Beauty that Transforms: Encountering Christ in the Margins
by Emily Klaus, Campus Minister Program Coordinator for CCMA
Beauty, as a reflection of God’s glory, has the power to awaken us to Him, to one another, and to the truth that we are made for communion. The Eucharist, the source and summit of the Christian life, teaches us that “self-gift is a fitting response to the love of Jesus Christ” (Pathways to Communion). Through beauty, we are drawn into this same logic of self-gift.
Beauty ‘de-centers’ us, drawing us out of ourselves and into communion, especially with those on the margins.
In our work with campuses through the Pathways to Communion grant from the McGrath Institute at Notre Dame through the Lilly Endowment, we have seen that beauty is not decorative but but sacramental, revealing deeper realities and inviting transformation. Beauty draws us into right relationship, with God and with one another. Connection is precisely what young people are hungering for in an age marked by loneliness and isolation. We’ll explore how service can renew campus ministry by restoring wonder, deepening solidarity, and revealing Christ where we least expect Him.
In the first year of the Pathways to Communion grant, we chose to do three different gatherings forming and teaching campus ministers and students about service and justice. There were gatherings in each: Philadelphia, Chicago, and Gainesville, Florida.
During the Florida gathering, we heard a presentation from Andres and Marina, a married couple from Argentina who are both professors and immigrants. They volunteer their time to accompany immigrants in their parish. Although they enjoyed the worship and community at their Florida parish, they noticed a lack of immigrants like them. When they inquired, parishioners told them there were no immigrants in their immediate neighborhood, they were “somewhere else,” revealing a subtle blindness within the Body of Christ.
Andres and Marina experienced a profound shift when they chose to truly see the people in their neighborhood. They not only met immigrants, but also discovered a calling to Christian accompaniment rooted in the dignity of every person. The very people they were told were absent from the neighborhood were, in fact, present in their pew, in faith formation classes, and in OCIA. By opening their eyes, they began to experience a deeper, more transformative beauty.
Elaine Scarry, a professor of Aesthetics at Harvard, talks about this awakening to beauty in her book, On Beauty and Being Just. While not writing from a theological perspective, Scarry’s insight resonates with a deeply Christian understanding of conversion and revelation.
“Something you did not hold to be beautiful suddenly turns up in your arms arrayed in full beauty-because the force and pressure of the revision is exactly as though it is happening one-quarter inch from your eyes. One lets things into one's midst without accurately calculating the degree of consciousness required by them. It is as though, when you were about to walk out onto a ledge, you had contracted to carry something, and only once out on the precipice did you realize that the object weighed one hundred pounds” (Scarry 15).
She posits later in her book that it is better to have thought something was beautiful and being wrong than to miss the beauty that is around you. The former is about being too generous with beauty and the latter is about restricting beauty.
When have you been “wrong” about beauty? What was it like to be awakened to it? This awakening to beauty is not abstract. It has real consequences for how we experience connection.
Andres and Marina experienced this “weight” of beauty being placed in their arms in their accompaniment of their neighbors. Among those Andres and Marina accompanied was a man whose niece was ill. He was dedicated to working as much as possible to send money to help. When he sought out the Church and the sacraments in the midst of the heavy burden he was carrying, he found a community willing to help him carry it. They prayed so hard and believed God would grant this prayer of healing for his niece. When his niece died, the shock of the community turned to immediate care for the man. They went to his home to pray with him, cry with him, laugh with him, and feed him. Such beauty was shown in caring for another in grief. The kind of beauty that would have been missed if Andres and Marina chose not to open their eyes to it.
Beauty reveals communion. When we encounter another, we encounter beauty and, ultimately, God who is the Creator of the beauty and the people.
College campuses are all about connection, so why are our young people so lonely and so isolated? In a webinar presenting research done by Springtide Institute and Catholic Charities, there was a conversation on the correlation between loneliness and the gap of service engagement with young people. One of the conclusions they had was that engagement in service could be an incredible antidote to loneliness for young people. These opportunities not only help a young person build community, but it gives them purpose and teaches the benefits of self gift to the world. Giving of ourselves in charity conforms us more fully to Christ and opens us to more compassion and empathy. It opens our eyes to beauty.
Elaine Scarry also makes this claim later in her book in her section on “Radical De-Centering.”
“A beautiful thing is not the only thing in the world that can make us feel adjacent; nor is it the only thing in the world that brings a state of acute pleasure. But it appears to be one of the few phenomena in the world that brings about both simultaneously: it permits us to be adjacent while also permitting us to experience extreme pleasure, thereby creating the sense that it is our own adjacency that is pleasure-bearing. This seems a gift in its own right, and a gift as a prelude to or precondition of enjoying fair relations with others” (Scarry 114).
This reflects the Christian call to self-emptying love (kenosis), most fully revealed in Christ.
An encounter with beauty can dispose of the heart toward justice, leading to the realization that we are not the center of the world, but are called to serve others, just as Christ did. Scarry later recalls an intense period of anxiety and self-absorption, during which an encounter with nature caused her concerns to fall away. The leftover space became available for “service of something else.” Giving of ourselves in service opens us up to new possibilities to encounter God and discover purpose, two encounters that college students are hungry for.
One of the trends we’ve noticed in campus ministry is a disengagement with opportunities for service on campuses and in Newman centers. To help with this disengagement and to create resources for service & justice, we are offering $5,000 grants to three different campuses for the upcoming 26-27 school year, and for the next three years after. In one of the applications this year, the campus reports a record number of people in OCIA and it is those students asking for service opportunities and formation, not their students who are already Catholic. Some other campuses report a disconnect between spirituality and acts of service or understanding injustice in the world. Still others say that students are averse to being part of service opportunities because it feels like a political statement rather than as an expression of Catholic social teaching and discipleship. We have an incredible opportunity here to re-engage all young people in their faith through service.
When have you experienced de-centering in your life? What did it help you do next? Moments of de-centering often become moments of experiencing God’s call in your life. This is why the disengagement from service on campuses is so concerning.
Pope Leo in Dilexi Te says, “The fact that some dismiss or ridicule charitable works, as if they were an obsession on the part of a few and not the burning heart of the Church’s mission, convinces me of the need to go back and re-read the Gospel, lest we risk replacing it with the wisdom of this world. The poor cannot be neglected if we are to remain within the great current of the Church’s life that has its source in the Gospel and bears fruit in every time and place” (DT 15).
Building a bridge between service and spirituality is key to renewal on our campuses. Encountering others through beauty has the power to restore our capacity for wonder and to open our eyes to the presence of Christ where we least expect Him.
Pope Leo also says later in Dilexi Te, “Love for the poor is the evangelical hallmark of a Church faithful to the heart of God. Indeed one of the priorities of every movement of renewal within the Church has always been a preferential concern for the poor” (DT 103). Leaving out this encounter with the poor in our communities can lead us to further indifference encouraging division. This robs us of crucial moments of self-gift and transformation, and perpetuates unjust treatment of the marginalized.
I witnessed the evangelical power of encounter in my 11 years in campus ministry from students whose lives were renewed through service. One student was awakened to the injustices of the poor in serving in Appalachia for a spring break trip. She decided to use her engineering degree to help build water infrastructure in South America. Another student was so profoundly moved after witnessing the poor in countless ways throughout his time in college that he was inspired to start a Catholic Worker community.
These encounters were not just a unique spring break experience they once had. In every one of the circumstances it had consequences for how they lived their lives after. The students encountered the depth of love Jesus has for them through experiencing the depth of love Jesus has for the poor. They grew in a richness of faith that showed them that beauty is not merely decorative but transformative, and it invites us into deeper solidarity and justice.
In the research done by Springtide Institute and Catholic Charities, they had some advice on renegaging young people with service to grow in deeper solidarity and justice.
Help them discover their God-given gifts
Focus on helping young people discover something personal about themselves like their gifts and talents. This helps them uncover who they were called to be.
Engage in prayerful reflection
Provide young people with dedicated time and space for reflection on their service experiences, guiding them to process the meaning of these encounters. Without this reflection, service can feel like a political statement instead of a spiritual encounter.
Focus on connection and authentic Christian friendship
Friendship is a powerful motivator for young people. Encourage them to find service opportunities through their existing clubs, organizations, and social networks.
Highlight mutual transformation in Christ
Guide them through prayer and reflection to see how this service changes them, leading to self-discovery. Emphasize that this transformation is mutual: their authentic presence also changes the lives of those they serve.
In short, help young people find meaning and purpose through the beauty of connection with others. When we encounter the other, we are awakened to the beauty “one-quarter inch from our eyes”, and ultimately awakened to God who is the Creator. We find a new imagination for justice, and are reminded to see Christ in others, especially those overlooked by society. This is a profound wonder that reshapes our lives and ministries. A wonder that leads us toward connection with others and communion with Christ present in His Body, the Church.
Pathways to Communion. McGrath Institute For Church Life. University of Notre Dame. mcgrath.nd.edu/about/centers-initiatives-and-programs/thriving-in-ministry/pathways-to-commuion/
Scarry, Elaine. On Beauty and Being Just. Princeton University Press, 1999.
Pope Leo. “Dilexi Te.” The Holy See, 4 October 2025, www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/apost_exhortations/documents/20251004-dilexi-te.html