For from the greatness and the beauty of created things
their original author, by analogy, is seen.
—Wisdom 13:5The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing…to find the place where all the beauty came from.
—C.S. Lewis
Sometimes the beauty of creation is dazzlingly obvious, shining forth from a sunrise or floating toward us like falling leaves. Sometimes it hides within the fabric of our ordinary lives: the sound of a baby’s laugh amid a crowded subway, the unexpected rush of getting caught in the rain. But His beauty is always present.
Beauty takes us out of ourselves and makes us aware of something much greater. True beauty nudges us to pause and forget our self-centered concerns, to realize that something pure and true and lovely exists—and that we are embedded within it. The culture’s version of beauty is something different—it tells us that we are never enough, that we are not as beautiful as the pictures we see in billboards and magazines and social media. But true beauty does not make us feel less beautiful. True beauty speaks to our souls and helps us understand that we, too, are created by Beauty.
In the coming days, may we become more attuned to the beauty that surrounds us and give thanks for each moment of beauty we encounter. Let us have the eyes to see the beauty in one another and allow ourselves to be vessels of God’s beauty in the world.
Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth: “The world was made for the glory of God.” St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things “not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it,” for God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: “Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand.”
—Catechism of the Catholic Church 293
work in progress 