The Priority of the Poor and the Vulnerable

Today is the feast of St.Elizabeth of Hungary, the 13th century Hungarian queen, who with her German husband Ludwig, ruled over the kingdom of Thuringia.  During her brief life (she died at age 24) she was notable for her constant conern for the poor and the sick (she also gave birth to three children, lost her husband to the plague and became a Third Order Franciscan.).

But it was the personal priority that she gave to the poor and those who were hungry or sick that made her life so exemplary and so Christ-like.  She established hospitals and shelters for the indigent, selling her jewels and sumptuous clothing to provide the sick with food and medicine.  But she wasn' t just a benefactor at a distance.  Rather, she tended the sick and fed the hungry herself, daily, when she was able, with her own hands.  

 

Depicted in this relief print is one incident from her married life, when she shared her bed with a patient she was caring for who suffered from leprosy. Her husband was (understandably) alarmed to discover a leper in their room and in their bed.   He was quite upset with her until he had a vision, in which he saw his wife caring for Jesus himself.  

In this year grace, 2016, and as we move forward, it is the poor, in all of their distressing, frightening or seemingly hopeless circumstances, who must be the priority for Christians and people of good will.  Seeing our neighbors, even those we, in our frailty and weakness, resent and fear, as the beloved sons and daughters of our God, who is the loving, merciful and compassionate Father of us all.  

St.Elizabeth of Hungary, pray for us!

St.Christopher, Pray for Us!

This time of year and this year in particular, the whole world seems to be in motion.

The Holy Father sets out this week for Africa, where so many pilgrims even now are journeying to see him and pray with him.  Refugees and migrants in their tens and hundreds of thousands are on the move.  And in my own country, the airports and highways are filled with travelers headed home for Thanksgiving.

All this travel in a time of so much apprehension and fear and uncertainty.  The State Department issued a worldwide travel advisory for US citizens this afternoon and in France, Belgium and throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East no-one knows when or where terrorists might/will strike again.

Living in the comparative isolation of Douglas, Alaska, I won't be leaving town for Thanksgiving.  But I've been thinking about travel and travelers the past few days as I've worked on the drawing for a relief print of St.Christopher, patron saint of travelers.  He is shown bearing the Christ-child across a river with a swift current.  Tradition says that the saint, who was a giant of a man, was bowed down the weight of the child, who was almost to heavy for him to bear.  When they reached the other side, he realized that he was bearing Christ, who bears the weight of the whole world.

In the Middle Ages St. Christopher's image was placed in churches and on street corners and stamped on medals in the devout confidence that travelers who looked on his image would arrive safely home.  After the Second Vatican Council, in a (seemingly) less credulous era, St. Christopher was (unfortunately) removed from the Roman Calendar because there was no conclusive evidence that an actual saint named Christopher ever lived.

Yet he remains quite popular.  Not surprising really, for who can fail to be attracted to a saint whose name means Christ-bearer.  Which isn't a bad description of Christian discipleship and the universal vocation to holiness (see Lumen Gentium).

Like Christopher, each of us helps to bear other Christs a little or a long way through the swift, sometimes raging currents of life in this uncertain, dangerous but grace-filled world.

Yet our lives, our days, this world, are, in every moment, borne by Him.  Who bears us, in life, in every danger and distress, even in death itself, safely home.

St. Christopher, pray for us!

A Life Together

The Conception of Mary

The Wedding Icon

It's our thirty-third marriage anniversary today.  A life together that began with just the two of us but that has only gotten larger and fuller over the intervening years.  So many days as a couple, as spouses, as husband and wife, filled with countless, ordinary moments and choices and decisions made with passion and joy, hope and uncertainty, (with sadness, conflict and tears along the way, to be sure), that somehow have given us such extraordinary gifts, faith, children, ministry, community, each other.
With Christ at the center, an ever-flowing wellspring of grace that has sustained us along the way.

The Icon and the Belt-Sander

The Centre d'Etudes Russes, Meudon 

Twenty-three years ago this week, my wife Paula and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary in        Paris at the Centre d'Etudes Russes .  We were there with four friends and students from the Mt.Angel Iconography Institute.  We were there to study with Fr.Egon Sendler SJ (Pere Igor) as students in his basic course.

What a remarkable time that was!  Pere Igor's wisdom, enthusiasm and joy was inspiring,  I learned so much from him each day in the old German barracks (erected during the Occupation ) he'd converted into a classroom and a studio.  I chose the icon of St.Elijah ascending to heaven as the image I would paint.  He would, typically, inspect my drawing, pronounce it "Marvellous! " or Terrific!" And then proceed to erase half the drawing.  Usually he said very little to me, except a few imperatives such as "Simplify!" "Find the essential form!"  

When, after two weeks of diligent work, I completed the icon, he singled it out for effusive praise.  He held it up before the class and commented that he was a mere artisan, but that I was a true artist!  Then he declared in a very lighthearted and comical tone, that the only thing necessary to make it perfect was a belt-sander!  As you might have expected, this got a big laugh from the class.

While I hadn't really taken his artisan/artist comment seriously at all, I was perplexed and hurt (crushed, if truth be told) that he would say, even in jest, that a belt-sander would improve an icon I'd spent so much time and effort bringing to completion.  And which, in my (unspokem) estimation, surpassed the work of anyone else in the class, including, (I'm embarassed to admit) even the work of my master, Pere Igor.

I realized that shrewd spiritual father that he was, he had intuitively grasped my secret sin (hidden, if not from him and my fellow students, then from myself.)  That sin was pride, of course, pride in my ability as an artisit, by which I sought to prove to God (and anyone else who might be interested ) that  I was a worthy person deserving of admiration and praise.

It wasn't the icon that required the belt-sander,  it was me!  The carapace of pride, which was hardening around my heart, needed to be humbled, to be scraped away.  I realized that whatever I managed to accomplish as an iconpainter was nothing , rubbish, actually, to quote St.Paul, compared the icon God had created me to be, being brought to perfect (still a daily struggle) by Christ Jesus.

Which is the only icon that for iconpainters (and everyone else) matters in the end.