There is so much beauty in the world. Not only can we look at nature and see the beautiful gifts that God has given us, but we can also look into ourselves and realize all of the tremendous beauty that exists within us. It becomes a necessity for us to allow that beauty to burst forth in what we do and what we create. Art and media that express this interior beauty allow us as human beings to do what no other creature can - to go beyond our appetitive natures and to create and appreciate things for their own sake. This is the essence of love; if to love someone means to will their good simply for their own sake without expecting anything in return, beautiful art must come from the same place since it is only created to be appreciated for its own sake. 

There are so many beautiful things that come from a secular source because, as human beings, we can sometimes come to the conclusion that our interior beauty is a product of ourselves. However, if we acknowledge the creator and the giver of that beauty and orient the art that manifests it to Him, it transcends to an even higher level of beauty. Schubert’s Ave Maria is a beautiful piece of music on its own, but the fact that it encapsulates our pure love for the Virgin Mary and her role in our salvation adds many more levels to our appreciation and reception of its beauty. Music is a gift that God has given us so that we can emulate the choirs of Angels in heaven, who spend eternity singing of God’s power. Within the Church, music is integral to the appreciation and practice of our faith. To be designated, then, as the patron saint of music is a monumental achievement. This distinction was given to Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music and musicians, not because she was a skilled singer or composer, but because her interior faith life reflected the essence of the beauty that motivates one to create a beautiful piece of music. There is no tradition that describes her as an accomplished musician, but she symbolizes the role of music in the Church because it is said that, when musicians were playing at her wedding, she sang in her heart to the Lord. To orient oneself to sing to the Lord, either exteriorly or interiorly like Cecilia, encapsulates a primordial way of communicating to God. God speaks and understands the voice of music; it was so important that this passage from Chronicles lists all the singers and musicians who led the liturgy assigned by King David. Liturgy and practice of the faith is so closely related to music because music is an expression of creative beauty, the same creative beauty God used to bring everything into existence.

This is the most crucial understanding of the interior beauty within us. It is a gift which can be manifested as a talent; either way, we must give it back to the Lord. He gave us these talents and the capacity to appreciate beauty so that we can come to appreciate Him, because He is Beauty itself. In secular art and music, find what is beautiful and extract God’s responsibility in its creation. In your own creations, orient them towards God so that the works themselves are divinely aligned. Most importantly, though, give what you have in excess back to God - He invested talents within you so that you may share Him to others in ways that are far more powerful than mere words.