Art tells of God made flesh: reflections of Christmas in the ‘Sacred Itineraries’ Review
- Freigegeben in Generalsekretariat für Ausbildung
Veni redemptor gentium
ostende partum virginis
miretur omne saeculum
talis decet partus Deum.
Wonder and amazement, love and tenderness, are the most cherished themes of the Nativity, at once intimate and choral. The mystery of the Divine incarnate surpasses human comprehension and invites ecstatic and moved contemplation that has for centuries attracted art, the elective form and medium of contemplation. Art has given it faces and gestures, garments and colours, and music, the most ineffable of the arts and powerful in the inexpressible, has given sound with ancient hymns to the hope of the expectation and joy of the birth, or intoned with descriptive immediacy, with the rhythms and timbres of the pastorals, the Gospel proclamation of the angels to the shepherds and the adoration of the latter at the manger. In admirable harmony, already in the sacred texts, images and sounds together illustrate the Nativity and through it the beauty of the Christian message. This reached the hearts of the attentive listeners present at the ‘Sacri Itinerari’ last 1 December, the first day of Advent, the concluding appointment of the art review ‘Sacri Itinerari in Chiesa’, a series of organ concerts and art history lessons hosted in the Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Via Veneto in Rome. Professor Sante Guido, Professor of Conservation of Cultural Heritage at the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Roma Tre University, and Maestro Matteo Imbruno, titular organist of the Oude Kerk and the H'ART Museum in Amsterdam, together introduced the audience to the story of the mystery of the Nativity in art, in European painting, sculpture and music of the 17th and 18th centuries, an audience fascinated by Professor Sante Guido's lectio and the masterful performance by organist Matteo Imbruno of compositions written for the Advent and Christmas season by Bach, Byrd, Zipoli, Bruna and Marais. A dimension of magical sacredness pervaded the listeners, an event where art and music met on the same field to tell together the mystery and beauty of the Christian message.
ByFra Gian Nicola Paladino OFMCap, Via Veneto, Roma