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SIXTEEN
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
SEPTEMBER 28, 1940
Our Heritage of Catholic Culture
By MRS. LEONARD BEECHER
This is an attempt to discuss “Our
Heritage of Catholic Culture’’ in the
same simple terms as one speaks of a
legacy of lands and goods, of jewels
and coins. To strip it of all vague
ness and to consider it as a product
more or less concrete, something tan
gible, something clearly recognizable
as emanating from the CathdSr ac
ceptance of the meaning of life.
To understand what that accep
tance is, it is necessary to reflect on
the strange terms of our existence
here. We come out of the shadow, we
hurry across our little allotment ot
time and space to a deeper shadow,
a more engulfing silence. We make
this journey in a body which at the
end we drop like an outworn gar
ment. We make it through an envi
ronment indifferent to us, even ini
mical. We journey over a small seg
ment of an earth that cares nothing
for us. that makes hideously short
work of returning the mortal part of
us to the dust out of which it was
made.
In every permanent expression that
man has left of his thought since the
very earliest records he has shown
his concern with the puzzling discon
certing mystery of his own existence,
with the baffling presentiment of
“all this unintelligible world.’’
The Catholic believes that mankind
has not been left floundering in this
bewildering darkness. He believes
that a teacher has been sent, and that
the answer to the riddle is on the
first page of the Catechism.
“Who made you?
God made me — God the Creator
of Heaven and Earth and of all
things. God made me.
Why did He make you?
God made me to know Him and to
love Him and to serve Him in this
world and to be happy with Him for
ever in Heaven.”
The acceptance of that explanation
is the distinguishing mark of the
Catholic attitude, and Our Heritage
of Culture has been bequeathed to
us by a great cloud of witnesses to
the truth and the beauty of this in
terpretation of life.
The concrete embodiment of this
Heritage is not necessarily religious
or of religion. It i» fruit grown in a
‘certain soil. It is a by-product of life
itself, life oriented and motivated by
a certain conviction, and, since self
revelation is the price of self-expres
sion, the Catholic Spirit speaks per
force of itself and for itself.
Joyce Kilmer says, “A Catholic
is a Catholic not only when he prays:
he is a Catholic in all the thoughts
and actions of his life.” C(jrot paint
ing the French landscape as if utter
ing a prayer, as if devining the visi
ble universe as the "Garment of the
unseen God,” is in the true Catholij
tradition. Joyce Kilmer. himself,
singing of Trees and Delicatessen
Shops and Jersey Roofs, has the *rue
Catholic sense of the sacramental
value of common things. The Catho
lic spirit seems always to be saying,
"We come from veiy far off.’’ It
seems to be dimly remembering or
to be envisaging some incredible
standard of excellence found else
where than in this incomplete and
transitory life.
If the term may be mode thus
broadly inclusive, I will speak of Our
Heritage of Culture as Catholic Art.
There are endless attempts 10 de
fine Art, and a dictum frequently en
countered in Catholic writing is, “Art
sees as God sees,” but Art is not God
seeing. It is man seeing. Art belongs
exclusively to man and no creature
in Heaven or in earth has a gift com
parable to it as the poet Schiller
recognized when he cried. “Seraphs
share with thee Knowledge, but Art,
O man. is thine alone.”
We are taught that through Reli
gion God has manifested Himself to
man. Art is man’s answer to God.
At its highest it is a supreme act of
Faith, an expression of the deepest
emotion. It is an exercise of that part
of us that is made in the image and
likeness of God and we reach to
heaven for a fitting word, daring to
call the artist a creator. The Church
has ever been a fertile soil for the
Art product. The Catholic idea of
life exalts the soul over the body. The
emphasis is on the things of the mind
and heart rather than upon the de
tails and necessities of the physical
life and this is expressed not only in
the prayers and services of the
Church but in the bewilderingly rich
contribution to the human cult of the
Beautiful. To use the words “Cath
olic Art” is to open the floodgates to
a tide of memories and implications.
Just to name over the Fine Arts with
the connotation of even a slight un
derstanding of their history and de
velopment is to acknowledge the
importance of the Catholic idea as a
fostering, a general, animating spirit.
For example, Christian architecture
is admittedly man’s great, cultural
contribution to civilization .the su
preme assertion of transeedent human
capacity. The rich Christian mon
uments scattered all over the civilized
world are an eloquent, thrilling tri
bute to the beauty and the fecundity
of man’s creative faculty when in
spired by a worthy ideal.
Man ,a pilgrim and a stranger,
reaches for what he can lay hands on
in an unfriendly, resisting environ
ment, and in his little moment of
time he molds it, against its will
into forms of perfection, altering,
subduing, evoking an absolute beauty
that in its turn testifies aloud to hi;
spiritual significance, testifies as long
as a fragment of the beauty remains
Century after century these monu
ments call aloud, “A man passed this
way! An immortal spirit went by and
left here his name — Yes, his name
and address!”
An ardent American boy wrote me
one summer from Le Puv. wrote in
the presence of the startling gran
deur of the Church of St. Michael,
which for nine hundred years has
dominated the country side. He says.
“The effect pf the Cathedral is of
consummate symmetry. As a piece
of architectural address I have never
seen its equal. I am sure builders
were never faced with a problem
more difficult. The Cathedral sur
mounts a steep and precipitous height
of volcanic rock and they have used
that hostile material for the Cathe
dral itself, a rock difficult to cut, im
possible'to carve and work. Forced
to do without detail tljey had to make
beauty by line, geometrically. It had
to be inherent in the structure. What
detail there is in the color of the
rocks themselves, red, and white, and
black, patterned in radiating lines.
The whole is a work that praises God
subtly and in the best possible man
ner by turning to His use the brain
He gave to man. The Cathedral rep
resents the triumph of man over his
environment. You almost feel that
the builders chose the stone and the
site because it was the most difficult
thing they could think of doing.
There is no resignation about the
Church. It is a triumph of the most
difficult sort, an homage in action,
not in prostration,” I suppose you
might call this Catholic Action.
The Cathedral of Chartres is admit
ted to be the consummate example of
the art of building. It rouses emotions
of a different kind, emotions of an
ever-changing sort We might try
to estimate it as a many-volumned
history of the Catholic Centuries: or
as the soul’s aspiring it as a treas
ure house of inestimable value, con
taining as it does the most beautiful
glass in the w orld in designs of flaw
less taste and suitability. Everywhere
there is an exuberance of artistry,
graceful pillars blossoming with
fadeless flowers and leafage. the
aisles and porches filled with an im
posing gallery of sculptured portraits
evidently modelled from life and
telling us of the manner of men who
lived then in the firmness, grandeur,
and refinement of their wonderful
countenances. Everywhere, every
where, there is something for the
mind. It is a lofty human utterance,
an eloquent comment on the funda
mental conception of life out of
which it grew. It is an assertion of
human dignity, of its high manifest
destiny, of the prayerfulness, its
healthfulr.ess of mind.
In the history and in the product,
too, of painting is the same eloquent
assertion of the fecundity of the
Faith, when it takes over and sancti
fies all that properly belongs in the
life of man. From the pictures which
the world reveres, take away the
Catholic contribution, take away the
pictures that v/ere made for churches
or out of a religious impulse and see
what you have left.
The same is true of Sculpture. It is
an admission of insensibility and ig
norance not to know the names of
Giotto, Donatello, Michael Angelo,
Leonardo da Vinci, Ghiberti, Verro-
chio, Della Robbia, and many others
who left in marble, granite, bronze,
wood, silver, gold, terra - cotta, elo
quent and deathless beauty as they
strove to fittingly celebrate the
Christian story.
Baptismal fonts, sculptured images,
delicately wrought ivory Crucifixes,
polished bronze figures, intricately
beautiful iron screens and jewelled
Chalices, illuminated and hand em
bellished Missals and Books of the
Hours, priceless tapestries, laces,
vestments — what an endless wealth
of beauty has been produced when
the Church encouraged Art, when it
gave no* only a worthy personal
ideal but also an appreciative mar
ket and a living wage, so that the
worker was free to fill his life with
the incomparable joy of making
something beautiful. How .these con
ceptions have gone to work in the
world even when they have been
wrested from the protected spaces of
the old Mother Church!
Not long ago there was put up at
auction in New York an exquisitely
wrought bronze Thurible, supposed
to have been made under the direc
tion and perhaps with the assistance
of Leonardo da Vinci. Many competed
for it and the price mounted until it
was knocked down for $S1.000 The
Boys’ Catholic High School, Augusta
THOMAS H. BRITTINGHAM
Plumbing and Healing Contractor
919 TWELFTH STREET
AUGUSTA
GEORGIA
In the building which for more than half a century w as St. Mary’s Convent, and St Mary's Academy, conduct
ed by the Sisters of Mercy, the Marist Brothers opened last year a Catholic High School for boys. With the start
of its second year, this month, a sophomore class has bee n added. Brother Nicholas is the principal, and the
faculty includes “Brother Hildebert, Brother Paul, anl B rother Richard Aloysius.
long - dead creator of that consumate
grace was not thinking of fabulously
rich Americans coveting its posses-
esion. He was trying to make some
thing worthy of the Sanctuary where
God Himself dwelt, and in spite of
all its w.anderings and vicissitudes
the beautiful Thurible still speaks for
itself. It is a lamp of incense. It
must forever remind us of the Sanc
tuary.
The Ascola Cope may be the trea
sure of the Morgan collection but that
is not what it says to us as we look
at it. The finest piece of needlework
work in the world was not wrought to
be exchanged for any or for all of
Morgan's gold. It is someone’s wish
to fittingly partake in the sublime
happenings at the altar.
The illuminated, emblazoned, jew
el - like pages of old books were not
designed for the showcases or the
safes of later-day custodians. The
makers wanted to make a page beau
tiful enough to carry the soul-shak
ing words of the Liturgy.
Passing on to the other phases of
Art we find the very first page in the
history of Music concerned with the
influence of the patronage of the
Church. It is pointed opt that music
in modern times is an evolutiop of
the musical modes which the Church
developed and employed in its cere
monial exercises: that the impressive
Masses are the greatest works of the
most outstanding musical geniuses
that the world had ever known; that
even Opera is but a development of
the Orotorio.
Realizing the immense wealth of
poetic - inspiration in the deep
thoughts and feelings caused by the
Catholic interpretation of the soul’s
manifest destiny, Francis Thompson
mourns that poetry, the lesser sister
and helpmate of the Church, the min
ister to the mind as the Church is to
the soul, should have been allowed
ever so slightly to follow the feet of
a pagan seducer.
The Christian idea, organized into
what we know as the Church with
its Feasts and Liturgies, its Legends
and Traditions, is of poetry all com
pact. It is altogether and gloriously
true that ever since his day Dante has
been called the greatest poet and his
poetry mankind's greatest achieve
ment. The subject is just Cath
olic Christianity.
Modern Drama is an erring child
but it too had a Holy Mother. Mod
ern Drama began in the Church and
may God grant that under the influ
ence of that great organization where
all men are equal, the Drama, the
most democratic and intimate of the
Arts, may hold a truer mirror up to
nature, may show us life relieved of
the accidents of the commonplace and
vulgar made incarnate through the
magic of speech.
These claims may seem overweight
ed but history concedes every one of
them. These are tangible bequests
but it is not even in these concrete
evidences, precious as they are, that
Our Heritage is best embodied.
After all, the wisdom and hope and
insight of the Faith is best conveyed
to us in the personal lives that it has
moulded. Life was what our Blessed
Savior was always talking about. He
came to bring us life—a more abund
ant life. Above all, Arts is the fine
Art of Living. Life is the origin of
Art and it is as much greater than
the Arts as God is greater than any
of His works. Our greatest heritage
is in the spiritual distinction, the
abundance and power of the lives
of our Saints and Sages, idealized in
holy tradition.
Formally sanctioning the celebra
tion of the 650th Anniversary of Dan
te our Holy Father wrote to the
Bishop of Ravenna “Dante Aligherius
noster est.” Yes, Dante is ours and
Raphael is ours, and Fra Angelico is
ours, and Francis of Assisi is ours—
Blessed St. Francis who taught us
that the most beautiful poetry of all
is the life that is a poem—‘Every
body’s St. Francis.’ the Tittle poor
man,’ shining with gladness, more
alive, more vivid by far today than
scores of us who actually plod be
tween the daylight and the dark. Yes,
St. Francis is ours. And St. Thomas
of Aquinas is ours, and Thomas a
Kempis. whose little book has been
a lamp foe the feet of so many thou-
New York Times
Urges Watch on
Klan and Bund
NEW YORK — An editorial in The
New York Times said that the joint
meeting of the Ku Klux Klan and
the German - American Bund at
Camp Nordland, N. J., seemed "a
mingling of kindred souls,” and urged
that the two organizations and others
like them “be kept under close and
constant surveillance.”
“The Klan’s incitements to racial
and religious hatreds furnish a help
ful background for the Bund’s cam
paign for Hitlerism,” the editorial as
serted. “The effect of these activities,
singly or in combination, to the de
gree that they succeed, is to weaken
our democracy and impede prepara
tion for the national defense.
“This country is now engaged in
readying itself to defend its territories
and its interests against an enemy
who may never attack us if we are
fully prepared but whose identity is
known. Any organization which op
enly supports that possible enemy,
as the Bund does directly and as
Klan members did indirectly by their
presence at Nordland on Sunday,
ought to be kept under close and
constant surveillance.”
sands. Why is it, asks George Eliot,
that this small, old fashioned book
that you can buy any day for a six-
pense at a bookstall, why is it that it
works miracles to this very day, turn
ing bitter waters into sweetness,
while expensive sermons and treat
ises, newly issued, leave all things
as they were before? This book prized
by the ages, printed more times than
any book except the Bible, is in our
heritage, as well as the articulate and
inarticulate emanations from count
less noble lives.
“Whose echoes roll from, soul to
soul and grow forever and forever.”
How rn.ny there are!
For three hundred years the Bol-
landists have been working on an ex
haustive ‘Lives of the Saints.’ There
will be countless volumes for the
material is collossal and will require
two hundred and fifty million words
—what a company” of all nations and
tribes and peoples and tongues!” And
we may think of this company as of
our family. We are taught to think
that they want to help us, that we
may have friends and patrons there.
They have gone before us in the
Faith and if we have the will we may
‘time in’ with them and so receive a
wealth of example, of refreshment
and regeneration, for are we not
taught to say “I believe in the Com
munion of Saints?”
Author of Notre Dame
“Victory March” Dead
(Special to The Bulletin)
NOTRE DAME, Ind. — Interment
of the Rev. Michael J. Shea, author of
the University of Notre Dame’s “Vic
tory March” took place here in tha
little community cemetery on the
campus of the school whose spirit he
helped to immortalize.
A graduate of Notre Dame in tha
class of 1904, Father Shea was a life
long supporter of his alma mater and
more than a year ago requested per
mission for burial in the cemetery plot
reserved for members of the Congre
gation of Holy Cross.
Father Shea died at the age of 55
in the rectory of St. Augustine's
Church, Ossining, New York, as tha
result of a heart attack. Prior to as
suming the pastorate of St. Augus
tine’s in 1938, he had been for many
years a professor of philosophy and
dogmatic theology at St. Joseph’s
Seminary in Dunwoodie, Yonkers,
New York.
In commenting on the passing of
one of the university’s outstanding
alumni, Rev. J. Hugh O’Donnell. C.
S. C., president, expressed the deep
sorrow of the priest’s many admirers
and added that “the spirit of .Father
Shea as known to friends of Notre
Dame in the ‘Victory March’ will al
ways serve as an inspiration to both
students and alumni.”
The funeral mass for Father Shea
was celebrated at Ossining, and was
followed by a service in Sacred
Heart Church on the campus here.
Most Rev. John F. O'Hara, C. S. C.,
D. D., former president of Notre
Dame and now supervising bishop of
the Army and Navy diocese, presided.
Best Wishes
JOHN W. BURKE
GOAL COMPANY
QUALITY
COAL AND COKE
1423 Reynolds St.
Telephone 2-7848
Augusta, Ga.
Best Wishes
Goodrich
Silvertown Stores
OF THE B. F. GOODRICH COMPANY
815 ELLIS ST. AUGUSTA, GA.
BEN WILBANKS, Mgr.