"God's beauty is not talked about as much as it should be. Perhaps Church leaders are not entirely comfortable with the notion of the beauty of God. In fact, our culture has more than a few biases against beauty. Consider the following prevailing beliefs.
Beauty is seen as useless and decorative
"In a utilitarian age where the value of anything is measured by its usefulness, beauty is seen as mere frosting on the cake — pretty but not essential. But beauty cannot be reduced to that which is simply pretty or pleasant. Beauty is profound and deep and intimately connected with truth and goodness.
Beauty is simply in the eye of the beholder
"Beauty is seen as a purely subjective reality, a matter of the whims and tastes of individuals. The fact is that some things are more beautiful than others. A sculpture by Donatello or a symphony by Mozart is more beautiful than a Precious Moments figurine or a Justin Bieber song. What is needed is some training of the eye and ear. Author and preacher John Piper reminds us that 'beauty must have a meaning that is larger and more permanent than personal quirks' (Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist). God is not beautiful because he fits our style, taste, whims, or quirks. God's beauty is an objective reality. God told Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM.' (Exodus 3:14). God just is. Likewise, his beauty just is.
Beauty is not to be trusted
"Beauty can be used for evil. Why are so many sinister spies portrayed as beautiful women in the movies? St. Paul warns that 'even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light' (2 Corinthians 11:14). We do indeed need to be on the lookout for deception, but this doesn't mean that beauty can't be trusted. Claims of truth can also be deceptive. Many people are hypocrites. This does not mean that truth and goodness aren't real. We continue to pursue beauty, relying on discernment to judge when we are encountering true beauty or when we are being seduced by an imposter.
"Beauty is a doorway to the sacred. In his book The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, twentieth-century Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar writes:
" '[I]f the form of [God's] glory — which mere thought can never simply banish — consists not only in awe, thankfulness, admiration, and submission, but also in joy, pleasure, and delight in God and in his splendor, if the form of his glory is determined precisely by his ability to transport us to joy and further determined by that joyous rapture itself: how could we then possibly dispense with the concept of the beautiful?'
"Von Balthasar reminds us that there are three kinds of literature in the Old Testament: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. The Law corresponds to our experience of God as truth. The Prophets correspond to our experience of God as goodness. The Writings (Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Sirach, and Wisdom) correspond to our experience of God as beauty.
" 'We are not dealing here with a feeble, belated, and romantic transfiguration of a long-past and heroic golden era. We are witnessing the radiant drawing out into consciousness of the aesthetic dimension which is inherent in this unique dramatic action, a dimension which is the proper object of a theological aesthetics.'
"Von Balthasar is emphasizing that the concept of God as beautiful is not fluff — it is integral to our understanding of the very nature and substance of God and our relationship with him.
"For Catholics, this notion of the beauty of God is the focus of the traditional Catholic practice of eucharistic adoration. In this prayer Catholics simply spend time sitting or kneeling in total silence, gazing at the consecrated Host which is the body of Christ displayed in an ornately adorned vessel called a monstrance. This prayer is called 'adoration,' since its focus is simply to adore the beauty of God's presence made real and visible in the Blessed Sacrament. The purpose of eucharistic adoration is to deepen our desire to be one with God's beauty. Prayer of adoration invites us to reflect on those qualities that make God beautiful so that we can live as a reflection of that same beauty.
"We need to fall in love with God. When we fall in love, we tend to lose our grip on our own lives. And that's precisely the definition of conversion. When we fall in love with God, we let go of our own lives and center our lives on God's beauty, which haunts us in the most delightful ways. Our relationship with God needs passion. God wants to take us on a second honeymoon. That may sound strange until you take a look at this passage from Hosea in which God speaks of his unfaithful spouse, Israel, and tells his plan to put things right in their relationship.
" 'Therefore, I will now allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her. . . .
There she shall respond as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.
On that day, says the LORD, you will call me, "My
husband," and no longer will you call me,
"My Baal." '
— Hosea 2:14-16
"The wilderness is where God and his Chosen People enjoyed their first honeymoon, immediately after God had led the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt to freedom. Now, years later, the fire has gone out of the relationship. Israel has strayed, seeking beauty in a new lover, the Canaanite god Baal. God will have none of it. He intends to seduce Israel, calling her back to the wilderness to reignite the passion that once fueled their relationship. Pretty hot stuff.
"God desires us even more than we desire God. He longs to rekindle a love affair with each one of us. He longs to invite us into his beauty — the beauty that we desire and need for spiritual wellness."
