As part of our discernment, the committee has been discussing the concept of “noble beauty.” In some ways this discussion echoes the Supreme Court’s decision saying “We’ll know it when we see it.” The Supremes were talking about another topic, but the idea that a description can be limiting is important.
For me, noble beauty is the use of the best available materials and best available workmanship to create something that works for greater glory to God. We must ask ourselves, “Who are we saving the best for if not for God.” This echoes what Jesus himself said in the Gospel of John which we heard last Monday:
Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. Then Judas the Iscariot, one (of) his disciples, and the one who would betray him, said, “Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days’ wages and given to the poor?” He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and held the money bag and used to steal the contributions. So Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” (John 12:2-10)
This doesn’t mean that the committee can go wild. For example, we can’t spend the entire budget on a solid gold baptismal font. But we can insist that beautiful and noble materials be used for our church. If the committee gets it right, we’ll all know it when we see it.
For example, this is noble beauty:
This is not noble beauty:
Here’s a quote form JPII’s Letter to Artists:
The artistic vocation in the service of beauty
3. A noted Polish poet, Cyprian Norwid, wrote that “beauty is to enthuse us for work, and work is to raise us up”.(3)
The theme of beauty is decisive for a discourse on art. It was already present when I stressed God’s delighted gaze upon creation. In perceiving that all he had created was good, God saw that it was beautiful as well.(4) The link between good and beautiful stirs fruitful reflection. In a certain sense, beauty is the visible form of the good, just as the good is the metaphysical condition of beauty. This was well understood by the Greeks who, by fusing the two concepts, coined a term which embraces both: kalokagathía, or beauty-goodness. On this point Plato writes: “The power of the Good has taken refuge in the nature of the Beautiful”.(5)
I also like this:
“All kinds of beauty do not inspire love; there is a kind which only pleases the sight, but does not captivate the affections. ”
(Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra)
This makes me think that “noble beauty” is a beauty that captivates the deepest affection in the human heart- the desire for God.
When I read the quote by Cyprian Norwid, (above) I couldn’t help remembering the words of Christ:
“He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood will have life eternal, and I will raise him up on the last day”
He “will raise us up”
So in saying that beauty should “enthuse” us to do the work that “will raise us up” I understand that beauty, if it is noble, instills in us a desire to commune with Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
[...] our Catholic churches have been designed as places of peaceful beauty for two reasons: First, because we instinctively know that God is the Creator of all that is [...]
[...] our Catholic churches have been designed as places of peaceful beauty for two reasons: First, because we instinctively know that God is the Creator of all that is [...]