Truth is beautiful, truth and beauty go together, says the Pope

February 23, 2013: Truth is beautiful, truth and beauty go together: the beauty is the seal of truth, said Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday morning at the completion of his weeklong Lenten retreat in the Vatican. He was thanking all those who had participated with him in the Lenten retreat. He also thanked the retreat preacher, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, whose reflections and meditations centered around the theme: "the face of God and the face of man in the Psalm prayers”.

About the Lenten spiritual exercises held in the Redemptoris mater chapel of the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican, the Pontiff said: we were amazed by the richness, the depth, the beauty of this universe of faith and we are grateful for the Word of God has spoken to us in a new way, with new strength.

Nonetheless, the Holy Father said, we recognise that the goodness of Creation is permanently contradicted by evil in the world. “Evil,” he said, “always desires to spoil creation, to contradict God, and to make truth and beauty unrecognisable.” But it is precisely into this world, marked by evil, that the Incarnate Logos enters, crowned with thorns, so that, “in the suffering figure of the Son of God, we can begin to see the most profound beauty of our Creator and Redeemer. In the silence of the ‘dark night,’ we can nevertheless hear the Word.”

At the conclusion of his remarks, Pope Benedict expressed his gratitude, not only to those who had joined him in the spiritual exercises, but to all those who, as he said, “have borne with me the weight of the Petrine ministry with great skill, with affection, with love, and with faith.” This gratitude, he said, “will remain with me. And even if this visible exterior communion is now ending,” he continued, “the spiritual closeness, a deep communion in prayer, remains. In this certainty let us go forward, confident in the victory of God, sure of the truth, of beauty, and of love.”