Letter from the Pastor
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May 2, 2024May is such a beautiful month. It’s beautiful for many reasons. Primarily, it is dedicated to the most beautiful of all human beings; our Blessed Lady. The flowers and trees are now in full bloom, the grass is green, even the air is becoming lighter. The earth is fully alive. That is why Easter is in the springtime-the season of new life and beauty.
We are still in Eastertide. Pentecost ends the season of Easter on May 19th. Until then we still rejoice in the fact that death has lost its sting. Death does not have the last word, life does. Even nature attests to it, from the dead of winter comes the new life in spring.
God is life, and we enjoy a foretaste of it here on earth when we see, or hear something beautiful, when we are overwhelmed with awe or joy. Nature is God’s artwork; it is His painting, His symphony. Music, it is said, is beauty that can’t be put into words.
Last Sunday, after the parish baptisms, there was a little girl around age 3 squatting down as only a toddler can manage, looking intently at the tulips in front of the Church, while her father was on his phone. She was there staring at the colors and beauty of the flowers, then she gently started to touch them and leaned over to smell the tulips. For her, the whole world was passing by, but she stopped and saw beauty.
One of the ways to experience and know God is through beauty. Real beauty draws us up and out of ourselves; it connects us to realities that are otherworldly. It makes holy our world, even if only for a moment. That little girl experienced it, while the father was on his phone, checking the things of this world.
Beauty can be admired. It can inspire us to have a sense of gratitude or awe. But it cannot be consumed as a product. Beauty isn’t practical, except it invites and elevates the soul and reminds us what it means to be human. Beauty communicates the mystery of an invisible reality—God. And that little girl wanted to experience it. She wanted to hold on to it. She saw her cousin being baptized in Church; a beautiful moment, then she went outside to experience God in His cathedral-Nature.
We need beauty in our life and especially in our children. Beauty triggers our imagination; it helps guide our scientific instincts, and see God’s reality, clearly and directly. Beauty reminds us that higher realities do exist; and that we can know them, live, and experience them.
Unfortunately, when school boards have to decide what to cut out of their budgets, the first to go usually is Fine Arts. It is always a terrible mistake. Children need to see, feel, touch, and hear beautiful things. Beauty feeds the mind, and makes the person wonder, which leads to the scientific and the concrete.
I also think it is so important and beneficial for kids to be outdoors as much as possible. They need to be surrounded with beautiful and living things, each of them a mystery.
If you notice, there is a tulip flower missing from the front of the Church!
Go outside and enjoy the beauty, which surrounds you.
