Waking Me with Splendor ~

You reflect Your beauty to me through Your creatures.

Beauty at the Clothesline ~

Stood there having a cigarette, looked askance and saw this . . .

A Day in July ~

You burn Your beauty into me. . .

Inside St. Peter's Basilica ~ Pietà

Her head bent, looking at her misery she holds on her lap. She is composed. She accepts, she consents. It seems as if she has breathed out, her heartbeat diastolic. She is all inward, she is weightless. Michaelangelo has focused all her sorrow in her face. In capturing her suffering he has made a universal image of the noble beauty that only suffering can bring about.

Beauty ~

I look into faces and find that the most beautiful are those that have suffered most.

Over the Ocean

Purring through the night across the ocean at an altitude of 12,000 meters and speeding at 850 km/h I sat in stillness writing these impressions. When morning light came I looked out across an endless majestic carpet of clouds on which landscapes of hills, towers and mountains were formed, all energized by a bright light only seen up this high. I thought the psalmist must have imagined a sight like this when he was composing his praises to God for his wonderful creation. With him I thanked God for all the beauty that He had allowed me to see.

Philadephia, Pennsylvania ~ Museum of Fine Arts ~

She was seen in a church hall in her traditional Black Forest costume but instead of a prayer book she was holding a musical instrument she was about to play for the birthday celebration of the local parish priest. I remember the demure glance askance, the modest dropping of the eyes.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Mass in a Greek Orthodox church. The priest spoke movingly about Mary in aesthetic terms, telling that it was her beauty resulted in her becoming the fitting tabernacle God chose to house Himself in.

Finding Words for What We Know ~

These few perceptive words I heard spoken yesterday: "It is a loving sustained attention that reveals beauty."

Being in Love ~

I said to myself that the girl I saw yesterday in church just had to be in love. Her whole being had a kind of radiance about it. She was completely concentrated and occupied in thought. After church she mingled in the crowd outside and everyone seemed attracted to her and would light up when she looked at them and spoke. Oh how love energizes!

Face of the Newly Born ~

There is no end to looking — We look and look at a baby's face and can never get enough. What is it that we see? Is it something virginal, unspotted, something beautiful that was ours that we have lost and are seeing there again for a limited time, knowing that it will soon disappear?

Out in the Fields ~

It was on a hillside, a beautiful long meadow where the wild orchids were in full bloom. Our group admired them at the side of the path and then ventured into the fields deeper to get pictures and get a close view. An expert told us about the many varieties and the dangers from pesticides and acids. You felt as if they were now yours if you were able to identify them and name them.

I felt the elusiveness of the beauty of flowers. It is for us to see, to enjoy, but their beauty remains apart from us. It belongs to God alone, and He is beyond all possession.