Tag Archives: Resurrection

Power of Beauty

How to Find Beauty When Life is Ugly

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The_Body_of_the_Dead_Christ_in_the_Tomb,_and_a_detail,_by_Hans_Holbein_the_YoungerHans Holbein’s Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb shows the results of Christ’s suffering with startling realism. It depicts an emaciated and lacerated cadaver in the early stages of putrefaction. His eyes are slightly open and his skeletal hand is reaching out, giving the body a disturbing semblance of life and making it seem as if Christ is still suffering. The body is shown without the onlookers typical in similar artistic renditions, thus intensifying the isolation of death. We are the only ones who have been placed in disconcerting intimacy with the dead body of Our Lord.

Holbein radically departs from the tradition of showing the suffering Christ with at least some physical beauty. He does not shy from showing his suffering and death with all of its ugliness and horror. With unflinching realism, he puts us up close and personal with the agony of Christ so as to shock us out of indifference or complacency regarding what Our Savior did for us.

Making Sense of Ugliness

In “Charged with Grandeur”: the Universe and You,  I wrote aboutroad-flower-sm600 the amazing beauty of God’s Creation. The world is indeed charged with God’s grandeur, but we are all well aware that ugliness exists in our world as well, and plenty of it, unfortunately. How do we make sense of it, especially when we are forced to bear it ourselves?

The answer is found in the suffering Face of him who was “crushed for our sins.”

Our postmodern world tells us that beauty is just an illusion; it tells us that reality is fundamentally ugly and cruel. We can either hide from the ugliness and absurdity of life, or we can defiantly rebel against it, asserting our freedom even as we accept the very meaninglessness of doing so. It tells us to stop seeking hope and truth, because there is none.

Is beauty really just an illusion? Our answer as Christians is a resounding “No!” Thanks to the suffering of Jesus Christ, the ugliness of suffering has been made subject to the deeper beauty of love.

The Face of Beauty

No one puts is better than Pope Benedict:

“Precisely in the Face [of Christ] that is so disfigured there appears the genuine, the ultimate beauty: the beauty of love that goes ‘to the very end’ and thus proves to be mightier than falsehood and violence.” This is “the Love that can risk setting aside his external beauty in order to proclaim, in this very way, the truth of beauty.”

imageIt’s true that we live in a world that is replete with ugliness, but it is also true that precisely because of this ugliness, an even greater beauty is present, a beauty that would not exist if it were not for the ugliness that it conquers.

All of us have to deal with ugliness in one form or another. It may be the ugliness of physical or mental suffering in our own lives or in the lives of loved ones. It may be the ugliness of injustice or human spite. It may be the ugliness of greed or lust or sloth. It may be the ugliness of addiction. Whatever the form that it takes, we need to keep it very clear in our minds that it will not have the final say, nor does it have the power to eclipse beauty in your life.

Your Final Beauty

Taking the Twelve aside again, Jesus began to tell them what was going to happen to him. “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the Gentiles who will mock him, spit upon him, scourge him, and put him to death, but after three days he will rise. – Mark 10:32-34

Jesus went to Jerusalem knowing that he would have to face a lot of
ugliness, but he also knew what awaited him at the end of it all: the beauty of his Resurrection. Thanks to his love until “the very end,” he carried out the most beautiful act of human history: his Passion.

When life presents you with ugliness, remember that God20140418-112248.jpg is allowing it only so that a greater beauty may come about. Every time you suffer out of love for him and for others, you make yourself more and more the beautiful person whom God made you to be.

Eternity

“Unbearable Beauty”: Your Upcoming Resurrection

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20140417-161738.jpgHappy Easter, everyone! As we celebrate our Lord’s victory over Death, I would like to  share a post that I wrote and published a year ago during a difficult time: my mother was dying of cancer, and as I aided her in her final weeks, I was struggling to keep strong my own hope in the Resurrection in the face of her imminent death. 

The thoughts that I share below came to me in prayer as I asked God to strengthen me and prepare me for what was about to happen.  I found great consolation in knowing that my mother was about to experience her own resurrection, which our Lord granted her two weeks into the Easter Season.

In his book The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis recounts a fictional visit to heaven. During his tour of paradise, he encounters numerous holy men and women, but one in particular leaves a deep impression. He meets a spectacularly clothed woman and is absolutely entranced by “the unbearable beauty of her face.” Impressed by her appearance and by the large entourage of angels and saints who accompany her, Lewis asks his guide if she had been a woman of particular importance on earth. It turns out that by worldly standards she was just a simple old lady named Sarah Smith. But the guide goes on to explain that “fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things.”

Sarah Smith may not have been a celebrity, but she spent her life doing good for others – she spent her life loving: “Every young man or boy that met her became her son – even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter.” Sarah was a mother to everyone, and in heaven she is accompanied by a procession of her spiritual children. She is even joined by the animals who benefitted from her generous heart: “Every beast and bird that came near her had a place in her love…Now the abundance of life that she has in Christ from the Father flows over into them.”

20140417-161754.jpgRecently, we celebrated the Resurrection of Jesus, an event that is so huge that we do not limit our celebration to Easter Sunday. Throughout the Easter Season, which will continue until the Feast of Pentecost, we commemorate and celebrate Christ’s definitive victory over death.

How important it is to remember that in celebrating Our Lord’s Resurrection we are celebrating our own! As baptized Christians, we have a share in Christ’s new life and it is only a matter of time before we are in heaven with our own resurrected bodies. In 1st Corinthians 15, Paul reflects on the beauty of the resurrected body:

It [the natural body] is sown corruptible; it is raised incorruptible. It is sown dishonorable; it is raised glorious. It is sown weak; it is raised powerful. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

Our future resurrections give us a special dignity, on which C.S. Lewis offers an interesting reflection:

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal…It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.

20140417-161728.jpgThe character of Sarah Smith is a symbol of “the risen body of maternal love.” If motherly love is so beautiful on earth, we can only imagine how it will be manifested in heaven! But not just mothers – anyone who truly loves during his time on earth will be rewarded with a risen body, the ultimate fruit of his love. The beauty of your love on earth will flow into your resurrected body, and since God is never outdone in generosity, don’t be surprised if your resurrected body is one of “unbearable beauty.”

Eternity

“Unbearable Beauty”: Your Upcoming Resurrection

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20140417-161738.jpgIn his book, The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis recounts a fictional visit to heaven. During his tour of paradise, he encounters numerous holy men and women, but one in particular leaves a deep impression. He meets a spectacularly clothed woman and is absolutely entranced by “the unbearable beauty of her face.” Impressed by her appearance and by the large entourage of angels and saints who accompany her, Lewis asks his guide if she had been a woman of particular importance on earth. It turns out that by worldly standards she was just a simple old lady named Sarah Smith. But the guide goes on to explain that “fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things.”

Sarah Smith may not have been a celebrity, but she spent her life doing good for others – she spent her life loving: “Every young man or boy that met her became her son – even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter.” Sarah was a mother to everyone, and in heaven she is accompanied by a procession of her spiritual children. She is even joined by the animals who benefitted from her generous heart: “Every beast and bird that came near her had a place in her love…Now the abundance of life that she has in Christ from the Father flows over into them.”

20140417-161754.jpgOn Sunday, we celebrated the Resurrection of Jesus, an event that is so huge that we do not limit our celebration to Easter Sunday. Throughout the Easter Season, which will continue until the feast of Pentecost, we commemorate and celebrate Christ’s definitive victory over death.

How important it is to remember that in celebrating Our Lord’s Resurrection we are celebrating our own! As baptized Christians, we have a share in Christ’s new life and it is only a matter of time before we are in heaven with our own resurrected bodies. In 1st Corinthians 15, Paul reflects on the beauty of the resurrected body:

“It [the natural body] is sown corruptible; it is raised incorruptible. It is sown dishonorable; it is raised glorious. It is sown weak; it is raised powerful. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.”

Our future resurrections give us a special dignity, on which C.S. Lewis offers an interesting reflection:

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal…It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.”

20140417-161728.jpgThe character of Sarah Smith is a symbol of “the risen body of maternal love.” If motherly love is so beautiful on earth, we can only imagine how it will be manifested in heaven! But not just mothers – anyone who truly loves during his time on earth will be rewarded with a risen body, the ultimate fruit of his love. The beauty of your love on earth will flow into your resurrected body, and since God is never outdone in generosity,  your resurrected body will be one of “unbearable beauty.”