Please join Benedictine College’s Center for Beauty and Culture and its Angelico Fellows in praying for Fra Angelico’s intercession that God may fill the world with his beauty as we seek to transform culture in America.
The novena starts on Feb. 10 and ends on Feb. 18, Blessed Fra Angelico’s feast day.
Blessed Fra Angelico (c. 1395-1455) was a Florentine priest of the Dominican Order and a painter known for making art that revealed the splendor of heaven and inspired people to love Christ and His Church.
Though his name was simply “John,” his piety, humility and artworks inspired his fellow Dominicans to nickname him the “Angelic Brother,” just as Thomas Aquinas was known as the “Angelic Doctor.”
Pope Saint John Paul II beatified Fra Angelico in 1982, and in 1984 named him Patron of Artists, calling him the “Prophet of the Sacred Image,” who with his paintbrush “expressed his ‘summa’ of the divine mysteries, as Thomas Aquinas enunciated it in theological language.”
The Angelico Fellows of Benedictine College call upon him as their patron as well. Asking his intercession with the God of Perfect Beauty, Fellows seek to grow in perfection and become bearers of that Beauty to their brothers and sisters in Christ.
You can find the Novena prayer, here:
Benedictine College’s Novena Prayer to Fra Angelico, Patron of Artists
Eternal Father, through the Incarnation
and Transfiguration of Your Son, You
joined the Beauty of heaven to fallen and
wounded creation. Then in Your Providence,
You raised up the painter Fra Angelico to imitate
Christ by making this Beauty known to men.
Through his intercession, send Your
Holy Spirit to renew the earth and bring
it to the Beauty of Your perfection. Grant
us the grace to manifest this splendor to our
brothers and sisters, and come to share with
Fra Angelico the sight of Your face.
We ask this through Our Lord Jesus Christ,
Your Son, who lives and reigns with You
in the Unity of the Holy Spirit,
God forever and ever. Amen.
Image: Fr. Lawrence Lew, op, Flickr
Prayer: Denis McNamara
