WOF 502: The Meaning and Purpose of Beauty (Part 1)
The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture
Brandon Vogt
4.9 • 5.5K Ratings
🗓️ 11 August 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week we bring you the first half of a recent discussion between Managing Editor of the Word on Fire Evangelization & Culture Journal, Dr. Tod Worner, and Bishop Barron. The two discuss the meaning, purpose, and objectivity of beauty.
00:00 | Introduction
00:56 | What is beauty?
09:24 | What is a transcendental, and why does beauty qualify?
13:08 | What is it about beauty that quickens the heart?
16:54 | Is beauty a means to an end or an end in itself?
23:58 | Does beauty lie in the eye of the beholder and is it ephemeral or eternal?
36:05 | Join the Word on Fire Institute
Links:
- Full episode on the Evangelization & Culture Podcast: https://www.wordonfire.org/videos/evangelization-and-culture-podcast/ep54-what-is-beauty-bishop-barron/
- Word on Fire Institute: https://institute.wordonfire.org/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the Word on Fire show. I'm Dr. Matthew Petrusick, Senior Director of the |
| 0:03.5 | Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show. Thank you for joining us. |
| 0:06.8 | Today we're bringing you the first half of an hour-long conversation between Dr. Todd |
| 0:11.7 | Warner and Bishop Robert Barron. In addition to practicing internal medicine as a physician, Dr. |
| 0:17.2 | Todd, as we call him around here, is also the editor-in-chief of the Word on Fire Institute's |
| 0:22.4 | Evangelization and Culture Journal. He also hosts the Evangelization and Culture podcast from the |
| 0:28.7 | Word on Fire Institute. In this conversation, the two men discussed the meaning of beauty and its place |
| 0:34.2 | in our lives. Is it subjective? Where does it sit amongst the other transcendentals, |
| 0:39.1 | goodness and truth? |
| 0:40.3 | Here to discuss these things with Dr. Todd Warner |
| 0:43.0 | is Bishop Robert Barron. |
| 0:57.0 | Segment 1. The Nature of Beauty. The Nature of Beauty. In book one of his sublime poem, Endymium, John Keats writes, quote, |
| 1:03.0 | A thing of beauty is a joy forever. |
| 1:06.0 | Its loveliness increases. It will never pass into nothingness, |
| 1:10.0 | but still will keep a bower quiet for us and a sleepful of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing. |
| 1:18.6 | Therefore, on every morrow we are wreathing a flowery band to bind us to the earth, in spite of despondence, of the human dearth of noble natures of the gloomy days of all the unhealthy |
| 1:30.5 | and over-darkened ways made for our searching yes in spite of all some shape of beauty moves away the |
| 1:37.7 | the pall from our dark spirits close quote so bishop baron john keats not bad not bad right i'm working on it on the side but i'm not coming anywhere near that So Bishop Barron, John Keats. Not bad, huh? |
| 1:45.0 | Not bad, right? |
| 1:46.0 | I'm working on it on the side, but I'm not coming anywhere near that. |
| 1:49.0 | John Keats is really saying something about beauty. |
| 1:52.0 | He's saying it is lovely, it is eternal, and it comforts us in spite of our over-darkened ways. |
... |
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