M.A.L.T
As people, we cannot help but be aware of the constant desire to express ourselves. We engage with others, share our opinions, respond with emphasis to get our point across, and perform with passion.
Classic literature inspires us, well-choreographed plays and film move us, music stirs our emotions, and visual art triggers enlightenment and contemplation.
Our ability to produce and appreciate exceptional music, art, literature and theatre, (what I call MALT), reveals our humanity and separates us from all other creatures on earth.
Creative creators
Producing and beholding the creative arts enrich our souls as healthy food and exercise nourish our bodies.
They ignite a strange yearning and hunger for “otherworldly” beauty, and force us to recognize that we are, indeed, searching creatures as we strive to push the limits of our human capabilities, creativity and expression.
That is because creating the arts places us in harmony with our Creator who inspires us to create.
When we engage in the arts we become participants in these “otherworldly” activities which–when ordered towards the good, the true and the beautiful–in turn give life to the soul.
In a word, by producing “MALT” we become “creative creators”, sharing in God’s creativity by making something new (Rev 21:5).
MALT restores our human dignity
In this imperfect and unjust world, opportunities abound that strip us of our humanity, leaving us feeling ‘naked’, vulnerable and used.
Our ability to enrich ours and others’ lives by producing and experiencing the arts reminds us we are not merely animals bent on survival: We have at our disposal a variety of mediums to express our human emotions of joy, sadness, longings and triumphs.
When we employ music, art, literature and theatre to spread the truth, it heals us of the hurts, imperfections and injustices we experience in this world.
Why?
Because they are pathways to encounter God. For God created the arts for humanity to experience His love.
For instance, some of the best works of literature are written in Holy Scripture. Consider the poetic allegoric masterpiece of the Song of Songs (538 BC) and the author’s beautiful depiction of the longing for his beloved:
“My beloved
lifts up his voice,
he says to me,
‘Come then, my love,
my lovely one, come.
For see, winter is past,
the rains are over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth.
The season of glad songs has come,
the cooing of the turtledove
is heard in our land.
The fig tree is forming its first figs
and the blossoming vines give out their fragrance.
Come then, my love,
my lovely one, come.
My dove, hiding in the clefts of the rock,
in the coverts of the cliff,
show me your face,
let me hear your voice;
for your voice is sweet
and your face is beautiful’” (Song of Songs 2:10-14, JB).
Praise and thanksgiving
MALT is also God’s unique gift to us in that–whether through music, visual art, literature, or theatre–they enable us to respond to God’s love by praise and thanksgiving, what St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) refers to as ‘continuous prayer’.
That means producing MALT can be a prayer.
A means to God
As long as we are longing for something more, we are longing for God.
The creative arts are meant to be a means to God, not an end in themselves.
They provide an outlet for our inward longing. When we don’t educate our children on the arts, we are participating in the injustice of robbing them of discovering their hidden talents and seeking God through them.
We all get short-changed here in our earthly lives, but finding God through MALT restores Him to us by providing a healthy way for the imperfect to briefly touch the divine–and by experiencing a taste of the truth, beauty and goodness of heaven.
St. Ambrose (c. 340-397 AD) encapsulates the goodness of this human initiative perfectly:
“This does not mean that anything can be added to the Lord’s greatness by human words, but that he is magnified in us…. And thus the soul itself has some share in his greatness and is ennobled.”
May the God’s gift of Christ’s birth enrich and ennoble you this Christmas!
Source: “The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary”, from a commentary by St. Ambrose of Milan on St. Luke’s Gospel, Divine Office Breviary, Liturgy of the Hours, December 21, 2022, https://www.universalis.com/-400/readings.htm.