Beauty

(In the Garden by José Navarro Llorens, c. early 1900s)

“In times of crisis, people tend to focus on goodness and truth — doing what is right and discerning what is true — but overlook the beautiful. Gregory Wolfe, says this is a mistake. He asserts that ‘of the three transcendentals’ — goodness, truth, and beauty – ‘beauty is the one that is least troubled by our fallen condition.’ Drawing upon the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar, he explains:

‘In a world plagued by sin and error, [von Balthasar] says, truth and goodness are always hotly contested. How do you live righteously? What is the truth? As we debate these matters, we have axes to grind. But beauty, von Balthasar says, is disinterested. It has no agenda. Beauty can sail under the radar of our anxious contention over what is true and what is good, carrying along its beam a ray of the beatific vision. Beauty can pierce the heart, wounding us with the transcendent glory of God.’

Amid the political, economic and social upheaval we face, beauty invites us to reflect with wonder upon a goodness more perfect, and a truth more profound...”

~Zsanna Bodor