e) LOVE OF BEAUTY

"Precious works of art should be protected"

In our diocese there are churches and oratories of ancient and priceless construction; pictures, paintings, magnificent frescoes; precious monuments that should have been kept with utmost care.  Instead they suffered serious damage either because the needed repairs were not done or because additions and restorations were carried out by inexperienced people.

To prevent further damage to such buildings, I urge the Pastors and the Church Vestries to do everything necessary for their proper upkeep.  Furthermore, I hereby direct that the bishop's permission be obtained from now on before they undertake major changes in them.  The bishop, in turn, will not grant permission before consulting art experts to ascertain that the new work will not damage the architectural style of the church nor the precious paintings it may contain. 

We must also remind them that works of art in churches or ecclesiastical institutions, together with the sacred furnishings, belong to their respective patrimonies.  Hence no one may lawfully sell or alienate these objects without first getting special permission from the bishop, under pain of ecclesiastical censure.

I therefore strongly urge those in charge to ensure that precious works of art are kept with utmost care.  Furthermore, I strictly forbid them, for whatever reason, to alienate or move elsewhere these glorious testimonials of the faith and of the greatness of our forefathers and mothers.³⁴

"For the greater honor and glory of religion but also of art"

The feast of my glorious predecessor, Savino, (...) gives me a beautiful opportunity to call your attention, Very Reverend Provost, to the illustrious but deteriorating crypt of your church, in hopes that, in your zeal, you can manage to restore it to public worship and thus bring glory not only to religion but also to art, of which this crypt is a most precious monument.

This crypt is a most precious monument, worth opening up once again to the public or at least saving from the complete deterioration threatening it.  As you can see, it is necessary to protect it from humidity,

bring back air and light, and keep the tiny stones of the famous mosaic in the pavement from getting loose any further (...).

Frankly, dear Provost, I have no words to express my keen interest in this Basilica of yours.

A few months ago, God gladdened us by letting us find the venerable bones of St. Savino, surrounded by the small and very ancient urns containing the relics of martyrs and Apostles, for which St. Savino himself erected the so-called Basilica of the Apostles at Le Mose.  When I also found in the very tomb of the holy Bishop the little vase with the inscription, de sanguine Sancti Antonini Martyris (from the blood of St. Antoninus Martyr), I was overwhelmed with a mysterious and heavenly sense of wonder and joy (...).  What a beautiful and propitious opportunity we have to restore to public worship the crypt where our glorious Patron lay for many centuries, surrounded by so many treasures.

I am sure, dear Provost, that in a city as refined, cultured, and interested in the things of our ancestors as ours, you will not lack the support, advice, and help you need, especially from those who have the noble task of watching over the preservation of public monuments.

I will be frank with you.  It would be a real disgrace for us and for everyone to let this precious jewel of ours deteriorate, a jewel tied up with the memories so dear to religion and country.³⁵

"The Cathedral is the house of God and everybody's house"

The Cathedral is the house of God and everybody's house.  It is the boast and glory of our city, as it was the boast and glory of our ancestors.  After resolving, in a sublime outburst of faith and civic pride, to build it, they spent treasures to put it up, to preserve and beautify it, though not always guided, as it were, by the same rigorous artistic taste that had envisioned it.

The Cathedral is the compendium of our history.  From here the banners of our free city went forth.  Victors or vanquished, they returned to thank God for victories or to draw new energies in misfortune.  Here the bishops rose up as defenders and protectors of the rights of all. Here, for nine centuries, the people of the city and countryside of Piacenza have been listening to the word of their Shepherds and receiving  their blessing.  Here, more often and solemnly than elsewhere,

the songs of exultation and the prayers of expiation rose up to God.  Here among its arches and columns, we all feel doubly brothers and sisters, as if enfolded in the arms of one's mother.

I cannot imagine an Italian city without its cathedral or, worse still, a city that, having a beautiful and majestic one, should let it fall into neglect, the slow but sure prey to the ravages of time.  It would mean that either the city never really had a history that counted for much or that every spark of the religious and civic fire that inflamed the hearts of their forefathers and mothers is extinguished.

No one can impute either alternative to Piacenza.  Her history is noble and ancient. Her love for art and her ancestral memories are forever engraved in her monuments and in the many precious writings of the Piacentini who so brilliantly illustrated them.³⁶

"Art, the daughter of nature, is the granddaughter of God"

You decided with me to hold this exhibit in this magnificent church, as if to assert that art is at home in a sacred place, where it was born and grew up.

While  religion is God's favored daughter, art is also intimately bound to him.  In Dante Alighieri's beautiful words: since art is the daughter of nature, she is the granddaughter of God.  This is the profound reason why a work that reaches the highest ideals of art is ordinarily called divine.  Art that does not radiate the light of God is not art.  It does not mirror the beautiful, which is the splendor of truth.

This is what Dante Alighieri thought when he wrote with a divine mind: "It is not light if it does not come from the brightness that never dims."  Raffaello Sanzio, in a moment of sublime inspiration, painted at the feet of the marvelous Madonna di San Sisto (no longer ours unfortunately) that little angel who leans out from a little cloud ‑- like a child looking up from a balcony ‑-  and, with that gorgeous uplifted face, stands motionless in the thoughtful contemplation of the heavens.

That stupendous creation in a marvelous way intimates the truth I am happy to remind you of on this joyous occasion, namely, that, to be real art, art must keep its eye always on the sun of eternal and infinite beauty.  Like that little angel, art leans on matter it has first purified and softened almost like a white puff of cloud and looks up with rapture to the heavens.  And to the heavens it raises the thoughts and

sentiments of men and women.  Art is thus the teacher of virtue, the powerful patron of civilization and order, the inspirer of pure and gentle morals, an angel who sees souls on the paths of beauty drinking from the fountain of the purest and sublimest ideals.³⁷

"The imprint of God"

Mothers, let us speak to our children by taking our cue from everything that could make an impression on them.

Let us speak to our children of God in the contemplative silence of a clear night, in the midst of the claps of thunder, and on the solitary shores of the ocean.

Let us speak to them of God when at the end of an autumn day we perceive through the mists, as if through a fine veil, the hills and woods and valleys and everything else taking on different colors and shapes as they shimmer in the melancholy light of the evening.

When in the evening the pealing of bells, the distant sound of cascading waters, and the italyrustling of leaves gently lull them into melancholy, let us talk to them of God.

When we see their hearts being moved and touched by the marvels of art, by the melody of music, by hearing about some glorious feat or some example of virtue, oh, let us never stop talking about God to them!

Let us show them the imprint of God's goodness, grandeur and omnipotence in all things.  From the harmony that joins and binds together different parts of the universe, let us help them understand the obligation human beings have to live in harmony with the purpose for which they have been created (...).

But remember that in Christianity true worship is not limited to a vague feeling but is manifested and nourished through external practices.

You must walk before your children by way of example in the performance of all kinds of good works.³⁸

"Music is a divine art"

Man is not the only creature authorized to teach others about God!  Rather, everything that in this universe moves, is seen, is touched or heard has the divine and supernatural mission to lift us to the knowledge and love of heavenly things.  This is what made St. Leo exclaim: What is there in the world that does not serve as an instrument of Eternal Truth?  Quid est, per quod Veritas nobis non loquitur?

The fine arts ‑- the creation and work of human genius ‑- reveal to us even more the Eternal Beauty from which artists draw their ideals and achieve their triumphs.  But it is music ‑- more than all the other arts ‑- that Christianity ennobled and turned into a powerful lever with which to lift pious souls to God, transporting them to the regions of the infinite.

Music is a divine art because God himself is an eternal shared melody of the three Persons of the adorable Trinity.  Every note, every musical chord is an echo of the cosmic harmony which has its source in the heavens and in eternity.  Music gathers people's raptures, sighs, aspirations, joys and sorrows and explains them, interprets them, makes them tangible, and transforms them into an ethereal form.  In the purest and most ineffable language, music sums up the  ecstasies of victory and the shame of defeat, the explosions of anger and the tenderness of love, the tears of the desolate and the exultation of the blissful, the sadness of life and the cries of the abandoned.³⁹

"Living the lives of the saints symphonically"

Look at this organ.  It is an image of the Christian life as God intended it.  In the organ there are thousands of different sounds: every pipe has its own shape, every reed its own tone, every opening its own size, every playful movement its own variations.  When everything is moved by an intelligent principle, magnificent harmonies come forth.

In the same way, all of us have our own vocation, our own personality, our own duties.  If we fulfill them according to God's will, all our works will produce a celestial harmony that will gladden us with blessings from above.

The whole universe invites us to this.  The universe is an infinite harmony, a concert; and it will remain so even when we will be in the blessed peace of eternity.  May our soul be a living harmony, harmony with God, with our brothers and sisters, and with ourselves.  In this way, we live like the saints: symphonialiter (symphonically).

Jesus Christ is acclaimed as the Father's supreme art, the font and source of all harmony.  It is in the name of Jesus Christ that I bless this new musical instrument.  It is my prayer that just as we shall, in a moment, hear its melodies in the earthly Jerusalem here below, so also we shall all be admitted to the eternal melodies and harmonies of the heavenly Jerusalem.⁴⁰

"May our soul be a symphony"

We have just heard magnificent poems and even more magnificent music.  Well, then, may the flowers of poetry turn for all of us into ever more copious fruits of good works.  May our soul always be full of the harmony that comes down from heaven.  May our soul, in the words of a Church Father, be symphonialis (a symphony).  May our whole life be like music, a hymn of glory to the Most High.⁴¹

"Let the people do the largest share of the singing"

Let the people do as much of the singing as the Church not only permits but also encourages them to do.  Let them, oh let them, in this way, manifest and give free expression to their piety and faith.  In song let them find solace and relief for their anxieties in the midst of life's miseries!  What more spontaneous, more powerful, more sublime song is there than the unisonant song of a whole multitude of people gathered together in the same place, filled with the same spirit, taking part in the same divine mysteries?

I will exclaim with a saintly soul: our splendid cathedrals, our humblest parish churches, where Jesus resides in the Blessed Sacrament, call for the ancient songs, the songs of faith sung by a thousand voices.  The people of our time need to abandon the phony bedlam, the drunken and seditious ruckus taking place on Sundays, and get back to the quiet, consoling, and pure chant of the Church.  People feel the

need to be taught to praise God and be told the sublime meaning of the songs composed for them.  They need to be taught the sweet melodies of the Church so they can take part in the honor and adoration owed Jesus ever present in the Tabernacle for love of his people (...).

Then the churches will not be deserted, and the religious and solemn functions will not be shunned.  Boys and girls will quickly learn church songs and, with them, the purpose of the rites and the meaning of the Church's hymns.  Then major expenses will not be needed for a music too often unending and not too devotional.  Then, as they do in various parishes and cathedrals of France and even of Italy, all, with no exceptions ‑- men and women, public officials, patricians, soldiers, boys and girls ‑- each one possibly with his or her own book in hand, all united in one single choir will alternate praises, blessings, prayers, and adoration to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament with the ministers of the altar, singing songs approved by the Church, adapted to different moods, and learned by the children in parish schools of music.  These songs belong to the heritage of sweet, gentle, and beloved traditions that make nations great and blessed.⁴²