A Grace of Sense - theological aesthetics

Being a saint is an aesthetic phenomenon par excellence.  The first story in Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron tells about a certain Ciappelletto, a villain that eventually became venerated as a saint. Boccaccio illustrates his character by saying: "Ask him along to a murder or to any such felony and he'd never say no - he'd be off with you, eager as could be; many's time he'd step forward himself to deliver the fatal blow. There was no one like him for cursing and swearing and taking the Lord's name in vain." In a word, Boccaccio portrays him as a totally unsympathetic person, who was eager to gluttony, drinking and sexual pleasures, who moreover scoffed at the church and sacraments and had no noble sentiments whatsoever.  A character like that was suffering a terminal illness while staying at the house two Florentine brothers (who were practising usury). The two brothers did not feel sorry for him, but they were worried about how to get him buried. They...

 If I have, in my former posts, given the impression that asceticism is of a lesser value, I sincerely apologize. Much of the world's beauty would indeed be eclipsed without ascetic spirituality. The basic rule is the word of the Lord: "He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." (Jn 20:25) As Thomas Merton put it, hope is the secret of an ascetic life. Hope withholds our own judgment and our own will from us, and eventually abandons the world we live in. The reason for that is not, Merton stresses, that we or the world were bad, but rather that in our present state of mind we can not get an advantage of the best in the world. Furthermore, Merton claims that we enjoy all the creatures in hope. To employ the Augustinean uti-frui - pattern, Merton says that we do not enjoy creatures for themselves, but them as they are in Christ, full of promise. God has promised us a new heaven and a new earth.  I can not help tha...