Who can describe with scientific precision my intuitive love for my parents from my first infancy, my cooing, smiling wonder at the moving shapes and colors of the mobile hanging over my crib, my natural affection and attraction for friends, pets, and stuffed toys, the delight I felt on reading a sentence and then a whole story, the magic of a bit of newly learned math, the feel of melodies and words, the satisfaction of finishing a hard task, of playing a good game, of finishing a whole semester of school, of the presence of one I have begun to love, the thrill of the beloved’s return of my attention, of the ability to earn and care for others, the sight of my newborn child, and the marvel of experience repeated in a new life I have engendered? The mysteries of our faith are “beyond words.” This is certainly so since even many of the purely natural experiences of our lives are, to use the Latin-based equivalent expression, “ineffable.

The Catholic religion was revealed by Christ and preached by his Apostles and Evangelists. Among these was St Luke who wrote the gospel bearing his name as well as the Acts of the Apostles. It is a well-founded tradition found in practically every ancient church in East and West, from South India to Syria to Russia, Greece, and Italy, that St Luke was a painter who painted the Mother of God when he heard from her the story of the Savior’s infancy, preaching, and passion. He was inspired not only to write a gospel, but also to paint an icon! What is more, when the gospel written and painted by St Luke passed to the Western hemisphere and the New World, the same Mother of God appeared at Guadalupe and left her own image there miraculously imprinted on the cape of St Juan Diego.‍

Art and the gospel are thus completely compatible, so much so that they seem to work together throughout the history of the church and in our individual lives to join us with confidence, encouragement, comfort, and enlightenment to Christ, “the fairest of the sons of Men.”

St. John Paul II in his 1999 letter to Artists sums up what we are saying:

In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art. Art must make perceptible, and as far as possible attractive, the world of the spirit, of the invisible, of God. It must therefore translate into meaningful terms that which is in itself ineffable. Art has a unique capacity to take one or other facet of the message and translate it into colors, shapes and sounds which nourish the intuition of those who look or listen. It does so without emptying the message itself of its transcendent value and its aura of mystery.

In this series named Learning to Look, we will examine each month a great work of Catholic art in painting, so as to go ‘beyond words” in our experience and expression of the Faith.