When the Congress of New Communities and Ecclesial Movements was convened in Rome at Pentecost (May 31–June 2 of this year), the theme was taken from Pope Benedict’s vision.

Three hundred representatives of these groups—including Fr. Tom Talentino, Peter Gravelle and me from Madonna House—met to ponder "The Beauty of Being a Christian and the Joy of Communicating It." I suppose another word for this would be "evangelization."

What does it mean to be a Christian? Does it mean being baptized and confirmed into a Christian Church? Does it mean trying to live a Gospel life? Yes. But even more than this, to be fully a Christian means no less than being fully one with Christ.

St. John Eudes describes this union so beautifully: "The Lord Jesus Christ is your true head, and you are a member of his body. He belongs to you as the head belongs to the body. All that is his is yours: breath, heart, body, soul and all his faculties.

"He desires that whatever is in him may live and rule in you: his breath in your breath, his heart in your heart, all the faculties of his soul in the faculties of your soul.

"You must, then, have one breath with him, one soul, one life, one will, one mind, one heart. And he must be your breath, heart, love, life, your all" (From A Treatise on the Admirable Heart of Jesus).

What an amazing call!

I guess it’s obvious that if I am one with the One who is Beauty itself, then my Christian life is beautiful. But really, what does this look like?

Pope Benedict XIV challenges us to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. So I looked at the Gospels to unveil this beauty. And I found four facets of Christian beauty.

The first facet is the obvious beauty: Jesus reaching out in compassion, tenderness, blessing, healing, and forgiveness.

How beautiful and attractive he must have appeared to those who knew their need of this Divine Love!

As his followers, we are called to drink deeply of the Love he longs to pour into our hearts. The more we drink of his Love, the more we become like him. And the more we become like him, the more he calls us to impart this same blessing to all the world. Can anything be more beautiful?

Christ is Beauty and Love, and he is Truth. This showed me the second facet: hidden beauty. At first, I saw nothing beautiful when Jesus wielded the whip in the temple, or lashed out at the Pharisees who were oppressing the little ones. Yet, the fierce passion, the zeal for his Father’s House and for the freedom of his people, is also beautiful.

He will fight for us. He will not allow corruption or oppression to mar the beauty of his people.

This is where being a Christian doesn’t feel beautiful. When Christ wields the whip of purification in my heart, clearing out the lies and darkness and breaking the prison bars the evil one has erected there, there is a hidden beauty that only reveals itself in time.

And when he occasionally asks me, as his follower, to speak a hard word to someone for the sake of the beauty of that person’s soul, I must say "yes," even though I would much rather not do it.

No, this does not feel or look beautiful. But this interior work washes away the grime which obscures the true beauty within.

Thirdly, there is the terrible beauty of the cross. When our Beloved Lord was unjustly whipped, taunted, and crucified by his people, there was nothing attractive about him on a human level. As Isaiah wrote, The crowds were appalled on seeing him—so disfigured did he look that he seemed no longer human (Is 53:14).

It was a terrible thing to behold. And yet, in the eyes of God, I think he was the most beautiful in his Passion, because it was there that he revealed the depths of his amazing Divine Love.

It was there that he offered his last drop of blood and his last breath for me, for you, for those who loved him and for those who hated and killed him. This kind of love is unfathomably, indescribably beautiful. And this is this kind of love we are called to, as Christians.

This is the kind of love exemplified by Pope John Paul II. On his last Easter morning, he appeared in his window, desiring to give the Father’s blessing to the whole world. Yet he found himself physically unable to make the Sign of the Cross or to speak the words of blessing. The agony on his face was terrible to behold, but the beauty of it broke my heart.

All he wanted, all that was important to him, was to bless, to love, to thank his beloved people. This is the terrible beauty of being a Christian, even in the agony of suffering, persecution, or martyrdom. This is our call to believe, to forgive, and to love until the last moment of life.

Finally, as I searched the Gospels, I saw the glorious beauty of the Resurrected Lord—this resurrected Lord who sent his Holy Spirit to lead us into the fullness of communion with himself, to lead us to become the true Christian described by St. John Eudes, the Christian who has one breath with Christ, one soul, one life, one will, one mind, one heart. This is beauty. This is joy.

It is from this place of union that we can most profoundly communicate the beauty of being a Christian. How?

Well, obviously, words are a wonderful vehicle of evangelization—and not just in speeches, books, and conversations specifically about being a Christian, but in every word of love spoken throughout the day.

For God is Love. Every word of forgiveness, tenderness, or compassion communicates Christ himself and can draw the other to the Lord. Words that come from this friendship with Christ will communicate his beauty to the other.

But our faith cannot just be expressed in words; it must also be expressed in acts of love.

Few people are granted the privilege of making grand gestures and doing great works of love, but all of us can do and are called to do simple, hidden, humble service. After all, we follow the One who knelt before his disciples to wash their feet.

And as we kneel before our neighbors and wash their feet, either literally or symbolically, it is the Lord himself, in all his beauty, who is washing those feet through us.

But when a Christian has been drawn into a union of breath, heart, and mind with Christ, no words or actions are needed. The very presence of this person becomes the presence of Christ.

Every day, I drank of this beauty when I entered the room of one of our beloved elderly members, Mary Pennefather. Mary was nearing the end of her life. She no longer said much or did anything. But her breath had become one breath with Jesus.

So when I walked into her room, I breathed in Christ. I was blessed just by being in her presence, which was the presence of Christ.

She lived what St. Seraphim of Sarov described when he said, "Acquire interior peace, and a multitude will find salvation near you." This is beauty! This is joy! This is the fullness of the Christian life.