Sister Dolores Coleman, D.C. has just published her second volume of Poetry, Sparrow Songs. All proceeds are donated to the Ministry for the Deaf, in which she served for many years. It can be purchased on Amazon.com. Click Read More for Fr. Robert Maloney’s letter to Vincentian artists.

Letter from Fr. R0bert Maloney to a gathering of Vincentian Artists (June 2001)

To Vincentian Artists

I am delighted that you are meeting in these days to share your gifts and your experience as artists in the Vincentian Family. I am very grateful for your invitation to say a few words to you today and genuinely regret that I cannot be there with you personally.

Pope John Paul II, in a letter that he wrote to artists in 1999, said this:

With loving regard, the Divine Artist passes on to the human artist a spark of God’s own surpassing wisdom, calling him or her to share in God’s creative power.

So first, I thank God for the gifts you have been given. Your gifts as artists are a share in the divine artistry, the creative word that God is always speaking in the world. As God sat back and rested on the seventh day, the Creator looked at the masterpiece we call the universe, rejoiced in it, and knew that it was very, very good. It was beautiful.

The theme of beauty is decisive for the artist. St. Augustine, meditating on human existence, stated: “We cannot help loving what is beautiful.” The artist sees the beauty that lies at the core of creation and at the heart of the human person and gives expression to the transcendent mystery that underlies it. Poets, writers, painters, sculptors, musicians, architects, actors appreciate how beautiful life really is. The rest of us are often too distracted to notice. Perhaps the saints too notice, because the psalmist sings out : “One thing I ask of the Lord, this I seek: that I may gaze on the beauty of the Lord and contemplate his temple.” Of course that beauty is often hidden. But artists find beauty in both light and darkness, laughter and pain, life and death.

As you gather together today, may I suggest to you briefly three things:

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See also

• 350th-anniversary celebration of Vincentian Artists
  See the menu bar right beneath the large colorful graphic (Arts – Literature – Media – )

• Vincentian Encyclopedia on Vincentian_Art_and_Artists (This article is but the beginning of an attempt to celebrate the creativity of the so many  of the followers of Vincent and Louise. PLease feel free to contact famvin with suggestions to complete this article.

• A fun interview with Br. Mark Elder, CM a Vincentian muralist.