The Power of Transcendent Beauty

Lately, I’ve been focusing my writing on the evil of transhumanism – culminating with this definition:  Transhumanism is satan’s plan to destroy humanity by deforming it into something that can no longer commune with it’s Creator.

A keyword in that definition is “deform.”  Satan can’t create so much as a paperclip.  All he can do is attempt to deform what God has made.  And everything that God makes is beautiful.  Perfect form is a perfect beauty.  So satan’s attack on creation (to de-form it) is an attack on beauty.

Since we’re still in vacation season, a time to surround ourselves in created beauty, and since beauty is a powerful nostrum against transhumanism and all the various forms of evil that are stewing about these days, let’s take a closer look.  We’ll start with an everyday experience of beauty and let that lead us to the mystical beauty of the Mass and our role in bringing beauty into the world.

A Droplet of Beauty

We’re surrounded by beauty.  We don’t even need to go on vacation to find it, though vacations are important for our souls.  And we certainly don’t need to go to the internet to find beauty.  Poking our heads out the front door will serve our purposes quite nicely.

When was the last time you looked at a raindrop on a leaf?  Reeeally looked at it.  Better yet, contemplated it?

We have a sprawling rhododendron bush just down and around from our front door.  Covered with large, soft green leaves that hold raindrops just so.  If you move in close enough all you can see is the leaf, framed by other leaves and branches that surround it – the perfect backdrop.  You’re now so close to the bush you can see nothing else.  You could convince yourself that you were in the middle of a rain forest, surrounded by lush green growth.

And there’s that raindrop.  Perfectly formed, not moving but liquid at the same time.  It has no color of its own but is a watery kaleidoscope of reflections on its domed surface.  If I could paint something that beautiful, I would just paint and paint and paint.

The bottom surface of the droplet forms perfectly to the contours of the leaf, while the top is the nicely rounded shape of the droplet itself – it is both the shape of the leaf and the shape of the droplet while always maintaining the nature of water.  Is that telling me something of how it is to be in the world but not of the world?

And just like that, we glide from observation to contemplation.

Imagine a world without liquid; everything is either vapor or solid.  We’d never conceive of anything as wonderful as a liquid on our own.  God is amazing.  And what if there was no surface tension that allowed droplets to form?  Water and the physical laws that render it “watery” are too wonderful for words.  We arrive at C.S. Lewis’ revelation about oranges: “The good things even of this world are far too good ever to be reached by imagination.  Even the common orange, you know, no one could have imagined it before he tasted it.”

It cannot be for nothing that God so often invokes the imagery of water in his Words to us … with joy, you will draw water from the fountains of salvation … all you waters above the heavens …  the waters of Meriba … the angel showed me the river of life-giving water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb … I will give you living water …

Water – blessed, sanctified, finger-dipped, and marked upon us at the points of the cross is a sacramental.  But why shouldn’t water be a Godly sign for us in all its forms?  Whenever we feel the rain (“He provides rain for the earth”), or look upon a stream (“like a deer longs for streams of water”), or are lulled by the ocean (“though its waters roar and foam”) – we should be reminded of a God so extravagant He created water.

Beauty, even in a humble raindrop, is always meant to elevate us to God when we give ourselves over to it.

Beauty the Transcendental

Beauty (along with truth, goodness, and unity) is transcendental, from the Latin transcendentem – “rising above.”  It can be taken to mean going beyond our human limits.

That truly is only ½ the picture and the lesser half at that.  We can only attain something beyond our human limits – or even have an awareness of it – because there is something beyond us.  The most important principle of the transcendent, the greater ½ of the picture, is that there is something above that reaches down to us.

This trickle-down theory of divinity applies to beauty.  Anything truly beautiful started out as God.

God IS beauty.

Start with God, work backward, and you end up with a raindrop or the soft and powerful rhythm of waves rolling to shore, or the sun rising over the ocean.

Or, as we saw with our raindrop, start with any of those beautiful things, reach mystically forward, and you’re moving closer to God.

Mystical Beauty

Beauty in creation leads us to mystical beauty; beauty that reveals the mystery of God.

What else is revealed in the transfiguration if not Christ’s glory?  Which is to say, His concealed (mysterious) beauty.  In fact, when the apostles exclaimed, “Lord, it is well that we are here,” the word that is used for “well” can be translated as “beautiful.”

And St. Augustine tells us, “Jesus is beautiful in His miracles.”

Most philosophers and theologians, Pope Benedict XVI high among them, see beauty as the greater among equals in its power to elevate the soul to its Creator.  Because of this mysterious nature, beauty defies simple definitions.  Philosopher Johannes Lotz suggests beauty has three characteristics, the perfection of a particular form (essence), harmonious resonance, and “shining forth” (luster or splendor) that points beyond itself (Fr. Robert Spitzer offers a solid discussion of this in The Souls’ Upward Yearning).

Still, that doesn’t quite capture it, does it?

That’s the thing about beauty.  Whereas truth and goodness speak more to the intellect, beauty speaks to the heart and to emotion – authentic places of the human soul that are rapidly transported beyond the realm of words and perception.

And that brings us to the Sacrifice of the Mass.  The Mass is the source of surpassing beauty on earth since it is in that sacrifice that the veil between the ordinary and the sacred is gossamer.  That direct mystical experience of beauty is why Churches used to be the most beautiful buildings in any given town.  And look at the extravagance of religious art and sacred music (listen to this movement of Mozart’s Requiem to be reminded of the majesty of sacred music).

Time was when we gave the very best of ourselves to worship in large part as a response to beauty.

Whatever your Church building may look like or whatever the liturgical music – there’s always an opportunity to identify with something of great beauty in the Mass.  Be it the words of scripture, the communal prayers, the consecration.  We should always be prepared to receive beauty at Mass.  That is the grand exchange after all – offered from our poverty and receive from His abundance.

Beauty and Us

We now come to beauty and each one of us.  We are told that we can become instruments of Christ’s grace, that we can “make up what is lacking in the suffering of Christ,” and He Himself tells us, “you will do greater things than I.”  By extension, are we not able to share in bringing Christ’s beauty into the world?

Each of us has our own unique role to play in bringing beauty into the world because we each have our own unique role as a member of the Body of Christ.

What is the beauty that you bring into the world?  What is your artistry?  Is it in the classical fine arts?  Or are you an artist at lending a patient and attentive ear to people?  Or sharing genuine and carefully considered compliments?  Or serving the physical needs of people who can’t do for themselves?  Have you developed a skill and mastery at courageously accepting life’s trials and sufferings and uniting them to Christ?

There’s a curious paradox at play when we discover our artistry – the ways in which we bring beauty into the world.  It’s not so much that we are the artist, as we become a reflection of the Divine Artist.

Aren’t we rather like raindrops?