By Carol Glatz | Catholic News Service

FLORENCE, Italy -- Millions of people come to Florence -- an art lover's mecca -- to marvel at centuries-old masterpieces decorating church walls and lining the city's skyline and paving stone squares.

However, the same faith and spirit that inspired these artistic masters of the past are not dead and must continue to find expression in today's world, said leaders of an ecumenical community for the arts.

"It's easy, especially in a city like Florence, to assume that perhaps the greatest sacred art has already been written," said Blair Tingley, senior vice president of Mount Tabor Ecumenical Center for Art and Spirituality. The center, which opened in 2013 in Barga, Italy, was founded by the Community of Jesus -- an ecumenical monastery of women, men and families living according to the Benedictine monastic tradition in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

People don't need to keep "looking backwards" to find God's truth and beauty speaking through sacred music, architecture and images, Tingley told Catholic News Service on the sidelines of an exhibit that featured their artists' work and was running until Jan. 9 in Florence.

The exhibit, "He Became Flesh," is located in the dim undercroft of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, which was designed by the Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi.

A steady stream of visitors descend the steps and pass a dusty, dried wreath of oak, olive and laurel leaves sitting atop the marble gravestone of Brunelleschi's contemporary, the sculptor Donatello.

His cordoned-off tomb is flush with the marble floor, so some walk past unaware, others stop for a moment of silence or a snapshot. And just beyond his lone grave lies the exhibit's wide showcase of modern sacred art.

Brilliant mosaics, fiery orange and red stained glass and undulating glass panels brushed with gold were some of the pieces on display -- samples of the artwork decorating the Community of Jesus' modern Church of the Transfiguration in Cape Cod.

Chris Kanaga, senior vice president of the center, told CNS that art is part of this Christian vision of transfiguration. The artist uses the raw materials God put on earth and transforms them to reflect further in some way God's truth, goodness or beauty, much "like we hope to be transfigured eventually into the image of God."

Sacred art goes another step further in that in addition to transforming materials, it also aims to transform hearts.

"With the time and the ability to be quiet and listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying, I think that's the crucial piece" in the process of creating sacred art, Kanaga said.

If "the artist puts his own heart" into the work as well as "what he hears from the Holy Spirit, that's what ends up being the final product," and that inspired piece "can communicate very strongly without words, without talking, without trying to convince or change the person overtly," he said.

"Just by seeing the piece of art that is trying to do that, a person's heart can be gradually changed and transformed just by observing and meditating," he said.

When asked why much modern art often meets with criticism for being too depressing or ugly, Tingley said that in general it is because it "can sometimes tend to focus on the dark side without the redemptive side."

"I think the idea of contemporary sacred art is not to ignore the dark side, but to show the transfiguration of it, to show the light and the hope that can come through the darkness," she said.

A video to accompany this piece is posted at: https://youtu.be/k13fSXJu0Ks.