Address given by Archbishop Denis Hart for the Launch of Carnivale Christi Art Exhibition

at the Clifton Creative Art Centre
on Friday, 27th September, 2002, at 6.30pm

...

My dear Friends,

I am delighted and honoured to join Francine Houlihan and her collaborators and all of you here for the Opening of the Carnivale Christi Festival for the first time in Melbourne.

Saint Augustine regretted that he was for a long time unaware of the beauty that God places in the world and gives to people.

A couple of years ago I was present at one of the performances of Carnivale Christi in Sydney and I am delighted that a very different and yet no less special Melbourne initiative has sprung up after much hard work and talent.

Whenever we enjoy beautiful things, either in art or in nature, our minds are carried to the One who first made everything in beauty and in goodness. God himself is beautiful, just as he is utterly good and true, powerful and all knowing. All good art captures something of the beauty of God and of his creation, as the artist provides a vision, which is beyond our own concepts and limitations, leading us into a New World of discovery.

In Carnivale Christi, art, poetry, painting, music and worship unite to express in visual, oral and symbolic colour, something of what God has placed in the world.

This, I believe, is a week of discovery and of realisation. Of discovery, because art always takes us on to unexpected places. Of realisation, because the Church has long been patron of the arts and whether in our study this week of Thomas More in ‘A Man for all Seasons’, the art of Fra Angelico, a study of Australian Catholic poetry, the work of Paul Fitzgerald in art, a Gospel music night or the timeless music of Bach and Palestrina, we meet the wonder of God the Creator. I believe that this will be an exciting week and a magnificent contribution by creative people in the Church and beyond it to the life of our city and society.

May the beauty we discover here reveal the timeless beauty of God, wonder at the things he has created and the gifts he has given to men and women. May we come to the end of this week, not with regret as Augustine did at the things he did not notice, but rather with excitement and enthusiasm to discover the beauty God has placed in our hands and which he urges us to contemplate.

Congratulations to all and thank you for your sharing in this Opening.

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.