Pints With Aquinas - How Photography Show Mother Natalia NEW BEAUTY!

Episode Date: August 18, 2024

Mother talks about beauty as seeing beauty with new eyes after her first time using a DSLR. 🤝 💸 Support the Channel: https://mattfradd.locals.com 🎧 Mother's Podcast: https://whatgodisnot.com/ 🖥️ Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ 🟢 Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/pintswithaquinas 👕 Merch: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com  🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd  

Glory to Jesus Christ. I'm Mother Natalia, a Byzantine Catholic nun from Christ the Bridegroom Monastery, and this is Pines of Aquinas. I had never really used a real camera in my life. I mean, other than this one, but like to take pictures. I remember using a Polaroid when I was growing up, and then when I got older, I remember using a cell phone,

but not like an actual camera with a good lens and all of that. And recently during our community recreation, I used our community's camera and realized that I really, really love taking pictures in nature. And this is just a love that I didn't know I had. And when I was talking with one of the nuns about how much I was enjoying this and just going around and looking for the light shining perfectly through the leaves or getting a picture of the bumblebee just

as it's inside the flower and things like that, I was just expressing my delight and this nun said to me The thing about photography is It makes you look for beauty all around you and I was like yeah, that's exactly what's happening like I'm I'm being more attentive to my surroundings to search out beauty and And so then I asked myself, how often am I actually looking for beauty in my life? The choices that I'm making in conversation, in relationships, in the books that I'm reading, the music that I listen to, are those choices making me more aware of, more attentive to the beauty that's around me? And why is this important? Why is it important, and I think it is,

to see the beauty around us? This is a quote from St. Maximus the Confessor, which is very shocking to my listeners, I know. And St. Maximus says, We do not know God from his essence. We know him rather from the grandeur of his creation and from his providential care for all creatures for through these as though they were mirrors we may attain insight into his infinite goodness wisdom and power the grandeur of his creation the light shining through the leaves the bee in the flower, the person sitting right in front of you. These are mirrors,

which means that beauty allows us to know God more deeply, not just know about Him, but know Him. And I know that there are certain people in my life that really just open my heart up to beauty in really amazing ways. You know, there are certain people that spending time with them just helps me to be more aware of the beauty that's around me in my day-to-day life. So I think it's something to reflect on when you're with a particular friend, when you're listening to a particular podcast, when you're spending time online. Are you becoming more sensitized to beauty or less?

Are you becoming angry or bitter or impatient and and These are really good questions to ask ourselves Even though they're uncomfortable And if it's the latter if it's if it's that well this friend doesn't actually help me to see beauty This friend actually does just rile me up and make me angry or whatever that doesn't necessarily Mean that you just cut that friendship out. But it could mean that there's something in that friendship that needs purified. It could mean that there's something in your heart that needs purified that enables you

to be able to see beauty when you're with this friend, when you're listening to that podcast. Maybe you're feeling angry because the things that you're seeing online are about beauty being destroyed. You know, like the reality of war. And it's good and right to be angry about beauty being destroyed. But we can't let that anger make us lose sight of the beauty. And I think often when we get angry at a good that's being destroyed, we get so lost in the anger that we forget what the good was that we were looking for. And then we've just added to the devil's victory in this small matter. We need to work for justice. We need to fight for beauty to be restored, for beauty to be protected,

but also not let ourselves become embittered. Because then we're drinking the same poison that we're trying to get rid of. Or maybe you're angry because you're dissatisfied at seeing beauty that you can't possess. I want to share a quote from a fantastic book that I would just recommend across the board. It's called The Beginning to Pray by Anthony Bloom, Metropolitan Anthony Bloom. He's an Orthodox archbishop, metropolitan, and this is not like a $300 book or whatever like I've recommended before, so it's a little more attainable. But in the beginning of the book, he's being asked,

this is in an interview, and he's being asked basically how he's able to be a monk but also live in the marketplace, which is actually part of one of our hymns for bishop martyrs. But anyways, he says, this is Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, I don't think living in the marketplace is any different from living in the wilderness. To be poor financially is in a way much easier than to be poor inwardly, to have no attachments. This is very difficult to learn and something which happens gradually from year to year. You really learn to value things, to look at people and see the radiant beauty which they possess without the desire

to possess them. To pluck a flower means to take possession of it, and it also means to kill it. The vow of poverty makes me appreciate things much more. I love that line, to pluck a flower means to take possession of it and it also means to kill it. And I think this is how we can glorify God through the arts Photography poetry music writing The desire in all of these again if we want to use them to glorify God the desire in all of them is To capture beauty without grasping at it,

to capture beauty without possessing it, without killing it. And so, I think that the obsession that our society has with beauty is not about having too little desire for beauty. Sorry. It's not about having too much desire for beauty. I think it's about having too little desire for beauty. I think so much of our struggle comes from

not being aware of the beauty that's all around us. And so when we do catch sight of something that's beautiful, someone that's beautiful, we're so desperate for beauty that we grasp at that. We want to possess it. We want it for ourselves and we want to never let go because we don't know if we'll see beauty again. But if we can become aware of the beauty that's all around us, in the people all around us, then I think we have a better chance of actually referencing beauty and appreciating it without destroying it. In the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of this day.

Thank you for the beauty that you've shown to me and to my listeners this day. Please help us tomorrow to be more aware of the beauty that's around us, to become more selfless so that we can appreciate beauty without the desire to possess it, so that we can behold, capture, reverence without grasping and crushing. and crushing. Help us in all of the beauty that we see to see it as a mirror of your deeply, to know more deeply the beauty that you've bestowed upon us. I ask all of this through the prayers of Saint Nathaniel, Saint Thomas Aquinas, St. Maximus the Confessor, the Most Holy Theotokos whose dormition we celebrate, and all the saints. And to the prayers of our Holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us.

Amen.