River of Honest Inquiry

Mountain Stream, © 2018 by Gilbert

That to which one gives assent will rule his or her life. If 'that' be a lie, then falsehood will dominate the heart and mind of the person who chooses the path of shadows and contempt for truth. It 'that' be one of the transcendentals, then goodness, truth and beauty will occupy the mind and heart and enable the person to grow in holiness. Point of fact, any one of the transcendentals through which God may choose to pour His grace will blossom with the scent of the others: truth dawns in the soul as goodness and beauty; beauty as goodness; and so forth.

The possibility exists that, for the person who chooses evil—contraception, abortion, sexual perversity and so on—and who chooses to ignore its effects, such a person is far too close to hell not to be worried about his eternal destiny.

Man's faculty of choice is clouded, twisted by sin. If he is not vigilant, he will surrender himself to sin.

Let us turn to the Catechism for clarity. The Catechism states:

The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the “sources,” or constitutive elements, of the morality of human acts (CCC # 1750).

It is an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress, or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery. One may not do evil so that good may result from it (CCC # 1756).

For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: "Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent." (CCC1857)

Culpability is somewhat mitigated by the degree to which a person gives his or her consent. The deeper the consent, the greater the culpability. However, as the Catechism reminds:

There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object.

The astute and reliable Monsignor Charles Pope provides excellent guidance.

http://blog.adw.org/2016/04/together-now-catechism-say-assessing-moral-acts/

It is necessary to our moral and spiritual health to be confronted with the nuts and bolts of virtuous living, of moral behaviour: do this; do not do that. We need specific reminders of just how easy it is to fall into sin, and how to reorient ourselves to God.

Beauty, expressing the truth of man's condition, elevates the soul. Beauty invites one to surrender to God one's will and be conformed to Him. Beauty is a window through which the light of God is poured into a person's heart. Recall Michelangelo's Pietà. A mortally wounded Jesus is draped across His mother.

Michelangelo has given us at once a profoundly beautiful object to draw us to the mercy of God and the perfect love of the Mother of God, and a shocking reminder of the ugliness of sin, sin which Christ willingly took upon Himself for the sake of man's redemption.

The Prophet Isaiah 53:2-5

For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed.

Who but the crustiest curmudgeon whose heart has been fossilized by sin is not moved by the truth of the Pietà?

Catholics are chided for seeing beauty in the crucified Lord. It takes a heart illumined by grace to see beauty in Christ's sacrifice. Saint Teresa of Calcutta could see the face of Christ in the poorest of the poor, Christ in distressing disguise.

The crucifixes worn around our necks are a stumbling block to some who insist on the naked cross. True, Jesus is risen, the cross and death could not and did not defeat Him! It is not coincidence that those who make a point of wearing a naked cross seem less equipped to deal with suffering. The cross-with-corpus—let's just use the word crucifix—reminds us that a price has been paid for our salvation. The naked cross speaks to the Resurrection, but the crucifix challenges the wearer, and the observer, to consider the horrors of Holy Week, the brutal truth and cost of our rescue from sin and death.

The power of an image is determined by the degree to which it moves the viewer toward the reality it intends or signifies. Catholics have both the cross and the crucifix in our vocabulary. The beauty of the image of the Crucifixion, like the scene depicted by the Pietà, speaks of a "yes, but!..." exclamation. The world only sees a dead man. The believer knows what comes next—the Resurrection! Thus, the conversation widens from the truth of man's condition, his sins that led to the death of Jesus, to the glory of Christ's resurrection that follows.

The crucifix, the cross with corpus, is a question—'What do you see?' It leaves room for the answer the Holy Spirit speaks to one's heart. Beauty does this—it offers a question—'Do you see...?' Beauty offers a question that flows around the obstacles positioned by contemporary man that, like rocks in a river, cannot obstruct the river of honest inquiry.