Beauty. Tuesday, March 11. Lent 2014.

God alone is true beauty.

His creation stems from true beauty.

We were created by Him who is beautiful;

created in Beauty’s image and likeness.

Before sin,

we possessed this true beauty as well.

“Man was created beautiful, in the image of God’s beauty. In sinning, he has disfigured himself; he has become ugliness by losing his likeness to God.”

“Montfort’s vision of man is characterized by tension: he is no longer what he was; he is not yet what he ought to be. He is stretched taut between his original beauty and his present ugliness. Ugliness masks and disfigures beauty. When our eyes are covered with darkness, we cannot see the light. This is why it is hard for man to perceive what his original beauty was.”

The world seems to hold beauty to as high a standard as love.

Unfortunately, like love,

the world is looking for the wrong type of beauty.

Despite the majority vote,

beauty will not be found in cosmetics and clothes;

hair and nail color.

True beauty is found in quite the opposite.

True beauty is not found in the pretty and polished.

It is found in the gory and raw.

“An experience of truly Christian beauty must pass through the contemplation of the Crucified. The beauty of the Crucified is a disfigured beauty. It is the man of every sorrow. It is the beauty of God covered over by the ugliness of men’s sins, an ugliness hidden in the darkness of the conscience and at times disguised as counterfeit beauty.”

“Beauty attracts, ugliness repels. Man’s primordial beauty set him in a state of mutual attraction with divine communication. The ugliness of his sin leaves him lost and alone. Since he is no longer beautiful, he feels abandoned and unloved; he hides from God.”

“The crucified Christ takes on himself the sum total of human ugliness, his solitude and abandonment. He descends to the depths of humanity’s distress, which he then takes on himself. The horror of the Cross already carries the glory of the Resurrection.”

It is in God Alone:

God Alone where true beauty is found,

God Alone where we can seek our identity as beautifully created children of God,

God Alone where we should seek beauty,

God Alone where the longings of our hearts are met,

God Alone where we radiate His beauty through us.