The Gospel According to Beauty and the Beast

by Mary Scifres

  For light to shine once more, Beast must not only remember former days in the sun as a child, he must be able to imagine days of love and hope to come. Light must shine if the current darkness is to be transformed into light. Only the transformation of Beast’s attitude and behavior can effect the final physical transformation that will break the enchantress’ spell and allow Beast to become Prince and his castle servants to become human again. His dark despair must give way to hope; his ugly temper must give way to love. All must begin with the transformation of heart and mind.

  Transformation’s Inner Journey

  Such transformation begins within. As we nourish the divine light that resides within, and as we give our time and attention to the best parts of ourselves, we feed and strengthen the beauty inside that longs to shine forth. On the other hand, if we focus on external appearances and neglect the beauty within, we may lose our way, and our light may dim.

  A Cherokee parable about two wolves dramatizes this point. “A terrible fight is going on inside me,” an old Cherokee chief told his grandson. “There are two wolves constantly at war with each other. One wolf brings death and destruction. He is anger, fear, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, and ego. The other wolf brings life and renewal. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, generosity, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside you, and every other person too.” The grandson gazed in fear at his grandfather before asking, “Which wolf will win?” The old chief sat in silence for a moment before answering: “The one you feed.”

  Beauty and the Beast reveals a stark truth about personal and communal transformation; it begins with a choice: Which wolf will we choose to feed? Will we feed the wolf that is good and does no harm—a wolf of love and light, a wolf who walks gently on their earth, taking what it needs for sustenance and fighting only when it is necessary and just? Or will we feed the wolf that is a beast—a wolf full of anger and self-absorption; a wolf that snarls and howls at every little disturbance; a wolf that growls and snaps even at his own family? This wolf fights everyone who challenges him or gets in his way. Often, this wolf fights for no reason at all. She pounces on her prey, even when she is not hungry, and digs up beautiful flowers simply to create chaos. It is pointless behavior, for this angry wolf is never satisfied or restful. These two wolves struggle within each of us for control and dominance. We sense and yearn for the beauty of the kindly wolf, but the powerful anger of the beastly wolf also calls to us. “Which one will win?” the frightened boy asks his grandfather, a masterful storyteller. “The one we feed,” he and every other spirit-guide answer back.

  Jesus knew this truth that transformation emerges from within, and that we either feed or starve the transformation journey, depending on where we focus our attention. When traveling among religious leaders who strictly observed Jewish law while ignoring the heart of Jewish spiritual life, Jesus chided them for focusing more on the letter of the law than the spirit of love upon which the law was based. Jesus understood that loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself is the summation of scripture, the whole of the Torah—everything else is commentary.[5] Such understanding made Jesus yearn for a world where people act from the wellspring of love—a world where people see the divine image within one another, a world where divine light shines brightly in faith communities with warmth and love for all. Instead, he lived in a world where religious and political leaders focused on the external appearance of righteousness, rather than the inner beauty and transformative power of love. When his disciples were criticized for eating with unwashed hands, as required by Jewish law, Jesus replied:

  Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them. . . . For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come. . . . All these evils come from inside and defile a person.[6]

  And when the religious leaders continued to criticize Jesus and his disciples for healing and working on the Sabbath, Jesus responded:

  Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs . . . on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.[7]

  Jesus looks always for the inner beauty, the inward purity that comes from love. Looking beyond the deceptive outer appearance to perceive the true inner being allows us to see true beauty (or true ugliness). Nourishing our inner beauty creates all the external beauty we will ever need. This message is at the core of the story of Beauty and the Beast. While Gaston focuses on his outer beauty, he feeds his inner beast and misses the inner journey that could transform him into a truly handsome man. While Beast worries that his outer appearance will repulse Belle, it is only as his inner warmth shines forth that she begins to appreciate and enjoy his presence in her life. Just as Jesus’ taught, both Belle and Beast have to learn that it is what comes from within not without that determines who we are. What is truly transformative is always internal, not external. The beast or beauty we feed within our souls becomes who we are.

  A Complicated Journey

  Much as I love the 1991 film that stole my heart so many years ago, I am challenged by the complexity of the characters in the 2017 rendition. In the live-action film, we are vividly reminded that even the seemingly perfect Belle has room for growth and transformation. When she first meets Beast, Belle seems both curious and frightened. Even as her curiosity and courage grow, she is not about to extend kindness to a creature who imprisoned her father and now holds her captive. This is not a story of a victim falling in love with her captor, or of unconditional love blindly extended, or of a sudden revelation and overnight transformation. This is a story of the gradual growth of love—a story of the expansion of our heart, mind and soul, when we allow the transformative power of love to broaden our perspective, change our perceptions, improve our attitudes and behaviors, and invite new possibilities into our lives.

  Already a curious and creative woman, Belle will need to expand her perspective and change her perceptions if she is to understand this strange new world in which she resides, let alone see the beauty within this beast who has taken her prisoner. As kind and loving as Belle is by nature, she has room to grow in her loving compassion, as we all do. For we are never finished products, as long as we are walking and breathing. We are woven into life’s messy journey, moving forward and stepping backward, but ultimately, as Richard Rohr has said, “falling upward.”[8] Although Beast and Belle fail plenty of times in their journey of self-discovery, they end up falling upward in the powerful transformation of love—a transformation that sees beyond appearances, gives of itself selflessly, and expresses itself without limits.

  Such a journey takes time, and the journey’s success requires more than an openness to love, it requires an openness to hope as well. For hope in the midst of despair has a power all its own. Hope leads us to imagine something better. Hope feeds the beauty within, fostering and strengthening our faith. Hope invites us to dream of possibilities that seem impossibly ridiculous. Hope changes our perspective and encourages new perceptions. Hope whispers in our ears that we are more than just the beasts that others perceive, and that our lives can be more than the circumstances that seem to imprison us. Hope breaks the chains that bind us, freeing us to perceive open doors and new paths we hadn’t noticed before.

  In Beast’s first encounters with Belle and her father, we can already see that Beast does have a heart of hope, hesitant though that hope may be. As he watches Belle and discusses her with his servants, Beast hopes that Belle might just be the one to break the spell. Perhaps there is even a loving heart buried within this man-beast. Filled with the stirrings of hope, Beast listens to his servants with gratitude and interacts wit
h them respectfully, in the way one would expect of a good, loving king or master in 18th century France. His years alone in the castle, with only his servants-turned-household-items to keep him company, seem to have laid the foundation for a transformed life.

  Still, we may wonder why these servants remain so loyal in the face of such a terrible curse. When Belle wonders the same, advising her new friends that they had done nothing to deserve their fate, Mrs. Potts sadly confirms that they had indeed “done nothing,” and thereby deserve their fate. They had done nothing when the prince’s mother died and his father treated him cruelly. They had done nothing when the young master grew selfish and cruel as he endured his pain. The enchantress’ spell gave them an opportunity to “do something” to help effect the transformation they all need. And so, we meet a prince-beast who is already kinder and gentler than the one who had refused the enchantress’ entreaty for shelter so many years before.

  Even so, he is an ill-tempered master, quick to express anger and to yell at the slightest provocation. Lacking self-control, Beast seemingly exerts no effort to moderate this poor pattern of behavior. He is an insensitive and self-absorbed captor who only extends hospitality at his servants’ prompting. It’s no wonder that even after offering herself as prisoner, Belle does not accept Beast’s grudging hospitality. She sees only a monster, a cruel captor whom she never intends to befriend or forgive. Meanwhile, even as Beast knows how very much he needs this young woman, if the spell is ever to be broken, he quickly establishes a wall between them with his angry demands and his rude behavior. Belle sees not only what her eyes tell her to perceive, but also what Beast seemingly wants her to perceive: He is a powerful beast, a cruel ruler, and a demanding master who expects obedience and subservience. It would take a very unusual person indeed to see beyond the beast he has become, and Belle is not yet that unusual. Beast is no fool when he predicts that Belle will never see him as anything but a monster. For all she initially sees is a beast, and Belle has no intention of being a beast’s dinner companion, let alone friend.

  The Wisdom of God, Not the World, Leads to Transformation

  This is the human story. We trust our instincts, our wisdom, and our experience to guide us, but often let our prejudices determine who is worthy of our attention, compassion, and kindness. Limited by our perceptions and perspectives, we fail to see what lies just beneath the surface, and so we are prone to misjudge others and draw conclusions from the wrong data. We continue on familiar pathways, trusting in the “tried and true” or “straight and narrow.” We miss new pathways and alternate routes that could lead to new discoveries and untold growth. We congratulate ourselves on our worldliness and lack of naïveté, thereby shutting ourselves off from the possibility that we might be completely mistaken about things that seem so clear. Jesus turns this worldly wisdom on its head with his teaching to focus on heavenly things rather than earthly things. Build up a storehouse of heavenly treasure, not earthly possessions. Focus on divine things, not human things, or you might just lose your way.[9] Jesus goes even further on this seemingly illogical journey, teaching that we are responsible to offer compassion and kindness even to those we deem unworthy. Jesus calls us to change both perspective and perception in our interactions and judgments of others. Loving your friends isn’t enough. Anyone can do that. Love your enemies! Don’t just help those who’ve helped you. Help a stranger lying in the ditch by the road, even a stranger who disgusts or frightens you. No wonder Paul later points out that the wisdom of the cross seems like foolishness to the world.[10]

  These teachings of Jesus are foolish by any logical and worldly reasoning. And yet, this crazy, upside-down perspective of Jesus lays bare the path toward transformation. Love those who do you wrong. Expect the best from people who seem the worst. See the beauty within a beast, and discover a new path forward. Look beyond the craggy lines of an old woman’s face to seek the wisdom within. Search for the blessing within a curse. See every person as a divine child of love and light, no matter what they might look like or how they might act.

  Paul was the right teacher to point out the upside down nature of Jesus’ wisdom teachings, for he was living proof that Christ chooses the foolish of the world to be instruments of God’s wisdom and recipients of God’s transforming love. Long before Paul was deemed a saint of the Church, he was even more of a beast to the fledgling Christian community than the spoiled prince was to the enchantress in disguise. A cruel persecutor of those first followers of Jesus, Paul zealously sought to stamp out the new faith. But on a journey to Damascus, Paul was struck blind and instructed by Jesus’ heavenly voice to leave his campaign of persecution behind and become a faithful follower. This famous Christian evangelist and author of much of the New Testament did not begin as an apostle or even a disciple of Christ. Having never met Jesus, Paul was a Pharisee who had hunted, tortured, and possibly even murdered some of Jesus’ first and most faithful followers. Still, the risen Christ deemed this beastly man not only worthy of attention, compassion, and kindness, but also worthy of transformation into something greater and more beautiful. The Apostle Paul is living proof that the transformative love of God not only has the power to change lives, it has the power to change the world. We all partake of this power when we embrace the fullness of loving God and neighbor, and when we receive the fullness of God’s love for ourselves.

  Jesus makes it clear, particularly in the Gospel of Matthew, that loving God and neighbor extends far beyond just loving the neighbors we know and like. After all, anyone can do that. Many of the most hateful and cruel leaders in history have loved and been loved by close family members and friends. Jesus teaches that love extends to the “other,” the “stranger,” and even the “enemy.” Only this type of radically inclusive, self-giving love has the power to transform us, our communities, and even the world. This is the lesson that both Beast and Belle must learn before their inner journey toward transformation can begin. And this is the very type of love that both Beast and Belle must discover within themselves before they can perceive the true beauty that lies within each other.

  The Walls Blocking Transformation

  This sounds great in theory. And in most fairy tales, the love between prince and princess comes rather quickly, often with as brief an encounter as “true love’s kiss.” However, we know from experience that true love, deep love, and particularly, selfless love, seldom comes quickly or easily. This is particularly true when it comes to loving the “other,” the “stranger,” or the “enemy.” And such is the case for both Belle and Beast. Belle’s stubborn independence initially establishes a wall to protect herself. Beast’s temper creates an even stronger fortress, one that seems to prove he is not worthy of love. Certainly, Belle is neither enamored with nor appreciative of this cruel captor known as Beast. She gathers her strength to withstand any demand he might make, and willfully resists any overture that would torment her further. Belle’s strength and courage will help her withstand imprisonment, but these qualities must extend to her capacity for compassion and kindness if she is to move beyond the boundaries that box her in, much less break down Beast’s wall of anger. For that to happen, Belle will need to see with a new perspective. Both Belle and Beast must at least peek over their self-protective walls if they are to look at one another and discover that they are both much more than they first appear to be.

  They both glance tentatively at one another—Beast reflecting on whether this young woman might be “the one” to break the spell, and Belle questioning this Beast’s cold-hearted actions as she negotiates for time with her father. Even after a hostile exchange of words over a refused dinner invitation, Belle’s curiosity leads her to Beast’s private West Wing. There, she explores monster-like statues, a slashed painting of a handsome prince, and an enchanted rose under protective cover. Just when Belle might have begun to break through a bit of Beast’s self-protection, Beast responds with fury to her disobedience and the threat he perceives to his rose. In response, Belle responds
with courageous pluck by escaping the castle, forsaking the agreement she had made earlier when she bartered for her father’s release.

  As she seeks to return home, it is only after wolves attack Belle in the forest and Beast and Belle join forces to fight off them off, that they begin to see each other in a new light. Only after shared danger and forced vulnerability with each other are Belle and Beast willing to consider lowering the barriers they had erected to protect themselves. When the wolves turn angrily on Beast as he fights to save Belle’s life, Belle must, in turn, save Beast’s life. Only when they have both sacrificed self-interest for each other are Belle and Beast able to perceive the connection they share—the connection that each one of us shares with every other created being in this diverse realm of God’s creation. Only as they live into this connection, stumbling back to the castle together and mending their battle wounds, are these two unlikely companions able to begin lowering the walls they have built. The seeds of transformation have been planted. Enemies might just become friends after all.

  Blessings Come at the End

  The next stage of the story is a beautiful one, but its beauty should not overshadow the hard journey it took to get here. Indeed, this joyous part of the story is a poignant reminder that we might never reach this stage when we build walls where bridges are most needed. We miss the blessings to come if we run away from challenges, troubles, and even curses that confront us. One of scripture’s greatest lessons is that blessings come at the end, after faithful struggle. Abraham had to leave his homeland and become a wandering Aramean before he could become the father of nations through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed. Jacob had to struggle with an angel and suffer a dislocated hip before the angel would bless him and rename him Israel. The Hebrews had to walk out of Egypt and cross the Red Sea while being pursued by Pharaoh’s soldiers before God gave them the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. Jesus had to endure forty days of hunger and temptation in the wilderness before he could embark on his ministry of healing and hope. And he had to struggle alone in the garden of Gethsemane while his disciples slept, and endure ridicule, betrayal, denial, and death on a cross, before he could be glorified on Easter.