The Gift of Being Present
Thoughts on Faith and Performance
One purpose of Onstage Catholic has been to understand how faith informs the work of those engaged in the performing arts. The arts shape our understanding, but what is shaping those who make the arts?
As 2025 closes, I’ve been re-reading the artists covered in the first few months of this Substack. I was struck by Ruth Pe Palileo’s claim that “Theatre is a sacred space.” Her contention is that people of all kinds of faiths or no faith experience sacredness in theatre.
I think that’s true, and I think that’s because theatre (and live performance in general) has two main ingredients: 1) presence and 2) the moment.
Screens, which have many benefits, inevitably reduce live presence. You see a face, hear a voice, and that’s wonderful but it’s at a remove. Screen presence is more like a half-life. It’s better than nothing, but not real presence.
Screens also cheat the moment. You can rewind. You can tune in later. You can re-watch. This is wonderfully convenient.
Convenience instrumentalizes our experience, e.g., what did this do for me? That’s a dead end. We want not just to be users of life, we want to be witnesses. Witnesses to wonder and beauty.
Live performance summons us to witness. In live performance, fleeting moments can hold and enact enduring meaning. This demands and rewards our attention.
That non-instrumental encounter is the bedrock experience common to both believers and non-believers.
One of my favorite descriptions of the theatrical project was Christopher Rziha’s “contemplatives in action.” That conjures up the combination of reflective and dramatic activity that the performing arts serve. The art compresses moments and meaning and delivers those to the audience.
In this way, live performance feeds the souls of performers and audience. As actor-director Ryan Noll says, “The arts are a form of small-s sacrament where God imparts meaning to us via materials and symbols.”
These small-s sacraments acknowledge a Source beyond us. “The act of creation is a beautiful way that we are called to live out our identity as people made in the image of God, the ultimate Creator, the perfect Artist,” as composer Mina Piraseau observed.
So, in 2026, lower the house lights, turn on the spotlight. We’ll settle into our limited senses, our limited presence, and our few moments, and, paradoxically, we’ll see how these open us to the universal and the eternal.
Happy New Year!
ADDENDUM: In the coming year, I’ll continue featuring artists engaged with live performance. So, if you know any actors, directors, playwrights, singers, musicians, dancers, choreographers, drop me a note.