Last year I had the privilege of participating in a panel discussion with Fr. Patrick Cardine and Nazo Zakkak on the role of beauty in worship. During my part of the presentation I considered the importance of beauty in church services. That presentation, which is now available online here, opened with this observation:
Our faith is strengthened by learning about our religion. But upstream of learning is something else. What is it that makes us want to learn about the faith in the first place? Some people would say the answer has to do with the truth of Christianity: we recognize that Christianity is correct and so we want to learn about it. But that doesn’t quite get to the heart of things. There are millions of people who simply don’t care whether Christianity is true, and still many others who recognize the truth of Christianity but don’t care to learn more about it. What makes us care about the truth of Christianity, and want to learn more about it?
We could ask the same question regarding action. Our faith is strengthened through obedience to God as we internalize the norms of piety through good habits, right action, and prayer. But why is someone incentivized to live a life of piety in the first place? Some people would answer that it has something to do with future rewards. But that is only partially correct. What is it that makes the idea of heaven attractive in the first place – so attractive that we would give up the temptations of this world to prepare for the life to come through faith, piety and obedience?
The answer, of course, is beauty. Upstream from our desire to learn about and practice the faith is the awareness that Christ is desirable, that the life he calls us into is beautiful.
