The Beautific Vision

"Hail, O Mother most holy, who didst give birth to the Monarch reigning o'er heaven and earth, world without end
Rejoice, O Mary, thou alone all heresy dost slay.Thou the Archangel Gabriel's message didst obey."
Now what does these lovely Marian petitions from the tradiational 2ed mass that anewly ordained priest would say, have to do with anything?
I have been thinking of beauty.
Interesting isnt it? A world that seems corrupt, corrupting a church with its rot.So how do the Marian petitions fit in here?
Easyily I'm afraid. Quite easily.
What can be more beautiful than the Incarnation? The idea of "God becoming man that manmight become God" (St Athanasius).
"Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven,saying, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ,and he shall reign forever and ever" (Rev 11:15)
There can be no beauty apart from the Divine. When we divorce the beauty from the beautific vision we are left with something dull, dreary, shallow, and sexless.
How can this be? The pagans before Christ gave us some beautiful things, the world filled with unbelief still gives us lovely things.
They were offering what was given. Perhaps what is done for Tash in sencerity is actuallygiven to Aslan. He after all isnt a tame Lion. The Kingdoms of the world DO belong to Him.
Christ still smiles down and imparts beauty in a world of gathering darkness. Greece fell,Rome fell, and the modern/postmodern world will fall. But... "The Word of the Lord endurethforever.." (1 Pet:25)
So now we are stuck in churches who either conform to the pattern of this world saying thatwe must become the world and model "it's" beauty, or we reject it and are left with the clean, sterile, and unlovely warehouses. We have action pounding and drowing us in sound causing our hearts to beat faster and faster till BOOM! Or we have dull, dry, emasculated monotonia.
Do I smell a whiff of incense? Do I begin to hear the resounding echoes of the Ave's and Salve Regina's?
No one remembers the Prince of Persia, he was conquered by the Prince of Greece. Every demon and demon spawn fought with all of hells wiles to prevent these simple words.
"Hail Mary full of grace"
Our Prince Michael still defends the Church. Defending for the King of Kings.
We will endure for a thousand generations. Beauty will rise again. The Beautific Visionwill indeed be seen, heard, smelled, and tasted.
The world rages as they did in the day of Elijah "Where is you God?"We lift him up everytime we break bread "Behold the lamb of God who taketh away the sin ofthe world, happy are those who are called to the supper of the lamb"
Does this sound a bit medieval? I assert that the so called "englightenment" gave us the dark ages we live in now.
Perhaps we need a womans touch. Maybe the second Eve can give us a foretaste of the beautific vision?
"Alleluia, alleluia.Now hath blossomed Jesse’s rod; a Virgin bears both Man and God;God restoreth peace to men; high and low are one again. Alleluia.
Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women.
Alleluia."