A new book by Stephen Auth, with coauthors Evelyn Auth and Msgr. Roger Landry, invites readers on a visual pilgrimage through sacred art—from Michaelangelo and Caravaggio to Picasso and Dalí—exploring the mystery of the Mass. Visions of the Divine: An Artistic Journey into the Mystery of the Eucharist is a collection of over 100 images, thoughtfully curated by Steve and his wife, Evelyn, and accompanied by profound reflections that lead the reader, prayer by prayer, into the depth of the Eucharistic celebration.
For hundreds of years, the Church has used sacred art to draw Catholics, both clergy and laity, into the mystery of the Mass. From the 1500s, following the Protestant Reformation and religious wars which followed, art began to be stripped from the churches, relegated instead to museums, where it became the matter of art historians and curators, rather than of the faithful. Like a jigsaw puzzle that had been disassembled and whose pieces had been scattered around the world, that sacred art was fragmented and disconnected from its liturgical roots. In writing Visions of the Divine, Steve sought to find the art of the Mass, and bring those pieces together, re-curating them back into the heart of the Church, back into the liturgy, where they belong.
Steve has long had a profound interest in art and the artist’s search for beauty, but after writing his last book, Pilgrimage to the Museum: Man’s Search for God Through Art and Time, a spiritual tour through New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, he had no intention of writing another book focused on art: after all, he is neither an art historian nor a theologian, and his job as chief investment officer at a large investment company as well as his missionary work on the streets of New York kept him busy enough. However, Steve continued to feel called to take up this project and write a book that would help Catholic laity and clergy alike enter more fully into the mystery of the Mass, using sacred art to do so; in short, to re-unite the art of the Mass with the liturgy itself. When work took him to London for weeks at a time, making visits to museums and churches throughout Europe much more accessible, Steve finally answered the call.
For the next three years, Steve and Evelyn traveled all over Europe and the United States, visiting museums and small out-of-the-way churches in 20 different towns and cities in search of the art of the Mass. The result is a profoundly moving visual journey through the liturgy, that pauses at every prayer, blessing, or component, and provides an image and reflection to draw the reader deeper into the celebration of the Eucharist.
For example, the very first prayer of the Mass, the opening blessing and sign of the cross, is represented in Visions of the Divine by a piece titled Crucifix by 13th century artist Cimabue, which is housed today in the Museo dell’Opera di Santa Croce in Florence, Italy. This work of art is particularly important, explains Steve, because it is the first known image of a crucifix with a realistic, rather than stylized or symbolic, corpus of Christ, portraying, for the first time, Jesus’ very real and human suffering on the Cross.
This image is book-ended with Salvador Dalí’s Christ of St. John of the Cross, which Steve and Evelyn visited at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow, Scotland. The reader is invited to reflect on this image of the crucified Christ, the only one painted from above from the perspective of God the Father, during the final sign of the cross of the Mass:
As we look down with God the Father from Heaven, we see Christ’s athletic body hanging from the Cross. Well, not exactly “hanging.” Although He appears to be hanging, as we look closer, we can’t find any nails holding Him on. In fact, we don’t see any sign at all of the wounds or blows inflicted on Christ in His Passion. Rather, Dalí portrays the spiritual reality of Christ’s sacrifice here, rather than the bloody, physical one. Christ is holding Himself unto the Cross, in an act of complete and total self-giving. He’s holding Himself to the Cross with his love.
For Steve and his wife, Evelyn, the research and writing of Visions of the Divine, and the process of visualizing the sacrifice of the Mass through sacred art, became their own pilgrimage journey—throughout the museums and churches of Europe, and toward a more profound experience of the Mass itself. “With Visions of the Divine, Evelyn and I found ourselves being transformed in a deeper understanding of the mystery of the Eucharist,” says Steve. “As we pieced it together, it became the unraveling of a mystery that helped me and Evelyn understand better what the Mass was all about, and better enter into the Mass. The Mass came alive.”
Steve and Evelyn are longtime members of Regnum Christi and are deeply involved in their faith and their RC vocation. In 2002, Steve found himself in the intensive care ward after suffering a life-threatening heart failure, and when Fr. John Connor, LC, came to give him the anointing of the sick and to hear his confession (Steve’s first in 20 years), Fr. John also offered some words of counsel: “The Lord has given you a great many talents, but you’ve been using them for your own purposes, not for his.” At that moment, Steve resolved that if he made it out of the hospital, he would redirect the use of the talents toward the Lord.
Since then, Steve has dedicated his life to the service of the Church, and, particularly, of the “New Evangelization.” He sits on the national board of the Lumen Institute, a Catholic organization for business and societal leaders who seek to reflect the light of Christ in today’s world, and was instrumental in starting Lumen teams in Manhattan, New Jersey, and Naples, Florida. He and his wife, Evelyn, who has served on the Board of Directors for both Divine Mercy University and Catholic World Mission, have led street missions in New York City for 14 years, which Steve chronicles in his book, The Missionary of Wall Street. He will be a presenter at the 14th Annual Summer Conference at The Napa Institute on July 25.
To find out more about Visions of the Divine, or to purchase the book, go to Sophia Institute Press or Amazon.com. You can find out more about Steve Auth, including his books Pilgrimage to the Museum and The Missionary of Wall Street at steveauth.com. Watch for a five-part miniseries that will bring Visions of the Divine to life, coming to EWTN.
