“The Way of Beauty” (Via pulchritudinis) and the Realization of the Church’s Mission according to B. Forte

Abstract

“The way of beauty” in Bruno Forte’s view appears to be experienced faith or life in the horizon of faith. Beauty, as a category connected with the attitude of love, is a moving, dynamic value. Understood in this way beauty of love till the end can be discovered in the icon of the Beautiful Shepherd – the Crucified Christ. In this personal fragment of history the entirety of the Mystery comes to us – God, who is Love (cf. 1 John 4, 8.16). The love that is cognized is the driving force: love demands a reply of gratefulness. This responsorial character of love that should be characteristic of every Christian, can be first of all seen in Mary – All Beautiful, a transparen Icon of the Mystery. Contemplation of Christ’s face (following Her example of in Her), to which Blessed John Paul II encouraged the faithful (cf. NMI 25), leads to a transformation of the person and the world of persons, as it is entering the way of beauty, whose end is beauty of the person and beauty of the world. For “beauty will save the world” (F. Dostoyevsky).