When the chaos rises—the living room buzzing with four kids, piano pounding, guitar strumming, high-speed chases underway—Katie Murray’s eyes land on the “Annunciation” print framed above the couch.

It is a pivotal scene in salvation history, summed up in Mary’s upturned wrist and bowed head.

“Every time I look at it, it re-centers me,” said Murray, 39, a graphic designer who is a member of Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Kansas City, Mo. “Beauty has a way of making you pause. It lifts our hearts and minds to the eternal.”

Murray is a lifelong artist who has always worked with her hands—constructing with cardboard, building a tree house, knitting, baking. All the while, she sensed something sacred in her desire to create. “Because God is the ultimate creator, he places in us this desire to reflect his beauty by making things,” she said.

Then a two-year stint living in Europe allowed Murray to frequent museums and solidify her thinking about beautiful art: It belongs to everyone. Every home deserves the kind of art you’d see in a Paris gallery—even the young parents whose carpet has been destroyed by slime who have ruefully concluded, “We can’t have nice things.”

But Murray was surprised how hard it is to find high-quality sacred art. “I wanted to make it easier for families to surround themselves with art that reflects their faith,” she said.

One night in bed, inspiration struck: create a print shop to make beautiful, faith-filled images accessible to all. It felt like a sweet spot, the intersection of her passions and talents.

Soon Murray was scouring museum websites for paintings in the public domain. She downloaded them and began to restore them digitally—smoothing scratches, removing dust, correcting color, brightening dark patches, increasing the resolution. She partnered with a printer to use archival inks on museum-grade paper, producing a lush, painterly finish.

In April, Murray officially launched Beata Home, a print shop offering “beautiful art curated for the Catholic home.” (Beata means “blessed” in Latin.) Murray’s new website (beatahome.com) offers some 350 prints. Many are religious images of biblical scenes and mysteries of the rosary. The range and depth is remarkable, with eight alone titled “The Adoration of the Shepherds,” each one stirring.

Rounding out the collection is vintage art—the countryside dotted in pink flowering trees or cast in golden autumn light, baby goats frolicking with children, a mother braiding her daughter’s hair.

There is something at every price point. Customers can buy: a digital image to download for $15; a physical print at various sizes, starting at $25 for an 8”x10”; or a print in one of seven frames, including a large ornate frame that totals $525.

Murray keeps adding to the website, usually in 10-print increments. Some saints and animals are currently waiting in the wings. Her wish list runs in the thousands. “There’s just so much beautiful art!” she said. “I wish I had more time.”

That yearning pulses through each of us. We work with what we have—old houses, small spaces, messy children—and we add to the beauty. We paint the walls, we hang the art, we light the candles. The entire process is an extended prayer, an exhaled “Amen.”

For Murray, a secretary desk at the foot of her bed becomes a home office. She pores over a MacBook Pro when her kids are napping or tucked in bed for the night. Sales are slowly picking up, and she’s hoping Catholics turn to Beata Home for memorable Christmas gifts.

She often cites a quote from the Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar: “Beauty claims the viewer, changes him and then sends him on a mission.”

“I want to evangelize with beauty,” she said. “The shop is my mission.”
 

(Christina Capecchi is a freelance writer from Grey Cloud Island, Minn.) †