Artists: Contemplators of the Mystery

God has a way of showing us one thing and then another and then, in an unexpected moment, the unity of the two things. This morning, I stumbled upon a website, Savior.org, which broadcasts a live image, via webcam, of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The exposition is at the Chapel of Divine Love in Philadelphia, PA. It is a perpetual Eucharistic adoration centre which has been run by the Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters since 1916. The aim of this online Eucharistic Adoration is to increase devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, as well as to reach those who, for whatever reason, are housebound or unable to physically go to a Church to be with Jesus.

You may be wondering what Eucharistic Adoration has to do with being a writer. Well, everything! Look what Pope John Paul II has to say in his "Letter to Artists" about the creative moment and the life and responsibility of the Artistic soul:

"Every genuine artistic intuition goes beyond what the senses perceive and, reaching beneath reality's surface, strives to interpret its hidden mystery. The intuition itself springs from the depths of the human soul, where the desire to give meaning to one's own life is joined by the fleeting vision of beauty and of the mysterious unity of things. All artists experience the unbridgeable gap which lies between the work of their hands, however successful it may be, and the dazzling perfection of the beauty glimpsed in the ardour of the creative moment: what they manage to express in their painting, their sculpting, their creating is no more than a glimmer of the splendour which flared for a moment before the eyes of their spirit.

"Believers find nothing strange in this: they know that they have had a momentary glimpse of the abyss of light which has its original wellspring in God. Is it in any way surprising that this leaves the spirit overwhelmed as it were, so that it can only stammer in reply? True artists above all are ready to acknowledge their limits and to make their own the words of the Apostle Paul, according to whom “God does not dwell in shrines made by human hands” so that “we ought not to think that the Deity is like gold or silver or stone, a representation by human art and imagination” (Acts 17:24, 29). If the intimate reality of things is always “beyond” the powers of human perception, how much more so is God in the depths of his unfathomable mystery!"


Did you catch it? The first paragraph describes that moment of inspiration when everything makes sense in a moment of startling clarity: the image in the stone is seen, the elusive symbol is grasped and described on paper, the perfect combination of brush strokes reveals the face on the canvas, the wood block gives way to the carver's hand....In that creative moment---and it sometimes is only but a moment---we "get it." Our art comes alive and we capture a glimpse of the Divine. And, in that moment, we're left a little breathless---and also a little frustrated. There's only so far "human art and imagination" can go. But, hey, doesn't this sound vaguely familiar?

I couldn't help but think of Eucharistic Adoration as I read this passage.  As we contemplate God in the Blessed Sacrament, we are called to fully utilize our imaginations to look beyond the appearances of bread and wine to glimpse the "unfathomable mystery" of the Real Presence. Few have penetrated the veil. Our Lord has been kind enough to remain revealed in Eucharistic miracles around the world, such as at Lanciano, but for the most part, contemplating Him in the Eucharist requires faith and obedience. We are called to go ever deeper and deeper in our understanding of this great Mystery and yet, by it's very essence, it is unfathomable.

I think our artistic endeavours are a little like contemplating the Mystery. We try to go deeper and deeper to capture the ideas in our hearts and minds and to bring them forth. Sometimes, we "get it." Other times, we come close. Still other times, we fall far short of grasping the expression we hoped to make. Yet, we keep pursuing the image, the word, the emotion which will bring to life our characters, plots, settings. Sometimes, we can only move forward in faith---faith that we will understand where our stories are trying to take us, faith in the fact that our vocation calls us to keep trying to breathe life into our little worlds. We discipline ourselves to continue doing the research we need to do to make our stories authentic; to continuing to find out about the people we want to write about and to make their lives as believable as possible.

I was so thrilled to come across the online Eucharistic Adoration site! I want to suggest that we try to visit Him there as we embark on our daily work. Whether we can make it out to Church or not during the week, the reality is that we can't sit in His Presence in a physical Eucharistic Chapel all day, but we can turn to Him periodically as we type away madly on our computers. It is quite possible that this is the solution to writer's block. The more we open ourselves up to the Author of Life, the more able we will be to give life to our own work. And let's face it, being a writer is one of the loneliest endeavours in the world! Spending time with Jesus might help alleviate that loneliness and give us the courage to go on for one more sentence, one more paragraph, one more page.