Make Something Beautiful
Sr. De Lourdes, my high school art teacher, didn’t reach five feet tall. She couldn’t have weighed more than 80 pounds and was at least in her 60s when she began teaching me. Despite her sprightly appearance, she was a force and one of the most respected teachers in our school. She taught me more about beauty and what beauty says about God than anyone.
As freshmen, we first studied calligraphy. We spent weeks simply drawing page after page of simple straight lines. It seemed redundant until she would remind us to look back at our first efforts to see the vast improvement over such a seemingly simple task. Sister taught me that the details matter, that working toward perfection in my little lines was exactly like the discipline of becoming virtuous. You don’t master a virtue all at once but over years of practice, breaking it down to the simplest elements, and you keep practicing, practicing, practicing. The discipline she taught me I often apply to my writing.
Sr. De Lourdes taught me to pay attention to details, and she had a way of breaking down—for example, the human face—such that we would make elaborate studies of eyes, ears, noses, lips. I became so fond of this exercise and found it so helpful; I still have sheets from high school filled with nothing but various drawings of eyes. She taught me not just to look at a thing but to “see it,” another principle I have applied countless times in spiritual direction.
But more than anything, Sister taught me that beauty matters, that beauty in the world, in art, in one another, speaks to the eternal beauty of God. At the end of every school year, we would have an art show in our gymnasium. Every art student could choose one or two of their best pieces from the year to put on display. The gym was filled to the brim! Parents and students and neighbors would wander through our little earnest high school masterpieces. That such a small school—my class had only twenty-five students in it—could produce so much art always touched me. It was clear that art class was an essential part of our formation as Catholics.
I never became the world-class artist I had once hoped I would be when I was little and first discovered the masters like Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Rembrandt, and Fra Angelico. But I will always be grateful to Sr. De Lourdes for the countless hours she bent over my frame, guiding and coaching and encouraging me to make something beautiful for the Lord.
Sister lived to well over 100 years old. May she rest in peace. I hope I make you proud, Sr. De Lourdes. Bless you for all you gave to me and to my life.
