There are certain images in holy Scriptures, in the teachings of the Church, and in the writings of the Saints, in essence there are images consisting of words found in the Catholic Faith, of a beauty that is breathtaking and which, this beauty that irradiates like a splendid, tranquil, and warm light over the whole universe, and which cannot be described, explained or wholly articulated in words for our language, vanishes in the glory of faith that only an intuition peculiar to the human heart can perceive – gently, as the embrace of a beloved friend on a cool Summer dusk, a twilight that is at once a dawn, an end that is also a beginning, a passing moment that, somehow, reminds one of the everlasting now.
With this intuition we know that these images, because of their object, are not ephemeral like the aesthetic ghosts that dance in the ballrooms of our minds, decorated with our thoughts and longings, a statue here dedicated to a forgotten love, a tree there confused for a god, all a pool whose clear reflection somehow distorts in part what we see and what we recall. No, the images of our Faith are not like so. For unlike the inner tapestry of dull thought and colourful imagination, of time lost and time hoped for, unlike the translucent form of our own collection of ideas, stored on pedestals like ancient busts, some ivory clean, others dirty rocks, these images of faith are given to us, from outside ourselves, as gifts to aid us in our primordial and eternal longing for Love Eternal.
Turning our heart’s gaze to the eyes of He who appears to us from afar and in whose eyes we read the unchanging words – “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jer 31:3), let us awe at the majesty and glory, the just beauty – always ancient and always new (St Augustine) – of our dear and good God.
Christ and His angels
“Christ is the centre of the angelic world” (CCC 331). The immense beauty and the sweet depth of the truth contained by this image, as a child is held in a cradle, point to the incomprehensible dimensions of what St Paul called “the depths of the richness of the wisdom and knowledge of God” (Rom 11:33). It is indeed in such revealed truths, in such corners of this unfathomable reality that is rooted in God, that the full force of beauty is on display: beauty is an expression of the good (St John Paul II), otherwise beauty is not beautiful but a demoralising lie.
Our Lord is the centre of the angelic world, that most mysterious and awesome world of spirits, with an intellect far surpassing the greatest genius of mankind (St Therese of Lisieux), perhaps greater and clearer than all that can be known about the visible universe. It is only natural that such intellectually powerful beings of spirit be around the Heart of Jesus where all the treasures of wisdom are hidden (Litany of the Sacred Heart).
“When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him” (Matt 25:31), to judge the living and the dead (Apostles Creed) with righteousness and equity (cf Ps 98:9). However, until then, God – through Jesus Christ – made and appointed for each one of us a Guardian Angel, to look after us and guide us in the path of the Lord: “He will give his angels charge of you to guard you in all your ways” (Ps 91:11). How beautiful our Guardian Angels must be! And how full of courage and power they must be to shield us with their wings from the legions of evil, from the swarms of temptation and intrusive thoughts!
The Eternal Eyes
All that we do, we do under the gaze of God, of those “Eternal Eyes” (St Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life). Those eyes of divine love which looked at St Peter from the door of pain and death (cf Luke 22:61), “those eyes desired which are sketched in my heart” (St John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle).
The words of the Psalmist are true indeed: “My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek” (Ps 27:8). How could we seek the face of God if God did not have one? “God is spirit” and “no one has seen God” (John 4:24, John 1:18), and yet Jesus has said: “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
Is it not the face of the Word made flesh (cf John 1:14) that St Veronica wiped, as we commemorate in the sixth Station of the Cross? Are not the eternal eyes of the One who is “true God and true man” (Nicene Creed) who beheld from the Cross His Mother and His beloved Apostle when He said: “Woman behold thy son” and who is now “at the right hand of God the Father” (Nicene Creed)?
And indeed, are not those the eyes behind the face of every person we meet in whose glance we catch that glimpse of a divine presence as our hearts whisper: “Lord…”
Living Flame of Love
Without doubt, one of the most beautiful images we have to remind us of who God is, to embody in our minds the shape of the Holy Spirit who descended upon the Apostles as tongues of fire, right before the virgin gaze of Mary (cf Acts 2:3), comes from the poetry of St John of the Cross, especially from the poem entitled “The Living Flame of Love”.
There is nothing I can say about this poem that is better than the commentary of St John himself, so I shall simply cite the poem here.
“Oh, living flame of love
That tenderly woundest my soul in its deepest centre,
Since thou art no longer oppressive, perfect me now if it be thy will,
Break the web of this sweet encounter.
Oh, sweet burn! Oh, delectable wound!
Oh, soft hand! Oh, delicate touch
That savours of eternal life and pays every debt!
In slaying, thou hast changed death into life.
O lamps of fire! in whose splendours
The deep caverns of feeling,
Once obscure and blind,
Now give forth, so rarely, so exquisitely,
Both warmth and light to their Beloved.
How gently and lovingly you wake in my heart,
Where in secret you dwell alone;
And in your sweet breathing,
Filled with good and glory,
How tenderly You swell my heart with love.”
There are many such images of faith throughout holy Scriptures, the prayers of the Church, and the writings of the Saints that remind us of who God is and what He has done for us. As St Ignatius of Loyola shows in his “Spiritual Exercises”, meditating upon images of faith can help us get closer to God. However, it is always important to not be attached to any of these images, for these are mere concepts of He who is (cf Exo 3:14), the living God (cf Jer 10:10), who is beyond all objects – material and immaterial – and beyond all understanding. Only love can make us approach Him, for love makes us akin to Him (cf 1 John 4:1-21).
Image credit: Luc-Olivier Merson, Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 1880
Nihil Sine Deo 