Communicating Jesus Master, the ‘Beauty that saves the world’.
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| PDDM Chapel, Dublin |
A popular quote we hear but may find hard to
understand is the phrase “Beauty will save the world.” It was
Fydor Dostoyevsky, the Russian novelist,
who composed this enigmatic phrase. However, when has it ever happened in the
course of history that beauty had saved anyone from anything? Indeed, beauty
had provided embellishment or has uplifted but how will it save the world?
In today’s world, there is huge
pressure on people to look perfect and beautiful. From plastic surgery to
smoothing skin and erasing wrinkles to enlarging muscles and slimming waists,
airbrushing, or "photoshopping,”, the bombardment does not do much for
self-esteem. These images don’t reflect reality, yet from a younger and younger
age, people are aspiring to these biologically impossible ideals, dangerously
so. These are distortions of truth. If only people would realise that for 2000
years, God has been telling each one of us that we are beautiful in His eyes
because we are created in the image of his Son.
In recent years, there has been a rediscovery of
beauty as a way to truth. Poets and
philosophers have long pondered the mysterious nature of beauty: Is beauty only
what pleases or teases the eye of the beholder? Or does a more universal beauty
exist that can attract people of all ages and cultures? What makes a person
beautiful? Isn’t there perhaps something more enduring that offers a glimpse of
the divine? Theologians call this the ‘via
pulchritudinis’ or the ‘way of
beauty’. It is a via, meaning a
path towards something, and that something is God wherein our happiness too is
found.
In the early
years of the 20th century a dream was already forming in the mind of an Italian
man, Blessed James Alberione, who would subsequently found our Congregation, the
Disciples of the Divine Master, specifically for this ministry of promoting
“dignity and beauty in the liturgy.” He saw a need for centres of diffusion to
provide all that is required for the worthy celebration of the liturgy and a
mission for the sisters to offer the ‘way of beauty’ in their ministry as
Disciples of Jesus Master: “All that the Church teaches can also be said
with works, with facts, through painting, with sculpture, with the construction
of churches and with all that which is directly liturgy. Your apostolate is
vast. When a painting represents a dogma, then it is clear that it is a sermon
in itself!” (Bl. J. Alberione).
“Dignity and beauty in the liturgy” and “celebrate with dignity and beauty” were
phrases coined by Fr. Alberione also to be used by his spiritual daughters in
their ministry of promoting liturgy as a means of evangelisation. It was a call
to proclaim Jesus as the Truth, a beacon for people to come to the Father. The
faithful are drawn into the world of Christ not only by their faith or by
strict symbols but also by the beauty of the church, its sacred atmosphere, the
splendour of its furnishings, the rhythm of the liturgical texts and by the
sublimity of its sacred music. In a world that has lost its sense of beauty and
harmony, he saw the need to bring people to Jesus the Master and help them to “pray
in beauty.”
Blessed
Alberione was convinced that we cannot know Jesus Master if we have not
experienced the Truth and indeed truth and beauty are espoused hand in hand in
any credible journey of discipleship. In the words of the great Thomist
philosopher, Joseph Pieper, “Beauty is
the glow of the true and the good that shines forth from every ordered state of
being.” First comes what is true, from which goodness flows and then comes
beauty which shines forth from both. At the beginning of the procession is
truth, just as the Son proceeds from the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds
from the Father and the Son, there can be no beauty without the Good and the
True. In this way, as Jesus himself self-defines, “I am the Truth” (Jn 14:6),
“I am the Beautiful Shepherd (Jn 10:11).
Yes, beauty should be a path
to truth and consequently to faith, but the modern world itself is disfigured
and too often trapped in darkness. In contemplating the suffering of Christ, in
particular, we see how He took on our infirmities and overcame our darkness. It
is a challenging beauty, a deformed beauty, but a powerful one, with power to
transform our own suffering and lack of beauty. It is a beauty that shakes us
to the core, which illuminates us. Here we see that the beauty that
saves is a person; Jesus is the Beautiful One, who will save the world. It is from here that Christ teaches
us, not from a podium but from the wooden beams of the Cross. In this
way, too, beauty purifies the heart and unifies what is dispersed by
concentrating on what is essential. The contemplation of beauty helps us to
distinguish what is necessary from what is contingent, Tradition from
traditions, Truth from opinions.
At the
beginning and in the final fulfilment of all God’s ways stands the beauty of
Trinitarian love. The beauty of the love of Jesus Master comes to meet
us each day not only through the example of the saints but more so through the
holy liturgy, especially in the celebration of the Eucharist where the Mystery
becomes present and illuminates with meaning and beauty all our existence. Yes,
Christ comes into our flawed existence as disciples but He sees the heart, the
inner beauty and with our life, creates a perfect work of art!
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