“God endowed you with a glory when he created you, a glory so deep and mythic that all creation pales in comparison. A glory unique to you…”
-John Eldredge, Waking the Dead
Beauty. Beauty is powerful. Beauty has to be one of God’s top wooing techniques. It consoles and inspires. It comforts. It invites. Beauty simply draws us to Him. One of my favorite things to do is walk slowly and freely somewhere out in the country where it is quiet and unpolluted by cars or roads or buildings or manufactured noises. Just simply walking and listening to the wind in the tall grass and hearing the symphony of creation that surrounds me. It turns my heart to the Divine Lover every time. Everything inside of me relaxes and I am at peace – even if chaos was swirling around me minutes before. In those moments, His presence is so close that it is almost palpable. He woos my heart with beauty and He invites me into His Presence through it. I love moments like that.
A few days ago I did a Google search with the word “beauty” and do you know what EVERY picture was? A woman. Not a perfectly blossomed rose, not a gorgeous sunset with its burning reds and deep purples, not even the night sky studded with stars. A woman. Interesting, isn’t it? Women, in their very being, represent what is beautiful. It seems to be a universal truth. And it is true; we do have a unique beauty in our feminine genius. And I am not just talking physical beauty here. We as women unveil beauty through our being. Just as for me, walking through the beauty of the quiet and serene country land brings me in communion with the Divine, we as women have a special capacity for bringing others into an encounter with the Divine because we unveil truth about Him.
Woman was created as a “helper” to man (Gen 2:18)– but not just in the sense that she cooks and cleans, does the laundry and helps to raise the kids. She is also a “helper” in that she helps man (both the masculine gender as well as mankind) to realize his own identity and capacity for God.
Isn’t that an awe-some thought?
You. You do this. You are the gift the Lord has given the world by which man comes to understand his purpose and what he is created for. You reveal to him the spousal meaning of the body – that we are made for communion and union with another. Without you, man doesn’t understand that he exists for another and that his ultimate end is total union with God. That is part of the feminine genius. It is part of the beauty that is in the very essence of woman. That is part of your beauty. You, through the beauty of your very being, reveal this awesome mystery.
Just as a beautiful landscape or a night sky or walking through a field invites us into the presence of God, the beauty of our femininity invites others into an encounter with the Divine Beauty.
I was talking with one of my Sisters about this topic and she challenged me with this question, “Ok, so how do I, everyday, walking down the street, unveil Beauty to the people I meet? How do I invite others to encounter the Divine in my everyday circumstances?”
So let’s talk about it. What do you think?
-Sr. Elizabeth, TOR
You be you! By being the you the Father created you to be, you can reveal to the world the beauty that he created. You must not be fake, you must not lie, you must not put on a mask. You need only to be you and that you that he created to be in union with himself. Sooo, by being the real you, you reveal your union with Him. Now of course this is easier said than done. But, we can be begin by taking off the mask and looking deep down into ourselves to discover who our God created us to be.
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