Seek To Be Enriched
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Faith on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 2:00 PM
Benedict XVI met with a group of artists and scientists while in Portugal last week.
That speech makes a good follow-up to last week’s podcast discussion of Christians and the arts.
Using Barbara Nicolosi’s work as a starting point, we chatted about the power of a true story, regardless of whether it’s explicitly Christian.
The Pope also spoke (probably more eloquently!) about the power of truth—and goodness and beauty—as the true objects of search for all persons, irrespective of Creed.
The search for truth requires a certain openness, and the Holy Father offered a beautiful formulation of the proper attitude toward culture:
Given the reality of cultural diversity, people need not only to accept the existence of the culture of others, but also to aspire to be enriched by it and to offer to it whatever they possess that is good, true and beautiful.
The Pope’s not embracing relativism in the speech, he’s reiterating the timeless Christian understanding that God is the author of truth, beauty and goodness, and therefore we should be open to those things and praise them wherever they’re found. Where there is untruth and error, we should correct it, but to be constantly poised to pounce is not really a Christian, or even a human, attitude. We are to seek to learn and be enriched by what others have that is good and do that is right.
To be closed is really to be arrogant—assuming the other has nothing to offer. Through mutual offering of gifts, however, we are all enriched and all drawn closer to the Author of all that is good, true and beautiful. This is a return to Benedict’s teaching about how Christian unity is to be achieved, too. Each person be a disciple, and Christ himself will draw us up into himself.
Benedict turned this observation into a profound challenge to scientists and artists, suggesting that believers aren’t the only people who can be guilty of closing themselves off to genuine sources of enrichment.
Do not be afraid to approach the first and last source of beauty, to enter into dialogue with believers, with those who, like yourselves, consider that they are pilgrims in this world and in history towards infinite Beauty!
It must have been Christians in the arts week last week, because at our sister site, film critic Steven Greydanus blogged in a similar vein with “No movies please, we’re Catholic.”
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