Art/Music/Culture

The Catholic Church has a long and glorious history of sacred art. From the earliest etchings of Christian symbols on the walls of the catacombs to the exuberant works of the Baroque era, from the shared patrimony of iconography that links East with West to the monastic revival of the nineteenth century that gave us the St. Benedict medal, Catholic art is astonishing in its variety and diversity of styles.

But for too many, Catholic art is viewed as something largely in the past. This collection emphatically says, "Not so!"

This bound volume of eighteen works of sacred art by Catholic artists will convince you that the great artistic tradition of the Church is alive and well. Each work in this collection is printed on an 8" x 10" detachable page, so that the work may be removed and easily framed in your home.

The nine artists represented here are Matthew Alderman, Neilson Carlin, Bernadette Carstensen, Matthew Conner, Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs, James Janknegt, Timothy Jones, Michael D. O'Brien, and Elizabeth Zelasko.

Our Catholic churches are filled with an abundance of signs and symbols, some of which you may have never noticed or understood. The sacred art, architecture, and artifacts of a church building proclaim the Real Presence of Christ, God dwelling among us in the Blessed Sacrament. The saints portrayed within a church are witnesses to Eucharistic living, and we can identify them through various symbols that tell us about their lives, their works, and their witness to the living presence of God.

In Entering Heaven on Earth, Fr. Lawrence Lew, OP, shows you how to decode the signs and symbols found in our churches and to identify the saints depicted in them. This richly illustrated book filled with photographs the author has taken in churches from around the world will help you to see the churches you worship in or visit from a fresh perspective and to remember the true purpose of a church building.

A church is a visible expression of heaven come down to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. It is always, first of all, a place for the Christian people to assemble for the sacred liturgy and celebrate the Eucharist. The beauty of nature, the creativity and craft of mankind, the good works of the virtuous and the just are all brought together in a church building to remind us of the graced activity of God, who is present to make us holy and draw us into a deeper union with him.

Throughout history, Jesus of Nazareth has unquestionably been the most inspirational subject of great works of art and literature. His life and message have strongly permeated Western art of all periods, influencing giants such as Fra Angelico, Picasso, Tolstoy, and Houellebecq.

In Jesus in Art and Literature, Pierre-Marie Dumont has chosen nearly 100 eclectic iconographic works of art, analyzing and comparing them to passages from the Bible and excerpts from great literary texts. The book offers the reader an extraordinary variety of aesthetic interpretations of the life of Jesus and his teaching, from early Christian to modern art. Through works as diverse as The Hand of God by Auguste Rodin, The Resurrection of Lazarus by Rembrandt, and the "Hidden God" by Blaise Pascal, Dumont highlights th

God fashioned the universe as a seamless fabric, a marvelous, unified, orderly creation. But man's sin tore it asunder, disrupting its great cosmic harmonies. Only Christ could make the symphony ring out again. And through a dazzling array of literature, music, sculpture, art, theater, and dance, men and women of faith, too, can work with Christ to mend the tear in the universe.

According to the late Professor Thomas Howard, the poet and the prophet both speak a loud voice against the tide of secularism and eventual destruction. Yet how does this work? How does myth convey truth? How does architecture reflect eternal verities? How does the written word humanize and sanctify us? What treasure and stability does an ancient faith hold for the unsettled modern mind?

Howard spent his life answering these questions. Christians of all walks of life will appreciate his witty, devout, and cutting observations on faith, art, and the incarnation of Christ. In this volume, readers will also encounter beloved teachers, writers, and friends who influenced Howard's theological imagination, including C. S. Lewis and T. S. Eliot.