This year, The Catholic Register received almost 100 entries to our Easter drawing celebration for school children, including one all the way from Melbourne, Australia.

Here at The Catholic Register, we make it a key part of our journalistic mission to find and communicate beauty even in a fallen world, which is why at the joyous Christian seasons of Christmas and Easter we save some of our pages for art created by elementary school students as part of our twice-yearly drawing contest.

The great 19th-century Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky declared that beauty will save the world. Some years earlier, Our Lord anticipated — and no doubt inspired — Dostoyevsky by teaching us the necessity for salvation of experiencing the world and expressing our faith through the beauty in children’s eyes.

Two of the most joyous occasions in the Catholic calendar are Christmas and Easter, and they are made ever more joyous seen through the eyes of young people.

In times like these, few things can lift a person’s spirits like the unvarnished cheerfulness and optimism of children.

For Jaclyn Dela Cruz, to properly depict the Resurrection she had to capture how Jesus might have felt on that first Easter morning.

Before she picked up her paint brush, Belové Da Silva turned to the Bible and was inspired to create what turned out to be a winning entry in The Catholic Register’s annual Easter drawing contest for elementary school children.

Lakeisha Angelous Ginanena has always loved to draw but now he thinks it may be something to pursue seriously and take, as he says, “to the next level.”