Jacob Benda, director of music, liturgy and sacred arts at the University of St. Thomas College of Arts and Sciences, recently spoke with The Catholic Spirit about how he is creating a special place where art and music inspire and uplift the St. Thomas community.
From the story:
“My goal for the gallery,” Benda explained, “is for people to experience art in a way that will elevate them to a place ‘outside themselves’ and that will ultimately lead toward God, the creator of all beauty, goodness and truth.”
Benda cited Diocese of Winona-Rochester Bishop Robert Barron’s meditation on beauty as a guide to encountering art at the Hoedeman Gallery: “The beautiful does not merely entertain; rather, it invades, chooses, and changes the one to whom it deigns to appear. It opens the mind to a consideration of ever higher forms of the beautiful, conducing finally to the transcendent source of beauty itself.”
The gallery has become an oasis of spiritual contemplation for students because of its location in an otherwise busy hallway, according to Jesuit Father Christopher Collins, UST’s current vice president for mission. As a result, he believes the gallery is much more than a collection of “nice things.”
“Many young people today are experiencing significant stress in their daily lives, but when students pause at the gallery for a quiet moment of spiritual reflection, there is an opportunity to find a moment of peace that may begin to serve as a salve on their challenges,” Father Collins said.
