Dear Friends,
Stratford Caldecott, a British author and educator, stated “The intellect seeks truth, and it seeks beauty for truth’s sake, but the substance of truth is love.” The noted theologian Hans Ur Von Balthasar wrote “the person who sneers at beauty can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love.” To love beauty and allow it draw us to truth, whom God is, sums up the attitude we must have at Holy Family. If our school only produces academically superior graduates, students who have the technical prowess to achieve great things, but do not have the humanizing aspects of life just as deeply interwoven into the fabric of themselves, then their training is incomplete.
We as humans, are made to love beauty, that is why we are attracted to it. We put pictures on our walls, we decorate our houses, we wear clothes that match (mostly) and outfits that are flattering. Heaven is always described as a place of light and joy, of tremendous beauty. We should encourage our students to love that which is beautiful; the beauty that is found when one’s own work is praised, when one executes the play just as told, when one greets a friend or kisses their mother good bye.
Is there ugliness in this world? Yes, and there is also darkness. We worship the God who banishes the dark and ugly and fills us with light and beauty and the desire for the everlasting. When I was a boy I loved a hug from my father. He is now dead these 10 years and my great hope is to once again experience the beauty of that moment ; embrace him before the throne of grace and even more to be embraced by God the Father. What could be more beautiful than that?
May we all experience such love.
Duc in Altum!
Timothy Gallic
Principal, Holy Family High School
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