The Fifth Sunday of Lent
As an artist, it’s possible to be blocked; I can be blocked by fear or past experiences of failure. The blocked artist stops creating.
Another profile of a Catholic artist is one who experiences measured joy in creating and measured success within her or his own vision.
A third Christian artist is the artist who channels God’s very life—the artist whose work touches people’s souls, draws them to faith, and consoles them through difficult childhoods and mid-life crises. Their art heals, evangelizes, and practically works miracles! These are our role models, those artists who inspired us to begin creating in the first place. This is who we desire to become!
But how do we become this “full of grace” artist?
I am beginning to wonder if the key is following Jesus’s teaching today: to become the seed who falls and dies (for this seed bears fruit). Oh, I know—this is a manifestly difficult answer! Many times in prayer I’ve told the Lord that I’m not ready to die or take up my cross. Only recently have I realized that this is like saying that I’m afraid to be born.
Imagine the seed’s sprouting: ecstatic, painful. The hull cracks open. New roots begin their alarming pullulation. Just when this trawl becomes familiar, the shoot crowns, draining the entire strength of the seed. There’s no seed left by the time the baby leaves stretch out. A strange creature has been born, gangly and delicate. What remains is new creation.
Seeds don’t have consciousness to know what they are becoming. The seed experiences a cracking open, shriveling of nourishment sources, and a new energy center.
Even though we humans are conscious, we don’t seem to have the capacity to understand what we’re becoming in Christ when we fall to the ground and die. What we experience as rupture and loss of control isn’t really about the death—it’s about the growth of God’s life in us. We are Wisdom becoming, fruitfulness becoming, holy Breath becoming.
When we surrender to allow God to work in us, we’re saying “no” to the roadblocks that stalled our growth; the loss of control can be frightening. But we’ve got to release control. The recovery maxim applies here: let go and let God.
Create art about that topic you’ve been hardcore avoiding—you know, THAT topic.
Commit to something bigger than yourself that takes us where you don’t want to go. (cf John 21:18)
Share part of your core life which could upset people married to ideologies.
Release an ambition that isn’t fruitful.
Come to terms with the genre of yours that truly impacts others.
Say yes to an invitation to create.
I think the key is an orientation: allowing our Creator to move through our art. To that end, I offer this prayer adapted from the popular prayer of St. Augustine.
Prayer of an Artist (Adapted from St. Augustine’s Prayer to Holy Spirit)
Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit,
That I may be attuned to God’s beauty.
Act in me, O Holy Spirit,
That my art may show Your beauty.
Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit,
That I love You in Your beauty.
Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit,
To create in love.
Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit:
Blessed are the pure of heart,
For they shall see God.
Amen.
Leah Coming is a candidate with the Sisters of the Holy Cross (South Bend, IN) and a poet.