Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Bede Griffiths on liturgy, art and worship



Bede Griffiths OSB Cam (1906-1993), was a British-born Indian Benedictine monk and spiritual director who lived in ashrams in South India. He became a pioneer of the developing dialogue between Christianity and Hinduism. The following is from The Golden String: An Autobiography (1954), the book he wrote detailing his conversion to Christianity and his eventual embrace of the monastic life. 


Just as the pagan who contemplated the course of nature, the movement of the stars, the dying of the vegetation in the winter and its rising again in the spring, strove to participate in the divine mystery and to share in the divine life; so the Christian who contemplates the life of Christ, desires to share in that life, to die with him and to rise again to a new and immortal life. This is the mystery which underlies the sacred liturgy. It is a means by which the Christian may share in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. The ancient music of the chant, the ceremonial of the sanctuary, the use of candles and incense, are all so many signs by which the sacred drama may be impressed on the soul and become part of its own inner life. . . 

It is here that the true function of art becomes apparent. Art, like everything else in modern life, has become separated from religion; but in the earliest times it was not so. The function of art, from the earliest times, has been to invoke the divine presence. Man can only approach the divine mystery by means of images, and it is the work of the artist to represent or 'make present' the divine mystery in an image in such a way that the people enter into communion with it . . . 

To take part in the liturgy is not merely to be a spectator of this art and drama. It is to share mystically in the life and resurrection of Christ, to receive the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost and to participate in the Communion of Saints. Here all the arts are combined in the exercise of their highest function. The architecture of the church, the sculpture and painting on the walls, the music of the chant, and the colour and shape of the vestments and the hangings on the altar, the ceremonies of the sanctuary, as solemn and rhythmic as a ritual dance, are all used to show forth the mystery of the Divine Word; to manifest it not in abstract terms to the reason only, but in its concrete embodiment, appealing to eye and ear, to sense and imagination, to heart and soul. Yet all this outward splendour is strictly subordinated to its end, to enable the soul to pass through the outward form to its inner meaning . . . This is what gives it all a timeless character. It is the representation of the mystery of the Eternal, the Light coming out of darkness, the Word being born out of the Silence, God becoming man . . .


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