The most wholesome beauty is virtue-beauty, the beauty of the soul-emergence into the whole of life, producing a whole person. Virtue-beauty is centered in mortal and immortal goodness shining forth upon the countenance, the movements of the body, and the expression of the individual. The deep, sweet memories of a beloved face, of a beloved deed, passed on from a pure soul, leave the underlying mark of good which all yearn and hope for.
The experience of solitude is necessary because only in solitude and silence is the living God revealed as the binding source of all that is. The veil is lifted, and we begin to see the wonderful possibilities of life together that surround and inhabit us. This means that, at our worst and darkest moments, we can affirm that we are God's handiwork, that God's image has marked us forever, that the most real thing about us is the Spirit who dwells in every human heart. We may be fundamentally and utterly nothing, we may be creatures marked for death, but we are peculiar beings whose very emptiness has been designed to be inhabited by nothing less than the living God. And it is in the living God that we meet one another. The life of prayer revolves around two poles: solitude and community. God is encountered in both places.