The Secret of Beauty

            There are a few pictures of the same event that have been floating around for quite some time now. In these pictures there is an old woman who has wrinkles on her face from all the smiles throughout her lifetime, who looks frail because her body is starting to tire from all the hard work and giving she has done, and whose hair I am sure has become white with age. There is also a young woman in this picture as well. She is about two feet taller than the old woman, is wearing a beautiful outfit on her youthful body, and a pearly white smile is spread across her face as she encounters this old woman. These pictures were taken 17 years ago of Mother Teresa and Princess Diana. Although popular culture states that in order to be beautiful we must look like Lady Diana, when we looks at this picture we cannot help but come to the realization that both these women are absolutely beautiful. 

            How could both of these women be so beautiful? By today’s standards Mother Teresa does not seem to be a woman that most magazines would want on the front page, let alone someone they would even consider beautiful. She is old, frail, and her face is covered in many wrinkles. Yet, when people would talk with her, make eye contact, and see her smile light up her face each person would walk away claiming that this little old lady is, “the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” This seems to make no sense at all in today’s world. Popular culture will tell us that in order to be beautiful we must be a Princess Diana: tall, thin, flawless, and most certainly not an old woman with wrinkles upon her face. Yet so many people still continued to claim that BOTH of these women are beautiful.

            How could this be? Well, the body is the physical reflection of the soul and the eyes are the very gateway to the soul (SOURCE). By seeing Mother Teresa people were seeing her soul, a soul that was engraved so deeply with the love of God. What made her so beautiful is that as she herself said, “I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” Through this quote and her many other understandings of love, Mother Teresa was herself reflecting Love and the beauty of Love. That is why Mother Teresa is seen as the most beautiful woman in the world. Through her hands she gave all she could to help others as Jesus did, through her eyes she looked at the worth of others, through her words she expressed how we must love one another. Her soul was saturated with beautiful love and so her appearance reflected this beauty. St. Augustine understood this when he said, “love is the beauty of the soul.”

Think about it this way: everyone we meet sees us first by appearance, but as we get to know one another our appearances change by the simple way of how we love. We start to see honesty, purity, patience, intelligence, humor, and so many more beautiful gifts that make up our personality. We start to see this person differently. Others start to see what we sometimes cannot see in ourselves. Where we might see a crooked smile our friends see happiness and joy emanating from that very smile. These gifts of our personality that God has given us shine through our physical appearance and when transformed by grace, the light of Christ shines through us with all His beauty and splendor.  

           

Our Lady of Medjugorje was said to appear to Jelena, one of the visionaries, who asked her, “My Lady, why are you so beautiful?” Our Lady answered, “I am beautiful because I love. You want to become beautiful, love and you will not need the mirror so much.” Mirjana, another visionary, when asked how beautiful Our Mother is stated, “That it is not only the superficial beauty that you see from the outside. That something is radiating out of her.” Time and time again we see that if we want to be beautiful we must love.  

            This seems almost impossible that in order to be beautiful we simply have to love. How is this done practically though? Well, we must start off by deepening our relationship with Love (and Beauty!) Himself. Through opening our hearts more and more to God we make more room for Him each day anew. Like Mother Teresa said, “love until it hurts.” When we welcome God more and more we start to receive more graces in order to grow within our faith and love. By doing this we will better recognize little ways we can love others. Instead of scrolling through our Facebook newsfeed to judge others, we will start turning off our computers and volunteering at our churches or read the Bible, etc. We will start listening more to others and looking at them in the eyes instead of only allowing just our voice to be heard. We will start to give more to the poor instead of buying the newest iPhone or television set. We will stop gossiping and start saying nice things about everyone we meet. We will even start to forgive others as well. As we continue to do these “small things with great love” we will begin to seek virtue and avoid vice. We will begin to love more and hate less. In essence we will become beautiful because love will start to emanate through us and others will see just that, beauty transformed by grace.

A sister in Christ