EVANGELII GAUDIUM - page 132

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right and true, but also something beautiful,
capable of filling life with new splendour and
profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties.
Every expression of true beauty can thus be ac-
knowledged as a path leading to an encounter
with the Lord Jesus. This has nothing to do with
fostering an aesthetic relativism130 which would
downplay the inseparable bond between truth,
goodness and beauty, but rather a renewed es-
teem for beauty as a means of touching the hu-
man heart and enabling the truth and goodness
of the Risen Christ to radiate within it. If, as
Saint Augustine says, we love only that which is
beautiful,131 the incarnate Son, as the revelation
of infinite beauty, is supremely lovable and draws
us to himself with bonds of love. So a forma-
tion in the via pulchritudinis ought to be part of
our effort to pass on the faith. Each particular
Church should encourage the use of the arts in
evangelization, building on the treasures of the
past but also drawing upon the wide variety of
contemporary expressions so as to transmit the
faith in a new “language of parables”.132 We must
be bold enough to discover new signs and new
symbols, new flesh to embody and communicate
the word, and different forms of beauty which
130 Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical C ouncil, Decree on
the Means of Social Communication Inter Mirifica, 6.
131 Cf. De Musica , VI, 13, 38: PL 32, 1183-1184; Confessiones,
IV, 13.20: PL 32, 701.
132 Benedict XVI, Address for the Screening of the
Documentary “Art and Faith” – Via Pulchritudinis (25 October
2012): L’Osservatore Romano (27 October 2012), 7.