“I consider all things rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him.”
You know how sometimes someone says something or makes a new connection for you and not only does a light bulb go off, but you want to just smack your head and wonder, “Why didn’t I ever see that?”
Last week, I heard someone draw a parallel between Beauty and the Beast and our Catholic Faith? Bear with me, and trust me, at first, I thought he was stretching it too.
In the beginning, the prince has everything he could want. He has power; he has wealth, he is surrounded by people who cater to his every need, he indulges every pleasure. We tend to look at people like him and be a little jealous.
But then he is approached and asked for the smallest of charities, to provide some shelter from the cold. He has nothing to gain from the old woman and turns her away. She warns him not to judge by appearances.
Because of his lack of mercy for the woman, he and the people around him are transformed by his vision of the world. He loses his human appearance and looks to all the world like a beast. Even worse, the people near him, lose their humanity to become objects. His punishment has been to make his invisible relationships visible to all the world. His only way out is to go beyond his shallow worldview and to love and become beloved.
Beauty and the Beast is one of those handfuls of universal tales which have variations in all cultures across the world. And why not? A tale as old as time, (haha, get it? But seriously, some researchers say it is over 4000 years old) it is the story of humanity from Adam and Eve on down. Adam and Eve have everything, they have been provided for in the Garden of Eden, they have a loving relationship with their Creator, and yet, they doubt God’s desire to provide for them. They trust the appearances of the devil and use the fruit, not for the purpose it was intended but to try to be something other than what they are. Their invisible doubts that separated them from God are made visible as they are expelled from the Garden of Eden. And as we all know, life has never been the same.
We all now search for the intimate relationship they lost. We are created with a desire to love, to be beloved and to send that love out into the world. Like the Prince (and Adam and Eve), we become distracted by all sorts of things that keep us from true love. We substitute love with power, a desire to control the events and people around us. We use people to gain influence and material wealth, not realizing that when we undermine their inherent dignity, we also undermine our own. We replace love with pleasure, using people and things to help us “feel” good; physically, mentally, and spiritually. We forget that feelings are transitory emotions and we are created for eternity. We put knowledge before love, trusting in our own ability to find truth rather than trusting the one who is Truth. We create all sorts of havoc in big and small ways, all in search of love.
In the story, it is a poor farmer’s daughter who teaches the beast/prince about love and saves him. As his heart opens to love, he and all those around him regain their human forms.
As Catholics, we know who saves us. We don’t follow one who teaches about love; we follow the one who IS love. Jesus the Christ, God become man, left the beauty of heaven to live among us, suffer and die. But death could not hold him, and through his resurrection, we too gain eternal life. “No greater love than this than to lay down one’s life for a friend.”
As Catholics, we also know it is not only about the “happily ever after” of love in heaven. Our faith is not only words we speak or prayers we offer. Our faith transforms us so that what is invisible is made visible in our actions, our works of love, mercy, charity.
It is the most beautiful of paradoxes, it all is summed up in the Gospel acclamation for today, when we regard all as rubbish so that we can gain Christ, he gives us everything back and what is more, it is all transformed in his love so that we begin our heaven here on earth by living out what it means to love, to be beloved and we serve God by serving one another. It is in that service, that reaching out in love for another that we find He has satisfied our own desires.
Dear Lord, help me today to see all those around me as you see them. Help me to be open to the little ways of showing love and providing small comforts to others in this world so that they too may find your comfort and love in the world to come.
Praise, God. He is amazing.
Now, excuse me, I have to go watch that movie again.
While wearing many hats, Sheryl O’Connor is the wife and study buddy of Thomas O’Connor. Not having received the gift of having their own children, their home is filled with 2 large dogs and their hearts with the teens and youth with whom they work in their parish collaborative. Sheryl is the Director of Strong Families Programs for Holy Family Healthcare which means her job is doing whatever needs to be done to help parents build strong Catholic families. Inspired by the works of mercy, Holy Family Healthcare is a primary health care practice in West Michigan which seeks to honor the dignity of every individual as we would Christ. Find out more at https://www.holyfamilyhealthcare.org/
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