Bill Donaghy on a conversation with Pure in Heart In a world of information-overload, where every influencer, media company, and big-business is clamouring for our attention, effective evangelisation can feel like a daunting task. One of the questions that subsequently arises in for the Church in the modern age, is how exactly we can be heard amid a world that is already filled with so many distractions. Or perhaps, more practically, with what method can the Good News be preached in an already noisy world?
Beauty
One way, which may sound surprisingly simple, that the Church has used for millennia and may be the perfect fit for today’s culture, is the use of beauty. The Way of Beauty or the Via Pulchritudinis, is a successfully tried and tested method of evangelisation in the history of the Church. In an age where high-quality video, image, and sound is but a click of a button away, our historical association with beauty and the arts may just be the best thing we have going for us in our attempt to reach out to the wider culture in contemporary times.
A 2006 plenary assembly of Bishops examining the Via Pulchritudinis maintained that using beauty as a means of evangelisation can be the most effective way to “get in touch with many of those who face great difficulties in receiving the Church’s teachings”.
Transcendentals
But what is it about beauty that makes for good evangelisation?
Theological tradition maintains that all reality can be explained through the three transcendentals. Namely, that which is True, Good, and Beautiful. The three transcendentals, therefore, are the means through which we interact with the world as human beings and fundamentally the means through which we interact with the source of life itself – God.
Reading the ‘signs of the times’ in the post-modern context that we live in today which Pope Benedict XVI once styled “a dictatorship of relativism”, people are very often suspicious of any truth claims and perhaps even more suspicious of any moral ones. Out of fear of offending the other, young people are told by the culture that objective truth doesn’t exist, and subsequently that moral values are completely subjective. ‘Live your own truth’ is the common cultural mantra.
Interaction with beauty develops in us intuition for something much deeper – the natural inkling for the Divine whose image we were created in”
This leaves us with one transcendental that is difficult to argue with, namely ‘beauty’. Beauty is a non-confrontational way to express the inexpressible. Take something like Mozart’s Great Mass for example, or Michelangelo’s Pieta. The powerful emotions that these pieces of art stir up inside of us cannot be fully explained away by rational science. Interaction with beauty develops in us intuition for something much deeper – the natural inkling for the Divine whose image we were created in. You cannot help but be ‘drawn in’ to the objectivity of beauty, thus pointing us back to the true and the good.
Faith journey
Recently in fact, a member of our young adult ministry in the parish presented to the group her personal faith testimony which began with a trip to the Vatican. Coming from a protestant culture which emphasised bare-walled church interiors, the young lady was awe-struck entering the Vatican to see such beautiful art and architecture all created for the purposes of praising God.
It was this encounter with beauty that led her to consider not only what exactly could inspire people to create such beauty, but what is its fundamental purpose and illumination. Subsequently, this experience led her to consider the bigger questions of life and embark on an inner journey to the source and light of life itself and just two months ago she was received into the Catholic Church.
‘The Way of Wonder’
Considering the suitability and power of beauty for evangelisation in the modern age, two Catholic young adult groups in Dublin –Young Adults Rathmines & Pure in Heart – are collaborating to host an immersive experience of beauty, art, music and spirituality, led by internationally acclaimed speaker and author Bill Donaghy.
Content Specialist with the Theology of the Body Institute in the USA, Bill Donaghy, will lead a night of music and reflection opening hearts and minds to the source and light of life – the one true God.
This very special one-time event organised in conjunction with the Theology of the Body Institute’s 20th anniversary, will see Senior Lecturer Bill Donaghy host a ‘night of wonder’ under the iconic dome of Mary Immaculate Refuge of Sinners, Rathmines on Friday July 26 at 7pm.
It is aimed to recapture the imagination of the secular age and point us back to the source of that natural yearning for God”
Rathmines Church is built in the model of a Greek cross which includes a magnificent four-pillar portico. As well as it’s Orthodox styled dome, it contains a rich interior with an array of paintings recently installed (having been moved from Conliffe College Seminary) making it an appropriate venue for the beauty-immersive event.
The Way of Wonder is timely event to reach out to the culture and evangelise with this non-confrontational invitation to God through beauty. It is aimed to recapture the imagination of the secular age and point us back to the source of that natural yearning for God which as the Catechism says, is written on every human heart.
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Tickets are available on www.eventbrite.ie and at the doors from 6.30pm.