the Novus Ordo Missae, or the other postconciliar sacramental rites, having been promulgated by the supreme authority of the Church, must be accepted as valid, no matter how much their deficiencies or their discontinuities with age-old Catholic tradition deserve to be critiqued, and no matter how much better the traditional rites may be. Validity is not about better and worse, more beautiful and less beautiful, more worthy or less worthy; it is a binary switch with two settings: on or off. Either transubstantiation happens or it does not. The question of whether the liturgical rites are “as they should be” necessarily gets us into other qualities, namely, legitimacy and fittingness. But before we get into those, we need to look at the second quality, licitness.

Licitness

On this quality, I would like to start again with Roger Nutt, who says right after the passage I quoted a moment ago:

A licit celebration is one that is performed according to the prescribed rite of the Church, while an illicit celebration is one that directly deviates in some way from the prescribed rite. An illicit sacramental celebration does not vitiate the validity and therefore reality of the sacrament… [6]

Fr. Bernard Leeming says, more precisely:

Valid is often used as distinct from licit, which is said of a sacrament in whose administration and reception no law is broken; for unlawful administration of a sacrament does not ipso facto render it invalid. Thus a priest who is suspended or excommunicated can validly administer all sacraments except Penance, which requires jurisdiction, but he sins by so doing, if he acts contumaciously, and the faithful sin if they receive sacraments from him without some justifying reason. [7]

The term “licit” comes from the Latin verb licére, which means to allow. Licitness or liceity has to do with what is permitted, and, by extension, what is required or forbidden to Christians. In the domain of the sacraments and the liturgy, it primarily concerns the questions: Who is allowed to perform or to receive a given sacrament, and under what circumstances? If a priest or bishop in good standing, following all the conditions set forth in canon law, celebrates a liturgical rite according to the books promulgated by the supreme authority of the Church, saying the black and doing the red (in other words, reading just the texts that are printed, and following the rubrics without deviation), then he celebrates licitly. He has done, in other words, that which he had permission to do; that which he was required to do; and nothing that he is forbidden to do.

On the other hand, it is not licit for a Latin-rite priest to celebrate a Byzantine liturgy, unless he has first received canonical permission to do so; it is not licit for a laicized or degraded priest to offer Mass; it is not licit for a priest in a state of mortal sin to offer Mass; it is not licit to celebrate Mass with rice crackers and sake instead of wheat bread and wine from grapes (and that would also make it invalid); it is not licit to ad lib the opening prayer, or to play a John Lennon song in place of the psalm, or to read from a binder a Eucharistic Prayer written by liberation theologians from Nicaragua. As a matter of fact, any intentional deviation from the liturgical books, either in their texts or in their rubrics, is illicit, and makes the liturgy illicit to a greater or lesser extent. Moreover, it is not licit to receive Communion without having fasted for at least one hour beforehand; and, above all, it is not licit for anyone to receive Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin.

Two things will be immediately obvious from the foregoing list of examples.

First, some of these things are matters of mere canon law, that is, positive law created by the Church and changeable by her, while some things are matters of divine or natural law, which the Church can articulate, but does not originate and therefore can never alter. [8] The rule that we must fast for a certain period of time before Communion is a positive ecclesiastical law that can change and has changed a lot; not very long ago, the requirement was three hours (which in many ways would be much better), and not long before that, the rule was to fast from midnight onwards. But the rule that we must — so far as we can ascertain by examining our consciences — be in a state of grace in order to receive Communion is a matter of divine law, which is clear from chapter 11 of St. Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians, where he says that someone who eats the Body of Christ unworthily eats damnation, and that a man should examine his conscience accordingly. No council or pope could ever change this rule.

Second, the Church today, at least in Western nations, is in grave trouble, since the vast majority of liturgies are illicit in one way or another; both ministers and recipients of sacraments have become habituated to illicitness. The crisis in the Church is, as Joseph Ratzinger said, in large part caused by the crisis in the liturgy.

The main point with the category of licitness (or liceity, as some prefer to call it) is that the sacred liturgy or divine worship, and with it, our sanctification by the mysteries of Christ, is a communal, ecclesial, hierarchical activity. Christ entrusted the work and the means of sanctification to His Church, and therefore, to her authorized heads. It is not something “between Jesus and me,” as our individualistic, atomistic age might think of it, a matter of convenience or personal choice, but rather, something between Christ and the Church, into which we are privileged to be inserted, as recipients and subordinates. Back in 2004, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued an instruction called Redemptionis Sacramentum, which addressed many of the most common liturgical problems and abuses of the Novus Ordo. In words that are of universal application, the document eloquently says:

The Mystery of the Eucharist “is too great for anyone to permit himself to treat it according to his own whim, so that its sacredness and its universal ordering would be obscured.” On the contrary, anyone who acts thus by giving free reign to his own inclinations, even if he is a Priest, injures the substantial unity of the Roman Rite, which ought to be vigorously preserved, and becomes responsible for actions that are in no way consistent with the hunger and thirst for the living God that is experienced by the people today. Nor do such actions serve authentic pastoral care or proper liturgical renewal; instead, they deprive Christ’s faithful of their patrimony and their heritage. For arbitrary actions are not conducive to true renewal, but are detrimental to the right of Christ’s faithful to a liturgical celebration that is an expression of the Church’s life in accordance with her tradition and discipline. In the end, they introduce elements of distortion and disharmony into the very celebration of the Eucharist, which is oriented in its own lofty way and by its very nature to signifying and wondrously bringing about the communion of divine life and the unity of the People of God. The result is uncertainty in matters of doctrine, perplexity and scandal on the part of the People of God, and, almost as a necessary consequence, vigorous opposition, all of which greatly confuse and sadden many of Christ’s faithful...
          On the contrary, it is the right of all of Christ’s faithful that the Liturgy, and in particular the celebration of Holy Mass, should truly be as the Church wishes, according to her stipulations as prescribed in the liturgical books and in the other laws and norms. Likewise, the Catholic people have the right that the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass should be celebrated for them in an integral manner, according to the entire doctrine of the Church’s Magisterium. [9]

The same document says later on:

In an altogether particular manner, let everyone do all that is in their power to ensure that the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist will be protected from any and every irreverence or distortion and that all abuses be thoroughly corrected. This is a most serious duty incumbent upon each and every one, and all are bound to carry it out without any favoritism. [10]

Sadly, Redemptionis Sacramentum seems to have gone to that special place in the sky, or over the seas, or under the earth, where all unwelcome Vatican documents go for their eternal rest, and where it has been forgotten like the unremembered dead. In the current COVID-19 situation, we have seen how readily bishops and priests, in their frenzy to avoid contamination with or transmission of the virus, are violating liturgical law in the most scandalous ways. In fact, Dr. Joseph Shaw makes a very important point here about clergy who are willing to experiment with or manipulate the liturgy:

The reason they feel free to play fast and loose with the liturgy is not because they feel strongly about sacramental validity and don’t care about anything else, but because they don’t care very much about sacramental validity either. They may be influenced by the idea that bishops and the Holy See feel strongly about validity, and they may allow us to comfort ourselves with the thought, when it is possible, that the sacrament was in this or that case valid. But if they really cared about validity, they would take the liturgy seriously, and that is something they are manifestly not doing.
          Liturgical abuses are an offense against God, as the abuse of something holy. They are also an offense against the faithful, whose spiritual engagement in the liturgy is impeded. Again, they are an offense against our Lord, who instituted the sacraments for our salvation, and [against] Holy Mother Church, who has surrounded them with ceremonies and texts intended to give God glory and to assist us in our participation. Finally, they are an offense against the priesthood itself, which should protect the liturgy from profanation, and whose function is to provide it to others for the good of souls.

The mention of “ceremonies and texts intended to give God glory and to assist us in our participation” is a perfect segue to the third quality, fittingness.

Fittingness

Consider the following statement: “All that matters at Mass is that Jesus is present; everything else is secondary.” Or, more succinctly, “the Mass is the Mass.” Undoubtedly it matters a great deal that Jesus is present, for otherwise we are eating no more than ordinary food. But the liturgy has a greater purpose than putting on a meal for us, and even Our Lord’s presence has a greater scope and purpose than sacramental communion. The Mass is the solemn, public, formal act of adoration, thanksgiving, and supplication offered by Christ the High Priest to the Father, and by His entire Mystical Body in union with Him. It is the foremost act of the virtue of religion, by which we offer to God a sacrifice of praise worthy of His glory. It is the chief expression of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. It is the kingdom of heaven breaking into our earthly time and space. It is the nuptial feast of the King of Kings. It is the recapitulation of the entire created universe in its Alpha and Omega.

Because it is all these things, the Church down through the ages has spared no effort and no expense to augment the beauty and elevate the solemnity of her liturgical rites. As John Paul II rightly said: “Like the woman who anointed Jesus in Bethany, the Church has feared no ‘extravagance,’ devoting the best of her resources to expressing her wonder and adoration before the unsurpassable gift of the Eucharist.” [11] So while it may be true that the only things necessary for a valid Mass in the Roman Rite are unleavened bread made from wheat and wine made from grapes, a priest, and the words of consecration, to see this as sufficient for the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass would betray a reductive, minimalist, and parsimonious view of things. Glorifying God and sanctifying our souls cannot be detached from the fittingness of the worship we offer Him. What the Council of Trent declares about the Roman Canon can be applied more generally to the whole of the Church’s liturgical life:

Since it is fitting that holy things be administered in a holy manner, and of all things this sacrifice is the most holy, the Catholic Church, to the end that it might be worthily and reverently offered and received, instituted many centuries ago the holy canon, which is so free from error that it contains nothing that does not in the highest degree savor of a certain holiness and piety and raise up to God the minds of those who offer. For it consists partly of the very words of the Lord, partly of the traditions of the Apostles, and also of pious regulations of holy pontiffs.

The essence of the Church’s liturgy is simple: it is precontained in the Heart of Christ, our Eternal High Priest, where all worthy worship perpetually exists. But the “clothing” of that worship is of decisive importance to us, who interact with Our Lord through His visible Body, the Church, and her visible rites. How these rites are structured, performed, and participated in will inevitably influence our understanding of the mysteries of the Faith and our ability to live them out. The clothing draped over the body of our prayers is, if anything, of far greater importance than any clothing a human being puts on.

When someone is attracted to the traditional Latin liturgy for its beauty to the eye and to the ear, it is not because he is stuck on these things, but because these things coalesce around the reality, the Sacrifice of the Cross, and make it stand forth with a satisfying clarity. The sensible or perceptible qualities so harmonize with the nature of the mystery that the result is the splendor of the truth. For men as body-soul composites, for Christians as disciples of the Word-made-flesh, there must be both elements: the truth and the splendor. Dom Gerard Calvet offers the perfect commentary:

One enters the Church by two doors: the door of the intelligence and the door of beauty. The narrow door...is that of intelligence; it is open to intellectuals and scholars. The wider door is that of beauty. The Church in her impenetrable mystery...has need of an earthly epiphany accessible to all: this is the majesty of her temples, the splendour of her liturgy and the sweetness of her chants.
          Take a group of Japanese tourists visiting Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. They look at the height of the stained-glass windows, the harmony of the proportions. Suppose that at that moment, sacred ministers dressed in orphried velvet copes enter in procession for solemn Vespers. The visitors watch in silence; they are entranced: beauty has opened its doors to them. Now the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas and Notre Dame in Paris are products of the same era. They say the same thing. But who among the visitors has read the Summa of St. Thomas? The same phenomenon is found at all levels. The tourists who visit the Acropolis in Athens are confronted with a civilisation of beauty. But who among them can understand Aristotle?
          And so it is with the beauty of the liturgy. More than anything else it deserves to be called the splendour of the truth. It opens to the small and the great alike the treasures of its magnificence: the beauty of psalmody, sacred chants and texts, candles, harmony of movement and dignity of bearing. With sovereign art the liturgy exercises a truly seductive influence on souls, whom it touches directly, even before the spirit perceives its influence. [12]

For this very reason — that the externals are meant to tell us something about the reality to which they are in service, and draw us towards it — we must take care that they harmonize, that the outward aspect does not openly or subtly contradict the inward. It would be unfitting to put a king’s robes on a pauper, or a gold ring in a pig’s snout: there is discordance between the decoration and the thing decorated. The same holds in the other direction: a king does not wear dirty rags nor his horse a cheap saddle. Putting the king’s robes on the king, and bedecking his mount in regal fashion: this is dignum et justum. The surface should correspond to the thing’s nature and lead us directly into it. This is not to be “caught up in” the externals, but to be caught up by the externals into the inner meaning. [13]

In other words: although it is not necessary for validity or licitness that a liturgy should look and sound as if we are entering the realm of the transcendent God and that He is accomplishing something divine and transformative among us, it is nevertheless highly fitting or suitable that it be done in this manner. And, as a matter of fact, the whole history of the liturgy cannot be understood unless we have grasped this essential fact: nearly all of its development can be attributed to the demands of fittingness.

Nor should we be surprised at the role it plays. Fittingness or suitability — convenientia in the language of theologians — is one of the central concepts of dogmatic theology, as we can see in the writings of St. Anselm and St. Thomas Aquinas. Convenientia is a kind of necessity, a necessity based on what is appropriate for a given situation, what is decorous, proper, harmonious, corresponding to all the factors in play, or to the being about whom one is inquiring. When St. Thomas takes up the question “Must God create a world?,” he answers: “No, not by absolute necessity, for God, as infinite good, is self-sufficient and needs nothing else; but it is fitting that He share His goodness by causing finite good things to exist.” This immediately prompts another question: “Once God creates, must he create a rational or intellectual creature?” And the answer, again, is: “God is free to create any world He wishes; but it is fitting that He crown the order of creation with creatures that are as like to Him as possible, which means, beings possessed of intellect and will.” Much later on, when St. Thomas comes to the question: “Was the Incarnation necessary for the salvation of mankind?,” he again answers in this manner: “It was not simply necessary, since God could have saved man by willing it in His omnipotence. Nevertheless, it was most fitting that the Son of God become man, for many reasons: since man had sinned, it was fitting that man should make reparation; but only a sinless man of infinite merit could repair for the sin of Adam and all subsequent sins; moreover, man withdrew from spiritual goods to bodily goods, so it was right that he be restored to spiritual life by the bodily life of Christ; because the dignity of human nature consists in the image of God in the soul, it was appropriate for the Word, the perfect image of God, to restore that reflected image in man; nothing could show forth God’s extravagant love better than for His Son to lower Himself to human estate, suffer, and die in exchange for slaves; and so forth (Aquinas gives many such arguments for the fittingness of the Incarnation and the Passion). [14]

My point here is that, as the eminent Thomist Fr. Gilbert Narcisse maintains, convenientia is the central driving principle of Thomistic theology; without it, theology would be almost barren of development. So, too, the liturgy of the Church would have been barren had it not been for an ever-increasing awareness, prompted by the Holy Spirit, of the many ways in which the sacramental mysteries can be more fully expressed in words and gestures, in vestments and vessels, in music and architecture — in everything that pertains to the senses, the imagination, the memory, and the intellect’s capacity for symbolism. Fittingness is connected intimately with beauty, including moral beauty or honestas, a Latin word that refers to the condition of being reputable, honorable, upright, worthy.

Genealogy of Christ

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