When humanity recognizes the beautiful, they see a glimpse of God. Beauty is complex; it is a participation in the Divine, as truth and love also participate. These glimpses are all around us; we merely have to disconnect for a mere second from the chains of the noise of our techno-modern society and in the silence feel the cool spring breeze, see the vibrant red of a cardinal and listen to his dawn chorus.
What most experience as the beautiful is rather their limited understanding of it. We come to experience the beautiful as it is measured in physical being, but beauty is a concept that is understood—abstracted from the sensible or perhaps revealed. Does beauty have its own form or does our understanding simply reveal that of the source of all that is beautiful?
What is it about the precision of a dance, the awe from the movement of a marching soldier, the order to the liturgy, and the rising and setting of the sun that man can abstract the beautiful?
Beauty as a concept is debated among philosophers; whether it is a form, a transcendental, or a participation. Perhaps, the most appealing aspect of beauty is its mystery. Does it then become a tautology, if beauty is a mystery and mystery is beautiful? Beauty is what stirs the soul to take the leap into the mystery of faith; whether it be faith in God or that of the love of a paramour. And yet, it is the relationship of beauty with measuring values that lend its connection to Truth
pilgrimsofchrist.com 