Famous Catholics in Art & Music

Blake Shelton proposed to singer Gwen Stefani at the end of October in a chapel surrounded with Catholic art.

The engagement announcement posted Oct. 27 shows Stefani and Shelton standing in a chapel, surrounded by the Stations of the Cross, a crucifix, and a stained-glass window of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

While Us Weekly reported that Blake Shelton was ready to propose after just a few months of dating in 2016, the couple waited to get married because Stefani was waiting for her previous marriage to be annulled by the Catholic Church.

The magazine claimed Stefani wanted to get married in a proper Catholic ceremony, which couldn’t happen until her marriage to Gavin Rossdale was annulled.

The No Doubt singer finalized her divorce on April 8, 2016, after 14 years of marriage. They have three sons together.

Blake Shelton's faith keeps growing stronger, and he has wife Gwen Stefanito thank.

During an on-stage interview at Country Radio Seminar in Nashville last month, the country crooner shared how his relationship with Stefani has improved his connection with God. He told host Lon Helton that just the chance for him to be with Stefani is proof to him that God is real.

"She has such a strong faith in God," Shelton said, per CMT. "I mean, if Gwen was sitting here right now, she would say God (is first), and then everything else. That's number one in her life and has been her whole life. She doesn't beat you over the head with it. She would never do that. That's her relationship. But I've learned a lot from Gwen about a lot of things, really just watching her and learning from her and learning how she thinks and how she treats people, and how she just operates in her life."

Stefani and Shelton got engaged in 2020 but have been linked since 2015 when they met as co-judges on The Voice. They got married on July 3, 2021, at Shelton's ranch in rural Tishomingo, Oklahoma.

The "God's Country" singer told Helton that proof of his growing faith can be seen in his recent music.

"I start seeing the God in everything because she does," Shelton said. "And of course, that starts bleeding into my records and my music, and next thing you know, I'm dreaming songs, and recording songs and writing songs about faith and God … I do like having it on my records."

Country stud Blake Shelton is converting to Catholicism to marry Gwen Stefani! "Gwen was raised in a Catholic family and religion is a big part of her life," an insider told RadarOnline.com. "She wants her three boys to have a connection with God and taking them to church is very important to her." Shelton showcasing a deep dedication to Stefani's religion (and the celeb couple's relationship) would "show that he's truly in this for the long haul," added the insider. Click through the gallery to find out more about his spiritual awakening!

When it came time to decide on a wedding venue, newlyweds Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani knew that there's no place like home.

On July 3 the country star, 45, and No Doubt rocker, 51, said "I do" in a backyard chapel on Shelton's Tishomingo, Oklahoma, ranch surrounded by an intimate group of 40 family members and close friends, including longtime pal Carson Daly.

"They purposely kept the wedding simple," a source close to the couple tells PEOPLE in this week's cover story. "They didn't want a circus. In the end, they just wanted to have this moment with their loved ones."

"They're a very family-oriented couple, and that's exactly what the wedding was about," adds the source. "Family was at the center of everything."

Friends say the simple wedding was the perfect representation of the life Shelton and Stefani have built over the past six years. Despite their differing musical styles and upbringings, Shelton and Stefani — he the country crooner from Oklahoma and she the rock star from California — have deeply similar values.

"Their shared faith is very important," says the source. "Having the wedding at home was a way for their families — and Gwen — to be as comfortable as possible. Blake wanted the day to be perfect for Gwen. His love for her is so deep."

The country singer and No Doubt star don't have any children together, but Blake is a proud stepfather to Apollo, eight, Zuma, 14, and Kingston, 16 - a role he doesn't take lightly. 

While the children's father, Gavin Rossdale, is still a huge part of their lives, Blake is also determined to be the best parent he can be. 

"There's definitely nothing easy about it," he said during an interview on radio show The Ride with Kimo & Heather in 2021. "I don't know if it's as hard or harder or not as hard as being an actual biological parent, you know?"

But Blake revealed he has the perfect role model to follow. "I love my stepfather, and I looked up to him. And he's like a father to me," he said. "So, you know, I have a good inspiration in my life to how to do this and the kind of stepdad I want to be.

TRENDING NOW: Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton's shift in family dynamic as sons prepare to becoming uncles 

MORE: Gwen Stefani twins with rarely seen family member in gorgeous photo

"I'm not gonna lie. I don't take it so serious that I'm not enjoying this time because I really am," he continued. "Especially, you know, now that we're five years into this thing, I can't imagine my life without these kids now."

So much so, he stepped away from The Voice after 23 seasons to make more time to be a present stepfather. 

"If I walked away from my career at this time, the only thing that I run the risk of is having regrets that I'm missing out on some more important things in life," he toldPeople. "For now, that's our kids. This isn't about me anymore and never will be again."

MORE: Country bride Gwen Stefani's private 1,300-acre ranch wedding with Blake Shelton – photos

Blake elaborated by saying the role he plays in Gwen's son's lives is extremely important to him.

"Even though I'm a stepparent, I take that job very seriously," he said. "The kids see me as a very important person in their life. [When they ask], 'Why isn't Blake here?' I take that stuff to heart. I've made plenty of money, but you can't buy time back. I don't want any regrets."

"It's time to push some of this [work] stuff out and let more family and personal life in."

Renowned Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli has revealed that he was an agnostic as a youngster and that the works of the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy helped him refind his faith.

In an interview published in the current UK edition of The Big Issues magazine, the 60-year-old singer said that “some pressing existential questions cropped up” for him as an adult.

“Reading a small and wonderful book by Tolstoy, ‘A Confession’, later followed by all his other masterpieces, helped me a lot along the path to faith.”

Referring to his agnosticism he said, “The young Andrea would probably not understand that today I believe in faith and great values, in the need to be pious every day. Over the years I have come to believe that faith cannot be acquired effortlessly: just as any other discipline, it requires commitment, perseverance and sacrifice. To be committed to faith means we need to comply with simple deeds that may even appear tedious. If we want to improve our faith, we have to submit to prayer.”

He further explained his thinking by saying that for him, “To believe that life is determined by chance is not only unsuitable but illogical and not very sensible. The basic rationale that allows us to take the right path when reaching the first fundamental crossroads is to believe or not to believe … To my mind this is a choice and there is no alternative.”

Leo Tolstoy experienced a profound moral crisis, followed by a profound spiritual awakening, and wrote about this in his non-fiction work ‘A Confession’, published in 1882.

His interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centring on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him to become a fervent Christian anarchist and pacifist.

Tolstoy’s ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894), were to have a profound impact on 20th century figures such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Russian writer is best known for the novels War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877), often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction. He also wrote plays and numerous philosophical essays.

Elsewhere in his interview with The Big Issues, Andrea Bocelli recalled he was “a very vivacious teenager, even a bit naughty, always willing to crack a joke and have a laugh”.

He lost his sight aged 12 following a football accident, having been born with glaucoma. “I cried, but only for a short while. I then set aside any form of self-pity and decided I needed to be positive and optimistic about life, finding ways to explore it. This did not affect in any way my musical training. People may perceive it as my main issue, but it never was and never is.”

He said his family was “a united and peaceful family. Love always prevailed, mutual fondness softened any kind of friction that might have emerged.

“I owe my parents an awful lot. My father Sandro and my mother Edi moulded my character, offering me an education that was invaluable during my whole life. Among the many teachings I received, I would mention the determination not to give up.

“This is what my parents showed during my mother’s pregnancy when the doctors advised her to have an abortion because the baby would be born with severe illnesses. She ignored their advice and carried on with my father’s support. Without their courage and faith, I would not be here today to tell the story.”

Speaking of his relationship with his father, he explained: “My father and I were very similar in character. We were both strong-natured and we have argued over time. Even though there was never any family opposition to my passion for music my father did not think I could succeed and be able to support myself relying only on my voice. He used to say if you enjoy it, sing but you must first get an education! He also used to try and restrain my youthful eagerness (and sometimes my recklessness) with his fatherly love and typical parental apprehension that I only understood later once I became a father myself.

“If I could have one last conversation with anyone it would be my father – to thank him. It would be enough to have him near me, to sense his smile. Any other words would be excessive.”

Andrea Bocelli first performed for Pope John Paul II in 1994 after he returned to the practice of his faith as a Catholic. Since then, he has performed for the Pontiff on a number of occasions, most recently for Pope Francis at the World Meeting of Families in Dublin in August 2018.

In an interview with Colm Flynn for EWTN News In Depth, Andrea Bocelli, Italian opera tenor and multi-instrumentalist & his wife Veronica Bocelli, share intimate details about the musician's faith, his career, their foundation, and a special message for those in suffering amid the pandemic. 

 In Italy, we say, sometimes people used to say it’s a place forgotten by God. But if you go there and you really see the amazing power of life and you can really witness how much you can change somebody[’s] life, not you, but what the foundation, what the people in general can be helpful in other’s lives, that’s God, that’s means that whenever there is one or more person praying together, pray in this case means just to be together to do something good for somebody else then God’s there.

Andrea, speaking of God with Veronica, I know that you are a man of strong faith. You have a strong Catholic faith. How important is your religion to you?

But for me, let’s say it is a reason for life, because life, even when it lasts 100 years, is an insignificant segment in relationship (comparing) to eternity. If life didn’t exist...an eternal life, life after life, then everything would lose all meaning. But as my faith comes from an extremely simple reasoning: I do not believe in the clock without the clockmaker. I do not believe that one can make something without someone who designed it being made. Therefore, I have faith, I have a lot of faith in the one who made the world.

And throughout your life, Andrea, how has your faith really helped you get through events and your career?

It is absolutely true that to whom much is given much is asked. I cannot imagine what will be asked of me when I find myself face to face with the one who made the world, because, objectively, much has been given to me. I have been given a unified family that has supported me, loved me, etc. I have been loved by friends that I have close to me, from my life partners, from children, and then from fans. I’ve had a life rich of possibilities, of experiences, so much received is so much I should try to give.

Did you ever imagine, Andrea, when you were a young boy growing up in Italy that one day that you would be this huge star all over the world, loved by so many, selling 45 million records and now having your own foundation? Did you ever imagine this in your wildest dreams?

No, no, absolutely. No one can imagine anything that will happen - but it happened. Success eh, is an accident on the road. IIt is something that happens because as Dante said, “It is so willed there, where is power to do. That which is willed; and farther question not”, things happen because there is a precise design upstream.

I have always loved to sing and singing has always been my true passion, but I didn’t like to sing when I was playing with the ball with my friends, I didn’t like being disturbed or distracted from my games, from my distractions. In every case, I would be called: “Come on, sing here, and do here!”, and then, they would calle me to sing in Church, at birthday parties, at school, everywhere. So it became like...

Meant to be.

Meant to be. But when did you get the courage, Andrea, to say to your family and those around you, because I know you studied law, when did you get to say I want to be a professional singer?

The life of an artist is a gamble from the beginning; no one can be certain of succeeding in this career, so you have to have some alternatives for yourself that then can be useful for the career when you are lucky enough to succeed. So I studied a lot because this was what they wanted from me, my parents; it was the example they gave me. I had studied, and when I found myself in this career, this was undoubtedly very useful. 

I heard you say once in an interview, Andrea, when you were telling people, ‘I want to be a singer’, somebody said to you, ‘Yeah, you’re good, you’re good, but nobody will pay a dollar to hear you sing.’ You remember that?

I remember, yes. My daddy told me: when people tell you good job, this means nothing; the day that they are willing to pay a ticket to come to hear you, then you can say that you are a singer.

When you look back at your amazing life so far, in your illustrious career, what are you most proud of?

The affection that I have been able to capture people’s hearts. This is surely the most important thing.

What are your hopes and your goals for the future of the foundation?

I am confident that the foundation will grow, in size, in projects, in quantity and quality of projects.

What are your, Veronica, what are your hopes and dreams for the future of the foundation?

 I would say exactly the same. He stole whatever I had in my mind and, you know, I’d love to say a great many things I like, but  I can not be compared to him, so I will just say that being together, we will reach the same things. So I only will  add if it’s possible that I will continue to learn as much as I’m learning in life from this beautiful laboratory.

And you guys have a beautiful family. You’re busy all the time, heading off to the States. How’s life today during these COVID times?

Let’s say that we kept ourselves busy. Of course in the family’s been hard as with everybody else because we’ve been more lucky than others. We got the COVID but at the same time, it was not so, not bad at all.  You cannot just be, okay if the rest of the world is not. So  no matter what was happening inside the house, we tried to keep our spirit[s] up, tried to helpful with a lot of people, whoever was asking for any kind of help, with the foundation and just personally. But at the same time you cannot enjoy it, you know, if the rest of the world is not.

And Andrea, so many people that will be watching this around the world, they look to you for hope and they’ll be watching this now. What would you say to them, the people that are in a tricky situation at the moment when they need hope?

 It is always difficult to say a word to comfort those who really suffer. But, certainly, humanity has known even more difficult times than this. Relatively in pandemics it [humanity] has known, for example, in 1348 when there was the great plague, that inspired Boccaccio’s Decameron and there were no antibiotics, there were no cures of today, there were no intensive care units, there was nothing - but we came out of it. And we came out of it in 1600 with the plague of Milan told by Manzoni in Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), there were no intensive care units in Milan nor elsewhere, there were no antibiotics yet, there were no cures like today - and too, the plague passed. So, one must look with great optimism forward because this time too will pass.

I read once a quote from you. You said, “Everyone has a destiny, but destiny is God.” What did you mean by that?

I do not know if I said exactly this [or] if I said exactly that. But, I think that there is some truth in this. In the sense that...whoever puts his life in the hands of the One who created it, who wanted it, that obviously desired and loved it, puts it in good hands.

Grammy-winning musician Harry Connick Jr. grew up in a mixed-faith family, with a Catholic father and a Jewish mother who encouraged him and his sister to choose their own religion. When he was 13, he decided he wanted to be Catholic. 

"I wanted to feel like I was part of this community that I was familiar with because I had been going to church with my dad my whole life," he told host Tom Power in an interview on CBC Radio's Q. "It was kind of the first signpost of faith for me. [It's] been a part of my life ever since."

When the pandemic hit, Connick naturally turned to his faith and music for strength. His latest record, Alone With My Faith, is a raw and vulnerable gospel album he recorded entirely by himself over eight months.

"It's called Alone With My Faith because I was literally alone," he explained. "I played all the instruments and did all the singing, background singing, and then I recorded it. And now here we are."

The coronavirus pandemic prompted music great Harry Connick Jr. to create an album inspired by his religious beliefs. Titled “Alone with My Faith,” it consists of Christian classics, such as “Amazing Grace,” Catholic hymns like “Panis Angelicus” and “Be Not Afraid,” and original songs, including the title track. In that song, he explores the idea that despite not having all the answers to life’s big questions, he knows he is never alone. The singer notes that he has found a way to integrate questions, and even occasional doubts, into a strong faith life.

During a “Christopher Closeup” interview, he told me, “My dad is my spiritual hero. His faith is stronger than almost anyone I have ever met. We talk about faith and what it means, and what it means to question things … My dad was raised by two extremely devout Roman Catholics. They said the rosary every day; my dad had an incredibly fertile Catholic upbringing. My mom was Jewish and was nondenominational by the time I was born so I did not even get baptized as a baby. I was 13 when I was baptized and confirmed. So my dad and I have a lot of good conversations. And I like where I am because I’ve asked a lot of questions, but I’ve also found a lot of answers.”

His faith was also shaped by his Catholic schooling in New Orleans. He recalled, “I went to Jesuit High School. I became close to many of the priests there. They were great spiritual advisors to me, and friendly to me. I lost my mom around the time I went to high school. I think about the president of Jesuit High School then, Father Tony McGinn. I was struggling, having some hard times, and he was incredibly patient and kind with me, so I felt at home in the Catholic Church.”

His father has taught his son to be aware of the movings of the Holy Spirit. When certain opportunities present themselves, for instance, the elder Connick says, “That’s the Holy Spirit talking to you. Say yes and listen.” That is why his dad, age 95, is working to build a chapel to the Holy Spirit. He has even got an architect lined up and has already tapped his son to hold fundraisers for the project.

In retrospect, he can see how the Holy Spirit has worked in his life. For instance, his first job when he moved to New York City at age 18 was in a church. He recalled being broke and stopping by Our Lady of Good Counsel to ask if they needed a piano player. Father Richard Guastella offered him $25 to play at two Masses on the weekends. Harry felt ecstatic. He recalled thinking, “You know how many ramen noodles I can buy with $25? That’ll set me up for the week!”

“The great thing about Father Richard,” he said, was that almost every Sunday, “he would take me across the street, and buy me a hamburger at this little restaurant. He was calm, he was measured. I was 18, and I needed someone like that in my life. He was so kind. He eventually became a monsignor, moved to Staten Island. I asked him if he would marry me and my wife, Jill, so he came down to New Orleans [in 1994]. Sadly, we found out that he died last year from COVID19. So it has been a tough year. But those are happy memories for me, playing in that church.”

“When I go to Mass, or have any feelings at all about the Catholic Church, it’s an area I feel comfortable with because I know it well. Since I was a kid, I’ve gone to church with my dad and sister. I think that’s the number one reason I feel comfortable: It’s familiar to me. And then, there’s the message, which is always a beautiful message of love and acceptance and that also makes me feel very comfortable.”

I think my thought process has become more serious. Am I a better Catholic than I was as a kid? I don’t know. All I know is that I am driven to understand more about my faith. I am far from perfect. I have a long way to go and a lot to learn. I remember when people used to ask me about my faith a long time ago. I felt like I had to come across as some kind of saint. I’m not, and I want to be the best person that I can be.”

“If I had three wishes: I want to do God’s will; I want to do God’s will; I want to do God’s will.”

Matthew Guion Maher (born November 10, 1974)[1] is a Canadian contemporary Christian music (CCM) artist, songwriter, and worship leader from Newfoundland, Canada, who lives in the United States. Three of his nine albums have reached the Top 25 Christian Albums Billboard chart and four of his singles have reached the Top 25 Christian Songs chart. His notable writing credits include "Your Grace Is Enough", "I Will Rise", "Because He Lives (Amen)", "Christ Is Risen", and "Lord I Need You". Maher has been nominated for nine Grammy Awards in his career and was awarded the Songwriter of the Year at the 2015 GMA Dove Awards.[It was summer and Maher’s parents had separated. His mother, an American, relocated to Phoenix. On a whim, the 20-year-old jazz piano major accompanied her.

“I wanted to get into movies, particularly film scoring,” he said. “I thought, this is my opportunity to head west.”

In Phoenix, a cousin invited him to Mass. Although a lapsed Catholic at the time, Maher went, thinking, “OK, I guess we go to church here.” He continued going and hanging out with his cousin and her friends who were volunteers with a Charismatic Renewal youth group.

“By summer’s end … I began to feel like maybe the reason I was there was less about my music career and more about my encounter with God,” he recalled.

His feeling was confirmed that November when he was recruited to provide music for a youth retreat. In his mind, he was just jamming and goofing off, much like band leader and fellow Canadian Paul Shaffer. Returning from a cigarette break, Maher caught a skit about a teenager whose heart got broken. Accompanied by an ‘80s pop ballad describing a turbulent relationship that can also be understood as one’s connection with God, Maher broke down.

“All of a sudden it was very apparent to me that God was speaking in the midst of it, saying, ‘Hey, I want to give you a new heart,’” he said. Chuckling, he added: “Now I look back and go, this is very formulaic. But I’d never seen anything like it at the time.”

God spoke to Maher through the music. His conversion was swift and strong.

“I didn’t realize how much God loves me. It’s so beautiful,” Maher said. “I had that encounter and it knocked me over. I immediately had this sense that God was saying, ‘Hey, there’s so much more I want to show you.’ My 21st birthday was that weekend, and then I was just off to the races.” 

Intent on realizing his baptismal promises, as he finished his degree at the University of Arizona, Maher played piano and sang at church as a way of tithing his time, talent, and treasure. As he grew in faith, his songwriting reflected the questions he was asking. At the same time, contemporary worship music was coming into its own.

“It wasn’t something I was chasing after, it was what I got led into and fell into,” he said about becoming a troubadour for God.

After graduating in 1999, he moved to Mesa, AZ, where he did fulltime parish work and got involved in youth ministry.

“We’d be on a retreat and would need a song about how God is a family—the Trinity—so I would pray about that, mull that over, and write a song,” he said.

Soon, other churches were using his songs. Eventually, other artists wanted to record them. In 2001 he released the first of three independent albums, “The End and the Beginning,” and his career as a Christian music artist and songwriter was born.

In 2008, his first major-label album, “Empty and Beautiful,” made the Billboard Top 200 secular album chart—a rare achievement for a Christian artist. Since then, his popularity and critical acclaim has grown exponentially. He is a nine-time Grammy nominee and three-time GMA Dove Award winner. He has written or co-written five No. 1 radio singles.

Maher, now 46, is humble about his success.

“I really wasn’t even a singer,” he said, about his pre-conversion musical experience, which included playing keyboards for garage rock bands. “That’s the funniest thing to me. That’s the irony of God, that I would primarily be known for my voice—the thing I was least comfortable with.”

Career highlights have included performing for massive crowds gathered with the last three popes: Pope St. John Paul II at World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto, Pope Benedict XVI’s 2008 visit to the United States in Yonkers, NY, and Pope Francis twice—with an estimated 3 million people at World Youth Day 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, and at the 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia. 

“All of those experiences were amazing. How lucky are we to be alive at a time when we get to have visible examples of this grand enterprise we call the universal Church?” he said.

“These events … remind us of how global the movement of Christ is.”

Profound power of music

He aims to write songs that echo what the Church professes and believes. Arising from his honest pursuit of the truth, his music resonates with others, Catholic or not. In 2005, during a Bible study, Maher was profoundly struck by John 17:21, often called “The High Priestly Prayer of Jesus.” There, Christ prays, “that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”

“Something really broke in my heart for that prayer that hadn’t before, particularly around the unity of Christians,” Maher said. “I realized the way I could comply with Jesus in this prayer is through my music. Music has the ability to create common ground. I realized that’s part of my calling.”

Communion, or unity, is a theme that permeates all of Maher’s life, not the least of which is his marriage. He tied the knot in 2010 with Kristin Fisher, a non-Catholic. Residing in Nashville, the Mahers attend both a Catholic and a nondenominational church but are raising their three children Catholic.
“We’re dedicated to this pursuit of unity and relational reconciliation within the church,” Maher said. “My music is just an extension of that.”

Evelyn Waugh’s youngest son Septimus, who died last year, was a carpenter and furniture maker whose greatest love was sculpting in wood. His final work was a gilded and painted wooden crucifix showing the Risen Christ

The last time I saw Septimus Waugh was a week before he died last year, on 25 October. I was able to show him the picture I’d taken of the crucifix behind the main altar in the Church of Our Lady Star of the Sea in Ilfracombe, north Devon. It was the last commission he had completed, and I wanted him to know we had seen it.

The crucifix was one of the commissions he was most satisfied with: not just the carving itself, but because the reordering of the church had involved family and friends and the efforts of many local people and parishioners in fund-raising for it. His son Tom, a professional sculptor and stonemason, had created the altar and font, and Xanthe Mosley, an artist, old friend and former neighbour, had repaired and repainted the Stations of the Cross.
The Tablet’s latest issue celebrates the magazine’s 180th anniversary since its founding in 1840. One of the featured articles is a memoir by Septimus Waugh of his father’s religious beliefs and practices. As summarized by the editors: “Evelyn Waugh is often portrayed as a selfish and cantankerous father. By contrast, the youngest of his seven children remembers him as a gentle, melancholic man whose chief pleasure lay in parodying his condition.” Septimus begins by explaining his own attitude toward religion: “I was born a Catholic and accepted Catholic doctrine as something to be learned and obeyed in ­whatever form it might take.”

The article includes several anecdotes about Evelyn Waugh not previously published so far as I am aware. The first relates to religion as well as child rearing:

When I was six years old and undergoing instruction for First Confession and First Holy Communion, I discovered a great wheeze on my travel between convent and home. I would spend money given to me for the bus fare on sweets, having declared to the bus driver that my parents had failed to give me any money for the fare. This appeared to have been a successful ruse for a few weeks until, finally, two black-robed inspectors turned up at the house to demand of my parents why they had been failing to give their child money for his bus fares. I was, of course, hauled in to give an explanation for my behaviour, and admitted the theft of the money for sweets. But I announced that they could not touch me because I had confessed it, done penance and received absolution. That was good enough for my father. I think his lack of action encouraged in me a belief in the efficacy of truth.

There is also a story based on Septimus’s destruction of one of his father’s walking sticks followed by a discussion of his humorous attitude toward seemingly serious matters such as the church’s religious reforms. Here is an excerpt from the section about the Vatican II liturgical reforms:

Humour was the thing with which we attempted to cheer him up. Often the focus of his depression seemed to be the change of the liturgy into a rather crass vernacular. In particular he took exception to the translation of Et cum spiritu tuo – the response to Dominus vobiscum (“The Lord be with you”) – as “And also with you”. He would sit in the second row of our newly built red-brick parish church in Wiveliscombe muttering, “And with you too … Tohubohu”. The last part is apparently the Greek for chaos. My sister, Harriet, witnessed him retreating on one occasion to the car in the car park where he sounded the horn to the rhythm of “And also with you” when he felt that it was time for that response.

Septimus goes on to recount how he got one of the Downside monks in trouble by repeating to his father something he had overheard the monk say at school in opposition to a Papal pronouncement. The family’s own worship habits after their move from Dursley to Combe Florey are also discussed:

… The places where we congregated for Mass were frequently private chapels. Before it got its custom-built church, our local parish of Wiveliscombe met in a former haberdashery shop on the high street. We frequently went to Mass in the local mental hospital in Tone Vale which had a Catholic chapel, and a wonderful, eccentric old lady called “Bimber” Critchley-Samuelson had built a chapel in her house, which we attended when she had a priest staying. To be Roman Catholic was to have returned to a more ancient faith than the modern Anglican Church offered, and the ecumenical movement and the translation into the vernacular of the Roman Catholic liturgy by committee, even though the form of the Mass remained the same, was a problem for my father.

The article concludes with a story explaining how Ronald Knox’s reasons for not serving as an Anglican chaplain in the First World War may have contributed to the concluding scene of the novel Brideshead Revisited.

The Irish painter and stained glass artist was born to an aristocratic family and lost her mother when she was just two days old. She contracted polio at the age of 11, which left her with a lame hand. An Anglican by birth, she joined a convent in 1925 before converting to Catholicism in 1937, after which her work took on a more religious tone. Commissioned to work on over 50 churches in England and Ireland, her masterpiece is the stained glass window of the Eton College chapel, representing the Crucifixion and the Last Supper.

Eva Sydney Hone RHA (22 April 1894 – 13 March 1955), usually known as Evie, was an Irish painter and stained glass artist.[1] She is considered to be an early pioneer of cubism, although her best known works are stained glass. Her most notable pieces are the East Window in the Chapel at Eton College, which depicts the Crucifixion, and My Four Green Fields, which is now in the Government Buildings in Dublin.

Eva Sydney Hone, known as Evie, was born at Roebuck Grove, County Dublin, on 22 April 1894. She was the youngest daughter of Joseph Hone, of the Hone family, and Eva Eleanor, née Robinson, daughter of Sir Henry Robinson and granddaughter of the 10th Viscount Valentia.[2][1] Her mother died two days after her birth.[3] She was related to artists Nathaniel Hone and Nathaniel Hone the Younger.

Shortly before her twelfth birthday[4] she suffered from polio (infant paralysis), suffering a fall whilst helping to decorate the church in Taney for Easter.[3] Her resulting ill health led to her seeking treatment in Harley Street. She was educated by a governess, continuing her education in Switzerland, and went on tours to Spain and Italy before moving to London in 1913.[5] Her three sisters all married British army officers, and all were widowed in the First World War.

Hone studied at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London and then under Bernard Meninsky at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. She met Mainie Jellett when both were studying under Walter Sickert at the Westminster Technical Institute.[7] She worked under André Lhote and Albert Gleizes in Paris before returning to become influential in the modern movement in Ireland and become one of the founders of the Irish Exhibition of Living Art. She is considered an early pioneer of Cubism but in the 1930s turned to stained glass,[8] which she studied with Wilhelmina Geddes.

Her most important works are probably the East Window, depicting the Crucifixion, for the Chapel at Eton College, Windsor (1949–1952) and My Four Green Fields, now located in Government Buildings, Dublin.This latter work, commissioned for the Irish Government's Pavilion, won first prize[9] for stained glass in the 1939 New York World's Fair. It graced CIÉ's Head Office in O'Connell Street from 1960 to about 1983. The East Window of Eton College was commissioned following the destruction of the building after a bomb was dropped in 1940 on the school during the Second World War.[10] The artist was commissioned to design the East Window in 1949, and the new window was inserted in 1952. This work featured on an Irish postage stamp in 1969.[9] From December 2005 to June 2006, an exhibition of her work was on display at the National Gallery of Ireland. Saint Mary's church in Clonsillaalso features her stained glass windows.

Hone was extremely devout; she spent time in an Anglican Convent in 1925 at Truro in Cornwall[5] and converted to Catholicism in 1937. This may have influenced her decision to begin working in stained glass. Initially she worked as a member of the An Túr Gloine stained glass co-operative before setting up a studio of her own in Rathfarnham.

Sir James MacMillan, the foremost modern British composer and a forthright Catholic, says ‘music is the perfect art form to bring people together to see a better world.’

“In the modern world Catholicism has taken up its mantle as a countercultural force. In the arts and in music, what makes up the ballast of that culture is the exploration, in sound, word and image, of the life of Christ.”

So says Sir James MacMillan, when speaking to the Register this summer at his home in Scotland. 

Sir MacMillan is among the top five most-performed living classical music composers in the world; of late, MacMillan hosted the BBC Radio 4 series Faith in Music, and presently his music is regularly heard on classical music stations in the United Kingdom and beyond. 

Although very much part of the modernist approach to musical composition, he is an outspoken defender of the value of tradition in art. Intriguingly, in the radically secular world of modern classical music, he is also a devout Catholic.

The Scottish composer’s works are permeated by his faith and include settings of the foundational liturgical and scriptural texts. He has composed several Masses, including for the visit to Britain of Pope Benedict XVI; oratorios, including his most recent Christmas Oratorio; a setting of The Passion of St John and another of St Luke Passion; and recently he composed a version of Spem in Alium after Thomas Tallis. He and his wife are lay Dominicans. He is eloquent in expounding his faith and has done his best to counter the secularism of contemporary music critics who ignore or downplay the religious component of the work of historical composers. His series on BBC Radio 4 on Faith in Music concluded with the work of the Jewish composer Leonard Bernstein. He is one of the most outspoken and articulate Catholics in British public life. He was made a knight bachelor in 2015.

“far from being a spent force, religion has proved to be a vibrant, animating principle in modern music and continues to promise much for the future. It could even be said that any discussion of modernity’s mainstream in music would be incomplete without a serious reflection on the spiritual values, belief and practice at work in composers’ minds.” 

With such a relatively recent but extensive tradition of composers influenced by religion, he said he feels encouraged by this legacy in his own work and outlook as a Catholic composer in today’s secular environment.

His return to the sacred is a development made all the more surprising given that this now British Knight of the Realmhe — was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2015 — was, in 1973, at the age of 14, a member of the Young Communist League. “I briefly joined the Young Communist League when I was 14! It was a mistake, but I was too young to really know what I was doing,” he reflected, before adding, “I’m still ashamed about it, though. At the time, there was a lot of talk about dialogue between the left and the Church. Liberation theology grew out of this and other experiments. In retrospect, it all feels wrongheaded and gave advantage to enemies of the Church, although that’s not how I saw it then.” 

What changed his theological views was his encounter with the Order of Preachers. This was, he said, “a marvelous way to educate myself about life, never mind religion and politics, and my wife Lynne and I became lay Dominicans for some time in our 30s and 40s. We are unable to follow the Third Order life any more, but we have always been close to the Order of Preachers, and many Dominicans are friends.” 

Born in Scotland in 1959, MacMillan grew up in what he describes as “a strong Catholic community in the west of Scotland, where there were important links between families, schools and parishes.” But even then it was music he says that provided his spiritual direction, and from an early age. “I was co-opted to help with music and liturgy at school and in the parish,” he recalled. “Being close to the organization of worship and being involved in the ritual prayer of the Church and being regularly in the vicinity of the Blessed Sacrament were all sustaining experiences and influences on my life. Then, when I went to the University of Edinburgh, I came into close contact with the Dominicans, and that helped me grow from a childhood Catholicism to something that would shape my adult life.” 

MacMillan has two daughters and a son. In 2016 his 5-year-old granddaughter, Sara Maria, died. She had suffered from Dandy-Walker syndrome, a congenital brain condition. Speaking of her death, he said, “We have been blessed and transformed through knowing and loving Sara and being known and loved in return by her.”

MacMillan first attracted critical acclaim in 1990, with his celebrated BBC Proms premiere of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie. Since then, his concertos, symphonies, operas and choral works have been performed by some of the world’s greatest soloists, choirs and orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra and the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras. Alongside his faith, the other great influence on his music is Scotland. “I grew up with Scottish country dance music, and then I got involved in folk music in my 20s,” he explained. “These experiences were important and were absorbed into my subliminal thinking in my music. And with the Ayrshire connection, there is Robert Burns and all those wonderful songs.” 

MacMillan has spoken out against the sectarianism in Scottish society, where Catholics make up 16% of the population. Is sectarianism still a problem today? 

“In August 1999, I made a speech at the Edinburgh International Festival called ‘Scotland’s Shame,’ arguing that anti-Catholicism was a barrier to genuine pluralism,” he explained. “At the time, it seemed to cause a bit of a stir. But looking back, it seems more like a storm in a teacup. I still get asked about it, though.” 

“What I recall most about the response to my speech,” he added, “was the defensiveness of many in the public eye, as well as the fear of several within the Catholic community about having a freewheeling, open discussion about their place in the ‘new Scotland.’ Perhaps the problem was that taboos were being broken — I had asked that a minority might look at its role in the wider society, and I also asked what kind of Scotland could work for all its citizens.” 

Ten years ago, MacMillan came to national and international attention when he was commissioned to write the music for Pope Benedict’s British visit. “I had developed a lot of interest in Joseph Ratzinger long before he was Pope,” he remembered. “I had been introduced to his writing on liturgy and other things in the 1980s. My friend Dominican Father Aidan Nichols had brought Ratzinger to the U.K. to give lectures at that time, and they had been greeted with much enthusiasm and appreciation. Subsequently, I read Ratzinger’s 2000 book, The Spirit of the Liturgy, which gave so much encouragement to many. I had also been involved in writing new music for the papal visit, and in particular for the large open-air Masses in Glasgow and Birmingham, as well as for the Mass at Westminster Cathedral. I remember the visit fondly and as a happy and exhilarating time.” 

A nearly mythic figure with a transcendent voice and presence, Sinatra was born to Italian Immigrants in Hoboken, New Jersey. Baptised and raised Catholic, Sinatra could be critical of the church, pointing out religious hypocrisy, mentioning Bertrand Russell in interviews, and claiming “religion is a deeply personal thing in which man and God go it alone together, without the witch doctor in the middle”—and quoting as evidence “Matthew, Five to Seven, the Sermon on the Mount”. Perhaps the greatest American showman, Sinatra could transcend genre and medium – he won an Academy Award in 1954, and was awarded 11 Grammys. Sinatra warmed to the church after his mother’s death in 1977, and remained a practicing Catholic for the rest of his life.

On April 2, 1980, Andy Warhol met Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square. John Paul was in the first bloom of his pontificate, and his image as a young, strong, independent-minded world citizen had been burnished by a visit to New York the previous fall. Warhol was hoping to cap a series of silk-screen celebrity portraits with the Polish pontiff. Warhol and his associate Fred Hughes arrived in Rome thinking they had a private audience, only to find that their tickets were for the weekly general audience. In his diary, Warhol recalled the event: “They finally took us in to our seats with the rest of the 5,000 people and a nun screamed out, ‘You’re Andy Warhol! Can I have your autograph?’ . . . Then I had to sign five more autographs for other nuns. And I just get so nervous at church.” He was in the front row, a V.I.P. after all. “And then the pope came out, he was on a gold car, he did the rounds, and then finally he got up and gave a speech against divorce in seven different languages. . . . That took three hours.”

When the service was finished, John Paul went down to the crowd assembled outside the basilica, trailed by photographers, and moved along the front row. At last, he reached Warhol. In the photographs, the two men are facing each other. John Paul is dressed all in white, tan and strong of jaw. Warhol has on a white dress shirt, a striped tie, and an olive down jacket, and he’s holding a camera. His skin has more color than usual; beneath his wig, there’s gray hair tufting out over the clear frames of his eyeglasses. He’s smiling. He looks like an ordinary person—just another pilgrim to Rome. Warhol extends his right 

hand and John Paul takes it in his left. “I didn’t kiss his hand. . . . The mobs behind us were jumping down from their seats, it was scary,” Warhol writes. He wasn’t ever able to make a silk-screen portrait of John Paul, but he did get a good photograph of the Pope that day. It is classically composed: vertical, black-and-white, with the sooty St. Peter’s colonnade as a background and the Pope jutting into the frame with his right arm and hand extended toward the viewer—a gesture akin to those of some of the saints atop the colonnades—so that John Paul’s eyes and the papal ring are the two focal points. It’s a photograph that could have appeared in Time or on a postcard.

That photograph is on view toward the end of “Andy Warhol: Revelation,” an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, and it invites the main question raised by Warhol’s work that uses religious imagery: What did Warhol make of all this stuff? It’s the question that people have asked about all his work since the beginning. One view is that he was detached and affectless, multiplying images mechanically until (contra Walter Benjamin’s prediction) their aura was enhanced rather than diminished. Another is that he was fundamentally irreverent, making movies called “Blow Job” and “Taylor Mead’s Ass” to flout conventional mores. A third view is that his work reflects an inside-out devotion: that he was a maker of icons, which together form a contemporary cosmology of people and objects divinized by fame.

The show—curated by José Carlos Diaz, of the Andy Warhol Museum, and organized for the Brooklyn Museum by Carmen Hermo, a curator there—offers ample evidence to support the latter view, placing its origins, as many critics have, in Warhol’s upbringing in the Byzantine Catholic tradition. Born in Pittsburgh, in 1928, and baptized Andrew Warhola, he grew up in a close-knit community of immigrants from Ruthenia, near Poland’s southern border. As a boy, he spent Sunday mornings gazing at Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints in the St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church, a congregation that followed the Byzantine rite—the priest hidden behind a wall of icons and incanting in Old Church Slavonic—and he gained a religious sense of the power of images. Religious imagery was prominent at home, too. His mother, Julia, made pen-and-ink drawings of angels; a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” hung in the hall. (“When you passed it,” he said, “you made a sign of the cross.”) A watercolor of the living room that he painted while he was a student at the Carnegie Institute of Technology shows a crucifix on the mantel—the crucifix that had been placed atop the casket of his father, Andrej.

As a young artist in New York City, Warhol maintained religious habits (noted in Blake Gopnik’s recent biography), whose full significance is hard to make out. He went to church intermittently, on his own or with his mother, who moved in with him in 1952. He drew Christmas cards for Tiffany’s. When Pope Paul VI visited New York and the United Nations in October, 1965, Warhol marvelled at how the motorcade (“I mean . . . the Pope!”) went right past Warhol’s Manhattan studio, the Factory, on East Forty-seventh Street. The account of Paul VI’s visit in Warhol’s book “Popism” presents the pontiff as an exemplar of Pop art’s bold style, from the distillation of Paul’s message at the United Nations (“essentially he said, ‘Peace, disarmament, and no birth control’ ”) to its summary of Paul’s press conference: “When the reporters asked him what he liked best about New York, [the Pope said] ‘Tutti buoni’ (‘Everything is good’) which was the Pop philosophy exactly.”

By decade’s end, Warhol would be dubbed the Pope of Pop, and among the images that gained him fame were those with religious associations. The “Mona Lisa” series was made in 1963 after the Metropolitan Museum of Art—with the First Lady Jackie Kennedy’s intercession—brought da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” from the Louvre to New York. Warhol’s “Jackie” series, from the next year, rendered Jackie Kennedy as a figure out of a pietà—like the one by Michelangelo on view at the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens—wearing the veil she wore to the funeral for her husband. And, in 1967, at the height of his fame, Warhol accepted a commission from the de Menil family, on behalf of the Catholic Church, and created a series of films titled “Sunrise/Sunset” for the Vatican pavilion at the World’s Fair in San Antonio. The pavilion was never built, but one work in the little-known series—a long-form video of a sunset over the Pacific—is on display in Brooklyn, with a voice-over by Nico, the chanteuse who played a role in the Velvet Underground. “Sunrise/Sunset” has been interpreted as a Pop counterpart to the Rothko Chapel in Houston, commissioned by the de Menils in the same period, as a “spiritual” gesture toward transcendence.

In June, 1968, Warhol was shot point-blank at the Factory (the front page of the next morning’s Daily News is in the exhibit), and he spent two months in the hospital recovering. The shooting was a turning point in his life, and his religious life. Having survived, he made a vow to go to church on Sundays, and in the years that followed he kept the vow, in his way—ducking into the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, on Lexington Avenue, near his town house, “for five minutes,” before cabbing it to the Chelsea flea market. Having undergone surgery to remove the bullet, he carried the scars, which served as reminders that he was not an icon—he was a man with a body.

Two of the most powerful images in the Brooklyn show develop that point under the rubric “The Catholic Body.” One is a photograph of Warhol by Richard Avedon, taken in August, 1969. The black leather jacket that Warhol is wearing is pulled up to reveal a torso scarred by surgery. The image evokes the Crucifixion, in which Jesus’ torso is poked with a spear by a soldier as he hangs on the Cross in a test of whether he is alive. It also recalls images of St. Sebastian—a saint, typically shown pierced by arrows.

The connection between Warhol’s religion and his artistic production was not deeply explored until after he died in 1987. While his Byzantine Catholic background and religious practices had been previously acknowledged by friends, family, and employees, it was not often publicized to the media. One exception was an Esquire magazine article from 1966, in which Warhol’s pious mother, Julia, boasted to the reporter, “He [is a] good religious boy.”1  Published after his death, The Andy Warhol Diaries reported the artist’s daily activities for decades, with more than fifty mentions of his going to church.2  In Bob Colacello’s memoir Holy Terror, the former insider described the artist doing “all the Catholic things . . . taking holy water, genuflecting, kneeling, praying, and making the Sign of the Cross” when they visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.3  In that moment Colacello realized Warhol’s devotion was not an act but a fundamental part of his life.

John Michael Talbot (born May 8, 1954) is an American Christian musician, author, television presenter and founder of a monastic community known as the Brothers and Sisters of Charity

John Micheal Talbot is a contemporary Catholic singer and winner of several Grammy and Dove awards for his performances. He’s the founder of an iconic monastic community known as the Brothers and Sisters of Charity, dedicated to helping others through the Catholic faith. He was in famous 70s rock band Mason Proffit.

John Michael Talbot is a multi-platinum selling, Grammy / Dove award winning Contemporary Catholic Christian Music pioneer. His music has been the soundtrack to the faith journey of millions of believers throughout the world! He has recorded his 57th album, “Songs From Solitude" during his time of isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Best-Selling Author, John Michael’s 35th book, "Hermitage of the Heart" was published October 2021 and his 36th book, "Holy Is His Name" was published July 2022!

In 2019 John Michael established his "Inner Room of Spirituality" - an online teaching community designed to lead you into a deeper relationship with Christ and His Church through the wisdom of Scripture, Monasticism, Community Living and the teachings of the Church Fathers.

John Michael lives and leads the monastic life, which overflows into his very active ministry from Little Portion Hermitage in Arkansas, where he is the Founder and General Minister of the Catholic based community The Brothers and Sisters of Charity.

He was a pioneer of improvisational jazz piano whose precision and complex rhythms blended with the creativity of his bandmates in the Dave Brubeck Quartet, producing decades of remarkable popular jazz music.  His larger scale "classical" compositions also brought together orchestras, choirs, and contemporary instruments into a masterful fusion of diverse styles which extended his legacy over the whole musical repertoire.

The northern California native was a striking person in many other ways.  He was a man of large aspirations and a childlike sense of wonder, a devoted husband and father (Dave and Iola Brubeck shared seventy years of marriage and raised six children), and a lifelong seeker of the truth about the mystery of life.

Brubeck's experience as a young soldier in World War II made him wonder why humans were so divided from one another and from God.  He had a strong sense of the gap between the mystery of God and the ignorance and frailty of humans, and in many ways music was expressive of his search for an aesthetic and vital bridge over this gap.  Here he traveled a path that included jazz, with its roots in the rhythms and tones of African-American Gospel music, and that also led him to take up choral compositions with biblical themes.

By the late 1970s Brubeck was known in the classical music world for several of his religious oratorios and cantatas.  It was at this time that Ed Murray of the Catholic magazine Our Sunday Visitor had the idea to commission Brubeck to compose music for the new English text of the Mass.  Brubeck declined, insisting he had never been to a Catholic Mass and knew nothing about it, but Murray persisted with the conviction that something beautiful would come from this encounter.  Brubeck felt unqualified, but he finally agreed on the condition that Catholic liturgists would oversee and correct his work.

In 1979, he finished his composition To Hope! A Celebration, a bright, jubilant, sometimes sublime musical piece incorporating the major sung parts of the Mass.  A priest friend remarked, however, that he had composed nothing for the Our Father, but the composer pleaded that he had finished the commission and now needed a vacation with his family.

Then one night during that vacation, Dave Brubeck had a dream.  He insisted that he heard the entire orchestral and choral setting for the Lord's Prayer in that dream.  He heard it so vividly that he got up right away and wrote it all out as best as he could remember it.

Brubeck sensed something more in this mysterious experience, something that had been building throughout his composition of the work.  He became convinced that he was being called to join the Catholic Church himself.  In 1981, he was baptized, with Ed Murray as his godfather.

Brubeck never gave much of a discourse on why he became Catholic, insisting only that it was a "calling" that he followed (and remained faithful to for the rest of his life).  He had spent his first sixty years living the tension of his humanity, his musical creativity, and his questions about the meaning of life.  Then, through the Mass, he found his spiritual home in the Catholic Church.

The jazz pianist and composer became a Catholic in 1980 – he was careful to note that he wasn’t a convert, since he didn’t arrive from another faith practice. In fact, Brubeck had been a seeker for some time; The Gates of Justice, a 1969 production, was a cantata that infused Scripture with the speeches of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Brubeck’s religious journey culminated in a revelation that followed his composition of the Catholic Mass in To Hope! A Celebration. Brubeck thought the purpose of religious music was “to reach people where it’s truly going to be the survival of humanity or the destruction of humanity”.

From the Chicago Tribune: 

Dave Brubeck, a jazz musician who attained pop-star acclaim with recordings such as “Take Five” and “Blue Rondo a la Turk,” died Wednesday morning at Norwalk Hospital, in Norwalk, Conn., said his longtime manager-producer-conductor Russell Gloyd.

Brubeck was one day short of his 92nd birthday. He died of heart failure, en route to “a regular treatment with his cardiologist,” said Gloyd.

Throughout his career, Brubeck defied conventions long imposed on jazz musicians. The tricky meters he played in “Take Five” and other works transcended standard conceptions of swing rhythm.


The extended choral/symphonic works he penned and performed around the world took him well outside the accepted boundaries of jazz. And the concerts he brought to colleges across the country in the 1950s shattered the then-long-held notion that jazz had no place in academia.

As a pianist, he applied the classical influences of his teacher, the French master Darius Milhaud, to jazz, playing with an elegance of tone and phrase that supposedly were the antithesis of the American sound. 

Much more about Brubeck’s life and discography can be found on the All Music Guide site. As Deacon Greg Kandra points out (and I noted in this May 2011 post), Brubeck was also a convert, in 1980, to the Catholic Church. This 2009 article in St. Anthony Messenger states: 

To Hope! A Celebration was Brubeck’s first encounter with the Roman Catholic Mass, written at a time when he belonged to no denomination or faith community. It was commissioned by Our Sunday Visitor editor Ed Murray, who wanted a serious piece on the revised Roman ritual, not a pop or jazz Mass, but one that reflected the American Catholic experience. 

The writing was to have a profound effect on Brubeck’s life. A short time before its premiere in 1980 a priest asked why there was no Our Father section of the Mass. Brubeck recalls first inquiring, “What’s the Our Father?” (he knew it as The Lord’s Prayer) and saying, “They didn’t ask me to do that.” 

He resolved not to make the addition that, in his mind, would wreak havoc with the composition as he had created it. He told the priest, “No, I’m going on vacation and I’ve taken a lot of time from my wife and family. I want to be with them and not worry about music.” 

“So the first night we were in the Caribbean, I dreamt the Our Father,” Brubeck says, recalling that he hopped out of bed to write down as much as he could remember from his dream state. At that moment he decided to add that piece to the Mass and to become a Catholic. 

He has adamantly asserted for years that he is not a convert, saying to be a convert you needed to be something first. He continues to define himself as being “nothing” before being welcomed into the Church.

His Mass has been performed throughout the world, including in the former Soviet Union in 1997 (when Russia was considering adopting a state religion) and for Pope John Paul II in San Francisco during the pontiff’s 1987 pilgrimage to the United States. At the latter celebration, Brubeck was asked to write an additional processional piece for the pope’s entrance into Candlestick Park. 

Again, it was a dream that led him to accept a sacred music project that he initially refused as not workable. The dream “was more of a realizing that I could write what I wanted for the music,” Brubeck says.

“They needed nine minutes and they gave me a sentence, ‘Upon this rock I will build my Church and the jaws of hell cannot prevail against it.’ So rather than dream musically, I dreamed practically that Bach would have taken one sentence in a chorale and fugue, as he often did, and that was the answer,” he says. “So I decided that I would do that piece for the pope,” which is known as “Upon This Rock.”

Chris Lewis is the illustrator behind BARITUS Catholic Illustration. A convert to the Catholic faith with a professional background in graphic design and a love for illustration, this project came to fruition through a parallel journey in discovering the Truth of Christianity through Catholicism and a return to drawing after many years of setting it aside. The two paths converged after a series of spiritual and intellectual conversions in 2018, and the idea of beginning a project focused on sharing the Catholic faith through art was born. BARITUS is an artistic project dedicated to preserving the legacy of our rich Catholic artistic traditions, but in a way that resonates today.

From a young age, Chris Lewis had artistic inclinations. Art came naturally to him, and as he went through high school, he even considered doing it as a career.

But this was in the ’90s — before Facebook, Instagram, Etsy and other online social platforms existed.

“There was no real internet presence or social media,” Lewis told the Register. “So I kind of didn’t know where to take my skill, so I put art aside for a little while.”

In the meantime, Lewis met his wife, a Catholic whose family (also all Catholic) was from Lebanon. 

“I knew nothing about Catholicism, so I learned it really through their family,” Lewis said. 

As someone who had rejected the fundamentalist Christian faith of his youth, Lewis said he found that the Catholic Church was more intellectually fulfilling and answered the questions he had been left with in his younger years.

“When I found Catholicism, it started to connect all the dots for me,” he said. “But it took a long time of digging into the history and understanding it. And then I had an intellectual conversion to Catholicism, which eventually led me to a deep spiritual conversion.”

Around the time that he met his wife, Lewis also felt pulled to go back to doing art. Although he had been doing some freelance illustration on the side, he found that in order to have a job in art, most positions required an education. So Lewis got a two-year graphic design degree, and he started working in corporate graphic design.

“Although I consider myself an illustrator, I went into graphic design because it was a lot more stable, in my mind, in those days. I could go work corporately and know I’d have a salary and benefits and that sort of thing,” Lewis said. “So I did corporate graphic design for 17 years.”

After Lewis’ conversion to Catholicism, he said he found himself doodling Catholic illustrations during his free time at work.

“Art sort of followed as a part of that [conversion] because it had always been what I would gravitate to, but now I actually had something meaningful to express through my art,” he said.

Before his conversion, Lewis said he was drawn to the work of 19th-century illustrators like Arthur Rackham or Gustave Dore, as well as engravers and woodcut illustrators, and their work continues to influence his style today. After he became Catholic, he was also inspired by the deep bench of Catholic art that he hadn’t been exposed to previously. In particular, he loved the statues of the Church and took pictures of some of Catholicism’s most famous statues during a trip to Rome. 

With social media, and particularly Instagram, Lewis said he felt that he had a place where he could market his Catholic illustrations. He recently decided to leave corporate design and start his own Catholic illustration and design company, Baritus Catholic. He was surprised at how quickly it grew.

“I thought maybe 10 people would follow me and that would encourage me to just keep drawing,” he said. “And before I knew it, I had thousands of people following me on Instagram, and it was pretty unbelievable.”

Lewis said he has received commissions from people who are looking for an artist with “one foot in the Catholic world and one in the design world.” 

In his shop, Lewis sells prayer cards, magnets, stickers, phone cases, prints and more, all with images of saints, or the Sacred Heart, the Eucharist, or other Catholic imagery. 

His most popular piece by far? His image of St. Joseph, Terror of Demons. 

“The funny thing is when I first did that [image], I wasn’t sure how people were going to receive it, because it’s a little bit darker,” he said. “In America, Catholicism is sort of pristine. But you go to Europe, and you see a really gritty Catholicism: I mean you go into some of these old churches, and you just see some, some, some pretty shocking things — like St. Catherine of Siena’s head in a case.”

Lewis said he wanted the demon in the image to be fearful, but that he wanted the power of St. Joseph and the Child Jesus to be all the more evident. 

It has been his most popular piece, “without a doubt,” he said.

Lewis said he would encourage any Catholics with artistic talents to create art, even if it is just for the enjoyment of themselves and their friends and family.

“Sometimes the fruit of doing Catholic art is something that we don’t even see,” he said. “Maybe it encourages people. It motivates them in a way that speaks to them and teaches them. It helps them connect to the true, the good and the beautiful. And we might not ever hear about those things, but if you’re a Catholic artist making art, I know that it’s doing something out there in the world. And we need more of this. We need more beauty. So I would encourage any kind of artist to do it.”

Lewis’ work can be found on his website, Baritus Catholic, on Etsy, and on Instagram.

Growing up in Missouri as the son of Nigerian immigrants, the life of Ike Ndolo is a woven tapestry of experiences: hymns and Bob Marley, injustice and mercy, discrimination and acceptance. As a result, Ike has become a well-tested navigator of the human experience. He aims to share and guide you through stories that inform and even reorient your perspective.

With deep and soulful gospel roots, Ike draws from new wave R&B and powerful, vocal-driven performances, calling on modern influences such as Anderson .Paak and St. Paul and the Broken Bones. Sprinkle in some synth beats and surprising deconstructions of his former style and this makes his newest album, “Shine,” a monument that musically mirrors the many worlds he walks through daily.

Ike Ndolo released three singles in the summer of 2018, “Guiding Light,” “Your Table” & “Follow Me,” all of which are featured on his third LP, “Shine,” released on September 17th, 2018. Recorded at Gnome Studios in Nashville, TN in conjunction with Hardspeak Records.

Ike Ndolo developed a love of music at home, growing up to the ringing of hymns from his mother’s voice. He continued his musical development at St. Timothy Catholic Church in Mesa, Arizona, where he was mentored by legends Tom Booth and Matt Maher.

Ike’s debut album We Are the Beggars features 11 powerful originals alongside three refreshing and inventive covers. Produced by top 10 contemporary hitmaker Robbie Seay and featuring the ambient electric guitar work of pro Taylor Johnson throughout the record, it would be easy for a young artist to fade into the background. However, Ike comfortably commands your undivided attention as you wait in eager anticipation for the next note. Fans of The David Crowder Band, Hillsong United, and Jackie François will need to carve out room in their playlists for this exciting new artist.

In addition to traveling the country to lead others to Christ, Ike has a great zeal for missionary work, from Mexico to as far as China.

Currently adjunct worship leader at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Tempe, Arizona, Ike is constantly evolving as a musician and a man of God.

Ike Ndolo has soul.  Listen to any of his songs and you’ll immediately be hooked.

Cecilia Music had the pleasure to speak to Ike about his music. Here is our exchange:

Ike, your music is a mix of soul and blues that touches your soul. Where does this rhythm come from?

I don’t know…I think I’ve always been drawn to more of the organic side of music, the music that speaks to me. I don’t know if you would call it vintage, but music that is really expressive…like indigenous and folk. I feel like there’s really a lot of heart in folk music and blues. It’s the things that I love. It’s the things that my voice loves to sing. 

Where do you tend to draw your inspiration from for your songs?

Writing-wise, I’m always thinking about the people on the fringes. I guess I always start with my own sin, my own frailty, my own shortcomings, I guess God’s grace, His love, in spite of who we are. My inspiration comes from the fact that we are all sinners and beggars and that God has come to give us the food that we need, the sustenance we need. It’s like that ‘scandal of grace’ I love to dive into. I just love to think of everyday why God would love me so much, even in my shortcomings and failings. 

I’ve seen some of your videos that you do, take away style in public places, on the street, in the metro or a park. Why do you do this? 

You know it’s fine to do things in church, but the people who need Jesus the most are not going to be in churches. They’re going to be out on the streets in metro areas. It’s very symbolic and it reflects on my own spirituality. I’d much rather be around people. Sometimes we spend too much time behind church walls when our faith needs to be brought out to people, whether it’s a smile or a song.

When we think of great sculptors, Michelangelo is the first to come to mind. So it’s no wonder that he inspires modern-day great sculptors like Christopher Alles.

“When Christopher Alles thinks about sculpture, he thinks of Michelangelo,” he shared in a documentary about Catholic artisans. 

Jon Marquez

The deep faith of the Renaissance artist came through in so many of his masterpieces. Many of Alles’ creations are overtly religious, too. The Oregon native sculpted a life-size figure of St. Charles Borromeo, the patron saint of bishops, for St. Charles Borromeo Church in Montgomery Township, New Jersey.
For the 31-year-old Alles, who works in a studio in Poughkeepsie, the connection between faith and art “is pretty natural.” An artist, he said, “is a secular monk in a way. You are out in the world, but you are kind of seeing all things in the light of Christ and in the light of this spiritual encounter that you have.”

So who is Christopher Alles, exactly? He is a sculptor who specializes in figurative and sacred art. His work is truly awe-inspiring in its beauty.

Like so many great artists, the star-studded Italian art tradition formed him. After attending college for a year, he dropped out and began formal training in classical art in Florence, Italy, where he assisted artist Dony MacManus on a monumental 16-figure altar relief for a medical school chapel in Rome. 

Jon Marquez

He continued apprenticeship under the guidance of sculptor Tomasz Misztal, with whom he studied the European grand manner of sculpture and completed his first near-life-size figure. He also completed a master class in drawing with Vitaly Borovic, head of drawing at the Imperial Academy of Art, St. Petersburg, Russia. 

Christopher has been commissioned for work throughout the United States, ranging from small scale portraits to architectural sculpture to monumental figurative sculpture. His work has been featured in the New York Post, The New Criterion, and Catholic New York, and of course, he is a featured artist in the documentary, Masterpieces. 

He received the Stanford White Award in the category of “Art and Craftsmanship” for his sculptural contribution on the recently constructed Baldacchino at the Church of St. Michael in midtown Manhattan. 

As though all that weren’t enough, Alles is the father of baby triplets.

Alles shares his work on his Instagram account, where you can see finished artwork as well as pieces in progress. 

We had the chance to interview this extraordinarily talented artist, and here’s what he told us.

When it comes to the creation of culture and art, one has to love something in order to make something. When a decision needed to be made in terms of what type of art I would do, it was clear it had to be within the realm of the Catholic sacred art. This doesn’t exclude other subject matters for me, but the highest expression of any culture is the sacred, and in the case of Christian culture, it’s the Mass. All other art forms and expressions in the West flow from the art of the Mass.

Typically I like to work in clay. It’s obviously very flexible to work with; it’s easy to make changes and water-based clay responds instantly to your touch. It’s a very nice medium to sculpt in. Usually, after the clay is modeled, the works are molded and then cast into bronze or other materials for their final stage.

That’s a tough question. There’s so many things. I would love to do a monumental work of Blessed Karl of Austria. This would be a bit more of a civic project, but it would also be a natural church related project as he is a Blessed. The context for such a piece, though, would make most sense in Austria or Hungary.

Ora et labora. Prayer is always an aspect of work, it emerges naturally as one proceeds. There are no particular prayers before my work except morning offerings and a request for the intercession of St. Castorius, patron saint of sculptors. While I work I pray perhaps unknowingly. Anytime one enters into contemplation of a higher order it is prayer.

Recently, St. Joseph has played a major role in my work. Not only because much of my recent work has been depictions of him, but also due to his example of leadership and fatherhood. As a father myself, I draw on his intercession and guidance to lead my family during difficult times, and in the uncertainties of life. He also is the patron saint of craftsmen and workers in general, so he is a particularly powerful intercessor for the success of my work.

Erin Marek was raised Catholic, and she never wanted to be anything other than an artist.

When she went to art school in Boston, Marek said she was nominally Catholic. She went to church sometimes. She had some Catholic friends. Her faith was something that she “would get around to if I had the time. It’s not something I was super excited about.”

But it was her art that drew her back into the faith. Marek, whose family has a strong Irish background, said she became intrigued by incorporating some of the characters of old Irish legends into her work.

At one point, she created an Irish character that she unwittingly turned into a saint. “I made a halo behind it and just started to incorporate the things I’d grown up seeing,” she said.

She was inspired to do more research about saints for her art. She went in with the assumption that saints came from “back in the day” — and she was surprised when her research turned up stories of contemporary saints. 

“I realized that even today there are people who are alive, doing saintly work,” she said, and she became inspired to bring stories of the saints — especially some lesser-known ones — to life in her work.

As for her popular saint dolls, Marek made her first one a few years ago, when her youngest sister was making her first Holy Communion.

“I wanted to make her a patron saint that she could hold,” she said. “And her name is Monica, so I was looking online for St. Monica dolls.”

Her search didn’t turn up much.

“But as I’m Googling, I thought, ‘Wait a minute: I can make this.’” Marek had sewn for years, usually making small odds and ends for the house, and so she whipped up a St. Monica doll for her sister.

“My mom loved it so much, she showed it around her parish,” Marek said. “And then, kind of just by word of mouth from my mom, I got some orders.” 

Word caught on about the dolls at her own parish, “and it just kind of snowballed from there,” she added.

Marek said she loves creating the saint dolls because she wishes such things had existed during her childhood. 

Marekmade dolls | Erin Marek

“When I was younger I don’t remember having that many saint items specifically geared towards kids,” she said. “And I think I need to be a part of [providing] ... something that kids can hold in their hands. It’s tangible, versus just a photo on the wall. I think, for kids, being able to feel something in their hands is really important.”

Over the years, Marek said that she found her faith has transformed her art.

“When I was younger, creating art — I always created it for myself — I wanted to express ... what was going on inside of me,” she said.

“And when I got more into my faith, I started to realize that this talent that I’ve been given is such a gift, that it’s really selfish to want myself to be seen. I think that is the gift of being able to create something beautiful and to give that gift to the world: It is a true vocation.” 

Erin introduces herself on her website marekmade.com, in this way:
"I'm Erin, mum to four little chickadees on earth and one in heaven, and a lucky wife to a handsome Californian who also happens to be a Red Sox fan (all the heart eyes!).

My own mom and dad always encouraged me to follow my artistic pursuits, since as long as I can remember I have thought of myself as an artist. 

Through my post high school travels, art school degree and beyond, I was always drawn back again and again to art that tells stories, and communicates beauty and wonder to its viewer. The lives of the saints do all that and more, as their journeys give all glory to God and through them we can experience a deeper personal love for our creator.

Though not always by way of the straight and smooth path, I've grown up in the Catholic faith and continue to learn more about the depth of beauty and culture we have been given. Now as parents my husband and I are passing on what our own gave us, trying to raise our kids up in the faith and teach them about the wonderful gift we have in the Communion of Saints!

I am so happy you are here, and I hope that together we can encourage a new generation of saints! "

Marek’s shop includes saint dolls, prints and stickers. Her work can be found on her website, her online sketchbook and her Instagram. 

As Erin writes on her Instagram page: 

“You cannot be half a saint, you must be a whole saint or no saint at all.”

Anyone else need a loving yet forceful kick in the behind a few times a year with this line from St Thérèse of Lisieux?

Just me? I have a feeling it can’t be just me. I thought St Thérèse overrated for years because she seemed too flowery and cute for me. But the girl has got words that’ll knock you down in the best way.

Later on in this same letter to a friend she writes, “how I wish I could make you realize the tenderness of Jesus’ heart, what It expects of you.”

Arrow to the ♥️, that one. We have been given so much, and much will be expected of us. Much love, much compassion, much forgiveness, much grace extended towards others and ourselves.

When things don’t go my way or turn out badly I can become a big whiner, but I think I’ll hang this in my house where I can see it and get a daily virtue nudge via St Thérèse.

No half saints, y’all."

Born in California and raised in Iowa, Rakhi found her way to Michigan 22 years ago after graduating with her Master's Degree from Texas A&M University.  She has been married to Timothy for 12 of those years, and is a mother of three. A convert from Hinduism, her greatest joy is speaking light into darkness and encouraging others to discover the love of Christ amid the beauty and gifts they possess. She uses the varied pieces of her life as her inspiration in ministry, and in her "free time" as an artist, writer, and occasional speaker.

Rakhi's background includes working at Oakland University before entering professional ministry. As a lay ecclesial minister, she has served as Spiritual Coordinator for Mary's Mantle,  Associate Director of Youth/Campus/Young Adult Ministry for the Archdiocese of Detroit, Director of Genesis Young Adult Ministry in Oakland County, and on the Executive Board for the National Catholic Young Adult Ministry Association in addition to working in parish communications.

At Guardian Angels, you'll find Rakhi working with our youth, young adults, young families, digital ministry, community outreach, and communications.

When Rakhi McCormick finished a watercolor project for her high-school art class, her teacher told her that she didn’t have the knack for art and that she should stop taking art classes.

The conversation stuck with McCormick for years.

Even though she has always thought of herself as a creative person, “I still kind of recoil at the word ‘artist’ because I for many years was under the impression that I couldn’t do art,” she said.

She went on to get degrees in political science and educational administration. In the meantime, during her junior year of college, she converted from Hinduism, the faith of her childhood, to Catholicism, and ever since, she said, she has had a heart for ministry.

She dabbled in photography, following in her dad’s footsteps, but she had largely set art aside, thinking that it wasn’t for her.

It wasn’t until seven years ago, when a college friend led an online calligraphy class, that her artistic passion was reignited. She realized that her art gave her a channel through which to express both her creativity and her faith. 

Though she had been involved with campus and young-adult ministry for years, being married and having children limited her availability for that kind of ministry. 

“[Art] took my ministry into a very different format,” McCormick said. “It gave me an ability to minister through creativity, which has been really fulfilling.” 

McCormick, who largely draws and paints her art on the Procreate app, said that honing her skills as an artist has helped her reimagine what the word “artist” means. 

She said she has come to realize that art exists outside of “this narrow box of European fine art.”

“I think that we’re seeing a revival of art that represents the fullness of the Catholic experience,” she said. 

“I think that there’s a great desire for communities to feel represented within our parishes, within the walls of our home, to be more authentic about who our saints were, to be sure that they are being appropriately represented. And I think that what we’re seeing is a diversification of art, the decentralization of who is being represented, so I think you’re seeing a lot of non-European art.”

McCormick, who is a first-generation Indian American, has incorporated a lot of Indian art and influences into her creations. For example, one of her saint images is Our Lady of the Mangoes, a fruit that, in Indian culture, is a sacred food, representing divinity. 

“It's so interesting to see the path that I’ve been on, from just drawing and getting back into it, doing it for fun, to being more intentional about it and being Spirit-led; and then now, as I’m improving on the technical end, I’m trying to really go in and look at some of the cultural influences and have a better voice to create something distinctively mine,” she said. 

McCormick urged other aspiring Catholic artists to focus on creating art that is authentically their own, instead of trying to focus on what is trendy or popular on social media. 

“It’s really important to figure out what your voice is, and especially as Catholic artists, to be sure that we’re being led by the Holy Spirit,” she said, “... and that you’re weaving your own work into what God is asking you to do with it.”

She also encouraged Catholics, whether they consider themselves artists or not, to read St. John Paul II’s “Letter to Artists,” to more deeply understand how the Holy Spirit is calling everyone to create something in their lives.

“We are all artists, because God is an artist,” she said. “And he calls us all to create in some way.” 

McCormick’s work can be found on her Instagram page, her website, rakstardesigns.com, and on Etsy. 

“Christian Singer-Songwriter bringing hope to broken and weary souls.” That’s how Taylor Tripodi’s website describes her, and it is certainly true.

One listen to her music, and your soul will be consoled with the gentle, moving music and her equally strong but soothing voice.

Talent and mission is why her “Stand in Awe” has over 1.5 million listens on Spotify (and counting). She doesn’t just sing in her spare time as a side hobby; this is her full-time profession—to profess Christ through music!

Taylor Tripodi was also listed in the top 30 Catholic Musicians in the world by Aleteia, and her “Awakening” album has over 5 million streams worldwide.

She’s not out for fame or fortune, though. She wants you to encounter Christ.

Based in Nashville, Taylor Tripodi is also a wife and mother. She began as a youth minister for the Church until she followed her calling to sing, write songs, and lead worship full-time.

In her music, no instrument is aggressive, but all blend together in harmonies and melodies that are both classical and contemporary with her gifted vocals.

When you sing you pray twice, so it is said. Rather than sing secular songs, especially during Lent, turn on Taylor Tripodi’s soul-healing songs. Add her music to your praise and worship, drive, or other positive, uplifting playlists. 

This music is safe for children, but not childish. The lyrics are inspiring, avoid being over-simplistic, and therefore call listeners into a deeper relationship with God.

“Live Wide Open” is inspired by the CS Lewis quote “To love is to be vulnerable” and preaches “you were made for love even if your heart is broken.”Taylor Tripodi is one of the top 30 Catholic singers in the world and she calls the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland home. Tripodi, a 2012 graduate of Trinity High School in Garfield Heights who majored in catechetics and theology at Franciscan University in Steubenville, is using her vocal talents to spread the word of God.

Tripodi returned 'home' on Oct. 10 to her alma mater and performed in front of a very energetic student body and staff. She sang songs from her August release, "Awakening,” as well as other singles that had the students out of their seats, clapping, singing along and waving their hands in the air. Tripodi also found time for prayer with the gathering, delivering inspirational messages along the way.

"Every one of you is beautiful. Don't listen to the noise around you saying you aren't a beautiful person," she said. "The one voice who is always there for you, and knows how beautiful you are is God."

Tripodi always had the passion to be a Christian artist, and was "discovered" by accident during a Trinity retreat by Assistant Principal Bill Svoboda. "At a very young age God entered her heart to move and change lives," he said. "She asked to sing around the prayer fire and I said OK. She immediately grabbed her guitar, plopped into the dirt, and her life and my life were never the same. It was amazing what came out of that beautiful voice from the very beginning."

One of the crowd favorites during the show was the new single “We Are Alive,” where Tripodi explained the song's powerful message before having the contingent sing along. “We all experience suffering in life, we all experience things that are painful, but we have to remember as baptized people, we have the power of Christ within us. We are alive because He says that we are alive."

After the performance, Svoboda presented Tripodi and her bandmates “Got Prayer?” T-shirts that have become iconic within the Trinity community. Tripodi smiled and told him that she still has hers from her days at THS.

"I love Trinity. Coming back today brought back so many wonderful memories of my time here,” she said.

After the show, Tripodi asked the student body to take a selfie with her, and the kids wouldn't let her leave. She stayed around for more than an hour talking to them about her music, and the role of God in all of their lives.

In kindergarten, when Leanne Bowen’s teacher asked the class to draw what they wanted to be when they grew up, Bowen drew herself as an artist. She couldn’t understand why her classmates were choosing other professions, because she loved art so much.

“I was like, ‘What are you doing?’” she told the Register. 

As Bowen was nearing the end of her college years at the University of Kansas, where she had studied drawing, painting and art history, she went to the Catholic chapel at the Newman Center to pray about her future.

She had thought about a lot of different career paths she could take, Bowen told the Register. She considered teaching, or going to graduate school, or maybe working for a design firm.

But in her prayer, she told God that she wanted to do whatever he wanted her to do, as long as he made it very clear. As she walked out of the chapel, she was approached by a missionary with Fellowship of Catholic University Students.

“He said, ‘Leanne, I need you to apply for FOCUS,’” she said. The directness jumped out at Leanne — the missionary hadn’t asked if she had considered FOCUS or implied that she would enjoy it. He said she needed to apply. 

“It was just exactly what I prayed for,” Bowen said. After a “transformative” experience at her FOCUS interview weekend, Bowen was hired and worked as a campus missionary for three years. Afterwards, she got another job in campus ministry.

During this time, Bowen said, she would take artistic commissions here and there, though she always felt the pull to do more with her art. Then she attended a conference for work, where she listened to a talk about helping students discern their futures.

“One of the talks was on a Mary Oliver quote: ‘Tell me what you would do with your one wild and precious life.’ Instantly, I was like, ‘Oh, I’d be painting,’” Bowen recalled. 

It wasn’t that she disliked campus ministry. “But if I was actually fully alive, 100% me, who the Lord was calling me to be: I’d be a painter,” she said. “I felt very strongly the Lord giving me permission to paint again, to create again.” 

A few weeks later, Bowen launched a website where she could sell prints and take commissions. It was clear that the move was “anointed by the Holy Spirit,” she said, and the work took off. Three years ago, it became her full-time work.

Much of what Bowen paints or draws are images of the saints or images that come to her in prayer. 

“I don’t know if I ever thought, ‘Oh, I’m going to go be a Catholic artist.’ The Lord gave me the freedom to be an artist, and my faith was just something that I loved, so that’s what came out,” she said. 

One of her more recent images is of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a young girl, smelling a rose on a rose bush. The image was partially inspired by an image of a girl in a garden by illustrator Jessie Wilcox Smith, as well as Bowen’s own prayer about what the life of Mary was like.

“I was just picturing Mary as an adult, and thinking about how much she endured and embraced with freedom, and how that must have come from years of freedom, her whole life,” Bowen said. “And so I pictured her intuitively knowing that there would be thorns that would pierce her and her life, but her willingness to embrace the beauty instead.” 

One of Bowen’s most popular pieces is a watercolor image called Sacrifice of Love, which depicts a couple on their wedding day, holding hands with each other, and then each placing their outer hands on Jesus’ hands on the crucifix. 

“It’s a depiction of what goes into the sacrifice that is marriage,” Bowen. “I think [it has been popular] because it’s a depiction of the deeper reality of what marriage is, so people that are married really resonate with it.”

Bowen currently lives in a town of about 130 people in California with her husband and toddler daughter. Running an art business with a toddler underfoot can be difficult, Bowen said, and so she leans heavily on the Holy Spirit when she starts feeling overwhelmed. 

As an example, Bowen said that she hit a very busy point last fall and needed to find some help. But in her small town, where most of the workforce is ranching or operating the few establishments in town, Bowen knew it would be difficult to find.

But she prayed, and the Lord provided. The next day, someone contacted Bowen, saying that they knew a young woman named Michelle who was looking for an art internship. Michelle moved out to the Bowen’s ranch and worked as Leanne’s intern for about six months.

“[God] has always provided so intricately,” Bowen said. 

Lately, that trust in the Lord has looked like Bowen designing labels for a candle business. While it isn’t the kind of art she imagined she’d be doing when she first started, Bowen said it still fits what she feels is her vocation. 

“My vocation is to make beautiful art, and to make [God] known in whatever ways he desires,” she said.

In particular, she said, she has a strong desire to “put Christ’s beauty in the hands of young people” who typically can’t afford pricey, lofty art.

“I deeply desire for young people to have good, fully beautiful things in their presence, in their hands, in their Bibles,” she said. “I don’t care if people tape my artwork to the wall ... a lot of the college students that buy from me, they don’t frame my stuff.”

“My art gets tucked into spaces of prayer and ... that is such a beautiful calling.”
 

Bowen’s work can be found on her website, Instagram and on Etsy.

Marie Miller's songs have been on top Christian and contemporary radio
network lists. She’s played for crowds of 5,000 people,
recorded two CDs and had a song featured in a movie.
Eucharistic adoration is on her short list of non-music
activities.

The third of 10 children, Marie Miller got her start at an
early age. She always enjoyed singing, and at age 5 or 6,
people began noticing that she had a “unique, good voice,”
her father, Joe Miller, said. She began playing mandolin when
she was 11, and shortly after began playing in a family band
with her father and sister, Justina. Before long, her mother,
Roxanne, joined, and together they sang and played acoustic
string instruments at church events, fairs, festivals and at
Rappahannock Cellars, which the Miller family partly owns.

When Marie was 15, Justina began attending college out of
town and wasn’t able to play with the band anymore. Marie had
written several songs and recorded them in a Christian pop
style, with acoustic guitar, mandolin, electric keyboard and
drum. She sent the recording to a producer in Nashville who
had recorded many female Christian pop singers.

“We sent him our homemade CD, and he contacted us and was
really interested in Marie,” Joe said. “He was asking a lot
of questions. Did she really write these songs? Is that
really her singing? Yes, yes, that’s her, yeah, she wrote it.
Then, he said, ‘Wow. I don’t normally work with independent
artists; I usually only work with record labels, but I would
make an exception in this case.'”

Marie recorded some songs and signed with Curb Records. Six
months later, she had songs on Christian radio. Soon she
moved into secular pop with her song, “You’re Not Alone.”

“One thing my parents made me do is practice a lot. Practice
and pray,” she said. Aspiring musicians should “love music
for itself and (not) think about making money.”

She plays about eight shows per month, including 10 in
October this year. She has played in nearly all 50 states at
a variety of venues, from small parish events to South By
Southwest, an annual film and music festival in Austin,
Texas. She travels to Nashville to record so often that she
keeps an apartment there, though her home is near Front
Royal.

It’s a different experience playing at Catholic and secular
events, she said, but she doesn’t prefer one over the other.
“They’re both so great,” she said.

Secular events, she said, are a way to provide a “holy
leisure” to the audience, mostly college students and young
adults. Catholic events are more of a ministry, and she said
she’s fed spiritually by playing at these events.

“It’s humbling to be leading a group in ministry. Who am I to
be leading? I say, God works through brats,” – referring to
St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who was a temperamental
child – “and it’s humbling that they’d ask me.”

At South By Southwest last year, someone came to her after
the show and said she and the musicians playing with her
seemed so happy.

“It seems cliched,” she said. “That’s our mission, to have
the joy of the Gospel in our faces. It’s not Praise and
Worship (music), but Catholicism is interwoven in the songs
about friendship and romance.”

“The songs she’s writing right now, they’re commentaries on
people and life from the perspective of a young Christian
woman,” Joe said. “She’s not trying to write a song for
Christian audiences. She’ll be inspired by a person or a
situation, and she’ll write about it from her perspective,
which happens to be a faith-filled perspective.”

Miller said she hopes to inspire young people to a life of
joy.

“God is calling us to a great adventure,” she said. “Don’t
settle for a mediocre life. The Christian life is the
exciting life that hearts dream and long for. Don’t settle,
because you’re made for a great life.”

Marie Graciela Miller (born April 9, 1989) is an American modern folk singer-songwriter who often blends a mesh of modern folk, pop and country. Earlier in her career, her song "Cold" charted on Christian music charts. Her first single from the EP, "You're Not Alone" was supported by CMT and VH1, and was downloaded over 100,000 times on Amazon.com. Miller's second single "6'2" was featured on ABC's Dancing with the Stars.[1] Both singles "6'2" and "You're Not Alone" received extensive airplay on SiriusXM channel's The Pulse, The Blend, and 20on20.

Miller was born, Marie Graciela Miller,[2] on April 9,[3] 1989, in Dallas, Texas, to Joseph and Roxanne Miller (née, Polk),[4] and she grew up for the first nine years of her life in California before finally relocating to the Shenandoah Valley area of Virginia, around the town of Washington, Virginia more precisely Huntly, Virginia, while she began singing at the age of 7.[5][6] She is the third of 10 children. Miller was reared in the Roman Catholic faith at St. Peter Mission in Washington, Virginia.[6] She grew up an avid reader and was inspired as a songwriter by the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien. At the age of 12 she joined her family band, playing festivals and trading off lead and harmony vocals in duets with her sister.[1]

Marie plays mandolin, guitar, piano and bouzouki[7] and says her music simply represents the stories of her everyday life.[citation needed] Her self-titled indie debut EP was released in 2005 which labeled her as "one of the best independent artists that you should know about".[citation needed] Christianity Today's Top 10 CDs included the EP in their Top 10 CDs. The success of her EP led to Curb Records signing Miller in September 2006.[8] Miller released the song "Cold" in January 2007 which was picked up on Contemporary Christian music radio stations in the United States. The song hit the Contemporary Christian charts in 2007 and remained on the charts for four months.[9]

She released the single "You're Not Alone" on January 8, 2013.[10] It was "written as a battle cry for a friend who was going through a really tough time, and he felt incredibly alone. I wanted to fight for him and somehow take away his loneliness".[citation needed]

Marie's single debuted inside the top 50 of iTunes' Top Singer-Songwriter Songs chart.[citation needed] On May 5, 2014, James Maslow and Peta Murgatroyddanced to Miller's "6'2" on ABC's Dancing with the Stars