The quest for beauty

Deep within us, there is an undeniable yearning for what we consider to be beautiful. Undeniable too is that fact that while many times such yearning is satisfied, there are also occasions, and they can be quite many also, that it is frustrated and disappointed.

But if we have the proper understanding of what beauty really is, then we will realize that beauty can always be found everywhere. Yes, even in situations where in our human estimation we consider as ugly, beauty can still be found.

The secret is to peg our quest for beauty on God. With him, everything is beautiful, or at worst, can be made beautiful. Without him, even what we consider in our human estimation as beautiful is actually not so. Beauty is where God is. And since God is everywhere, beauty can also be found everywhere. That is, if we know how to look for God.

Our problem is that we often separate beauty from God. And because of such separation, beauty has transformed, in the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, “into a path that leads to the ephemeral, into banal and superficial appearances, or even a flight toward artificial paradises, which disguise and hide interior emptiness and inconsistencies.”

It’s a sense of beauty that is pegged merely on us, who in our limited and wounded nature, cannot find beauty everywhere, especially when some pain and suffering are involved.

We need to expand our understanding and appreciation of beauty. If by beauty we mean only the physical beauty of a scenic landscape, the romantic hue of a sunset, or a Miss Universe, then we are missing not only a lot of things but also the one thing that is most necessary to us.

There is beauty in persons, things and situations that otherwise are regarded as unbeautiful or ugly if seen only in the physical or strictly human and natural level. It is the beauty that comes straight from God who offered his son on the cross as a ransom for our salvation.

We need to expand our understanding and appreciation of beauty by including the most important element of beauty. And that is the love for God, and because of that love, it is also the love for others.

If we truly love God, then we should reflect his love and his attributes that can only be described, in the least, as beautiful. If out of his love for us, he sent his Son to us, and the Son had to become man and to suffer death on the cross, then we can say that there must be beauty in suffering and in death.

We need to understand and appreciate beauty from the point of view of our faith, more than simply from the point of view of our senses and our intelligence. To be sure, our faith does not reject the standards of beauty that go along the lines of the senses and the intelligence, but it goes beyond them.

That’s why we have to learn to be quick to discern the elements of beauty in what otherwise are considered as ugly when seen in purely human terms. Physical pains, sicknesses, problems, difficulties, deaths, etc., while truly unattractive and worthy of avoidance, can possess a certain beauty if seen with the eyes of faith.

Again, the secret is to peg our sense of beauty on God.