Beauty

Is beauty truly in the eye of the beholder? How does beauty and its ugly foe impact the human person? Is beauty a necessity within all cultures and across all ages? From the beginning of creation, it seems that beauty has always mattered in God’s great plan. As we read in the book of Genesis, God delights in His beautiful creation and calls it good, or even better, by the sixth day, very good.

If we fast forward from creation to ancient philosophy, philosophers would explain reality and things beyond the physical world in what later on Scholastics would call transcendentals. The major three transcendentals are Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. The transcendentals are not just for philosophy, but are also brought into our understanding of theology primarily by Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas. The transcendentals find their origins in God who is the source of all Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. In God’s great plan for creation, every created thing possesses these attributes to some degree or another. We as human beings, who are made in God’s image and likeness, are then attracted to truth, goodness and beauty, because they pull us out of ourselves and towards God.

Of the three main transcendentals, I would like to narrow in and focus on beauty. Beauty is a necessity in our world today, and is needed to help heal our broken culture, hearts, and minds. I believe beauty is one of the keys for helping our society to wake up and return back to God. Saint Augustine is a prime example of a person who had an awakening to God through his encounter with Truth and Beauty. In his famous work The Confessions, Saint Augustine reflects on his profound encounter and conversion, “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you!” Beauty awakens the soul to the eternal and orients it to God. Pope Francis said, “Every expression of true beauty can thus be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus.” Beauty has the power to evangelize and can be a conduit to lead a person to encounter Beauty Himself. The human persons’ encounter with beautiful architecture, exquisite art, captivating music, and even natural beauty, points us beyond ourselves and ultimately towards the mystery of God. Beauty is for everyone; the rich and the poor, the young and the old, and carries across all cultures and ages. Michelangelo’s, the Sistine Chapel, the famous Pieta statue of the Virgin Mary holding the crucified Jesus, or even the famous painted churches in our own local area, pulls the human heart and mind to the heavens - sometimes in an indescribable encounter. Beauty brings healing to the broken heart and the wounded soul. But is beauty always depicted in the realm of contentment? What about the beauty of the crucifixion of Christ or the beauty of wrinkles adorning the face of a beloved grandmother, or the beauty of the unseen sacrifices parents make for their children? Though it may be difficult at times to gaze upon the crucifixion of our Lord as He suffers on the cross for our salvation, it is also, in a way, very beautiful. Sometimes we don’t understand why things are beautiful or why they leave such an impact on our hearts. There is a mystery to beauty.

Beauty also has the power to cast away ugliness which has the opposite effect on the human person. While beauty leads to encounter, communion, fulfillment, and hope, ugliness on the other hand, leads to isolation, corruption, and despair. We have seen throughout history that the human person, and societies as a whole, turn inward and downcast when surrounded by such things as fascist architecture, pornography, or endless concrete strip-malls.

And so for modern-day disciples of Jesus Christ who are trying to be a light in the midst of the darkness, and who are trying to hold fast to or even reclaim a culture for God, beauty is an essential transcendental to encompass in all aspects of human life. In St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he encourages us to live with beauty on our minds, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” To seek and surround ourselves with beauty is important for a disciple of Jesus Christ. For It is beauty, in its many forms, that gives us a window into the eternal, and ultimately is a vessel that draws us closer to God.