"Men long to be beautiful. We want others to be drawn to the excellence they notice in us. Striving to make ourselves attractive, we labor to build for ourselves an appealing physique, style, or charisma. We tend to equate our desirability with this well-crafted display, ignoring a lesson about beauty taught by St. Thomas Aquinas and St. John the Baptist.
"This lesson is that true beauty
accompanies temperance. According to St. Thomas, a man's beauty consists
in his actions 'being well proportioned in respect of the spiritual
clarity of reason' (ST II-II q. 145, a. 2). Spiritual beauty, also known as honestas or honorableness, is a specifically human way of being beautiful. It gives a man's conduct claritas or radiance, which manifests to others the meaning of being human."
In a recent commentary, Brother Basil Burroughs, O.P., reflected on how St. John the Baptist embodied St. Thomas' teaching on temperance and beauty.
To access Br. Basil's complete post, please visit:
Dominicana: John the Beautiful (23 JUN 21)
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