Preaching and the Arts. Communitas 2021

Preaching -- if it wants to find its fulfilment -- has to finish as a true art of preaching. This is not only, nor primarily, because the preached text should be harmoniously composed, nor that the cadence of the words should be measured, nor that the preacher should give the right tone to his speech with just the right emotional suppleness and depth. All this is not yet art. It merely provides the means that art can use. The true art of preaching starts only when a preacher brings us through his work to a deeper point and a farther shore -- towards an existential life-giving transformation. On the other hand, art -- if it really wants to reach its completion -- needs to recognize -- in spite of all the experiments of the last two centuries -- that it has been successful only when it has looked for some meaning, making the world meaningful for us. And this meaning finds its completion only in some kind of preaching -- the courage to express a word that has its sense and brings us understanding. Only the works of art that bring light - new understanding -- have the power to make a lasting effect on us and transform our lives.

In the end, preaching on the way to its fulfilment glimpses art. And art will never really be fulfilled without the courage to preach.

If things are really like this, it is because both preaching and art are looking for a way to the fullness of life. To search for and to find such a way is their healthy ambition and purpose. Christians know very well that there is no true fullness of life -- without the fullness of new life -- without entering the way open to us by Christ in his Passion and Resurrection. Because of that, Christians know that only if the partnership between preaching and art becomes friendship and love will they both be able to find their completion -- will they both be able to flourish.