Without you have eyes by which you might see marbles, and gold: within is an eye wherewith may be seen the beauty of righteousness. If there is no beauty in righteousness, why is a righteous old man loved? What is there in his body that may please the eyes? Crooked limbs, brow wrinkled, head blanched with grey hairs, dotage everywhere full of plaints… what good do we see with the eyes of the flesh? None. There is therefore a kind of beauty in righteousness, which we see with the eye of the heart, and we love, and we kindle with affection: how much men found to love in the hideous martyrs, though the beasts tore their limbs! ... What was there to love except that in the spectacle of mangled limbs, the beauty of righteousness was entire?
He then is beautiful in Heaven, beautiful on earth; beautiful in the womb; beautiful in His parent’s hands, beautiful in His miracles; beautiful under the scourge; beautiful when inviting to life; beautiful also when not regarding death; beautiful in ‘laying down His life’, beautiful in ‘taking it again’; beautiful on the Cross; beautiful in the Sepulchre; beautiful in Heaven.
Let us love, because He first loved us.’ We did not yet love Him: by loving we are made beautiful… our soul, my brethren, is ugly because of sin: by loving God it becomes beautiful… He first loved us, Who is always beautiful; and what were we when He loved us, but foul and ugly? But not to leave us foul; but to change us, and from deformity make us beautiful. How shall we become beautiful? By loving Him who is always beautiful. Inasmuch as love grows in you, in so much beauty grows; for love is itself the beauty of the soul.
St Augustine
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