Fr Billy Swan
Below is the second part of an article on 'The Place of Beauty in Catechesis' . The first part can be accessed below.
This final part explores how expressions of beauty in creation, art, music and the lives of the saints can lead people to encounter Christ and believe in him.
Beauty in Creation
“The heavens declare the glory of God” exclaimed the psalmist as he contemplated the beauty of the skies that reflected the beauty of the Creator (Ps. 19:1). The contemplation of creation directs the gaze of the whole Church outwards - to look down less on what we have made and to look up more on what God has made and the beauty we often miss. At the time this psalm was composed, what the author saw was limited to the naked eye. Today, with the capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope and the discoveries of the Hubble Telescope before that, there is no shortage of new epiphanies of beauty on which the human soul can feast. Despite the centuries that separate us today from the time this Psalm was written, the heavens still declare the glory of God – the sun, stars, and the moon that are visible to the naked eye but also the planets and galaxies that exist beyond our vision.
In the past century, discoveries in the world of science have made the hypothesis of a Creator God more credible and not less. The ‘Big Bang Theory’ proposed that the universe had a beginning about 13.8 billion years ago, while Einstein’s theory of relativity showed how time, mass and energy are intrinsically related. These and other discoveries show how reason is the friend and not the foe of catechists who lead others to contemplate the beauty of the natural world in a way that leads us to the threshold of faith. The discovery of the universe as relational and dynamic leads us closer to faith in a God who is relational and dynamic, the God who Dante famously described as “the love which moves the sun and the stars”.[1] This is why Augustine urges his listeners to pay close attention both to the Word of God in Scripture and the Word of God revealed in creation for both are sources of the same truth: “It is the divine page that you must listen to; it is the book of the Universe that you must observe”[2]
So rather than science being a threat to faith, it is an invaluable source of contemplation of God’s handiwork that leads us back to Him. Whether it involves the study of the planets, the stars or the micro-world of cellular biology, we are continually discovering truths about creation and the beauty and order that marks it. These are the expressions of beauty that lead us closer to faith in the source of beauty who is God Himself.
Beauty in Music
“How I wept during your hymns and songs! I was deeply moved by the music of the sweet chants of your Church. The sounds flowed into my ears and the truth was distilled into my heart”.[3] These words of St Augustine testify how beautiful music has the power to touch the heart and reach the soul. In the words of Newman, beautiful music is “the outpouring of eternal harmony in the medium of created sound”.[4] For centuries, the Church has been the patron of music and promoter of liturgical music that leads to the right worship of God. The Psalms and other Scriptural texts captured in countless hymns and songs have proclaimed the Word of God in creative and effective ways.
Leading people along the way of beautiful music is an opportunity to present the Gospel in the language of attunement, harmony and the combination of voices and lives in the Church. For many, evangelisation that begins with the need to conform to Gospel teaching and Church values, can be off-putting for it immediately threatens my freedom and tells me that I need to change. A better route of attraction might come from the language of attunement.
So for example, we might describe the work of Jesus as attuning our lives with his. Because of sin, each of us are out of tune to a greater or lesser extent with God. The work of the Holy Spirit is to move us back into tune and onto God’s wavelength. We could say that this is what Jesus was trying to do by teaching parables such as the Prodigal Son. He was inviting his audience across the ages, to tune into a new frequency, a new wisdom, a new understanding, a new logic of love and mercy that comes right from the heart of God. When St Paul urges the Philippian Christians to have “the same mindset as Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5), he is urging them to attune themselves to his mindset and away from their own.
For us in the family of the Church, the metaphor of music also speaks effectively of the collective witness we give. In the words of St Ephraem the Syrian, each of our lives can be described as “lyres of the Holy Spirit” that produce notes. Each of those notes unite in the Church to produce a beautiful hymn from the harmony of those sounds. According to St Ignatius of Antioch “by means of your accord and harmonious love, Jesus Christ is sung. Form yourselves one and all into a choir, that blending in concord and taking the keynote of God, you may sing in unison with one voice through Jesus Christ to the Father”.[5] For if the Church is a type of choir then the participation of each of us is crucial. As each of us are called to holiness, so each of us are called to attune our lives anew to the life of God lest our voice be out of tune with the rest of the choir and so diminish the beauty of the song we sing.
Beethoven once said that music can change the world. If this is true then it begins with a change in each of us, caused by God’s grace that draws us continually towards greater harmony with the movements of love, truth and mercy within the Holy Trinity. May the expression of beauty in music attract many along the way that leads to Christ and the enchantment that leads to faith in Him.
Beauty in Art
The Church possesses a treasure trove of art from her heritage whose beauty awaits to be discovered. These works are not just beautiful in themselves but serve to tell and re-tell the Gospel story of salvation and mediate that gift to present generations. Early in the life of the Church at a time when many could not read or write, Christians relied on art to teach the faith through etchings found in the Catacombs in Rome, frescoes, mosaics and icons. With the invention of the printing press in the middle of the second millennium, the written word became the normal means to transmit the Gospel and teach the faith. However, the visible and artistic representations of Biblical narratives still retain their power to communicate the message and engage the human imagination. We think here of the marvelous mosaics in Ravenna, the frescoes of Michaelangelo and Fra Angelico and the masterpieces by Caravaggio and Raphael. The works of many of these artists don’t just communicate the Gospel message but also show how the viewer is an active participant in the drama that the artistic work portrays. Examples include the frescoes of Fra Angelico found in St Mark’s in Florence where there is a Dominican friar painted in the scene. The intended viewer was a Dominican confrere who was invited to see himself as involved in unfolding drama of the Gospel scene depicted. Or Giotto’s frescoes of the Life of St Francis in Assisi that trace the story of the saint’s life and transformation. Such is the potential that beautiful Christian art retains to engage people through the senses and draw them into active participation in the divine life.
The Beauty of Holiness
“The city did not need the sun or the moon for light, since it was lit by the radiant glory God, and the lamb was a lighted torch for it. The nations will come to its light and the kings of the earth will bring it their treasures” (Rev. 21:23). This light that Scripture speaks of is the divine light that radiates from a community of Christians united to Christ “the light of the world”. These are the saints whose lives exhibit what a beautiful life looks like – lives that show the beauty of holiness. Examples include Mary the Mother of the Redeemer known as tota pulchra…completely beautiful, because of the divine grace that beautifies her humanity. “We are God’s work of art” declared St Paul to the Ephesians (2:10) as he described the progressive conformity of our human nature to that of Christ. We think also of St Francis of Assisi who was enraptured by the beauty of the natural world while he himself lived a beautiful life of charity and solidarity with the poor. St Teresa of Avila’s fellow sisters spoke of the radiance on her face after receiving the Eucharist while the beauty of an upright conscience displayed by Saints John Fisher and Thomas More remains a beacon of light for all political and Church leaders. In more recent times, the twentieth century produced more martyrs for the faith than all previous centuries combined. From these lives radiate the beauty of charity, courage and the love that lays down one’s live for others after the example of the Master. The paschal candle lighting in the starvation bunker in Auchwitz where Maximilian Kolbe died is symbolic of his supreme act of mercy in volunteering to take the place of another person sentenced to death. Behold the witness to the beauty of steadfastness and pastoral care shown by Fr Ragheed Ganni who refused to abandon his flock in the face of threats of violence and intimidation, murdered on odium fidei in Mosul, Iraq in June 2007. Or Carlo Acutis, the first millennial saint whose devotion to the Eucharist and witness to hope in the face of illness and death is beginning to inspire a new generation.
The lives of the saints are windows in which we behold the beauty of God that triumphs over every form of ugliness, darkness and despair. In the words of Dostoevsky, it is beauty that will save the world. The light of these holy lives awakens the love that every soul longs for, the lives that “shine out; as sparks run through the stubble” (Wis. 3:7). Contemplating the beauty of holy lives takes us closer to the same faith that animated theirs.
Conclusion
In a passage from his classic Confessions, St Augustine looks back on his life and admits: “Late have I loved you O beauty so ancient and new, late have I loved you!”[6] What the Church needs today is people who discover the power of beauty early rather than late. In the vision of Pope Francis, the invaluable role of catechists is to form people in the via pulchritudinis, the way of beauty. Their role is to help seekers, catechumens and all the baptised, to see expressions of beauty in a way that enchants the soul and leads to faith. May the whole Church witness to the beauty of God that radiates from creation, music, art and the lives of the saints; for when we do, we become the Church Christ intended – to be ‘Lumen Gentium’ – showing the light of God’s beauty to the nations. Let people see this light and be smitten. And may they come to believe in the God of beauty too.
[1] Paradiso, 33, 145
[2] Errationes in Psalmos, 45, 7
[3] Augustine, Confessions, 9.6.14
[4] John Henry Newman, Oxford University Sermons: 1826-1843, Sermon 15
[5] Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Ephesians, 4
[6] Confessions, 10.27.38
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