Letters from Seminary: Thomas

Don’t ignore masterpiece we have in our possession

Published: October 7, 2023

By Quinton Thomas
Diocesan Seminarian

Every so often there’s a story in the news about a Van Gogh or Monet bought at a yard sale. What’s so fascinating is to think that a masterpiece went totally unnoticed and was treated like any piece of junk. It was scuffed up and forgotten in the attic. A piece worth millions was sold for 30 bucks.

As shocking as these stories are, our case is even more extreme. Our masterpiece is worth more than millions. He is beauty himself, the one who made the colors. Yet we often don’t act like it.

Although we may seldom recognize it, we possess a masterpiece. He is more beautiful than all the world’s Van Goghs and Monets put together. This is true, truer than anything else. He is truth himself. The foundation of reality, he is realer than anything else. Yet, if we are honest, sometimes we can be rather lukewarm.

The baffling thing is we know better. The poor yard salesman had no idea; we know what is offered to us. It’s hard for us to believe.

We don’t treat Jesus like a piece of junk; we don’t treat our faith like a fiction. Yet, we don’t treat him like the masterpiece he is either, the truest truth, the realest reality. We fulfill obligations, but only minimally.

There is a dissonance between what we say we believe and what we do in fact. This should surprise us. Can you imagine anyone knowing his painting was a masterpiece and treating it like junk? It’s unthinkable.

Somehow, in our minds we have created a special box for faith where such contradictions fit nicely. Here we can say one thing and do another; we can believe the Catholic Church’s teaching is true while still holding that contradictory teachings are equally probable. Different takes on God and the world become a matter of subjective identity, to be respected, and certainly not to be thought about critically.

But faith claims to be a matter of reality. How would we react if someone told us they believed the world was flat? We would immediately recognize them to be misinformed. The fact that we don’t feel this way with regard to faith reveals we do not treat it like the reality it claims to be.

But it is real! The Eucharist is the very flesh of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, the flesh that so suffered for me, the man who so loved me, the God who saved me. He is the object of all my desires. And he gives himself to me. This is true. And, therefore, I owe him my all.

To whatever degree we are aware, in Jesus we have a masterpiece of incalculable worth. By the Lord’s grace, we are taking ever greater hold of this truth, embracing it more deeply. He is making us into his saints.

St. Teresa of Kolkata is a woman of this integrity. Her actions and her words and her beliefs were all in harmony. She believed in God, in the Eucharist and in the Catholic Church. She lived a life of profound devotion and charity. She knew the masterpiece she possessed and loved it deeply.

Quinton Thomas, a member of Blessed Sacrament Church in Jonesboro, is a seminarian for the Diocese of Little Rock. He attends St. Meinrad Seminary in St. Meinrad, Indiana. This article was originally published in Arkansas Catholic. Copyright Diocese of Little Rock. All rights reserved. This article may be copied or redistributed with acknowledgement and permission of the publisher.