Aesthetics and all that...

What is the most beautiful thing in this world? I was thinking about that during the boring Ferial Mass shorn of appropriate commemorations this evening. You'd think that as Master of Ceremonies I'd be focused upon the Celebrant and Servers, but to my sorrow, my mind wandered. Beauty is not, however, something inappropriate to meditate during Mass. I have oft thought of that now hackneyed and irritating expression: ''beauty is in the eye of the beholder.'' It seems to suggest a relativistic and subjective view of the nature of beauty (beauty and beautiful are themselves, incidentally, aesthetically unpleasing words, and are quite embarrassing to say - and to hear sometimes), that the object is a tabula rasa, as it were, with the ''beholder'' projecting upon this faceless object a vision of loveliness - but perhaps there is at least some truth in it. The face of one's beloved is, I suppose, the most beautiful thing to someone in love. The Blessed Sacrament is the most beautiful thing in the world to a homo religiosus. I wonder what the most beautiful thing in the world is to me? I think that to be pierced by something so wonderful, such as reading The Field of Cormallen in The Lord of the Rings, or experiencing the eucatastrophic High Mass, a Marian Feast day, or to be haunted in the most profound and religious sense by the memory of a beautiful loved one (or relative, whatever) is the most beautiful thing in this world, as it suggests purity and poignancy. It is certainly a source of consolation amidst cares and griefs, that however miserable life might be sometimes (and it is downright miserable sometimes), God is the supreme author of loveliness. I had these thoughts also a few nights ago when walking home from church late at night after Benediction. I looked at the Moon, glowing in a frozen sky through the grey clouds, kindled tremulously to silver. My thought was that no one had ever painted it, and that the vision was therefore evanescent, and would disappear beyond all recall, even mine, but that I was privileged to see it. It was extraordinarily pretty. If only all things could be beautiful, as emanating from the love and light of God...

Are these ravings?