Worship and the Arts

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The quest for living a life near to and consecrated to God has been a fundamental goal for Christians since the beginning. One of the most important ways of achieving this goal has been through the formation of communities living deliberately through a particular rule and set of customs, sustained by a liturgical practice, and nurtured through artistic processes and the artistic products of members of the community. This course explores these subjects, over time and in many modes of religious life. Students learn how to understand the great varieties of experiments with religious life that have been conducted over the centuries, some of them still active and flourishing today. Why is Christianity a powerfully communal faith? How do Christian communities dialogue with God. How have the arts made by Christian communities sustained them, especially as related to practices of worship? Every week we engage with these questions, but from numerous theological positions. Religious communities who seek to live close to God often emulate the communal life established by Jesus for and with his disciples. Religious orders have reformed and refined the sense of community found in the New Testament, especially as they have tried to recreate the first century in their own times. But they have also constantly revisited the practices established in the first century, and looked at the writings of the saints who developed later communities of prayer. This course studies the classic and most influential documents created to govern ways of life, including the Rule of St. Benedict, the Rule of St. Augustine, and comparable documents from the Cistercian, Carthusian, Dominican, Franciscan, Carmelite and Bridgettine religious orders. Our study incorporates views of the ways of life still practiced today, including the Benedictine nuns of Regina Laudis (Bethlehem, CT) and the male and female branches of the Congregation of the Holy Cross (CSC). In each case, there will be investigation of the literary, musical, architectural and visual arts of the featured communities, with emphasis on works of both male and female artists.