Franciscan Fanfare: Living penance in Advent
LUKE PONCE FINE ARTS COLUMNIST “I believe in the sun, even when it’s not shining. I believe in love, even when I feel it not. I believe in God, even when he is silent.” It is the day before Thanksgiving, and for the first time since June, I am sitting in the living room of the house in […]
JPII and the vocation of the artist
LUKE PONCE FINE ARTS COLUMNIST Early in my tenure as fine arts columnist for this publication, I issued an exhortation to my fellow artists encouraging them to make art and reminding them that, whatever capacity it takes on, their work is deeply important. Nearly two years later, I would like to return to these themes and […]
The role of music in active participation: Part two
LUKE PONCE FINE ARTS COLUMNIST When last I treated the topic at hand, we explored how the full, active and conscious participation of the faithful in the liturgy is fostered by congregational singing of chant and other liturgical music. We also traced the line from Pope St. Pius X’s declaration that restoring chant would help ensure this active […]
Fine Arts Column: The forgotten wit of Chesterton’s essays
LUKE PONCE FINE ARTS COLUMNIST “My forthcoming work in five volumes, ‘The Neglect of Cheese in European Literature,’ is a work of such unprecedented and laborious detail that it is doubtful whether I shall live to finish it.” Thus reads one of Catholic author G.K. Chesterton’s most memorable opening lines. Quite fittingly it appears in […]
The role of music in active participation: Part one
LUKE PONCE FINE ARTS COLUMNIST In 1963 Pope Saint Paul VI promulgated the “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy” or, in Latin, “Sacrosanctum Concilium.” Vatican II is often remembered for encouraging “fully conscious and active participation” in the Mass, a phrase which occurs in paragraph 14 of this document. Less widely remembered is this phrase’s origin 60 […]
Mural, mural on the wall
LUKE PONCE FINE ARTS COLUMNIST Barely a hop, skip and a jump away from our campus, just off of Sunset Boulevard, you’ll find something that at first seems out of place nestled between the Big Red stadium and the strip mall parking lot. It is a mural depicting a much larger-than-life-sized Dean Martin, Steubenville’s most […]
Fine Arts Column: Minority report: A pointed musical question
LUKE PONCE FINE ARTS COLUMNIST The pointed question to which I refer is this: why not? Allow me to explain. First, some context. I find that a surprisingly small contingent of my compatriots are aware that the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church has what one might call its own official hymnal. This wouldn’t be […]
Fine Arts Column: Reflections on light through stained glass
LUKE PONCE FINE ARTS COLUMNIST Few things are as inescapable in our day-to-day experience as light, and there are few places on earth where it is entirely extinguished. Nevertheless, it often slips by our conscious thought entirely unnoticed. It surrounds us almost constantly, and without it, a great many things most of us are accustomed […]
Fine Arts Column: On spring break in Camelot
LUKE PONCE FINE ARTS COLUMNIST A thought from spring break: strolling around the streets of a small town at night, one encounters a sort of strange, sacred solitude. The remarkable thing about it is that this tranquility doesn’t exist within oneself. It lives as a feature of the environment around you. Even if you happen […]
Fine Arts Column: The art of appreciating silence
LUKE PONCE FINE ARTS COLUMNIST The world is filled with a great many sources of instantaneous excitement and entertainment. One might think that facilitating the pursuit of such experiences would increase the happiness of society, but it has only deepened our collective sense of unfulfillment. One, it would seem, does not lead to the other. […]