The Beauty of Holiness

On Sainthood as the Last Evangelism

In belated celebration of the Feast of St. John Henry Newman, it is proper to consider two profound passages from Newman’s infamous sermon “Personal Influence, the Means of Propagating Truth.” In the first, Newman claims that the truth of the Christian faith, despite the innumerable obstacles which challenge its transmission, is passed on through the generations of the Church primarily in and through the Saints. He writes:

How, then, after all, has it [the deposit of the faith] maintained its ground among men, and subjected to its dominion unwilling minds, some even bound to the external profession of obedience, others at least in a sullen neutrality, and the inaction of despair? I answer, that it has been upheld in the world not as a system, not by books, not by argument, nor by temporal power, but by the personal influence of such men as have already been described, who are at once the teachers and the patterns of it.¹

According to Newman, the primary instrument of evangelization is not philosophy, literature, the arts, or politics. In fact, it is not even the Scripture, the liturgy, or acts of holy charity, though of course these things are obviously essential. Rather, it is the splendor of the Saints, the manifest, existential example of their unified and luminous lives. It is the integral being of their hearts unfolded in their every action that contains and communicates the fulness of the Gospel of Christ. 

This claritas of the Saint is not a self-contained system or an apathetic monument, but a force of grace which draws the lost in toward him. The irresistible gravity of the goodness of the true Saint ignites in the soul of man that desire which constitutes his nature—perfection and happiness. It is this that Newman expresses in the second passage:

While he [the saint] is unknown to the world, yet, within the range of those who see him, he will become the object of feelings different in kind from those which mere intellectual excellence excites. The men commonly held in popular estimation are greatest at a distance; they become small as they are approached; but the attraction, exerted by unconscious holiness, is of an urgent and irresistible nature; it persuades the weak, the timid, the wavering, and the inquiring; it draws forth the affection and loyalty of all who are in a measure like-minded; and over the thoughtless or perverse multitude it exercises a sovereign compulsory sway, bidding them fear and keep silence, on the ground of its own right divine to rule them,—its hereditary claim on their obedience, though they understand not the principles or counsels of that spirit, which is "born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.²

An episode from the life of Graham Greene illumines this point. In 1949, Greene, with his mistress at the time, attended Mass which was celebrated by Padre Pio. Though Greene was profoundly affected by the Mass, he turned down the invitation to meet St. Pio of Pietrelcina afterward. Greene said, “I didn’t want to change my life by meeting a saint. I felt that there was a good chance that he was one.”

Presently, taking these insights from Newman, I want to recast them in a more philosophical mode within the frame of a Thomistic metaphysic of the good and of human nature. Namely, I will attempt to draw out the inner intelligibility underpinning Newman’s claim that the Catholic Faith is communicated to the world by the beauty of the holiness of the Saints.

To this end, consider first Aquinas’ understanding of “the good” in general. According to Aquinas, goodness is one of the transcendentals, a kind of quality describing all reality which is coterminous with being itself. Though being and goodness refer essentially to the same territory, they are “different in idea.” Aquinas writes:

Goodness and being are really the same, and differ only in idea; which is clear from the following argument. The essence of goodness consists in this, that it is in some way desirable…Now it is clear that a thing is desirable only in so far as it is perfect; for all desire their own perfection. But everything is perfect so far as it is actual….But goodness presents the aspect of desirableness, which being does not present (emphasis mine).³

All created things are endowed with some nature which, though perfect according to existence, lacks that full perfection toward which all of its operations incline. The seminal tree has a kind of perfection; it exists, and it contains in a mysterious and potential mode all of the wonders of leaf and limb and bloom that a mature, flourishing tree manifests. However, the latter tree is obviously the more perfect, for it shows forth the goodness which is proportionate to trees actually, not just potentially. Furthermore, every operation of the tree is ordered toward the transition from the lower perfection of sheer existence and potency to the higher perfection of flourishing actuality. This is what Aquinas means when he uses the word “desire.”

There is an analogy between the perfection or good of the tree and the perfection or good of the human person. Just as the seminal tree in some way desires the full flourishing of the mature tree and acts in accordance, so every human person desires the full flourishing of their own nature and likewise acts in accordance. This full flourishing of human nature is what the tradition calls happiness, and, according to Aquinas, “Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence.” ⁴

The saint, then, is the one who is happy, as happy as the imperfection intrinsic to the present life allows, for he is the one who as nearly as possible centers the whole of his life around the contemplation of God. Therefore, while he is not himself the good which all men desire, he manifests that state of bliss for which all men long by nature. The unavoidable recognition of this fact in the encounter with a saint attracts the unhappy with great power, for there is an implicit awareness that to stand in the presence of that saint is to begin even unconsciously the path of imitation which itself leads to sainthood and beatitude. 

The attraction to the happy man, the gravitational pull of their goodness, the indescribable but undeniable allure of their perfection, is the beauty of the saint. While Aquinas did not write much on beauty specifically, that which he did say is of central importance. He writes:

Beauty includes three conditions, "integrity" or "perfection," since those things which are impaired are by the very fact ugly; due "proportion" or "harmony"; and lastly, "brightness" or "clarity," whence things are called beautiful which have a bright color.⁵

Returning to the analogy of the tree, the three conditions of beauty are apparent. The tree has integrity to the extent that it lacks any objective imperfections and has a clear substantial oneness. It has proportion to the extent that the individual parts which compose it are all ordered upward to its full flourishing. Finally, it has clarity insofar as the radiance of its form draws and holds the intellectual gaze of one who beholds it. 

The goodness of some nature and its beauty are deeply related, for “beauty and goodness in a thing are identical fundamentally; for they are based upon the same thing, namely, the form; and consequently goodness is praised as beauty.” To the degree that some goods possess higher metaphysical grandeur than others, so to that same degree the beauty of these substances is higher and more lovely. As the life of the saint possesses by grace an exceedingly higher goodness than a tree, so also he possesses a far greater beauty.

The beauty of the saint can also be described according to the conditions articulated above. The saint attains a form of integral perfection when they are rid of the defect of actual sin; he attains a flawless harmony when all his actions have as their sole end the love and glory of God; his existence shines with the splendor of the light of Christ when by grace he becomes a translucent ikon of the Divine.

Just as the human form is the most beautiful object in the order of nature, the beauty of the saint elevated by divinizing grace is the highest of all beauties still in some way visible to the human eye. This beauty is not an inert magnificence enjoyed disinterestedly, but a force of radical transfiguration through the devotion it inspires. The goodness of the saints inspires a sanctifying love in the hearts of those who witness their life and, through this love, imitation and friendship. But this requires further unpacking.

It is a well-known maxim of Scholastic philosophy that “the good is self-diffusive;” that is, goodness, of its very nature, tends to spread. The higher perfections rain down on the lower and bring them into actuality, and part of the perfection of these higher goods is the ability to engender others after their likeness that share in their goodness. 

This goodness spreads among men through love; that is, through an inclination of the will to some good. The saints love God in a particularly exalted way, for holiness simply is the perfection of charity. Through the luminous example of the saint’s existence, he manifests that which he finds good and beautiful in that God who consumes his every thought and desire. The weaker man, who sees in the saint a living instantiation of happiness and of his one true desire, loves the saint, and, in loving the saint, really loves the God who is seen most clearly in the saint. All that is admirable and lovable in the life of the saint is that which is of God, for the saint radiates with holy light when he becomes an instrument of the life of Christ.

One who knows Lewis’ The Four Loves will recognize here a supremely glorified version of what he says regarding friendship in general. He writes:

Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one’... It is when two such persons discover one another, when, whether with immense difficulties and semi-articulate fumblings or with what would seem to us amazing and elliptical speed, they share their vision it is then that Friendship is born. And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude.⁶

The saint possesses in a distinctive way the special “insight” which renders them wondrous and happy through God. Yet, this perfection, proceeding from God and therefore not satisfied with singularity, grasps for all those present to the divine light manifested in this saint and seeks to transform them also. This diffusion of the good communicates the special “insight” to the other and creates the ground in which the seed of truly glorious Christian friendship can grow. This Christian friendship writ large is nothing other than the Church herself.

If we would re-evangelize the West, I cannot help but think that we need not waste our time on Youtube apologetics, appeals to the grandeur of the Catholic literary imagination, or hold up the art and architecture of our forebears as a self-evident defense of the truth. Rather, we must be about the business of becoming saints. The double darkness of the vices of our modern world all but blind us to the delicate persuasions of art, philosophy, literature, and politics. The one dazzling spectacle that no man regardless of his wickedness can ignore and totally resist is the Saint arrayed in the beauty of holiness. Let us then follow the word’s of St. John Henry Newman:

If you ask me what you are to do in order to be perfect, I say, first—Do not lie in bed beyond the due time of rising; give your first thoughts to God; make a good visit to the Blessed Sacrament; say the Angelus devoutly; eat and drink to God’s glory; say the Rosary well; be recollected; keep out bad thoughts; make your evening meditation well; examine yourself daily; go to bed in good time, and you are already perfect.⁷

1.  John Henry Newman, “Personal Influence, the Means of Propagating Truth.” in Oxford University Sermon (London: Longmans, 1909),  https://www.newmanreader.org/works/oxford/sermon5.html

2. Ibid.

3. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I.5.1, translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: 1920), online Edition Copyright © 2017 by Kevin Knight, https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3015.htm

4. Summa Theologica I-II.3.8

5. Summa Theologica 1.5.4

6.  C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (New York: Mariner Book, 2012), 65.

7. John Henry Newman, “Short Road to Perfection.” in Meditations and Devotions (London: Longmans, 1907),  https://www.newmanreader.org/works/meditations/index.html