The Contemplative Artist
8 years ago, our friend Mary Shaffer spent some time on retreat at our monastery, praying, writing, and helping us to redesign our website. A couple of weeks ago, we were blessed to welcome her back to St. Joseph’s for one of our ongoing formation classes!
Mary drew a whimsical (and helpful) “diagram of the soul” that she used throughout the class!
(You may notice that she’s in our new Chapter Room - a space designed, in part, for just such formation classes as this)
A spiritual director and “contemplative in the world”, Mary has beautiful artistic gifts which she strives to use for God’s glory. Over the past years, she has spent much time studying and pondering the philosophy and theology behind human creativity, as well as what this means for the spiritual life of the individual artist and of society. One of the fruits of this is a class she has designed on “The Contemplative Artist,” and it was this wonderful material that she shared with our community over the course of four days.
We explored the relationship between art and contemplation, the spiritual structure of creativity (and how it shows forth the image of God in the human soul), the tension and harmony between art and morality, the purpose and vocation of the artist in the Church, and the nature of beauty as it leads us to “rest in God.”
On the final afternoon of our course, we held a little art show of our own, where any Sister who wished could display some of the fruits of her own creativity. We had a lovely turnout, showcasing a wide variety of artistic gifts that the Lord has granted our Sisters. For instance:
A hand-painted holy card of the Pie Pellicane
A humorous short story
An original poem reflecting on the connection between the Mass and the sufferings of old age
A violin performance of the Schindler’s List theme
A dramatic reading/performance of St. Therese’s poem Mes Armes
We are deeply grateful to Mary for the incredible gift she has given us - not only the material she presented, but also her joyful and loving presence. We keep her and her special mission in our prayers! Check out more about Mary’s ministry and creative work below …
And last but not least, enjoy some photos from the art show!
