c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreelaol.com.)

PARIS _ I suspect that most people go to the Louvre mainly out of interest in two beautiful women _ La Giocanda (Mona Lisa) and Aphrodite (Venus) de Milo. The gallery obviously knows this because it features them on its maps.

Huge crowds from every nation swarm around these two lovely ladies. Most observers seem more interested in capturing their images on cameras than in actually looking at them. Some even use movie cameras, lest the two beauties move a bit and be lost to a still camera.

Never mind that the transparent screen that protects”La G”from another theft reflects all the exploding flash bulbs. For 20 francs one can buy a much better professional shot at the gallery’s store. But what do I know. Give the Louvre credit for permitting picture taking.

For whatever my opinion is worth,”A de M”looks a little worse for wear. The years have taken their toll on her marble skin. La G, on the other hand,really is one of the most beautiful women who ever lived. Incidentally, the argument that her smile is guarded because she has bad teeth is nonsense.

Find me a single Renaissance painting in which a woman smiles like Julia Roberts and I’ll take that contention seriously.

One cannot help reflect in the presence of these two wonderful women on both the fleeting nature and the durability of beauty. Both models are long since in their grave. Their youthful attractiveness doubtless faded as they grew older.

Beauty is the ultimate vanity of which old Quoleth wrote when he said that all is vanity. We can preserve beauty, in his words, as easily as we can chase after the wind.

On the other hand, oh, yes, on the other hand … If there is a God and if God is the mother of the two models and if God delights in all His creatures and their beauty, then God must delight in the attractiveness of those two women. God must also be pleased with the nameless Greek and the incredible da Vinci for capturing the beauty of those two beloved children and sharing it with all those who followed.

Human parents are proud of the beauty of their children. Would we dare to deny God the right to be proud of the beauty of Her children? Human parents would do their best to protect their beautiful offspring from decay. Alas they cannot. But God can …

So what follows?

Does it not follow that God will some day take great pleasure in restoring us all to the beauty we had when we were young, or to the beauty that we should have had if all had gone well with us? What kind of a God would it be who would not do that? Any God who wouldn’t care about the loveliness of His children, wouldn’t be God. Surely in the world to come A d M will have her arms back.

I also wondered, as I reflected on God in the Louvre, whether he has permitted the real-life counterparts to know how popular they are and how many people crowd into an old French palace (with an ingenious glass pyramid) to admire them.

God, being God and loving surprises, must surely have found a way to do this. Will it go to their heads? Will they become vain because of all the attention? Gimme a break! No, give God a break!

God is Prime Beauty (as the pope has recently reasserted). We know Beauty first, then Goodness, then Truth. So of course God, in ways that are far beyond our comprehension, preserves the beauty of his children.

And thus God was present in the Louvre that morning and every morning, and loved every minute of the show.

IR END GREELEY