White daisies framed by cheerful wallpaper offer a floral touch in my Easter home. Peonies will soon make their appearance. These are spring touches that attest to the joy of the Resurrection.

Spring is in bloom, including online.

Have you seen the “spring hallelujah” trend? Social-media posts reflect joy for these days of new life and warming temperatures, from flourishing flowers to picnic weather, among other seasonal hallmarks.

Praise the Lord, indeed, for these beautiful moments. These kinds of posts reflect the human need for beauty.

“This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. It is beauty, like truth, which brings joy to the heart ... and is that precious fruit which resists the wear and tear of time, which unites generations and makes them share things in admiration,” Pope St. Paul VI said to artists at the end of the Second Vatican Council.

When it comes to saints who appreciated beauty, there are many, among them St. Gianna Molla, whose feast day the Church celebrates each April 28.

As her son Pierluigi Molla said at the 2012 World Meeting of Families in Milan, the city where his mother studied and worked in medicine:

“She knew how to enjoy the beautiful things that the Eternal Father gives us.”

Gianna appreciated art and music as well as majestic mountains (upon which she loved to ski).

For Gianna, beauty wasn’t limited to physical creation — it extended to the soul. As she once wrote to her husband Pietro:

“When I think of our great, reciprocal love, I do nothing but thank the Lord. It is quite true that love is the most beautiful sentiment which the Lord has put into the soul of men and women.”

She also tied, in another letter, love with happiness and living fully with a grateful heart:

“But now let us enjoy the joy of loving each other; as I have always been taught that the secret of happiness is to live moment by moment, and to thank the Lord for all that He in His goodness sends us day by day. So let us raise our hearts and live happy!”

Live happy — I overlooked that specific exhortation of St. Gianna’s when I read through a recent book focused on letters between Gianna and Pietro.

We can be happy because what God created is beautiful — including our very lives and the true meaning of love — and “all that He is His goodness sends us day by day.”

Savoring beauty is how we can follow Gianna’s advice to “Live holy the present moment,” too.

A related quote about God the Artist comes to mind: “It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them” (G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy; hat tip to Larry Chapp for reminding me of this lovely observation in his beautiful recent column).

Beauty is profound in the palpable peace of the sacraments and the Mass, of course.

But it’s also found in loving moments with family, marked by the way of the Little Flower, and Christian fellowship and friendship (including in the precious moments weaved througout the papal trip to Africa).

Beauty is found in the heavens, as the Artemis II mission illustrated; the amazing photos taken by the crew captivated me (along with so many other people around the world, including Register staff and readers). God’s creation visible in new ways was simply breathtaking! And the astronauts’ eloquence about their profound experience was moving too — beautiful words indeed.

Beauty is often found amid the ordinary of daily life.

But beauty also extends a blessed reprieve from discouragements and trials — to see the moon anew, catch a glimpse of a pretty bloom or the way the light filters through trees’ leaves or read a lovely turn of phrase in a classic book quiets the soul and ultimately points to the Author of beauty.

We must allow ourselves to delight in how the bluest sky dotted by feathery clouds can still our heart and be charmed by the buds of spring — truly, we need beauty and, like St. Gianna reminds us, to enjoy the beautiful things.

WATCH

Looking for more beauty? Check out EWTN Studios’ Seeking Beauty: “Beauty is not just decoration. It’s the language of the divine. It draws us in because God made us to seek him. God is the source of all beauty,” observes host David Henrie in Seeking Beauty’s “Vatican City” episode.