We pray it every day: “Hallowed be Thy name.”

What are we asking, exactly?

Like all good, old Germanic verbs, “hallow” has its double-meaning. To “hallow” can mean to “honor as holy;” it can mean to “make holy, to consecrate.”

We cannot add to the holiness of God, which by definition comes from and belongs to Him alone. And so we must mean the other definition: “Help us, Lord, to hallow—to honor your sanctity, set-apartness, glory, your utter and absolute uniqueness.”

But what good does it do for unhallowed people to hallow a holy God?

It turns out the meanings of “hallow” cannot be separated. God expresses his own incomparable holiness by making things holy. And in turn we consecrated people—made holy by union with Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit—hallow the Triune God in our own hallowed living & doing.

God’s presence hallows; and we in turn hallow the Hallowed.

The God who assures that “I will be hallowed” is the self-same “Lord which hallow you.”

St. Paul insists on addressing his audiences as “saints”—holy ones, hallowed ones.

And he’s not talking just about the ones living lives of heroic charity and perfect ascesis.

He’s addressing the whole of these churches—the cracked-up Corinthians, the uncertain Colossians, the impatient Thessalonians, the Philippians still working out their salvation with fear & trembling. These, too, are saints, hallowed in Christ Jesus.

In our baptism, God donates His own holiness to the unholy with scandalizing abandon. The Father unites us to the Son, and the Father and Son send the Holy Spirit to hallow our very bodies.

And then God uses his hallowed ones to re-hallow the whole of creation. To consecrate and devote to His glory and purpose all places, all communities, all tools, all creatures, all facets of the splendid world.

The lives of the God’s saints become shining refractions of His own holiness, until God is all in all.

There are no unsacred places;   
there are only sacred places   
and desecrated places.  

—Wendell Berry, “How to Be A Poet”

God has gifted artists

To See His Holiness Refracted
to Consecrate the materialworld
to Hallow the Creation

If you have been given and have nurtured creative gifts—gifts in the visual arts (from sculpture to painting to glass-blowing to design), gifts in the narrative arts (poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction), or musical gifts (performance, composition, etc.)—we invite you to devote those gifts unto the Lord’s service. We invite you to make an offering of beauty.

We would love to display your visual art in our All Saints day art gallery, or feature your narrative or musical art in the gallery opening event (and the accompanying arts journal).

This All Saints Day, hallow the Lord’s name by meditating on His holiness, and help us to do the same.

Help us by hallowing the good matter God has given—the pigments, the clays, the wood and the strings and the sounds and the shapes. Consecrate them unto the Lord.

Help us to see the glory of God as it has been revealed in the lives of his saints.

Where have you seen the holiness of God refracted in his saints?
What is God hallowing, here and now?

If you’re interested

Contact Fr. Zack Clemmons at zack@ctkbirmingham.org.

We’ll talk details on your project, and any questions you have will be answered!

Deadlines

Saturday, October 12th Deadline for written submissions
Saturday, October 19th Deadline for music submissions
Friday, November 1st Deadline for visual art submissions