WE need to expand our understanding
and appreciation of
beauty. If by beauty we mean only the physical beauty of a scenic
landscape, the romantic hue of a sunset, or a Miss Universe, then we
are missing not only a lot of things but also the one thing that is
most necessary to us.
There is beauty in persons, things and situations that
otherwise are regarded as unbeautiful or ugly if seen only in the
physical or strictly human and natural level. It is the beauty that
comes straight from God who offered his son on the cross as a ransom
for our salvation.
During the opening and the concluding Masses of the IEC, I
noticed that one of the readers was a blind woman. I was so impressed
by the way she read with her hands touching what I imagine was the
Braille form of the reading, that I immediately was convinced she was
a very beautiful woman, a very beautiful soul.
We need to expand our understanding and appreciation of
beauty by including the most important element of beauty. And that is
the love for God, and because of that love, it is also the love for
others.
In that particular case of the blind readers during those
IEC Masses, I was impressed that they did not look like having some
inferiority complex. In fact, they stood tall with heads erect as they
read in a way so becoming of a child of God, oozing with confidence
and their pronunciation perfect.
If we truly love God, then we should reflect his love and
his attributes that can only be described, in the least, as beautiful.
If out of his love for us, he sent his Son to us, and the Son had to
become man and to suffer death on the cross, then we can say that
there must be beauty in suffering and in death.
We need to understand and appreciate beauty from the point
of view of our faith, more than simply from the point of view of our
senses and our intelligence. To be sure, our faith does not reject the
standards of beauty that go along the lines of the senses and the
intelligence, but it goes beyond them.
That’s why we have to learn to be quick to discern the
elements of beauty in what otherwise are considered as ugly when seen
in purely human terms. Physical pains, sicknesses, problems,
difficulties, deaths, etc., while truly unattractive and worthy of
avoidance, can possess a certain beauty if seen with the eyes of
faith.
These humanly ugly things can give us the chance, a
privilege actually, to identify ourselves most intimately with
Christ’s passion and death which is the best expression of God’s love
for us. They become the occasions to make ourselves Christ-like.
With faith, we can even resemble Christ’s eagerness to
meet his death because we all know that such death can only mean one
thing—our redemption, our purification, and our way toward our
ultimate glorification as children of God.
If we manage to understand and appreciate beauty in this
way, there is nothing that can make us ugly. Even our physical
deformities and deficiencies, even our moral errors and blunders can
convey a distinctive brand of beauty if borne with faith in Christ.
Let’s remember that if God allows us to suffer some
deformities or to experience some mistakes and commit sins, it is
because he can derive a greater good from them. He wants us to learn a
virtue or to grow more in our faith, hope and love for him and for
everybody else.
We should try our best, with God’s grace which he actually
gives us in abundance, to go beyond the level of the sensible and the
intelligible, and enter into the all-beautiful world of our faith
where the humanly ugly things are converted into divinely beautiful
realities.
Let’s not be afraid of suffering then. We just have to
learn to suffer the way Christ himself suffered. Not only has he given
us the way to do it, but also the very power to suffer with him.
I remember Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI one time saying
that while God is good and cannot will evil, he sometimes allows his
children to be tried through suffering to lead them to a greater good.
This truth should be at the core of our beliefs. With it,
everything will be beautiful. Nothing would be ugly, and could take
away our peace. Our joy and optimism would become stable. And we would
be more empowered to do good things.
beauty. If by beauty we mean only the physical beauty of a scenic
landscape, the romantic hue of a sunset, or a Miss Universe, then we
are missing not only a lot of things but also the one thing that is
most necessary to us.
There is beauty in persons, things and situations that
otherwise are regarded as unbeautiful or ugly if seen only in the
physical or strictly human and natural level. It is the beauty that
comes straight from God who offered his son on the cross as a ransom
for our salvation.
During the opening and the concluding Masses of the IEC, I
noticed that one of the readers was a blind woman. I was so impressed
by the way she read with her hands touching what I imagine was the
Braille form of the reading, that I immediately was convinced she was
a very beautiful woman, a very beautiful soul.
We need to expand our understanding and appreciation of
beauty by including the most important element of beauty. And that is
the love for God, and because of that love, it is also the love for
others.
In that particular case of the blind readers during those
IEC Masses, I was impressed that they did not look like having some
inferiority complex. In fact, they stood tall with heads erect as they
read in a way so becoming of a child of God, oozing with confidence
and their pronunciation perfect.
If we truly love God, then we should reflect his love and
his attributes that can only be described, in the least, as beautiful.
If out of his love for us, he sent his Son to us, and the Son had to
become man and to suffer death on the cross, then we can say that
there must be beauty in suffering and in death.
We need to understand and appreciate beauty from the point
of view of our faith, more than simply from the point of view of our
senses and our intelligence. To be sure, our faith does not reject the
standards of beauty that go along the lines of the senses and the
intelligence, but it goes beyond them.
That’s why we have to learn to be quick to discern the
elements of beauty in what otherwise are considered as ugly when seen
in purely human terms. Physical pains, sicknesses, problems,
difficulties, deaths, etc., while truly unattractive and worthy of
avoidance, can possess a certain beauty if seen with the eyes of
faith.
These humanly ugly things can give us the chance, a
privilege actually, to identify ourselves most intimately with
Christ’s passion and death which is the best expression of God’s love
for us. They become the occasions to make ourselves Christ-like.
With faith, we can even resemble Christ’s eagerness to
meet his death because we all know that such death can only mean one
thing—our redemption, our purification, and our way toward our
ultimate glorification as children of God.
If we manage to understand and appreciate beauty in this
way, there is nothing that can make us ugly. Even our physical
deformities and deficiencies, even our moral errors and blunders can
convey a distinctive brand of beauty if borne with faith in Christ.
Let’s remember that if God allows us to suffer some
deformities or to experience some mistakes and commit sins, it is
because he can derive a greater good from them. He wants us to learn a
virtue or to grow more in our faith, hope and love for him and for
everybody else.
We should try our best, with God’s grace which he actually
gives us in abundance, to go beyond the level of the sensible and the
intelligible, and enter into the all-beautiful world of our faith
where the humanly ugly things are converted into divinely beautiful
realities.
Let’s not be afraid of suffering then. We just have to
learn to suffer the way Christ himself suffered. Not only has he given
us the way to do it, but also the very power to suffer with him.
I remember Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI one time saying
that while God is good and cannot will evil, he sometimes allows his
children to be tried through suffering to lead them to a greater good.
This truth should be at the core of our beliefs. With it,
everything will be beautiful. Nothing would be ugly, and could take
away our peace. Our joy and optimism would become stable. And we would
be more empowered to do good things.
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