She recognizes Christ as the fairest of men, the grace poured upon his lips points to the inner beauty of his words, the glory of his proclamation. So it is not merely the external beauty of the Redeemers appearance that is glorified: rather, the beauty of Truth appears in him, the beauty of God himself who draws us to himself and, at the same time captures us with the wound of Love, the holy passion (eros), that enables us to go forth together, with and in the Church his Bride, to meet the Love who calls us. On Monday of Holy Week, however, the Church changes the antiphon and invites us to interpret the Psalm in the light of Isaiah 53:2: He had neither beauty, no majesty, nothing to attract our eyes, no grace to make us delight in him. How can we reconcile this? The appearance of the fairest of the children of men is so wretched that no one desires to look at him. Pilate presented him to the crowd saying: Behold the man! to rouse sympathy for the crushed and battered Man, in whom no external beauty remained.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Apr 2014 02:55:21 +0000
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