Seminarian Stjepan Androić, FSSP describes the life and work of his fellow-Croatian Blessed Ivan Merz (1896–1928)
Philologist, teacher, literary critic, youth activist, lover of liturgy – Ivan Merz was all of these things and much more. Although born into a nominal Catholic family in Banja Luka (present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina), this young man would eventually become one of the most renowned saintly figures in his country’s history.
Ivan Merz was a man of strong faith and wide culture. Apart from his deep piety, Merz was known throughout his life as a prolific writer and tireless Catholic activist. His writings on the topics ranging from the Catholic faith, the modern society, all the way to the psychology of the Christian soul remain highly relevant. His literary talent Merz developed early on in life, through passionate reading of classic literature and frequent journal writing. In fact, Merz’s journal, which he began keeping at age 17, remains for us the main source of insight into his personal life and innermost ponderings. It can be broadly described as a testimony of one young Catholic man’s struggle for sanctity and truth in a world that too often denies both.
Ivan Merz lived at a time when the Zeitgeist of fin de siècle had already begun to take its toll upon the modern world. Personally witnessing the horrors of World War I, Merz was led to a firm conviction that the true cause of man’s misery lay with his abandonment of God and religion. His post-war years were spent in Vienna and, later, Paris, where he studied literature. There he came into direct contact with the beauty of European culture but also the pessimism of many of his contemporaries. Unlike them, however, Merz saw light at the end of the tunnel: that light was the Catholic Church. Her teaching, Her sacraments, and – last but not least – Her liturgy became to him the source of hope for a man trapped by the modern spirit of despair.
Moved by the beauties of the Mass, Merz eventually chose to write his doctoral thesis on the influence of Catholic liturgy upon French writers. This thesis, originally published in French, shows us a man of remarkable critical talent and a palpable sense for the otherworldly. Merz argued that the beauty of Catholic liturgy was an instrumental element in shaping French writers’ aesthetic sensibilities and hence fundamentally influenced the literary works they produced. Merz thus succeeded at proving once more the old truth that religion and culture are not two separate but intimately intertwined realities. Where religion flourishes, so does the culture and vice-versa. This conclusion remains highly pertinent even today. Far from being a mere ‘add-on’ to Christian life, our liturgy still is, ultimately, the primary way we offer worship to God, and therefore we ought to labour to have its own beauty reflect the transcendent beauty of God.
Bl. Ivan Merz knew and lived this reality like few others. All the way up to his death, he frequented daily Masses at the Jesuit basilica of the Sacred Heart in Zagreb. He often spoke of the central place that the Sacrifice of the Mass has in the life of a Catholic: “The best way we can experience the strength of Christianity is to allow the life of Christ to touch us through the Gospel and liturgy.” Perhaps this thought more than any other offers advice for our current time: the start of our transformation in Christ begins there where heaven and earth touch in the very words of His Sacrifice: “This is my body”, “This is my blood”
The following lines were written by Bl. Ivan Merz in 1920 after the Easter celebration in St Gabriel near Mödling (Austria). The liturgy of Holy Week witnessed there served as an impetus for the journal entry found below. Merz discusses the idea of liturgy as the highest form of art and postulates some principles on how art as a whole ought to be appraised, namely through a supernatural lens.
Just as theology is the highest among sciences, so is liturgy the highest among arts. It is perfectly objective and corresponds to Wagner’s ideal of that one form of art under which all others should fall. Liturgy is the expression of the soul of the Church, and it does not seem that difficult to build a theory of art based on it. In it we see, as in a mirror, the life of Christ, not as one may look at it in historical terms, but as an objective viewer would: free from all bounds of time and space, looking at life from above, seeing the supernatural connexion between all events – say, as an angel does. Thus it becomes an objective mirror of life, catching all those things which a common man fails to notice. Liturgy has reached its apex: it is the most marvellous creation of art in the entire world and simultaneously the central work of art because it artistically presents the life of Christ, which stands at the centre of history. All other works of art must observe the same method that the Holy Ghost does in the liturgy: the artist must, e.g., describe the motifs such as war, love, lust, murder, and other topics of pertinence in their supernatural context, and the better he does so, the greater the work of art will be. Of course, this requires that the artist be saintly. Let us take the example of Christ’s saying: “every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt 5:28). For Christ is this word enough, for his is not to develop this idea in extensive detail but to plant the seed of all ideas which exist and will exist among mankind. This idea was further developed by Tolstoy in his Kreutzer Sonata, and very successfully in fact: he looks at human society objectively and it is reflected in a particular manner within his soul. The image that comes to life in this mirror is one of modern society, entangled as it is by the nets of its lust and sin. Tolstoy uses, therefore, the liturgical method. The saying from the Gospel is as a link in a chain to the story. This method may be applied to all works of art and, insofar as they are theocentric, they possess an artistic value.