Dear Parish Family, Complicated sometimes becomes beautiful! What an amazing statement! Haven’t we all had experiences or real challenges that eventually had a wonderful outcome? Pope Benedict XVI often wrote and spoke about beauty. In one of his most eloquent elucidations, is the role of beauty through evangelization, titled “The Feeling of Things, the Contemplation of Beauty.” Peter Kreft once remarked on beauty, “ Often there is so much more than that which is aesthetically pleasing. Beauty in the face of St Mother Theresa is more radiant than say the face of a model.” A great example of complicated sometimes becomes beautiful is in the horrors of the Passion of Christ. The profound beauty: the sacrifice of Jesus. True beauty is often very powerful, and can strike us in ways that are difficult to understand. St Augustine wrote about how the beauty of God’s creation can answer some questions. We see the sky and the stars twinkling and it is beautiful and at other times we see vicious winds, sheets of rain, or the sun scorching the earth. Or experiencing a devastating illness, and then by the grace of God we are healed . A child is abandoned, and then the prayers of a loving couple are answered and they adopt this baby and become a family. This presents another of those “complicated becomes beautiful.” Through our saints, we are able to see, in innumerable ways how God created beauty out of very complicated lives. Mary Jo