In today’s 2nd reading from Romans 14, we hear St Paul trying to help us understand the true or ultimate purpose of lives. He says, “None of us lives for himself and no one dies for himself.” We might rephrase this fundamental Christian thought thusly: “I Tom do not live for Tom’s sake”. Even though most of us do live for ourselves, St Paul is telling us how a true Christian lives. It is more noble to live for others than just for yourself. Allow me to tweak St Paul’s words a little and apply them to the world of art.

There is a saying today when appreciating a piece of piece of modern art. It often comes after an ordinary man looks at it. The ordinary man says, “What is it?” The lover of modern art says, “It isn’t anything. It doesn’t have to be anything. It is art for art’s sake.” The modern art lover may even add, “You ruin the spirit of this museum by insisting that it must speak to you of an animal or a tree or your uncle Joe. The deepest sense of art is found in the artist. This piece of art is art because art is all about selfexpression. It is enough that this piece is the expression of the man/woman who created it.” “Well”, the ordinary man will say, “self-expression eh? Well, that artist must very well be an idiot, for it makes no sense to me”. If the modern art lover doesn’t throw the ordinary man out, he will certainly turn away from him in disgust and declare, “That man knows nothing of art. Only those of us, well trained in the arts can appreciate great art when we see it.”

I share this little narrative to help direct young artists who want to be great artists. Like St Paul had to tell mediocre Christians who wanted to be great Christians, their lives cannot be only about themselves. A Christian’s life is about others and it is especially about finding and loving God. An artist who wants to be a great artist needs to see that art is not for art’s sake. He needs to see art is to communicate a good idea, it is to point to something beyond itself, it is ultimately to lift our minds and hearts to God.

But, I can almost hear the criticisms of my friend, the lover of modern art. “You can’t say art must point to God. You have corrupted art by hooking it to the train of theology. We all know there are millions of understandings of God, including those who say there is no God.” Such an assessment of modern art today is surely popular because modern philosophy is popular. Let me explain. Descartes, known as the father of modern philosophy, changed the world by insisting we cannot know anything except the fact that I know I am thinking. As thinkers, we can doubt everything except the fact that you are thinking. The reason this is connected to art is because, if our only knowledge of what is true comes from within our own minds, then everything outside our minds is what we say it is. Things outside of us do not have a purpose or to use a $10 word have a teleology. “We” as in the human community, determine what everything is and what everything means. The modern art lover scoffs at the ordinary man for trying to see a squire or table or a pretty face in the piece of art. The modern artist isn’t trying to capture something beautiful in the world of nature. His creation doesn’t have to correspond to anything but his own mind. In this way, the modern artist replaces a notion of God as creator and is content to be admired by his admirers for what he has created.