Under old business, something I was reading last night was very apropos of our discussions of beauty and its role in the spiritual life a short time ago. The first was a reference to Christian Mystic Simone Weil who believed that beauty is God's lure to attract us to him. This was used by theologian Henri Nouwen in explaining the significant role Rembrandt's painting "Return of the Prodigal Son" had on his life. Second was the discovery of a public letter John Paul II wrote to artists emphasizing the role art and beauty play in fulfilling the church's mission. He quotes the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, for example,
"Beauty is the last word that the thinking intellect dares to speak, because it simply forms a halo, an untouchable crown around the double constellation of the true and the good and their inseparable relation to one another."
So beauty, truth, the good are all connected.
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