A tragic
consolation! And the supreme beauty is that of tragedy. The
consciousness that everything passes away, that we ourselves pass away,
and that everything that is ours and everything that environs us passes
away, fills us with anguish, and this anguish itself reveals to us the
consolation of that which does not pass away, of the eternal, of the
beautiful.
And this beauty thus revealed, this perpetuation of momentaneity, only
realizes itself practically, only lives through the work of charity.
Hope in action is charity, and beauty in action is goodness.
* * * * *
Charity, which eternalizes everything it loves, and in giving us the
goodness of it brings to light its hidden beauty, has its root in the
love of God, or, if you like, in charity towards God, in pity for God.
Love, pity, personalizes everything, we have said; in discovering the
suffering in everything and in personalizing everything, it personalizes
the Universe itself as well--for the Universe also suffers--and it
discovers God to us. For God is revealed to us because He suffers and
because we suffer; because He suffers He demands our love, and because
we suffer He gives us His love, and He covers our anguish with the
eternal and infinite anguish.
This was the scandal of Christianity among Jews and Greeks, among
Pharisees and Stoics, and this, which was its scandal of old, the
scandal of the Cross, is still its scandal to-day, and will continue to
be so, even among Christians themselves--the scandal of a God who
becomes man in order that He may suffer and die and rise again, because
He has suffered and died, the scandal of a God subject to suffering and
death.
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