“And he has filled him with divine spirit, with skill, intelligence, and knowledge in every kind of craft to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, in every kind of craft.”

Exodus 35:31-33

By engaging works of art, we can experience a sense of comfort and peace, as well as feelings of unease and being challenged. Art invites us to an encounter, which is a gift—a spiritual gift that might bring us into a deeper relationship with God. In addition to cathedrals and mountaintops, we can experience such spiritual gifts in the modern art galleries of the Art Institute of Chicago, at a Zen Garden, or watching and listening to a performance of John Cage’s 4’33. An important part of the process of prayerfully engaging works of art is being attentive to how open we are to the work of art itself, as well as being open and attentive to how the art elicits those emotions, desires, and interior movements within us . . . By being open and attentive to finding God in all things and by engaging imaginative prayer, art can draw us more deeply into our hearts and minds and into an encounter with God. Let us pray for the grace to have eyes that see and ears that hear the stirrings of God’s Spirit within such encounters so that we respond in love. – Brother Lee S. Colombino, S.J

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Ephesians 2:10