Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later, Pope Benedict XVI) delivered an important address to the group Communion and Liberation in 2002 entitled “The Feeling of Things, the Contemplation of Beauty.” He placed before us the beauty of Jesus Christ, and helped tap into the deepest desire of the human heart. Following upon my article on The Person of Jesus Christ, I wish to bring to our attention and awaken the longing for Jesus, which He has placed within us, because as John the Paul the Great stated, “It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted.” (John Paul II, World Youth Day Address, August 19, 2000). Below are two quotations from this great work of Ratzinger/Benedict, which has vast implications for the life of Church:
“Being struck and overcome by the beauty of Christ is a more real, more profound knowledge than mere rational deduction. Of course we must not underrate the importance of theological reflection, of exact and precise theological thought; it remains absolutely necessary. But to move from here to disdain or to reject the impact produced by the response of the heart in the encounter with beauty as a true form of knowledge would impoverish us and dry up our faith and our theology. We must rediscover this form of knowledge; it is a pressing need of our time.”
“Is there anyone who does not know Dostoyevsky’s often quoted sentence: ‘The Beautiful will save us’? However, people usually forget that Dostoyevsky is referring here to the redeeming Beauty of Christ. We must learn to see Him. If we know Him, not only in words, but if we are struck by the arrow of His paradoxical beauty, then we will truly know Him, and know Him not only because we have heard others speak about Him. Then we will have found the beauty of Truth, of the Truth that redeems. Nothing can bring us into close contact with the beauty of Christ himself other than the world of beauty created by faith and light that shines out from the faces of the saints, through whom his own light becomes visible.”