“Oooh, I’m gonna try that next time I go malling,” a teenager inside the bus excitedly pointed to her seatmate the billboard advertising a new facial cleansing product.
“Aren’t you satisfied with the one you’re using now?” her classmate said without removing her mouth from the straw of the frappuccino she was savoring.
“Not me!” the other girl replied. “Girl, you just don’t know what things are floating in the city air that could harm your skin. Sides, I bet every new cleanser becomes more body specific to make you prettier.”
“Body specific? Duh…did you lift that out from some fan fiction site?”
“Of course not! It’s about being hygienically beautiful!”
“Yeah right! Like the facial cream or chemicals would know what part of your body you’re applying it on,” she argued.
“I guess they’ve found some technology to make the chemicals smarter.”
“That really gives me the creeps! Imagine if you accidentally poured it on your elbow would it be smart enough to slowly slime its way to find your neck or face. Yuck!”
“I guess you’re right, but maybe it doesn’t behave exactly like some slimy thingy that is alive.”
“Whatever…!” [SLURP!!!] The girl emptied her drink just in time for the next stop. They stood up and alighted.
* * *
This amusing sci-fi-beauty conversation made me realize how many are too concerned with both bodily beauty and hygiene but pay little or no attention to beautifying the gift of their faith and the life that ought to follow as a consequence.
Pope Benedict XVI laments that “It often happens that Christians are more concerned for the social, cultural and political consequences of their commitment, continuing to think of the faith as a self-evident presupposition for life in Society. In reality, not only can this presupposition no longer be taken for granted, but it is often openly denied.” (Porta fidei, no. 2)
The Year of Faith, inaugurated on the 11th of October 2012, invites us to once again experience the “power and beauty of the faith.” (Ibid., no. 4). It becomes a “summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Savior of the world. (…) Through faith, this new life shapes the whole human existence according to the radical new reality of the Resurrection.” (Ibid., no. 6)
This faithful year is an occasion to examine ourselves personally, and resolve to rediscover this gift and strive towards a deeper transformation. “To the extent that man freely cooperates, man’s thoughts and affections, mentality and conduct are slowly purified and transformed, on a journey that is never completely finished in this life.” (Ibid.)
Failing to discover our faith daily allows the ‘power and beauty’ of this gift to wane and be forgotten. It would be gradually converted into a sort of spiritual ornament, that is worn only when a fitting or when a whimsical occasion may call for one to ‘wear’ it for others to see.
Then there arise in the person’s life other attractions and habits that not only stain his faith but also endanger its existence. Today, many Catholics are perhaps unaware or are indifferent to the bad effects of what they see in T.V. and movies, read in newspapers and magazines and hear over the radio or in some university lecture. Little by little, through osmosis, faith is even deformed into something burdensome or at the most lived through one’s personal convenience.
Here are some of the harmful things against our faith:
• incredulity and religious indifferentism that lead to despising revealed truth;
• heresy or the obstinate denial of a truth of faith;
• apostasy or the total rejection of the faith;
• voluntarily doubting one’s faith or putting it at risk reading material attacking faith and morals;
• giving credence to superstitions or ideas against the faith;
These and many of their other variants ‘dirty’ the beauty of our faith. It is only right that we daily grow in this gift and bear fruit in it by transmitting it by the witness of a living faith. We can cleanse the impurities of our faith by daily taking concrete steps to contemplate its splendor and also to enrich it with a resolve to show it in deeds.
Thus we may for example:
• spend some time daily to briefly review points of the Catechism of the Catechism of the Catholic Church;
• form a small discussion group to discuss points of the Catechism and how they could be best explained and put into practice;
• in our own homes or institutions, see the possibility of teaching catechism to the helpers, maintenance crew or less privileged neighbors;
• distribute simple summaries of the principal points of our faith in hospitals, orphanages, and soup houses, etc.
These and many other similar initiative will re-awaken our faith and make it more beautiful. Thus, Benedict XVI says: “Faith grows when it is lived as an experience of love received and when it is communicated as an experience of grace and joy. It makes us fruitful, because it expands our hearts in hope and enables us to bear life-giving witness: indeed, it opens the hearts and minds of those who listen to respond to the Lord’s invitation to adhere to his word and become his disciples. Believers, so Saint Augustine tells us, “strengthen themselves by believing.”