Pope Francis to Artists " The Church counts on you to make the Ineffable Beauty of the love of God perceptible..." FULL TEXT
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE GROUP "DIACONIE DE LA BEAUTÉ"
Hall of the Consistory
Saturday, February 24, 2018
Dear friends,
I welcome you on the occasion of the Symposium that you are organizing in Rome in connection with the feast of Blessed Fra Angelico. I thank Archbishop Robert Le Gall for the words he addressed to me on your behalf. Through you, I want to express my cordial greetings to all the artists who seek to "shine the beauty", with their talents and their passion, as well as to the people in situation of fragility who get up thanks to the experience of the beauty in art.
Pope John Paul II writes in the Letter to Artists, "The artist lives a special relationship with beauty. In a very fair sense, we can say that beauty is the vocation to which the Creator has called him by the gift of "artistic talent". And this talent is certainly to be fruitful, in the logic of the Gospel parable of the talents (see Mt 25,14-30) "(April 4, 1999, n.3). This conviction sheds light on the vision and the dynamics of the Diaconia of Beauty, which took root here in Rome, at the time of the Synod on the New Evangelization, in October 2012. With you, I give thanks to the Lord for the way traveled and for the diversity of your talents that he calls you to develop in the service of the neighbor and all humanity.
The gifts you have received are for each of you a responsibility and a mission. You have, in fact, to work without being dominated by the search for vain glory or easy popularity, and still less by the often petty calculation of personal profit alone. In a world where technique is often understood as the main means of interpreting existence (see Laudato Si ', 110), you are called, by means of your talents and by drawing on the sources of spirituality. Christianity, to offer "another way of understanding the quality of life, [to encourage] a prophetic and contemplative way of life, capable of helping to deeply appreciate things without being obsessed with consumption" (ibid., 222 ), and to serve the creation and preservation of "oases of beauty" in our cities too often concrete and soulless. You are called to make known the free beauty.
I invite you to deploy your talents to contribute to an ecological conversion that recognizes each person's outstanding dignity, self-worth, creativity and ability to promote the common good. May your search for beauty in what you create be driven by the desire to serve the beauty of people's quality of life, their adaptation to the environment, the encounter and mutual help (see ibid. 150). I encourage you, therefore, in this Diaconia of Beauty, to promote a culture of meeting, to build bridges between people, between peoples, in a world where so many walls still rise for fear of others. Have your heart also to testify, in the expression of your art, that to believe in Jesus Christ and follow him "is not only something true and just, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life a new splendor and a deep joy, even in trials "(Exhort, A. Evangelii Gaudium, 167). The Church counts on you to make the Ineffable Beauty of the love of God perceptible and to allow everyone to discover the beauty of being loved by God, to be filled with his love, to live and to witness to it in the world. attention to others, especially those who are excluded, injured, left behind in our societies.
In entrusting you to the Lord, through the intercession of Blessed Fra Angelico, I give you the Apostolic Blessing, as well as to all members of the Diaconia of Beauty. Thank you !
Text Source: Vatican.va translation from original French
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