"In the waning days of summer, 1974, a man named
Philippe Petit dared to do something beautiful. Petit, a professional
funambulist, pulled off an undercover job tantamount to a heist,
illegally securing a cable between the nearly completed World Trade
Center Towers in New York City.
"He had walked a wire between the towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral and
the pylons of Sydney Harbor Bridge. As New Yorkers teemed below those
gleaming edifices of exchange on that August morning, a clown began to
dance a quarter of a mile above their heads, bringing joy and awe to
those trapped in the rat race, overshadowed by the towers of commerce.
"Petit dared to do something beautiful that August morning, an act of
play opposed to pragmatism, a thing Catholics must dare, in their own
way, to do.
"So much of the stuff of life has been sacrificed on
the altar of affluence, in homage to a god of relativism whose law of
license promotes a materialist agenda.
". . . Having a heart that
leaps up for beauty is difficult to claim - and to proclaim - among people
who are losing their hold on beauty, increasingly driven as they are
toward the almighty dollar.
"St. Thomas Aquinas writes of beauty as a proportion of perfection that can be rested in,
making beauty a prerequisite for rest, for leisure. Catholics should
dare to resist and reverse the crisis of 'getting and spending' by
resting boldly in the beautiful things that make life worth living - the
things worth doing for their own sake."
In a recent commentary, writer Sean Fitzpatrick, Headmaster of Gregory the Great Academy (Elmhurst Township, PA), reflected on how doing something beautiful, something transcendent, in this "jaded age" (including having a large family, saying grace in public, engaging in meaningful conversation, singing songs, going on pilgrimage, reading classical
works, and looking people in the eye and smiling) requires daring.
To access Mr. Fitzpatrick's complete essay, please visit:
Crisi Magazine: Walk the wire, for beauty's sake (2 SEP 19)
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