The Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty: Art, Sanctity, and the Truth of Catholicism

I was hoping for more depth on the art itself. But the book is wonderful blend of art, beauty, saints, history and teachings.

Every once in a while you read a book that inspires you from cover to cover. I couldn't put this book down because it was so well done and leads you on to reflect on the beauty of the Christian faith and it's practicality in the spiritual life. Mr.Saward has a good grasp on the connection between the beautiful and holy. I found it very readable and would recommend it to anyone who seeks to enrich their Christian faith.

I am giving this book four stars, because it deals with Fra Agelico. Also because I am sympathetic to the impetus for a conceptual bolstering of what flowered artistically in the late Medieval and Renaissance world. Would that these more orthodox theorists would take greater heed of the simple art-historically established facts that some of that aesthetic impetus for artists like Fra Angelico came from more esoteric currents in the West, not just orthodox ones. But, I would rather comment on the interview I saw on catholic cable with this man talking about this very book. To hear Saward talk, you would think he was living in some airtight chamber most of his life. He describes in classic late Thomistic fashion the putative congruence between proper belief and beauty, and acceptance or reception of the same. Conversely, he avers that if there is lack of beauty, it must indicate the opposite; thus, bad belief or chaotic morality. This notion caused Marcus Grodi to go into a gloss about "the museums just down the street from where we are holding this intereiew here in London, where the art is not very beautiful.", which he meant as a way of describing how disturbed the world is. And then Saward, harrumphed approvingly to Grodi's avuncular art criticism.The question I have for Saward and Grodi is-- are you serious?? Do you know the incredible extent to which the most dedraggled end of safe, worn out modern-art and modern-music have been embraced everywhere in the RC Church??? Have you been living in a bubble?? Have you been living on a different planet, Planet Angelico or something. By the very logic of this book then, by the words of its very author, the Catholic Church must be the institution farthest from Truth of any around, since its use of modern-art's and modern-music's most blasé tropes is really unmatched in any other Church or organization. Truly, the St. Louis Jesuits, which is sung everywhere, is an apotheosis of something so cloying and phony in the human spirit's capacity for self-deception that it is almost world-historical for its badness. Again, by the logic of this book, the institution that spawned it , and promoted it must be the Furthest from Truth possible. Saward needs to re-think his logic.Also, Grodi's comment about bad museums "down the street" must have been referring to the Tate Modern, and I sorta agree with him. But you can go to a great little pub called Blackfriars right near it which has been there since the 14th Century and have the best meat-and-ale pie ever! God brings good out of bad, therefore.

overpriced book, but good condition

The absolute wonder of extraordinary love and admiration for beauty and holiness offered within precious religious art.

Thanks

I read this book many years ago when it first appeared, and am very happy to see it back in print from Angelico Press. John Saward is an eloquent writer with a mastery of his subject: the role of beauty in religious faith and the analogy of beauty at all levels: dogma, morals, fine art, liturgy. Beauty is often either dismissed as mere subjective preference or pursued independently of its true context, which turns it into an idol. Saward shows that Catholicism has always preached and practiced a middle way: it is God's beauty that we glimpse in the beauty of creation, culture, and holy men and women; if we want to enter into this beauty ourselves, we must pursue holiness.

This is an impassioned book by a man aghast at the loss of beauty in western cristendom, a loss crystallised by the iconclastic protestant reformation and continued with a vengeance since (but not because of) Vatican II in some parts of the Catholic world.Fr Saward is transfixed by the Blessed Virgin, she who abases herself before the most High, with her Fiat, is herself honoured by cherubim and seraphim; St Michael, the Archangel, bows before her and proclaims throughout eternity with his angelic confreres: "blessed are thou amongst women".For Fr Saward, a christianity without the blessed virgin cannot be orthodox and cannot be tender - it loses something, it loses a connection with she who gives our incarnate Christ, his human nature, she, who is the Theotokos. "All generations shall call me blessed"Let me quote from his work to give an insight into this valuable work:"the bible is an infinite forest of senses. The Holy Spirit. through the secondary casuality of the human authors, has planted a sacred wood of meaning within the bible, a wood whose rich foliage He opnes up in the Tradition of the Church. For [Fra Angelico], Catholic belief and worship are the natural environment for exegesis, the only guarantee of true objectivity (page 38 and 39)."beauty is the splendour of all the transcendentals together" (page 48)"The medeival artist had a job of work to do - for the glory of God and the good estate of the Church. He knew nothing of gallaries and salons, foppish art critics and fastidious collectors." (page 72)"According to the Fathers, the Iconoclasts' rejection betrayed a low and unchrsitian view of matter; the totality of the material creation has been touched, and is thus objectively and in principle transfigured, by God the Son's taking of flesh from the Virgin and His rising in the flesh from the tomb" (page 91)"The hypostatic union never comes to an end: what God took from the Virgin, He kept" (page 101)According to st Thomas, even in this life, there is a transfiguration of our bodies through the grace of the Eucharist" (page 106)"...true devotion to the Blessed Virgin is the irreplaceable key to the renewal of Christian culture, to the building up of a society of love. (page 114)"there is only one human person whom He resembles in his Humanity, and that is His Virgin Mother" (page 123)"He comes forth from an intact Virgin just as He rises from an intact tomb". Incarnation is not invasion" (page 129)"the supreme revelation of the beauty of the Trinity take place in the crucified form of the Son" (page 139)"there is no culture, then, without contemplative wonder at the beauty of being" (page 149)"All womanhood is made radiant by the shining Theotokos" (page 151)"Only throught he sacrificed flesh and blood of Christ in the Eucharist is man made capable of martyrdom" (page 181)

Excellent condition