How Great Thou Art: The Art of Holy Week

God is endlessly creative, and in creative love, God designed the world. As part of that design, God brought together the gifts of creativity, joy, and imagination into a special means of worship: ART. Long after the dawn of creation, God is still creating the world, touching up places here and there, making the world more vivid with every brushstroke, and inviting you to participate in the artistry of it all.

For centuries, the global Church has engaged art in all forms as a means of storytelling, biblical interpretation, and even praise. Sacred architecture trains our eyes upward; sacred songs tell of Christ’s goodness and power; sacred poems remind us of the beauty of the created world; sacred dance mimics the movement of the Holy Spirit; and sacred visual art awakens our spiritual imaginations. To artistically approach the Truth of the Gospel requires discernment, interpretation, imagination, and belief in the power and truth of the One whom the stories are about. Each color is an invitation to see the story more vividly. Each texture is an invitation to encounter the depth of a sacred moment.

Ultimately, Christian art invites both the artist and observers alike to enter into the biblical
narrative… to “be still and know that He is God.”

Historically, the Church has used Christian icons to focus prayer life. Icons are sacred images representing the saints, Christ, and the Virgin Mary, as well as narrative scenes such as Christ’s Baptism and Crucifixion. Icons are windows into Heaven. As we prayerfully look into the eyes of Christ, features of the divine nature and the “abundant life” can come into view. Visio divina – “sacred seeing” – is another ancient form of Christian prayer in which we pray while gazing at an image. The image focuses our hearts and imaginations on an aspect of God’s character and invites us to see what God might have to say to us. For example, praying through an image of the ocean may open our eyes to the breadth and depth of God’s love or to the truth that God commands the waves that arise through life. Christian art is so powerful. So let’s take a look at some art depicting the events of Holy Week:

The Last Supper – mural painting housed in refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy Painted by Italian High Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci between 1495 and 1498 CE.

Stained Glass

Our own stained glass windows illuminate the stories of the bible and in doing so, trace God’s movement here on earth. Every window, every story, is one piece of a larger puzzle… one more step in God’s plan to redeem all of creation. And we who love God and seek God’s heart physically sit in the middle of all these stories and Truths each week.

The completed windows are a beautiful offering to God. But the work itself–from discerning which stories to portray, drawing each design, selecting colors, cutting and assembling glass, to installing the completed panels–was also a labor of love for God.

Art can be that. Art can DO that. It can incline our hearts toward the Greatest Artist: the Creator of the universe and the Author of our faith.

The Pietà

The Pietà–meaning “pity” or “compassion”–is a statue of Mary holding Jesus after his death on the cross at Mount Golgotha. The idea that Mary held the body of the dead Christ as a mother holds her child begs us to acknowledge Mary’s unwaivering faithfulness to the call God placed on her life. A key work of Italian Renaissance sculpture, the Pietà was carved by Michelangelo in 1498-1499 CE. The sculpture now resides at Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

The St. John’s Bible

Right: The Crucifixion (Luke 23) – Rendered in raised and burnished gold, the crucified figure of Christ dominates this composition. Luke’s Gospel recounts that upon Christ’s death darkness covered the earth for three hours, indicated here by the night sky, and that the curtain of the temple, shown as shreds of purple, was torn in two. The contrast of pain with the glory of gold relates this image to current theological discussions concerning the meaning of the Crucifixion in the contemporary world. The delicate gray border was printed with English lace, contributing to the recurring theme of textiles in the Saint John’s Bible illuminations.

The Saint John’s Bible is a work of art and a work of theology. A team of artists coordinated by Donald Jackson in Wales and a team of scholars in Central Minnesota have brought together the ancient techniques of calligraphy and illumination with an ecumenical Christian approach to the Bible rooted in Benedictine spirituality. The result is a living document and a monumental achievement. Their goal was to create a Bible that would capture the beauty and tradition of centuries of liturgy and carry it into the future.

The artistry of each page isn’t merely an illustration–it’s an illumination of the living Word of God. The text and illuminations of The Saint John’s Bible encourage us to take our time–to live with the images and words and listen for God’s voice. Of the project, Artistic Director Donald Jackson said, “The continuous process of remaining open and accepting of what may reveal itself through hand and heart on a crafted page is the closest I have ever come to God.”