Environment & Art

Last month I suggested a process for discerning an image for the whole liturgical year appropriate to the lectionary cycle. For example, because next year is Cycle A and the year of Matthew, your committee might have decided that “covenant” is the central good news that Matthew speaks to your parish and your parish needs to hear. Another possible image could be “roots” because Matthew is always quoting from the Scriptures, rooting Jesus and his message in the historical expectation of the Messiah. This would open the sacred space to be the place to ask: “What and where are our roots as a community?” Then again, the central image might be “kingdom of heaven” because Matthew so clearly proclaims it and because your community wants to make it happen here and now. Whichever image is chosen must then be unpacked in ways appropriate to the liturgical season and to the local community. 

This month’s addition to the process of planning the environment is to explore the question: “What are we actually doing when we design for liturgy?” In most parishes E&A teams are not able to move the principal furnishings as they design for the seasons and the year, but if there is any chance you can move these things, don’t forget to add the possibilities to the list of design options. The reason to consider moving the furniture is that the way the space is set radically affects how people relate to one another in it. The purpose for designing the space is precisely to affect, and even direct, just that.

The next practical question in the design process is to ask: “What effect are we trying to bring about?” While the E&A team works to create an effect, it does this in concert with the other liturgical ministers, for each ministry has a unique contribution. Our Catholic tradition gives great pointers to the designers for the major feasts. There are instructions during Lent and the Triduum, for example, about stripping altars, not having flowers, emptying fonts and removing candles. These design directions have a specific reason and purpose: each direction is a truly “symbolic act” in planning worship that will affect the community. The E&A team’s designs should be no less symbolic and purposeful. It is the difference between designing and decorating.

To achieve a quality design, one that engages the community on a symbolic level, requires time. The greatest compliment a liturgical designer can be paid is to be told, “Since you’ve come here, we’ve had to work.” Good liturgical design engages and encourages the community. Sometimes the symbols are unclear or perhaps are not fully revealed at the beginning of a season. By definition, symbols are “multivalent,” that is, able to carry many meanings at once. Sometimes people need to look at something for several weeks in order to truly develop a relationship with it. The converse is also true; if the community can absorb everything that is being said by a piece of art, or music or word in one viewing or one hearing, then maybe they shouldn’t have to look at it or hear it for the whole period of Ordinary Time. An image or word without depth does not serve the community.

Here is an example. If your parish community wants to explore the image “roots” throughout the year, Advent might be the time when the community has a chance to see itself as part of the “roots” in the Gospel story that is ongoing. How might that perspective impact the design for the first liturgical season of the church year? Rather than use the regular Advent wreath for the four Advent candles, create a Jesse Tree that can physically hold the four candles safely. It might have boughs of greens or it might be a spiral that circles from the ground to an apex. Next look at your community and discover four parts of your present experience and your history that are sources of “light.” Examples of light might be: the social justice outreach of the present community, the local council of churches organization, the founding community of your town or parish (whose roots may originate in another part of the world), the religious women or men that have served the school and parish for generations, the diocese that supports you, the community’s sense of connection to the wider church, the gift of being multicultural, the liturgical and prayer life of the parishioners. These sources can be represented by a collage of photographs, artifacts and names on the Jesse Tree, along with the names of Jesus’ ancestors and the saints. Maybe the tree could “grow” over the four weeks and end as the main “Christmas Tree” for the season, resplendent with visible, sustaining, named roots.

Kevin Yell is a theatrical director, painter, pastoral minister and frequent author. His current work includes forming art and environment ministers through MINISTRY & LITURGY’s annual Liturgical Arts Adventure. Yell began his ministry in his native England but now lives in California. He holds an advanced degree in theater and theology from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif.