God creating Adam as depicted by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel
What is a good example of spiritual beauty? I find this passage from St. Paul something inspiring. In Ephesians 3:17-21 he writes about what the love of Christ means:
“May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith, and may charity be the root and foundation of your life. Thus you will be able to grasp fully, with all the holy ones, the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love, and experience this love which surpasses all knowledge, so that you may attain to the fullness of God himself.”
I love this passage. The most powerful force I have ever experienced in my life has been this feeling of Christ’s love in my own heart. Once felt, nothing has ever compared. After first experiencing this many years ago, my life was changed forever. Since that time I have had my ups and down, my struggles and dark moments, but despite moments, even years of difficulties, I have never forgotten the sense of God’s diving love dwelling within me, not only then, but now. When I think about how St. Paul talks about this, almost 2,000 years ago, and how I have felt this love myself, and all the others throughout the world who have also felt this love, I realize the truth of all this. Faith can be difficult because we have never seen God, we have never seen Christ, we only have the testament of others, whether through the Gospel or in our own time or in those times between, as well as our own experiences. Yet this love Christ entering and dwelling in our hearts is so simple and yet so powerful. As St. Paul says, it “surpasses all knowledge”. When I doubt, and I do have my doubts at times, it strengthens me to remember that Christians have been witnessing to the love of Christ dwelling in their hearts for all these centuries now. There has to be something to it.
As powerful a force as eroticism and sexuality are, they are nothing compared to the love of Christ. Sex can be fleeing, even loving another person can be transitory, but the love of God lasts forever, in all places, times, circumstances, and even through all eternity. And when it comes to our material world, and the subject of sexual eroticism which I write about here, I have to admit that it is really only through the deep union of married love that we can find the greatest expression of a sexual, erotic love between two people. There is great beauty in that.
Married love is the best expression of erotic love.
But in order to experience this divine love, God does ask us to do one simple thing: to turn away from sin, to repent, to convert. Perhaps I have been trying to have it both ways in my life, trying to lead a life of sin, while wanting to feel the love of Christ in my heart. But God cannot dwell fully inside you if you are leading a life of sin. Perhaps I need to take off the old man and put on the new? I do know that when I am leading a sinful or degenerate life, I feel very distant from God and life seems harder. When I am close to God, life seems different, better, happy, hopeful, and warmed by love.
Faith, Hope and Love, and the greatest of these are Love, so St. Paul tells us, in I Corinthians 13:13. Yes, I believe that, and in love, whether divine or human, is the deepest form of spiritual beauty imaginable.
The Chase 
Thag Jones said:
This is really beautiful, Racer. Sometimes it’s all so clear, others it’s so easy to fall into old habits. I think I block off the idea of marriage for one reason or another, not the least of which is that I made such a balls-up of it when I did it and that I am getting a bit past it for the marriage market at this point so I might just be better off doing something else with my time, lol. It seems sort of pointless (selfish?) if I’m not going to be married to my children’s father and I’m too old to have more kids.
Anyway, when I do feel that love of and for Christ, I realize how small all our earthly attachments are, how restricting they can be if they are all we think we have. I’ve been on both sides of that fence and I have previously felt God’s presence most in my worst moments of despair (or when I’ve been ingesting certain illicit hallucinogens many moons ago, which I think just serves as a door opening tool, but that’s another topic). The difference now is that I keep that with me as much as I am capable before it gets to that stage any more.
Sometimes I think part all this modern angst is that we are made to experience that love with another human being, but we’ve made a mess of the social structure to the point that we’re all grabbing at scraps instead of having been married for the last 20 years by now (that applies if you’re about middle aged) and built a life and history with someone else, as well as grown children.
Racer X said:
Thag,
Thanks for the nice comment. Yes, I think the social structures of the last twenty years have made it more difficult for people to find a healthy, stable love through marriage. We have all been caught up in this, to one extent or another.
“I’ve been on both sides of that fence and I have previously felt God’s presence most in my worst moments of despair”
Same here.
I think so much of Christianity boils down to this: the love of Christ we carry in our hearts, a love which is supernatural in origin, yet more real than other type of love we can feel. Without this love our journey though the world as Christians would be impossible. I think it is this love we need to try to convey to others on a daily basis, as hard as that may seem sometimes. But God is always there to help us.
Kathy said:
“I’ve been on both sides of that fence and I have previously felt God’s presence most in my worst moments of despair”
“Same here. ”
And so too, has it been for me..
When I was carrying my baby who I knew was going to die at birth (neural tube defect) I felt the closest to God that I had ever felt in my entire life.
For it was he who was giving me the grace and strength to bear the unbearable. I prayed to him and Our blessed mother daily, for them to sustain me.
A defining moment for me was when I was on my way to mass one Sunday morning shortly after the devastating news that my baby had anencepaly..
All of a sudden I had this epiphany of sorts, and I broke down into uncontrollable sobs..
For God had given me this wonderful opportunity to prove my love for him, by accepting his divine will. And offering up my suffering to him..
After all he died for me on the cross.
Then this great wave of peace washed over me.
He did indeed give me the grace to endure my suffering.
People could not understand how I could smile. How I could be so calm and accepting.
Some said that I was an inspiration..
Ah but it wasn’t me.. Not in the least.. And I told them so too. It was my dear Lord.. It was him smiling. It was him interacting on a daily basis with others as if nothing was amiss.
In the morning when I would shower, it was me, then..
For it was then that my grief would surface. It would be there where no one but my Lord could hear my sobs of pain and see the copious tears that were shed and washed away..
Every morning would be the same… Then my Lord would pick me up and carry me through the rest of the day..
Such was the power of his grace and divine love.
So much pain….. So much love…
The two inextricably interwoven.
Never before had I endured such pain.
But, never before had I felt so close to God, either.
Racer X said:
Kathy,
Wow, that was a powerful story. Yes, it is a strange thing that sometimes we feel closest to God in those moments of the greatest pain, a mysterious mixture of love and pain. We can look to the Cross for consolation on that, because that was the greatest example of love and pain.