God is an Artist

Why do Catholics honor the saints? Because God is an artist, and the Church is his masterpiece. Catholics do not honor the saints because they forget to worship God. They honor the saints because these are the saints in whom God has brought glory to himself. If you want to make much of an artist, you don’t ignore or downplay his art. Rather, you marvel at it. You walk around it again and again, always learning something new. When you love an artist, you don’t put his masterpiece in the closet. You frame it. You put it on a pedestal. So it is that God is an artist, and the Church is his masterpiece, his city on a hill (Matt. 5:14).
Walk about Zion, go around her,
count the number her towers,
consider well her ramparts,
examine her citadels,
so that you may tell the next generation
that this is God.
When I read Psalm 48:11-13, I was able to see God’s creative skill in a fresh way. As Catholics, are we able to read the Psalms of the Old Covenant as if the New Covenant never happened? Are we able to read Psalm 48’s praise of the old Jerusalem without also thinking of the new Jerusalem? In Psalm 48, the sons of Korah invite us to look at the holy city Jerusalem and to marvel. In Revelation 21, John sees this Holy City, “the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.”And he hears a loud voice saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people…making all things new!”(Rev. 21:2-5).
Where does God dwell? God dwells in Jerusalem. Where in Jerusalem? In the Temple. And with what stones did God build his new Temple?  Saint Peter says with the living stones of the saints, that chosen race and