What is Beauty and Why do We Need it?

Exploring what beauty is and how it enlivens the faith

Welcome friends! This is the first video in our course in written form. Join us on the "Videos" page if you'd like to watch. This article is purely supplemental or for those who prefer to read or want to go back and take notes on specific sections. Enjoy!

Let's begin in prayer: https://www.ourladyswarriors.org/prayer/holygho2.htm

What is Beauty?

Before we can begin to talk about things that are beautiful, we should first define beauty so we can accurately call things beautiful. So, let's start with a few definitions.

• "Beauty is that which pleases or delights when seen." - St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica I. q. 5, art. 4, ad. 1

• "Beauty is the manifestation of a spiritual reality in physical form that has the character of being both orderly and surprising." - John- Mark L. Miravalle Beauty: What it is and Why it Matters

• "Beauty is the visible form of the good." - Pope St. John Paul II

So those sound great and philosophical, but what do they actually mean? We have a tendency to talk about abstract things in even more abstract terms so to define beauty we have backtrack a bit and look at something that is objectively beautiful: nature. Look at the images below. How do they make you feel?

Do they take your breath away? Did you find yourself saying "wow" as you looked at the sweeping mountain vista? Did you pause as you looked at the Milky Way? Did you notice the intricacy of the flower? Catch the contagious joy of the people dancing?

All these things call out their beauty. They are all saying something. Listen as nature says with St. Augustine:

"Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the sky... Question all these realities. All respond: "See we are beautiful." Their beauty is a profession. These beauties are subject to change Who made them if not the Beautiful One who is not subject to change?" (Sermon 241).

The delight you feel as you look at these things is a reaction to their beauty. Nature is full of beauty because God made it. He made it and called it good (Gen. 1:31). It is His masterpiece and we are the part He is most proud of.

Beauty stops us in our tracks and imprints itself in our minds. Think of a time when you were out in nature and you stopped to take a picture of a pretty little flower or were amazed by the view from the top of the mountain or were astounded by the power of the sea. Think of a time you walked into your car because you were too busy looking at the stars that you didn't see what was in front of you. Think of how you wondered how flowers grew the way they did or how caterpillars become butterflies. Nature has a sense of order about it, yet it always surprises us. Those moments of encounter with beauty are powerful. They fill us with joy and wonder.

So now look back at our definitions of beauty, Do they make more sense? We feel delight when we see something beautiful. We recognize both an orderliness and a surprising quality in nature and how it works. God called the beautiful natural world good and it all points back to the One who it received both beauty and goodness from.

So, we can say that something that is beautiful delights us, surprises us, follows some inherent pattern or order, and leads us back to God, the source of goodness and beauty.

Why Do We Need Beauty?

Beauty is not just something nice for us to enjoy while we are here on earth. Beauty is supposed to remind us of our ultimate destiny and to Whom we belong. Beauty is supposed to remind us of Heaven. We are hard- wired for God and it is Him Whom we seek when we look for truth. It is Him we are attracted to when we notice the goodness or beauty of something or someone. God is the fullness and source of all truth, beauty, and goodness. Gerard Manley Hopkins says it well in his poem "The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo": (you can read the full text here)

“Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty’s self and beauty’s giver.” - Gerard Manley Hopkins

Because these things are of God, they make us happy. Beauty reaches us on a human level because we are all made for God. Watch this video to see this in action:

To learn more about Eric Genuis and his ministry visit his website here or listen to this episode of Leah Darrow's "Do Something Beautiful" podcast here

As humans we long for beauty because it is a way to access the Divine. Beauty touches our hearts and our hearts are starving for it. The prisoners in the video are in an environment completely devoid of beauty and the current climate of our culture is not far off. While we are constantly bombarded with images that are aesthetically pleasing, these are usually advertisements or social media posts, both of which have a reputation for not portraying the truth and are therefore not satisfying sources of beauty.

The beauty we long for is something deeper and abiding. We could take in a lifetime of the most truly beautiful things in the world, but they would still not satisfy our longing. Only God can do that because He is the true and unending Source of Beauty. In all our experiences of beauty, we should return to Him and praise Him for the beauty He has given to the world.

Living Beauty Challenge

This challenge is not mandatory of course, but rather an invitation to to take what you learned and apply it to your life. This challenge is adapted from the 7 Weeks to Beauty Challenge put out by A Beauty Initiative Within FOCUS, Love Good, and Papercastle Records. Find out more here.

Step 1: Make a list of the ten most beautiful things you've ever encountered. Think of:

• pieces of art

• music

• nature

• poetry

• stories

• people

• experiences

• architecture, and more!

Step 2: Write it down somewhere you can keep it.

Step 3: Take it to Adoration and ask God where He was present in each experience and then give Him thanks and praise for it! Let Him speak through the beauty you encounter in the world!

How did the challenge go? Any Questions? Let us know in the comments!