Finding Beauty

"It was . . . it was . . . I don't know how to put it, but it was beautiful." This was the comment by a visitor to our Sunday Mass at St. George in Republic, Missouri. The funny thing is, it was said years ago when I celebrated Mass in a little chapel that was definitely not "beautiful". Since then, we have moved into a different building, but it still is pretty plain and looks less then the wonderful church's of the middle ages. Do not get me wrong, my parishioners and I are all thankful for what we have been given, but we also know that we do not have a full sized gothic Church building (yet).

What, then, was he saying was "beautiful"? After speaking with him afterward, he still could not specifically tell me what it was that impressed him. It seemed to be somewhat "inexplicable". It reminded me of the time a friend in high school was talking about a girl that he liked, and I asked him to explain to me what he saw in her. He could not explain what it was. Beauty is not usually something that we can put into words. "The sum total of all the parts" are what make up beauty; it is not really one particular thing.

Beauty really is not definable, but there is something attractive about it. It draws us in and touches us at the deepest levels. It touches us at the levels of our souls that we cannot explain. Beauty is orderly; chaos is never beautiful. Beauty is better than what is common--it is not "ordinary" or "plain". Beauty stands out, even to someone who has never experienced it before. Beauty goes along with those other two goals of Christendom: truth and goodness. All three must be seen in the liturgy if we are going to reflect the reality of God. Furthermore, there is something about the ancient English Catholic manner of the liturgy that inspires people to see things in a different light.

A priest friend of mine said to me once that the Divine Worship form of the Mass was "remarkably similar to the Extraordinary Form". It is not as though Divine Worship is merely an English translation of the Traditional Latin Mass (though many parts sound that way). It is the "inexplicable" parts of the Mass that I am referring to. The mannerisms and the sense of reverence that cannot be described merely by a few rubrics.

This is what drew me into the Anglican church so many years ago. I believe it was Fyodor Dostoevsky who said "beauty will save the world". I saw beauty and order in the Book of Common Prayer (even before I was using the American Missal [an Anglican adaptation of the Book of Common Prayer to bring it more into line with the Traditional Latin Mass]). We all need beauty and we seek it in various ways. Some people, unfortunately seek it in the wrong places. They have been taught (by the world) to accept ugliness where there should be beauty, and look for beauty where it is not necessary.

Once again, the Mass must be "truth, goodness and beauty". If any one of them is lacking then the others will suffer. Ugliness misrepresents truth. Sinfulness misrepresents beauty. Lies misrepresent goodness. We might deny this, but we cannot escape it. As the Psalms tell us: "worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness".