ALL THINGS NEW
Having the opportunity to encounter different people in the apostolate enkindles in me to appreciate the sense of newness they bring to my life. In one of his talks, Cardinal Radclife noted that the heart of all Christian ministry is the ability to see people's faces, to see their vulnerability, to see their fears and hopes, because when you really see another person, you can't hate them. You have to love them. This is a great call for each Christian, especially in relating to others. More so, it invites us to be the face of Christ for someone.
In the encounter with the other, whether through art or ministry, we are invited into a space where beauty serves as a transformative greeting, welcoming us to our true home. As Elaine Scarry asserts, the beautiful thing is fundamentally unprecedented and incomparable, conveying a sense of newness that extends to the entire world. This experience of the new is not merely a fleeting emotion but a call to deliberation, a state of mind that exists between rational thought and contemplation. To make sense of the beauty before him, encounters in the apostolate move toward a deeper contemplation of the people we serve. To truly see another person is to awaken to the three dimensions of beauty which are identified as sacred, unprecedented, and lifesaving. This aligns with Cardinal Radcliffe’s insight that seeing the face of another, their vulnerability, fears, and hopes, is the heart of Christian ministry. When we move past the artifice of our own prejudices and shared illusions, which often attempt to control or categorize others, we allow ourselves to be arrested and raised above desiring and loathing. This is where the shock of the new meets the sacrament of the present moment, demanding that we stay present to the reality before us rather than retreating into the easy comfort of nostalgia. The beauty of such an encounter is often paradoxical, much like the beauty of the cross, which reveals grace in the midst of brokenness. In the Eucharist, we find the ultimate model of this lifesaving beauty that makes all things new. By recognizing the face of Christ in the vulnerable, we participate to an epiphany: a moment where beauty and truth converge to transform the ordinary into something radiant and illuminating.
This integration of beauty and ministry acts as a form of conversion. It requires the courage to bear the burden of the contemporary situation and the honesty to see people not as artifice or information to be managed, but as unquantifiable and self-renewing miracles. Staying present to the "newness" of those we serve allows us to hear the voice that tells us, even in moments of doubt: “Behold, I make all things new”. This self-renewing encounter ensures that our response is not one of artifice but a genuine act of love that stays news.
