ruah arts group

If wit was the eighth gift of the Holy Spirit, this might be the fruit of a new Pentecost. I love it. Thank you Catholic Minority Report for your spot on witicisms on the reform of the reform. I especially liked the “50% less Bugnini.” (Have you read the review of Marini’s (which means Bugnini’s) book in Adoremus?)

Share This

To get to the Other Side!

I have a visually-based vocabulary and memory, so in an effort to develop my soul’s anamnesis sparked by a pilgrimage of the past, I decided to look up the Phoenix.

Here’s an succinct guide to Christians symbols by Fish Eaters, the slightly reactionary but undoubtedly faithful online community of traddy Catholics. 

Share This

Do you know the difference between indigo, royal purple and tyrian purple? Oh do ya? Well, I dare you to read this fabulous article on what is the right violet for the Roman rite anyway.

Share This

Barb Nicolisi genuflects to beautiful liturgical design and supernatural churches in a recent blog entry.

Tired of wondering if you’re in the church cafeteria or the new worship space? Catholics, are you tired of searching for the sanctuary lamp? Do you wonder who (or what) is shining through that stained glass? Have you ever entered a church and thought it was a little too much like a liturgical Rorschach test?

Yes, faithful everywhere you can say it, that phrase which is anathema to (fill in your euphemism for post-Enlightenment unfaithfuls here) liturgical designers and artists everywhere: “THAT is ugly.” Yes, there’s such a thing as good art and bad art, good architecture and bad architecture, a beautiful church and a downright shameful one. Bad liturgical design, in fact, does make God weep.

For good and strikingly witty architectural commentary see the the Holy Whapping Crew. For a head start on what is good architecture, look here or here. I won’t dare link to that-which-makes-Him-weep. I don’t have the internet space or computer capability to hold it. Meanwhile, if you have a picture of a church/ chapel that makes God give a holy high five (high fifteen?), send em’ my way.

Share This

My husband and I just got back from the Christian Arts Conference in DC not too long ago. It was a breathless two days: twelve plenary speakers, thirty five breakout session leaders, dozens of artists and hundreds of participants. Though it was a smaller scale convocation–as conferences go–it was an intense couple of days. The title was “Jumping out of the Self-Referential Box,” and the inspiration was the Holy Trinity as our reference point for unity and diversity in a society of sameness. It was a brilliant, albeit lofty theme, but the schools of thought began to separate themselves fairly quickly. The burning question, although not directly broached, was one of liturgy. This question is of course rooted in ecclesiology. And what a bunch we had to tackle that topic! Ranging from “new paradigm” transdenominational Tony Jones of the Emergent Village (they dare not use “church”) to Evangelical Louis Markos (or was he Catholic–you be the judge) and Eric Metaxas to Orthodox Frederica Matthewes-Greene to the Catholic super-team of Tom Howard, Stratford Caldecott, Joseph Pearce, David Clayton, Gregory Wolfe and Fr. Basil Cole (and several others), the conversation was joyfully engaging at times, passive aggressive at other times and, in on at least one occasion quite aggressive. What fires! In the next week or two I’ll be posting on specific speakers and my takes on their talks. The fruit of the conference, and the point of the whole thing not only the static topic of liturgy in an academic sense, but the dynamic reality that, in fact, “The fine arts were born on the altar.”

Share This