The Gospel According to Beauty and the Beast by Mary Scifres

Author:Mary Scifres [Scifres, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-05-13T04:00:00+00:00

4.THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF SELF-GIVING LOVE

Greater love has no one than this:

to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.[42]

Love is a big deal in the gospels. Love is a big deal in fairy tales. Ask a Sunday School teacher, a romance writer, or even the Beatles, “What’s the primary point of life?” and the answer will undoubtedly be, “Love.” But in many fairy tales, love is reduced to romantic attraction: Love brings two young people together; love conquers evil; love helps a prince and princess find one another and live happily ever after. If it’s all romance all the time, we’re only talking about eros. This is not the case in Beauty and the Beast, which introduces a more complex and self-giving journey of love.

Our journey begins when Belle chooses to take her father’s place as Beast’s prisoner. The journey continues when Beast makes an unexpected gift of self-sacrifice to save Belle’s life in a forest full of wolves. Even after Belle breaks her word never to run away, Beast saves his prisoner at great personal cost, almost dying in process. Belle, in turn, saves Beast, returns to her castle imprisonment, and nurtures her wounded captor back to health. Immersed in these adventures, we realize this is not your typical Disney fairy tale and this is not your typical Disney couple. Before they are even friends, these two characters give of themselves generously, even sacrificially.

Jesus speaks often of loving and self-giving generosity. He calls love the “greatest commandment,” teaching us to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Through the parables he shares and through his own example of self-giving love, Jesus offers a vision of what it means to put others’ needs ahead of our own: healing when it’s against the rules or when it causes trouble; interacting with outcasts, and dining with sinners, even when it leads to condemnation; refusing to abide by unjust laws or corrupt government demands; and speaking against injustices, even when it threatens our very lives. Self-giving love lies at the heart of the gospel and guides Christians to not only admire the teachings of Jesus, but to follow them as well.

Self-giving love pervades the story of Beauty and the Beast, creating deeper paths toward transformation through love and self-sacrifice. First, we see Belle’s generous nature toward her father, as she sacrifices her freedom to protect him. As the story progresses, we see her love grow and expand beyond her family to include this strange beast who has imprisoned her. Eventually, we see Beast’s generous nature grow and expand through his friendship will Belle. As Beast learns to love, we see him discover his “muchness,” to borrow a phrase from Alice in Wonderland. In the previous chapter, we saw that the love in friendship, phileo, has transformative power of its own. But when it leads to agape, the self-giving love at the heart of our story, anything is possible.

The theme of self-giving love runs deep and strong in this beautiful story, with characters expressing their compassion and care in a variety of ways.

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