God's beauty is omnipresent, particularly in the Scriptures, in the liturgy, and in human friendship. In Enjoying God's Beauty, Father Navone discusses how to find God in the beauty of the world and in all of God's creation.

The joy of seeing the beauty of God in our lives - the eye of love" that is Christian faith and "the look of love" that is Christian contemplation beholding the Beloved in all things - is at the heart of Christian life. In Enjoying God's Beauty, Father Navone provides an overview of the Christian experience of God's beauty in all things.

Enjoying God's Beauty focuses on three approaches to the Christian experience of beauty. The first approach to enjoying God's beauty follows the assumption that wherever there is Christian life, there is Christian Vision and action. The second approach revolves around the Church's Scriptures. Father Navone focuses on the Church's invitation to contemplate in its scriptural iconography true images of God, ourselves, and the world. The third approach involves our experience of life in the Church. Father Navone focuses on the theologies of beauty of Thomas Aquinas and Jonathan Edwards based on their experience within the community of Christian faith. Finally, he examines the healing and integrating Spirit of God's love within the Church and the world and how it invites reflection on the universal scope of Beauty Itself (God).

Just as there is no joy without love, there is no contemplation without beauty. In Enjoying God's Beauty, Father Navone shows that the power of beauty moves us to gaze with love upon the Beloved, an act in the Christian faith better known as contemplation.

Chapters are "Windows on Beauty," *In a Glass Darkly, - *Beauty Begets Beauty, - *Time to Enjoy, - *To Enjoy Is to Glorify, - *The Look of Love, - *The 'Beautiful' Shepherd, - *Scriptural Icons, - *Sight to the Blind, - *Predestined for Glory, - *Edwards and Aquinas, - *Beauty in Liturgy, - and *Radiant Spirit. -

John Navone, SJ, is Professor of Theology at the Gregorian University in Rome and at the Gonzaga University summer school. He has written three other books published by Liturgical Press: Toward a Theology of Beauty, Seeking God in Story, and Self-Giving and Sharing: The Trinity and Human Fulfillment.

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About the Author
John Navone, SJ, is Professor of Theology at the Gregorian University in Rome and at the Gonzaga University summer school. He has written three other books published by Liturgical Press: Toward a Theology of Beauty, Seeking God in Story, and Self-Giving and Sharing: The Trinity and Human Fulfillment.

Reviews
Beauty is a timely topic in our era of theological and ecological dialogue, and in his Enjoying God's Beauty Father Navone wisely inserts this complementary aesthetic dimension into the dialog. . . . Several chapters on correlative images - like the chapter on Seina's wonders and another on Scriptural icons - illustrate and illuminate the book's thesis.Paul J. Bernadicou, SJ, Chair, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of San Francisco
Father Navone has written a beautiful book about beauty. Humans indeed are attracted by the Good and True, but the Beautiful has enormous power to enchant, enthrall, seduce, and captivate. Somehow or the other, however, Puritanism has crept into the Catholic tradition and has made us wary of beauty as though it were dangerous and deceptive and pagan. Father Navone has done a wonderful job refuting that error and urging us to recognize the beautiful for what it is - the best hint we have of what God is like.Andrew M. Greeley, University of Chicago
In Enjoying God's Beauty, John Navone takes an unusual, yet classical, approach to understanding the reality of God and the world He created. Through examining artistic and civic beauty, as well as the beauty we normally experience in others, this lyrical text both educates us and exalts in God. . . . Navone's book is high praise of God's glory.James Schall, SJ
On the far side of the false 'aestheticism' that collapses the distinctive between the beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty, Father Navone helps us discern the Beauty that it is salvation to 'see.' Particularly impressive is his treatment of love in the life of the Church which, although often marked by unloveliness, signals a vindication of universal longing for the Vision beyond all visions. And it is no little thing that a book about beauty is written so beautifully.Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, Editor-in-Chief, First Things
No one writes on beauty as God's attribute as well as John Navone. Beauty is a privileged path to God, and no one notes on that theme as clearly and as well as John Navone. A book that may change your life.Michael Novak
This is the kind of book that not only informs us but transforms us - you not only read it, you experience it. It is an excellent combination of traditional scholarship and contemporary insight. This will be a great book for courses on prayer, contemplation, or spirituality in general. Father Navone's excitement with his subject is contagious. It is a delightfully beautiful book that draws the reader into an experience of the beauty of God.Leonard Doohan, Dean of Graduate School and Professor of Religious Studies, Gonzaga University
John Navone shows us the beauty of God and how to enjoy it in its various aspects. His exposition of the beauty of the Trinitarian God is brilliant, profound, quite readable, original and traditional at the same time, rich with wonderful insights into our relationships with the Father and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, moving. A book for everyone who wants to come closer to God.Robert Faricy, SJ, Pontificia Universita Gregoriana
Navone's work offers many valuable reflections upon the contemplation of divine beauty and the life of grace.Catholic Issues Online



Book Information
ISBN 9780814624869
Author John Navone
Format Paperback
Page Count 152
Imprint Liturgical Press
Publisher Liturgical Press
Weight(grams) 198g