One thing I have asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.

  - Psalm 27.4

By the beauty and great glory in which Thou abidest eternally at the right of God the Father in heaven...Grant...[t]hat I may earnestly desire to meditate on Thee, to pray to Thee, and to praise Thee forever...

  - Anonymous, Litany of the Saviour (Irish, 14th-15th century)

In his lavishly illustrated History of Beauty, Umberto Eco argues that there is, indeed, such a thing as beauty, but we cannot know it in any kind of absolute sense. He writes, "our book could be accused of relativism, as if we wanted to say that what is considered beautiful depends on the various historical periods and cultures. And this is precisely what we do mean to say."

Eco denies any idea of beauty as "absolute and immutable", including any notion of the beauty of God, even though, as his title suggests, he recognizes that "beauty" exists. I understand his point: he wants us to appreciate the idea of beauty as people from many cultures and times have expressed it through their art. This is certainly a laudable and important effort.

But that effort need not preclude an idea of absolute beauty - precisely, the beauty of God - even though we may only ever hope to glimpse or to approximate that beauty in this life. There is enough of God, and of Jesus Christ exalted in glory, revealed to us in the Scriptures, and to be experienced in the art and theology of generations of saints, to engage our imaginations in rich reveries, focused on Jesus and the landscape of unseen things.

The various descriptions of Christ exalted, which we find throughout the Bible, employ enough of things familiar to all readers to draw our minds together toward a common sense of what is truly beautiful. To meditate on this, as our psalmist resolved to do, can only affect us in positive ways.

Such spiritual exercises are undoubtedly foreign to most of us. We read the Scriptures for insights, ideas, instruction, stories, and counsel, not to become immersed in a vision of Christ exalted, reigning in glory and beauty.

But those same Scriptures indicate that engaging in such a discipline can be spiritually enriching and even transforming. Should we, through such an extended and in depth meditation, even glimpse the absolute beauty and glory of Christ, we would know ourselves caught up in an experience of true joy and pleasure. Such experiences can change our thinking, affections, priorities - in short, our entire lives.

The beauty of the Lord is there to observe, if only with the eye of the heart. If we believe such beauty exists, and that contemplating it can enrich us, we will make the effort such contemplations require.

And if we do, we will know that Umberto Eco is both right and wrong. For we will know for a truth that God is beautiful, even if we only see that beauty from our own limited perspective. Yet even that will entail rich spiritual rewards.

T. M. Moore, Principal

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