Chalk Art - Better Late Than Never!
A blog post about our annual fall chalk art bonanza is LONG overdue - pardon the negligence of Sister Webmistress, and enjoy the photos and reflections from our favorite monastery “graffitists”!
The Mystery of the Divine Office
Caryll Houselander’s “Afternoon in Westminster Cathedral”
In the summer of 2025, our community listened to a biography of British author and artist Caryll Houselander, read aloud during our meals (a wonderful monastic custom). It inspired our resident chalk pavement artists to pick up Caryll’s book of poetry, The Flowering Tree, for the theme of their yearly project. Her long poem (she prefers the term “rhythm”) “Afternoon in Westminster Cathedral” is haunting, poignant, profound, highly evocative… and as it turns out, very challenging to capture in pigment! Many of her favorite images and themes of the spiritual life are woven together here: Christ truly present in us, the ordinary members of His body… the prayer of mankind lifting all of creation back to God… the gaping wound of suffering in the human heart, which is the doorway of grace. The two artists chose to draw images primarily from sections V and IX for their interpretation.
Section V describes the inner reality of the liturgy of the Divine Office – in this case, Vespers sung in the cathedral. Priests and monks sing the hymns and psalms of “the last long hour/ of the light,” and in so doing, they bring “the separate notes/ of the whole of created nature/ […] into harmony.” In her extraordinary insight, Caryll is aware that “the unconscious world […] is lit by the spark/ of the conscious will of man,” and then that spark is fanned into flame by the prayer of Christians, of the Church in liturgy. This is the great dignity of man as he was created and called to be – to bring all the world into harmony and light and light.
Our studious kitty Nico “helping out”
The mystery of the Divine Office goes deeper, however. We do not simply animate and give voice to the whole created world; rather, as members of the Body of Christ, we are syllables of the Incarnate Word! We “are uttering Him/ Who utters the secret of God.” In us, it is He who lifts his hands in supplication, He who enters the Presence of God, He who adores. And “He, the Incarnate Word/ of Eternal Love/ spoken to men,/ answers for men/ to God.”
In fact, by our baptism, we live in Him. We wield the whole of Christ’s redemptive love. Our voice raised in prayer is His voice, forever interceding and pouring out His heart in adoration before the Father… His Father and ours.
Our artists were hard pressed to come up with a way to depict this drama of the Divine Office! Their chalked images all converge on a central image of Christ Crucified, arms outstretched in both prayer and sacrifice, and Heart burning – literally! – in the form of the sanctuary lamp which hangs in our monastery chapel. Feeding into His Heart’s flames are smaller rivers of fire streaming from six breviaries, held by six figures who are representative of the sorts of people who regularly join us in praying the Liturgy of the Hours. From left to right, one can see a priest, an older man wearing a hoodie, a younger man, a pregnant woman, an older woman, and a nun. Each one has a smaller sanctuary light burning in their own heart.
(Fun fact: these figures are modeled on specific individuals who frequent our chapel. Do you recognize any of them?)
Around the perimeter of the chalk art are all the various creatures of the natural world – birds of the air, fish of the sea, beasts of the earth, plants and flowers – all the “separate notes of the created world,” as Caryll eloquently states, which are brought into harmony and raised in prayer by the voices of Christians at Vespers.
The six people at prayer here are singing three petitions from the very end of the poem. Their words are, appropriately enough for the sung Office, depicted as an antiphonal back-and-forth between pairs.
The priest and nun sing: Shine in us, Emmanuel, Shadowless Light.
The older man and woman sing: Flame in us, Emmanuel, Fire of Love.
The young married couple sing: Burn in us, Emmanuel, Morning Star.
Yes, despite our limitedness, weakness, and sinfulness; perhaps even because of our fear and timidity and lukewarmness, we cry out to Jesus, our God with us, to burn in us. To supply the life and love which we have not, so that we can truly pray in Him, live in Him, redeem in Him.