“the artist can, after a fashion, function as a priest, by making the invisible visible”
The Pope’s Unexpected Visit
What exactly do we mean when we refer to the “True Presence?”
In October of 1995, Pope John Paul II was scheduled to greet seminarians at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore. At the last moment the Pope told his security team that after greeting the seminarians he would go into a side chapel to pray.
The security team sprang into action ahead of the Pope. They swept the building, paying special attention to the chapel which housed the Blessed Sacrament, the chapel the Pope intended to visit. To do this they used dogs. The dogs were trained to locate people who may be buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings after earthquakes and other disasters.
The dogs and their handlers swept the halls, offices, and classrooms quickly and then went into the chapel. They went up and down the aisles and past the pews but when they reached the tabernacle, the dogs sniffed and whined and pointed, indicating that they had found a person. They refused to leave until their handlers called them away.
It is difficult to say exactly what the dogs were responding to but there are countless stories of animals sensing things that humans do not. It may be due to their heightened physical senses or it may be due to some supernatural sense that humans have lost. In this case the dogs were convinced that they had found a person in the small box used to reserve the Blessed Sacrament.
The True Presence
We are a forgetful people, and so we need reminders.
A miracle takes place at every Catholic Mass, Divine Liturgy, and Orthodox Liturgy. Common bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of God. They still appear to be bread and wine but their substance is changed. This is what theologians call transubstantiation. God is substantially present, that is, present in substance, in every Catholic and Orthodox Church. This is what we mean when we refer to the “True Presence.”
The Artist as Priest
Artists fill many roles, storyteller, teacher, prophet, and priest.
In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. That is, God created a physical, visible world, and a spiritual, invisible world. Man as a creature of both flesh and spirit, body and soul, exists in both worlds at the same time, the physical and the spiritual. The physical world is visible to us, the spiritual world is not.
Even so there are times when the spiritual world becomes more apparent to us. Perhaps most notably this occurs in the celebration of the sacraments of the Church.
The sacraments of the Church bring these two worlds together. The sacraments offer us a visible, “sense perceptible” sign that informs of us of an invisible or spiritual reality.
Take Baptism for example. During the Rite of Baptism, sin is washed away. We cannot see sin being washed away but we can see water poured over the head of the person being Baptized. The pouring of, or immersion in, water, is a physical sign we can perceive with our sense of sight (sense-perceptible) that informs us of the spiritual reality of sin that is washed away.
The sacraments, therefore, offer us signs that make the invisible world, visible. The ordinary minister of these sacraments is the priest. Our ministerial priests are ordained to offer the sacraments. The priest, acting in the person of Christ offers us these signs bringing both worlds together.
Artists work in much the same way, they make the invisible world visible. While they are not usually ordained ministerial priests (although they can be), artists can take on this function by depicting visible signs that inform the faithful of invisible realities. The role of the artist, through the proper use of their gifts, talents, and imagination, is to make visible the invisible world. This is how liturgical art functions.
Liturgical art is the art that adorns our churches. In the western traditions we have all but lost the sacramental importance of proper liturgical art. All too often the art we see in our church buildings has been reduced to little more than decoration.
The eastern traditions have fared better. Even through periods when liturgical imagery was condemned the eastern maintained its importance. The art that adorns our churches, regardless of the style, although some styles are more properly suited to the liturgy than others, should offer us signs that point to the reality of the heavenly, spiritual realm.
This how the artist can, after a fashion, function as a priest, by making the invisible visible. This does not at all have to take the form of liturgical art. Indeed one of the great gifts of the artist is to be able to speak to people across barriers of culture and language. Landscapes illuminated with the divine light, portraits that show the nobility of the person made in the image and likeness of God, portrayals of the created world that teach us about the nature of God, these are just a few examples of the incredible power wielded by the artist.
The artist is in a unique position to create work that points beyond itself to the greater Truths of our existence. This is how the artist serves the community, by creating reminders that we are of two worlds.
We are a forgetful people, let us be reminded of what we truly believe.
Pax Vobiscum