Beholding Divine Beauty: A Reflection on the Transcendent and the Beatific Vision

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God is the source and summit of beauty; He attains to beauty’s perfection always and forever. C.S. Lewis expounds on this in his masterpiece Till We Have Faces, where the main character, aware of her unworthiness, encounters God:

“And he was coming. The most dreadful, the most beautiful, the only dread and beauty there is, was coming. The pillars on the far side of the pool flushed with his approach. I cast down my eyes” (C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (San Francisco: HarperOne, 14 February 2017), 146.).

Similarly, Peter, James, and John experienced the overwhelming effect of God’s beauty on the Mountain of Transfiguration. In awe of Christ’s revealed glory, they were “overcome by sleep” (Luke 9:32).

Our hearts burn with longing to gaze upon His loveliness, which is why Heaven is called the beatific vision: our truest bliss will come when we see God face to face. Yet, as the Catechism states, “Because of his transcendence, God cannot be seen as He is, unless He Himself opens up His mystery to man's immediate contemplation and gives him the capacity for it” (CCC, 1028.). His beauty is so great that, in our sinfulness, we cannot comprehend it on our own.

Thankfully, God provides us with evidence of His beauty and ample opportunities to contemplate it. All of creation, especially humanity, made in His image and likeness, reflects this beauty (CCC, 341). There is a cozy, familiar beauty in the hidden life of a home and in peaceful, honorable interactions with nature and people. This kind of beauty is essential to us as rational beings, as creatures of habit who inhabit the world.

Yet, there is another beauty, equally necessary for our souls: the beauty of the transcendent, which most closely points us to Beauty itself. We need to be overwhelmed by a sense of wonder and awe at that which is beyond us: the glory of the sunrise or the stars, the infused holiness of a master iconographer’s work, the otherworldly serenity of Gregorian chant, and the austerity of silent prayers in an incense-filled sanctuary.

We are starved of this experience in our everyday lives, living in cities drenched with artificial light, saturated with the noise of traffic, devoid of reverent Eucharistic processions, and berated with banal images of pornography, propaganda, and mediocre art.

Let us, then, seek out the transcendent where it may be found or created—not in an immoderate hunger for aesthetic bodily pleasures, but in a true desire to humble ourselves before a beauty surpassing our own.

Where do we turn? Where ought true artists, those connoisseurs of beauty, first direct their efforts? Let us offer our gifts back to their Creator, reflecting God’s transcendent beauty to Him in the Mass. Let us once again reflect in our worship not the gaudy worldliness of our culture, but that supreme Beauty in whose glorious image we are fashioned. In doing so, may we glimpse a foretaste of Heaven, strengthen our desire for the bliss of the beatific vision, and be formed to show forth a reflection of God’s beauty in every aspect of our lives.

Written by Elijah McMahon

I am a created entity, not a person.

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