The beauty of Faith is that first of all, it is opposed to sin, which offends God and disfigures the work of creation.
Newsroom(30/05/2022 14:25, Gaudium Press) Because of its relationship with Eucharistic worship, it seemed opportune to me to reproduce, with some adjustments, a reflection I wrote eleven years ago for the magazine “Celebrar“, published by the Liturgy Commission of the Episcopal Conference of Ecuador. A decade later, the writing remains current and pertinent; it was entitled “Communicating the Beauty of the Faith”:
“In his message to the National Assembly of Italian Catholic Action, Pope Benedict XVI encouraged the laity to offer the beauty of the Faith to the world: “I ask you to be generous, supportive and, above all, communicators of the beauty of the Faith” (09/05/2011). This request is addressed to the whole Church, although in the context of the moment it is the laity of Catholic Action who are exhorted. Every member of the Church, whether cleric or lay person, must communicate this beauty.
The beauty of the Faith is neither perceived nor communicated as a collection of venerable truths that are accepted as if they were a burden, nor of those that cannot be denied under penalty of falling into heresy… The beauty of the Faith is translated for the faithful into a choice, in an assumed life. It presupposes a conversion of heart which necessarily follows a personal encounter with Christ, the Lord. Pope Benedict tells us in his first encyclical: “One does not begin to be a Christian by an ethical decision or a great idea, but by the encounter with an event, a Person, Who gives life a new horizon and with it a decisive direction” (Deus Caritas Est, n. 1, 25/12/2005).
Man is mind and heart; he must open himself to God’s love with delight without falling into the arbitrariness of subjectivism, or imprisoning himself behind the bars of a sterile rationalism. Receiving God’s gift means accepting it in order to then reciprocate and also give it, because love asks for a response. This is the key of Christian revelation that we have sometimes restricted to dogmatic truths and disciplinary norms; it is consciousness, through the symbolic and the intellectual, that becomes conduct. How closely related are music and art – to refer to these aspects of Christian witness – to Faith and to its intrinsic beauty! In fact, to speak of the Beauty of Faith is almost a pleonasm; for its originality, its coherence, its subtlety, its splendid richness, Faith is beautiful.
But it is not communicated only by passionate hearts. It is also transmitted by a set of institutions, customs, laws, which the Church has been assimilating, living and codifying for two thousand years, in a journey in which the old and the new go hand in hand to advance together. That is why the laws and norms that come from the Church cannot be underestimated, as if they were snares that cut off the impetus of the soul that wants to rise towards God. It is precisely the opposite: the norm and the law help us to fly, giving us a basis for our flight; they are a guide, a sure pattern of inspiration which guarantees orthodoxy. They themselves are a “bearable yoke and a light weight” (cf. Mt 11:30).
Sacred art, in its various manifestations in conformity with the wise ecclesial norms, is a precious and living patrimony of that “sense of union with the Church” which leads the faithful to transmit the Faith. It is like the structure that gives rise to feeling so that it can be translated into conviction. And when sensitivity does not accompany it – which often happens – the normative fixes the mind on a safe path, preventing it from relativizing the Faith. Attention: we are not communicators of sentiments nor inflators of fervour. We are simply convinced witnesses and a field of action of the Holy Spirit, Who is the only Sanctifier.
Therefore, it is not by chance that a melody played during a liturgical celebration be a certain way, or that the altar or the ambo of the temple be in harmony with the mysteries being celebrated. Tangible signs and symbols signify and symbolize the divine, itself so ineffable; they are necessary and indispensable. The aphorism “Lex orandi, lex credendi” is a basic principle of liturgical theology: “the law of praying establishes the law of believing” or, in other words: “as you pray, so you believe”. How important the norm is! How easy it is to disfigure the Faith!
In today’s secularized world, the rules of divine worship and the discipline of the Sacraments – duly respected and loved- (laws, rubrics and venerable customs) support and communicate the beauty of the Faith.
A privileged vehicle for transmitting the pulchritude of the Faith is certainly the Eucharistic liturgy. For this reason, when we evaluate what the Mass is, we conclude that beauty must be an essential attribute of its celebration.
The beauty of the Faith is first of all opposed to sin, which offends God and disfigures the work of creation. And, on a more operational level of disfigurement, exist such things as improvisation, carelessness, vulgarity, bad taste, arrogant protagonism…
There are those who think that the commitment to beauty is explained in historic cathedrals or sanctuaries that receive many visitors and resources, and not, for example, in humble chapels in the jungles of the Amazon. This is not so.
Beauty does not imply wealth, much less luxury; it is not a benefit for a privileged few, but a requirement of first necessity for all. Furthermore, promotion in education and culture – which goes hand in hand with beauty – is a human right that the Church defends in mission territories. Beauty well conceived as a metaphysical value and with its material reflections, beyond the merely aesthetic, is an open window to the transcendent… to God.
Eucharistic celebrations must not be battered by pauperism or mediocrity; the liturgy is not the private property of the officiant or the people. If a temple is neglected or a Mass is celebrated in any old way, what remains of that acclamation that is due to God: “all honour and all glory”?
Mairiporã, Brazil, May 2022.
Compiled by Sandra Chisholm