Unexpected Olympic Grace

By John D. O’Brien, S.J.

There are many things I don’t like about great bloated spectacle known as the Olympic Games, but these gripes have been better articulated elsewhere. Instead, I’d like to focus on one moment of the Sochi Olympics: Yuna Kim’s silver-winning performance in figure skating, which has generated both controversy – nearly two million have signed a petition calling for an investigation into the judging – and inspiration. Her performances are always impressive for their athleticism alone, but Yuna Kim has that extra je-ne-sais-quoi. We might call it beauty; we might call it grace. In any case, she shines, and well beyond the arena ice.

Autumn: Beauty Falls Upon Us

By Santiago Rodriguez, S.J.

Credit: www.layoutsparks.com

Blue. Wide blue skies. That is all we’ve had here in Wisconsin for the last few days. The earth is brown and rich, and gardens remain colourful and attractive. The air is crisp and invigorating. Yet a new fragrance is on its way. Autumn has fallen upon us. Soon, things will begin to change. Autumn has a way to come to the trees and strip them down. But the wind will not scatter the leaves until they have delighted and amused us with their many colours.

Helping to Germinate the Kingdom of God: Young Adults and the Mystery of the Church

By Santiago Rodriguez, S.J.

Photo: http://catholicnews.com

“The Church is not a country club for saints, but a hospital for sinners!” I have pondered this statement many times. I have considered it as I think about what the Church is and is not. The Church is neither a club or a hospital. It is not a sacrament dispenser, a spiritual service provider or a Sunday show. The Church is the Body of Christ, “a people made one with the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Eph 1:4-5). As the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium (LG) of the Second Vatican Council stated, the mystery of the Church is manifested in its own foundation. The Lord Jesus set the Church to build the kingdom of God, which began with him, and continues to germinate and grow in all nations. The Church is not an end in itself. As our Pope Emeritus has often said, the mission of the Church is to carry on what Jesus started, to act as Jesus would act. As Lumen Gentium expresses, the Church is a sheepfold whose one and indispensable door is Christ (LG 26).

I recently began to ask young adults about how well the Church is living out such a mission: what they perceive as the Church's strengths and limits; the ways they have experienced consolation and desolation through the Church, that is, an increase or decreased in faith, hope and love. This question came as a I prayed with the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. In the First Exercise of the First Week, or the first phase of the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius invites us to contemplate: “What I have done for Christ, what I am doing for Christ, and what I ought to do for Christ?” This contemplation led me to ask the same of the Church.

Hopkins Continued: What is Beauty?

By Eric Hanna, S.J.

content.eyeslipsface.com

What is it that makes something beautiful? I'll be using some images I've created along with the insights of Gerard Manley Hopkins to explore this idea.

People have differed greatly on this topic. From antiquity, some have argued that beauty is based on symmetry, number, and proportion. Others argue that beauty comes from a creative spark, the inspiration of genius. In our contemporary context, many dismiss beauty as relative, purely a matter of cultural norms. The rule is de gustibus non disputandem: there's no accounting for taste.

Dostoevsky’s Prophetic Voice

By Artur Suski, S.J. 

Credit: www.deaconsteve.files.wordpress.com

At one point in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot, Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin declares in a heated discussion: "Beauty will save the world!" Judging from Dostoevsky’s own personal letters and other writings, it is no secret that Prince Myshkin represents all the qualities Dostoevsky deemed the best aspects of a human being. Therefore, one may safely assume that this short yet powerful statement in The Idiot is truly of Dostoevsky himself. After all, as one reads his writings, one is able to appreciate the beauty with which he wrote. Nevertheless, this statement is somewhat ambiguous and unclear. What does Dostoevsky really mean by this? The Russian author Vladimir Soloviev states that Dostoevsky understood beauty to be inseparable from the other two transcendentals of goodness and truth. In fact, Soloviev says it so well that I dare not paraphrase it:

Beauty, Where Art Thou?

By Artur Suski, S.J.

When I was pondering about what to write for my next blog entry, I happened to be listening to Mozart’s Symphony no. 41 in C major (“Jupiter”). There I was, listening to the first movement, with its interplay of upbeat rhythms led by a choir of violins, amidst the slow and lofty themes; all that kept coming to my mind was “what beauty!” I often do not have such reactions – surely a sign that I should listen to more Mozart – which made me reflect upon why this was so. Is it because I don’t intentionally seek out the beautiful? Or is it because today’s human-made world has lost its splendour and beauty? After all, how often do we hear people complementing anything today as ‘beautiful’? Perhaps I am out of touch with today’s culture of pop music, but I haven’t heard anyone describe any recent hits as 'beautiful'.

Take architecture as another example. Are there any contemporary buildings that can be described as 'beautiful'? ‘Interesting’ would be a better word. A friend of mine recently took a course on aesthetics, and the professor asked the students what they thought of the new design of the Royal Ontario Museum (the ROM). For those of you who have walked down Bloor Street in downtown Toronto, you may have noticed a somewhat older building with recently-added glass protrusions…what does it look like? Can one describe it as beautiful? (Un)surprisingly, no one in the class was able to describe the edifice as such.

The ROM

I may be completely wrong about this – as I await your comments – but it seems to me that today our contemporary culture has abandoned the 'beautiful' and embraced the practical or that which looks provocative; that is, what attracts attention to itself. Others say that they go for the symbolic: their creations ‘transcend’ beauty in order to express something more, an idea, or a message. It is assumed that they need to make their oeuvre stand out in some way; otherwise beauty is simply looked upon and quickly passed by, without being given another thought.