The epitome of beauty is God’s love Pope Benedict XVI wrote in Sacramentum Caritatis. “In Jesus we contemplate beauty and splendor at their source,” he said, citing Saint Bonaventure. Art and music make this invisible reality of God’s love tangible to our senses allowing us to be drawn beyond ourselves and opened to truth and goodness.
I talked about this back in July after an experience at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena that drew me beyond merely gazing at a lovely painting, transcending me, however briefly, to another provenance. The effect of being grasped by beauty was that it, as Hans Urs von Balthasar said, made me want to participate in it and tell about it to others. It brought me beyond myself. It also made me want to delight in it again, which I was able to do again last Friday evening*.
Before venturing out, however, I read several of Pope Benedict’s talks about art and beauty and an article by Dr. Matthew J. Ramage, PhD to get some background on the subject at hand—I more often do this in reverse. This time, I also went alone opting not to ask my mum along (I did bring her some ice cream from our favorite shop the next day), or invite any friends. I wanted to observe and listen to the folks around me as they looked at the beautiful works in the galleries without having to be concerned about not being attentive to invited companions.
It was interesting to compare the response of the man who simply remarked out loud, “This is beautiful,” in a reverentially awed tone of voice at seeing the St. Ignatius painting that had grasped me on my other visit, to the patron who turned to me as we were standing unhindered only a couple feet from Van Gogh’s "Mulberry" and exclaimed, “I’m surprised they don’t have this roped off like the Mona Lisa,” and then to contrast this to the music I had listened to in the car. While I admit to liking the Weeknd’s song, “I Can’t Feel My Face,” it brought to mind what I had read from Pope Benedict’s 2009 talk for his meeting with artists: Too often, the beauty that is thrust upon us is illusory and deceitful, superficial and blinding, leaving the onlooker dazed; instead of bringing him out of himself and opening him up to horizons of true freedom as it draws him aloft, it imprisons him within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy. It is a seductive but hypocritical beauty that rekindles desire, the will to power, to possess, and to dominate others, it is a beauty which soon turns into its opposite, taking the guise of indecency, transgression or gratuitous provocation.
Authentic beauty, on the other hand, can be the ‘wound’ that strikes the heart, as Pope Benedict (then Cardinal Ratzinger) said in a message in August 2002, opening our eyes “so that later, from this experience, we take the criteria for judgment and can correctly evaluate the arguments.” We discover truth by gazing at the beautiful.
The beautiful can cause in us a desire for something more, something deeper, for truth and goodness, in a way that other avenues may not be able to reach us, allowing us to listen and discuss and grow in our love for God. Because of this Blessed Paul VI, and later Saint John Paul II, pulling from his predecessor, both could say the Church needs art in order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ. Art is a way we can draw others in, a way we can lead others to the beauty of Jesus, love, and revealed Truth. That, however, I will leave to Bishop Barron—click on the link below to see what he says about using beauty to draws others to the Church.
Beauty in art and music is only one part of the story. Pope Benedict remains firm in his conviction that “the true apology of Christian faith, the most convincing demonstration of its truth against every denial, are the saints, and the beauty that the faith has generated. Today, for faith to grow, we must lead ourselves and the persons we meet to encounter the saints and to enter into contact with the Beautiful.”
The beauty of the heart/is the lasting beauty:/its lips give to drink/of the water of life,/truly it is the water,/That which pours,/and the one who drinks,/All three become one when/your talisman is shattered/That oneness you can’t know/by reasoning./ - Rumi -
*On the first Friday of the month the Norton Simon is open free of charge from 5-8p—parking lot and street in front of museum fills up fast the first hour, but street parking is usually available the next block over.
This link will take you to a page with the image and an explanation of Rublev's icon "The Trinity": http://www.sacredheartpullman.org/Icon%20explanation.htm
10 November 2015