Saved by Deep Loveliness

Miguel Manara, the protagonist of a short play of that title by Oscar Milosz, is a notorious womanizer, bored and sated with vice, whose life is completely changed by the love of Girolama, an innocent-but-wise 16-year old whose striking physical beauty is excelled by her inner goodness. She knows and yet loves Miguel, in all his sinfulness, and he in turn conceives a heart-changing love for her in her feminine splendor. He is converted...saved by her deep loveliness. Under her influence, he goes on to become a saint. Our lust-plagued world will be saved, this play suggests to me, by Beauty, by deep, feminine loveliness. Charles DeFocault was similarly converted by the chaste love of his lovely,prayerful woman cousin. St. Augustine was saved by the prayer of his mother. Our Guys, the story of the horrendous Glen Ridge rape, noted that boys who had sisters were disinclined to cooperate with the assault. Recall that Jesus, in his own passion, was comforted and supported almost entirely by women: those at the foot of the cross; the wife of Pilate who was the only one to advocate for him; and the three encounters we recall in the Stations including Veronica, Mary and the women of Jerusalem. If he received and welcomed this feminine touch at Golgotha, so much more may we, who suffer a different kind of passion, seek and relish the healing touch of womanly beauty. With Dostoevsky, we know that we will be saved by Beauty: specifically the radiant femininity of our wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, family and friends.