St. Augustine of Hippo always believed that the pen was mightier than the sword. A statue in Old St. Augustine's Church in Old City Philadelphia portrays the noble Bishop, brandishing a quill, with his foot planted squarely on a serpent-entwined Satan. Next to that statue stands an acanthus-bedecked ambo, from which the gathered faithful hear words of scripture, of song, of homily.
As he wrote in his Confessions, one of St. Augustine's many epiphanies was the simple fact that Beauty is a gift from God, and a conduit to Him. Whether in religious or secular work, in visual arts or performance arts or literary arts, in mankind's fabrications or Mother Nature's wondrous oeuvre, Beauty directs us to a nobility of heart, to a search for meaning, to a recognition of the Divine. Beauty strikes a chord within our Restless Hearts, speaking to us of a great and eternal restfulness.
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