Tuesday, 13 January 2026

Art and Prayer - Mary Charles-Murray - Deeper Christianity Series

Art and Prayer
Sr Mary Charles-Murray
Catholic Truth Society
ISBN 9781860826405
ISBN 1860826407
CTS Booklet SP29

Art and Prayer - Mary Charles-Murray - Deeper Christianity Series

This is the first volume from Mary Charles-Murray that I have read, I belive it is one of only 2 she has published. I greatly enjoyed this book. I have been focusing on this series and CTS books by Pope Benedict XVI lately, I have been tracking down as many of each as I can find, and I believe I now have all from this series. 

This is another great read in a wonderful series. Over the last several years, I have read many books from the Catholic Truth Society, in fact over 460 of them as of the reading of this volume; many read more than once; this all since the spring of 2018. Most were good reads; some were great reads; and a few are exceptional. This was one of over 20 in the Deeper Christianity Series that I have read; many of them have been read twice. This booklet was originally published 2010 and it is one that does not have an eBook. The description of this volume is:

“The Catholic Church, with its particular understanding of how art should relate to faith and spirituality, has commissioned and inspired some of the most beautiful works of art the world has ever seen. This booklet goes to the root of what good devotional art is, how it should work, and the feelings it should inspire. It also explores the effect that different styles of Christian devotional art have had on modern and contemporary art, and why the estrangement of the Church from the artistic world has left both sides much the poorer.”

About the series we are informed:

“The Deeper Christianity Series delves into the mysteries of Christianity, opening up the spiritual treasures of the Church.”

About the author we are informed:

“Sr Mary Charles-Murray is a Sister of Notre Dame and a member of the Theology Faculty of Oxford University, specializing in historical theology. Her writings on the visual aspects of theology have been published widely.” 

The chapters in the book are:

Introduction 
Accessibility to the Spirit 
Looking at the Author of the Faith 
Conclusion 


I highlighted a few passages while reading this volume, some of them are:

“We have here then two kinds of imitation, artistic imitation and personal imitation, intimately linked together, and the engraving encapsulates wonderfully the theme of this booklet: the relationship of art and prayer; or, to put it another way, art and personal spirituality. Union with Christ in prayer comes from close, personal observation of him.”

“To place art in relation to prayer and spirituality in this manner is a distinctly Catholic way of understanding Christian wisdom, and of understanding the true Wisdom who is the Author of the faith. Being a Catholic means to have certain ways of talking and thinking about Christianity which are characteristic, and one of these ways is talking and thinking through images.”

“The question of art and its relationship to prayer presents us with a case study in Catholic identity as it relates to the imagination.”

“The Pope's views were formalized at the Second Vatican Council in the document on the liturgy, Sacrosanctun Cncilium (nn.122-130). As far as the Church is concerned therefore the central place of art in the living of the Christian life has been unequivocally reaffirmed. According to papal and conciliar teaching, art by its nature gives access to the life of prayer.”

“Historically, it was the early Church that set up a Christian artistic sensibility, based on the Bible, by promulgating the idea that there is a continuity of physical and spiritual things, and it is the image which forms the bridge between them. But, although both the Eastern and the Western Church agree in finding in the image the natural bridge to prayer, they different regard to its nature. Unlike the Eastern Church, with its liturgical and spiritualized conception of the icon, the controlling influence on the understanding of art and prayer for the West was not the liturgy but the Bible. The western tradition of art is essentially Gospel orientated in its thinking and in subject matter. Stylistically”

“Durer was a man of deep religious perceptions much affected by the conflicts of the Reformation, and his works reflect a strong and very personal adherence to Christ.”

“A life laden with action is transformed in the withdrawal of prayer. The image is not me rely an aid to prayer but is a very powerful commentary on its nature.”

“God's action is always the same; He acts on all in prayer in an equally intensified and personal way, but in differing degrees, and in a manner adapted to our own circumstances.”

“Bill Viola's work is also closely connected to the contemporary search for spirituality. And in this way it is concerned to challenge that element, found in much in modern art, which privileges the idea of concept. It has been noted that this is high art for ordinary, contemporary people; and seeing in this way represents a return to an older, narrative rather than a modern, critical viewpoint.”

“If we look at him we shall experience what it means to be a true human being. By careful self-observation allied to careful observation of Christ we shall perceive God's care for us and his wisdom in our regard. And art has always proved to be one of the best aids in this double task of observation.”

“The God of the Bible is the authoritative, positive Spirit who works through our current situation. Prayer is shown here as the struggle to achieve an integrated wisdom based on knowledge of two things: knowledge of Christ and knowledge of life.”

“These creations offer to our imagination an understanding of this pattern, and a means of discernment of it in our own lives. One of the fruits of the imagination is that it enables us to have the wisdom to reconcile the central values of the Gospel with those of our own unique personality.”

“From the earlier centuries, when almost all European art was Christian art, we have inherited images of such astonishing quality and power, executed by artists of such extraordinary talent and imagination, that they have in turn shaped the imaginations of generations of their viewers. And it is for this reason that, despite the fact that we have no description visual or verbal of Christ's appearance, and we know Him only from the presentation in the Gospels, we have no difficulty in picturing Him.”

“Medieval imagery achieves the combination of uniting the historic and realistic narration of the passion with at the same time an emphasis on its personal application.”

“Christian theology has always regarded beauty as a final and primary value; and - except for isolated periods of iconoclasm - in its concern to describe the nature and attraction of God as divine love, has always adopted the language of aesthetics, and par excellence, the language of art.”

“In this study we have tried to offer a critical and reflective approach to the traditional practice of expressing ideas concerning God and his relationship to ourselves and the world by means of artistic expression.”

“In the first place Pope Paul VI himself located the largest framework, in that he showed that both art and prayer must take place within the tradition of the Church; and further that within the tradition art must retain its autonomy. in this he was echoing St Gregory the Great who wrote in one of his letters that we do nothing wrong in wishing to show the invisible by means of the visible.”

“This is true also of prayer, and what we have seen at work in these images is first of all freedom; a freedom which echoes and feeds the freedom before God of the person at prayer.”

“Fourthly and allied to this, is the discovery that not all images are suitable for prayer. It is the faith of the Church and the need of the person praying which provides the criterion and interrogates the usefulness of the image in this context. This leads on to a matter which we have seen to be of crucial significance to our issue, the central importance of aesthetic considerations. The framework of the aesthetic cannot be overestimated in matters of art and prayer.”

“Significant art conveys more than what has transpired at a given time; from that given time it carries us into an illumination of humanity in our own time. It lays bare meaningful aspects of our own life which might otherwise we might have missed, and so becomes for us a source of the transformation which we hope to achieve through prayer.”

“But the Christian life as we experience it is not finished; it is constantly a work in progress, constantly corrected or moved forward and finally accomplished by our prayer. The work of art happens when there is an adequate correspondence between form and content, so the quality of the work will depend on the quality of our prayer.”

“As Christians, when day by day we study in our prayer the Author of the Faith and attempt to reproduce in our lives the model he offers, we begin to see the emergence of our true self-portrait, the image of the creator God himself, the Supreme Artist.”

I hope those quotes give you a feel for the volume. This volume is a fairly easy read, but it was much more technical than many in the series. Anyone with a secondary education could easily work through it. I studied a lot of art history in school, and was originally accepted to 2 universities for fine art, this could would have been an excellent resource for school or for papers in high school art history class. I really enjoyed this book. 

This book is an excellent read in a wonderful series. The CTS Deeper Christianity Series of books are written in such a way that they can easily be read in any order. Pick and choose the ones that interest you, read them in order, or jump around. I have been blessed by the entire series that I have read and can highly recommend this book and the series.

Note: This book is part of a series of reviews:  2026 Catholic Reading Plan! For other reviews of books from the Catholic Truth Society click here.


Books in the Deeper Christianity Series:
7 Gifts of the Holy Spirit 
8 Deadly Sins Learning to Defend the Life of Grace 
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