God's Beauty

It is a beautiful spring morn in Michigan. The moon was full last night; the sky is totally blue this morning. If you can’t see the beauty of God in his creation this day, you must be blind.

I picked out my largest vase and went out into the yard. (After I fed the neighbor’s barking dogs a few Milkbones – again) I cut a large amount of white hyacinths and daffodils, added them to the vase and put them on the kitchen table. The house now smells marvelous -- no, glorious, and I feel the same way.

Yesterday my seriously ill friend, whom I have mentioned before, fell and was taken to the emergency room. My usual Tuesday afternoon of bringing her the Eucharist and sharing in her life, and letting her sharing in mine, was canceled. Heavy praying was called for, and late in the day she called me to say she was back in her apartment. Her deteriorating knee gave way, and she fell hard to the floor – undoubtedly adding to her many bruises from the various medical procedures done to her on a regular basis. So, I told her, your heart is almost gone, now your knee is almost gone, and the good Lord knows your brain was gone long ago – there’s not much left, lady! She laughed and laughed, and I was glad. I was glad I could bring some joy to her life, even for a few moments.

God is good.

Last night at adoration I finished a beautiful book I have been reading, on beauty! The Evidential Power of Beauty, by Thomas Dubay, S.M., explains how science and theology meet, and explains it very well, and powerfully. At some points, the descriptions almost make you cry at the beauty of God and his work. And coincidentally, or perhaps not so (God, you old fox!), I was reading a book on the beauty of scripture called Covenant and Communion, the Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI, by Scott Hahn. Both books explain how science, reason, and faith/theology meet, throughout all of creation and scripture. I thought I’d like to share just a few quotes with you from the first book.

You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity -- Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate in physics

Albert Einstein was perceptive enough to marvel at the simple but astounding fact that our universe is comprehensible, that is, that our minds can make intelligible connections with it. … This marvel, of course, would be impossible in a chance universe. … but we are so accustomed to the fact that we fail to be astonished by it. If reality were nothing but the cohesion of random particles senselessly flying through space, it would neither have nor need an explanation. … Things having no sense cannot make sense.

Once a person admits that the universe makes sense, that it is comprehensible, that there are overwhelming beauties in it, he logically must be a theist. It is not accidental that the only consistent atheism is that of men like Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre, men who held that reality is absurd. Their atheism is called existential absurdity, for on their non-God premise everything is literally senseless, for there is no one to give sense or meaning.

In writing about the Beauty of Sanctity: Newman once observed, while teaching at Oxford University, that worldly people commonly make the fatal error of assuming that they have the capacity and right to judge religious truth without a preparation of their hearts by virtuous living. This is like a tone-deaf critic claiming to pass judgment on a Mozart concerto or symphony.

Despite goodwill, people who love the Scriptures can make two tragic mistakes. One is the attitude that “the Bible alone is enough for me; I do not need the Church to understand it.” … The other mistake is the impoverishment of current biblical studies and systematic theology that occurs when patristic literature is bypassed. This is one of the ties to the second book I referenced, and Benedict’s emphasis on Faith AND Reason as being required to interpret Scripture, not just reason alone.

The Spirit concretizes beauty in the Church through her Magisterium, the divinely commissioned teaching office. Just as a symphony orchestra cannot play music in the abstract and therefore demands that there be a composer of its score, so it also requires that there be a conductor who interprets that score and assures a unity among the many musicians. Should a small group of violinists, indeed, even one of them, decide to disregard either Mozart’s composition or the maestro (because “we know better.”), beauty becomes ugliness. … Once it is solidly established that God has spoken through the prophets in the Old Testament and his very own Son in the New, it makes complete sense that he would protect his precious revelation from mutilation and distortion through commissioning teachers whom he himself guarantees against error. Infallibility in a sharply confined office is completely sensible to anyone who takes a divine revelation seriously. Beauty is precious and calls for protection.

In writing about the beauty of God: The divine radiance and loveliness are so endless beyond anything we can imagine or experience that revelation chooses a special term to speak of it … glory. The (glory) of Jesus will not be seen if he is dissected, if the viewer tries to pick and choose some aspect of the Lord divorced from his whole person. Every element in him calls for the other. If one essential element should be broken off, all the proportions will be distorted and falsified. It is here that the problem of heresy has its roots: ‘haeresis’, the selective disjoining of parts.

If someone fails to appreciate the sculpture of Michelangelo or the music of Mozart, this is more a judgment about him than about the work of art. Seeing the Christ form is dependent upon our capacity to perceive natural beauty. … They who are unimpressed with revelation and the Lord of it all, are the least likely to ask themselves what should be the obvious question: “Am I spiritually and morally underdeveloped, immature, mediocre … or worse?” Personal excellence does bestow vision.

What sort of obscuring impediments do people construct before the eyes of their minds that they more or less culpably fail to see and consequently are incapable of being impressed? What so clouds their sight that they remain unmoved and indifferent before the stunning figure of the Lord in human form? 1)One screen is a hyperactive work ethic that by choice rules out the contemplative dimension of any serious pursuit of God – when people are so self-convinced that the world needs their accomplishments more than their sanctity and prayer depth. 2)A second screen is being wedded to one’s own ideas and preferences: what I want to think and do, what I like rather than what the truth is.3)A third screen is taking umbrage at the defects and sins of other Christians, whether they are leaders in the community or the common faithful…. This screen is parisaical: “These others are sinners, but I am not.” You find the critic himself immersed in television rather than reading the lives of the saints. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he simply does not want to see. 4)We may mention a final screen: a pleasure-centered lifestyle. By definition a hedonist is not interested in what is “true, honest, pure, admirable, decent, virtuous or worthy of praise,” – (Phil 4:8)

Because commending a work of art is always a tribute to the artist, beauty is always a song about God.