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A Reflection on Beauty

Mary Rose Bacani Valenti

Thursday, July 30, 2009

sunset
Once in a while, in the busyness of daily life, I find that something pulls me to stop for a bit and take a drink.
I take a drink whenever I come across anything like an imaginative story, a laughing innocent child, or a spiritually uplifting poem.
In this case, I’d like to share an excerpt from Sr. Eileen Mary Walsh’s reflection on beauty. Sr. Eileen Mary is a Sister Adorer of the Precious Blood, and lives in the Precious Blood Monastery in London, Ontario.
Take 5 minutes to pray with it. It’s wonderful.
As you know, we are a group of contemplative sisters whose main ministry in the Church is that of Prayer. We are called to ‘know’ Beauty, for there is a real sense in which Beauty and God are synonymous. As a faraway light yields a harvest of colors when it passes through a prism, Beauty opens out its radiance when it shines through the human heart. The heart is the place where beauty arrives, where it is felt and where it is recognized and shared. Prayer is the supreme way we lift our limited selves toward the light and ask it to shine through us. God knows that the human heart must always be wedded to him in desire, for the heart is the tabernacle of divine beauty. As St. John of the Cross puts it poetically:
I did not have to ask my heart what it wanted
because of all the desire I have ever known
just one did I cling to
for it was the essence of all desire
to know Beauty.
Beauty lifts us beyond ourselves, it gives wings to our souls and energy to our spirits. Our search for Beauty must be on-going, for our call is to rest in Eternal Beauty.
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