Reflections  on 9/11            (Fatima, Portugal,  9/11/02)

 

A year  later !       Instead of horror, unbelief and hatred, I found  real beauty  today  with  Mary, the mother   of Jesus  in this remote  peasant  community in  Portugal. I   had previously  seen her   beauty   in other  shrines------Guadalupe, Lourdes, knock. I had seen  the Mary  of Valinganni   of India. I had  seen  her through  the many  perceptions  of the  African   catholic.  Through  the eyes  of the Xhosa people  and the Zulus  and the  many  bantu tribes i knew  in South  Africa.  Sometimes, she was  black  or tan or  white  or yellow.  But did the color   really matter?

 

Here in Fatima in this very field, three very young, simple  but clear eyed  kids saw  her, Mary.   And she was very beautiful!  Clothed in white with gold and blue trim, she, the very mother  of  god, himself, smiled  lovingly at these  kids   and encouraged them  to  spread  the  word-----

 

Pray, she said, and do penance.  Go tell the world that   there is great danger   ------ physically and  spiritually!!!  The kids, though somewhat frightened by this  stark  message  and mission, were fascinated and comforted  by  her   beauty.  These simple, unsophisticated kids, with  a kind  of   pre-articulate intuition, sensed that such   incredible beauty  must  be  from  god, himself.  We. too, can  only   slightly sense the same quality when, for example, we  look at  the ceiling  of the Sistine Chapel   and  are  awed by the  beauty that  Michelangelo could  create  with Adam stretching his finger  to touch the finger of god !!!!

 

What is beautiful?  I stretch  my soul and  sing that  the ultimate beauty  has to be god -- --- --- --- ----if god is beauty  itself, is beauty  the way  to  god?

 

Then, i think if i see the smiling face of an infant  as  it looks with total  trust into its mother’s face, do I not see  beauty?  Am i stretching to touch god?

 

Then, i think, if i see the love light in the eyes  of a man  and  a woman as they  exchange  wedding vows  before god and commit themselves unconditionally to an unknown future, do i not see  beauty? 

 

If I see an old man praying his rosary with total faith and peace  (when he thinks no one  is watching him), do I not see  beauty?

 

If I see  an old woman bent over  a   washboard, scrubbing the clothes of  her  family  or when  she cooks  and shops and cleans with no compensation  except the joy of giving love,  do i not see beauty?

 

When one smells freshly cut clover or wood, when one hears the rush and roar and whistle of the wind in the forest  and the crash of the surf on the shore, when one sees  the blue  sea  around  Mallorca and feels the  Mediterranean sun  warm one’s aging bones    like some   sacrament  giving life,  does   one not contact  beauty?   The great  St. Thomas Aquinas did teach that  wherever you find the beautiful, you will somehow   find the  very being of  god !

 

Any human life  without  a window opening  on  beauty  is really  a piteous  and stunted  thing.  To live always in a climate of the  ugly and the commonplace without  the freedom of the beautiful

( and I am  groping to articulate  that  beautiful  means god)

Would, I think, ultimately, be  a  sad and miserable  experience.

 

I think  human beings  need  the beautiful. We need the real  and    not the illusional and  delusional. We do not  need the crass   and the vulgar  and the noisy and the superficial. So the lady of Fatima, the mother  of the god of beauty is  saying to me:

 

Avoid the  ugly, the distorted, the drab, the boredom of sin  and   its depressing prison.  Go for the beautiful.-------  in  my present euphoria, i wish to  sing the song of this beautiful  lady---- a  song  composed for her by a clear eyed, child like and profound  poet-----Joyce Kilmer---listen to it !!!

 

There was a little maiden

In  blue and silver dressed

Who sang to god in heaven

And to god within her  breast.

 

It flooded me with pleasure

It  pierced me like a sword

When i  heard  this  young maiden sing

My soul  doth  magnify the lord.

 

The stars sing all together

And they hear the angels sing

But they said they had never  heard

So  beautiful a thing

                                                                                                                       

 

St Mary  and St. Joseph

And St. Elizabeth

Pray for us poor poets

And at the hour of our death.

 

 

The message becomes clearer. The beauty that we all seek is god and the things of God. For our own happiness sake, no matter   what happens, we must

Pursue   this goal---

 

What is our vision?  It is to seek the beautiful so that  we can walk with god – like Adam--- for  ever and ever. So that we can , like Moses, talk with god for ever and ever.

 

Fatima,   9/11/02

 

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