"To educate in the contemplation of beauty is to open the mind to its essence."Javier ViverIf art does not generate communion, it will be anything else, but not art".Christian Art: Meditating on the Gospel through ArtThe ways for the knowledge of the existence and being of God are of two types. On the one hand, cosmological ones: the famous five ways from St. Thomas Aquinas are surely the best synthesis of philosophical and Christian thought on the subject. Through them we come to discover the true God as the unmoving mover, the uncaused cause, the necessary being, the supreme perfection and ultimate end of all creatures.
Ultimately, God is attained by human reason as the Personal Logos who is at the origin of creation and ensures the harmony of all that exists. "The truly divine God is the God who has manifested Himself as logos and has acted and acts as logos full of love for us" (Benedict XVI, Speech at the University of Regensburg, 12-9-2006). This fundamental reflection on the Maker of the world demonstrates the reliability of thought, language and science. God constitutes the infinite wisdomthe mind and heart of the universe.
Anthropological ways
On the other hand, many thinkers (such as St. Bonaventure, Descartes) and mystics (such as Saint Teresa of JesusSt. John of the Cross, saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) have reflected on the anthropological pathways for the knowledge of God, in a inner journey that explores the intimacy of the human being, his or her deepest longings and his moral conscience. Here God appears as the ultimate meaning of human dignity, life, justice, freedom, love and history. This human fullness, which finds its root and culmination in God, is manifested in virtuous persons of exalted humanity and, especially, in the luminous, attractive and convincing witness of the lives of the saints.
The link between both types of ways can be discovered in the understanding of God as the supreme perfection and the inexhaustible source of the best blessings: for God alone fulfills the promise of life engraved in great desires human beings, with the abundance of material and spiritual gifts that it bestows upon us. Surely the most eloquent exponent in this field of inner inquiry is Augustine of Hippowho begins his intellectual and spiritual autobiography with the splendid declaration: "you have made us, Lord, for you and our heart will be restless until it rests in you" (Confessions, Book I, Chapter 1).
The experience of beauty as a vocation
Human beings - unlike animals and robots, which lack rational knowledge, self-awareness and free will - are capable of finding many forms and expressions of beauty that attract him in the spiritual quest for fulfillment and happiness. There are countless examples of experiences of beauty in the naturein the art and in the life of people. Indeed, a marvelous landscape, the study of the mineral, vegetable and animal world by the natural sciences, a symphony or musical melody of mathematical perfection, the beautiful work of a genius of the figurative arts, the literary story or the real narration of a valuable existence for its dedication and generosity... fascinate and fill human existence with enchantment.
A necessary manifestation of great wisdom consists in discovering that, in its very essence, the beauty of creation refers back to its source, which is the infinite beauty of the Creator, a mysterious and inexhaustible fountain of life and goodness. For, separated of its original source, the beauty of the world and of human existence becomes something poor, outdated and vain which, in the end, turns out to be harmful and causes boredom, because it locks the person into low goals and frustrates the expectations of unlimited human desire.
Indeed, he who sets his heart on created things with a disordered affectivity, apart from their divine author and their holy laws -which are inscribed in human nature and can be discovered by the well-formed conscience- will unfortunately remain disappointedbecause the infinite yearning of our restless heart cannot be satiated by mere finite realities.
On the other hand, he who succeeds in finding in the wonders of creation and, especially, in the countless expressions of human love, a glimpse or reflection and participation in the infinite beauty of the Lord and, furthermore, in his intentional actions, truly places his heart in God, will find fully fulfilled the promise of the hope of full life contained as an existential call in every flash of beauty and in every human desire.
Eros as a promise
An important area of this experience of beauty is in the experience of falling in love between man and woman (love attraction or eros); where reductive and erroneous interpretations, such as the puritanical rigorist, the utilitarian hedonist or the romantic emotivist, necessarily lead to the destructive failure of people and societies.
In contrast, a proper understanding of the spousal love -which corresponds to the "essentially human experience", illuminated by the revelation of the divine Word, as taught by the theology of the body John Paul II - allows us to discover it as a vocation to weave a faithful and fruitful communion: a home as a place of welcome and self-giving, a cradle, school and sanctuary of life, and this through the commitment of total self-giving in the conjugal covenant. In this way, the divine plan inscribed in the body and in the desire of the heart of man, created male and female in the image of God, reaches its true meaning in the conjugal covenant. dimension of transcendenceThe beauty of the eternal love to enter into the family communion of the divine persons is reflected and expanded.
Idolatry and redemption of the heart
There is a serious danger of being attracted, cheat and trapped by the attractiveness of things that seduce with great intensity, increased by the confused and mendacious propaganda of ideologies, until they become false idols, which turn out to be parasites that steal and enslave the infinite yearnings of the heart. This profound experience of frustration -and the resulting overcoming The experience of this experience, with the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit, is rightly expressed by St. Augustine himself as a decisive experience of his own: "Late I loved you, beauty so old and so new, late I loved you! You were inside me and I was outside, and so from the outside I sought you; and, deformed as I was, I threw myself on these things that you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. I was held far from you by those things which, if they were not in you, would not exist. You called to me and cried out, and broke my deafness; you shone and shone, and cured my blindness; you breathed out your perfume, and I breathed it in, and now I long for you; I tasted of you, and now I hunger and thirst for you; you touched me, and I long for the peace that comes from you." (Confessions, Book X, chapter 27).
Accompanying on the path to eternal beauty
For all these reasons, the following are needed teachersand educational communities to guide people in this indispensable inner path of transformation toward the ultimate cause and the inexhaustible source of the beauty of human life and of true love. We also need experts in prayer, for, as John Paul II affirmed, we need experts in prayer, "beautiful love is learned above all by praying." (Letter to families, n. 20).
In this journey towards the fullness dreamed by God for his children, the Church, expert in humanity, has the urgent mission of accompanying, instructing, healing and restoring hope, following the light of the beauty that shines in Jesus Christ. For "the Son of God, by becoming man, has brought into the history of humanity the whole of the human race". the evangelical richness of truth and goodnessand with it he has also stated a new dimension of beauty" (John Paul II, Letter to artists, n. 5).
In short, the Lord has left traces and glimpses of his infinite beauty in creatures and in the human heart, as clear signs or indications for his children so that we may find the way to the Lord's will. pathways to mysteryof his Heart, the only one who saves because he fulfills our great yearnings for eternal beauty.
