Seeing and Hearing



Pope Francis

I wonder if the most significant and memorable event of the Year of Faith (which draws to a close on November 24^th ), might have been the day of prayer and fasting for peace in Syria and the Middle East this past Saturday.  With only a week’s notice, Pope Francis directed the entire Church (all 1.2 billion of us), to pray for peaceful and non-violent resolution of the civil war in Syria, which has already claimed 100,000 lives and forced an estimated 2 million refugees to flee the country. 

In calling for this day of prayer and fasting, Pope Francis condemned the use of chemical weapons and their possession, cautioned against any escalation of the violence or widening of the war and called for a ceasefire and urged all parties to seek a political and not a military solution to the crisis. 
 
None of which is unexpected coming from the Vatican.  The Holy See (and by extension, the Catholic Church) can be relied upon to always recommend  peaceful rather than a violent solutions to international conflicts and disputes.    
But in his call to prayer and fasting, Pope Francis spoke of the moral duty of every person of good will to pursue peace.  In his announcement, he wrote:

“All men and women of good will are bound by the task of pursing peace.  I make a forceful and urgent call to the entire Catholic Church, and also to every Christian or other confessions, as well as to the followers of every religion and to those brothers and sisters who do not believe: peace is a good which overcomes every barrier, because it belongs to all of humanity.”

He went onto say: “ I repeat forcefully: it is neither a culture of confrontation nor a culture of conflict that builds harmony within and between peoples, but rather a culture of encounter and a culture of dialogue; this is the only way to peace.  May the plea for peace rise up and touch the heart of everyone so they may lay down their weapons and let themselves be led by the desire for peace.”

But then, building on the foundation of a shared humanity and our ability using reason to arrive at natural truth (in this case, that we bound as human beings to pursue peace in every situation, he became a powerful evangelist.

 

Into the despair and hopelessness of the present war in Syria, at a time when the threat of wider, even more violent and intractable war threatens, the Holy Father proclaimed a day of fasting and prayer.  Why?  Because, as he wrotes, “ Humanity needs to see these gestures of peace and to hear words of hope and peace.” 

 

He wanted us as a Church, as disciples and witnesses of Jesus, the Prince of Peace and the Light of the world, and praying for the intercession of his Mother, the Queen of Peace, to gather publicly in prayer and in a spirit of penance to invoke “God’s great gift of peace upon the beloved nation of Syria and upon each situation of conflict and violence around the world.” 

 

September 7^th was a powerful act of witness to Jesus Christ and to the way of life that he calls us to live as his disciples.  On our knees we asked God to convert and to change our hearts and the hearts of all those who have taken up arms and we appealed in prayer for all those in need and for an increase in our own love and care for the poor and the dispossessed of Syria and the Middle East.

 At the same time, by gathering to pray, we were, despite our own frailty and sinfulness, witnesses to the transforming and incandescent love of God, revealed most fully and perfectly in the Person of Jesus, which illumines the darkness of sin, suffering and death.  His light, his truth, his peace and his love, embodied and incarnated in the earthen vessels of Christians and all those who seek dialogue, reconciliation and peace, are a shining beacon of hope for those who are hopeless and cynical and in despair.

 Let us entrust ourselves and each other to our loving God, for whom nothing is impossible, and may the peaceful witness of our lives invite all men and women to faith in Christ, our Savior and our Hope.

 

 

Mary, Queen of Peace, pray for Syria, pray for us.

 (The detail of the face of Christ is from an icon by the 20th century Russian iconographer, Leonid Ouspenski.  The icon of Mary is the Syrian icon of Our Lady of Saidnaya.)

 

 

 

 

      

 

     

Only Love is Creative

So much of iconpainting is (literally) waiting for paint (or bole or varnish) to dry. Which is what I spent most of last evening doing as I completed the icon of Our Lady Queen of Peace. Just in time to put out for veneration at the Cathedral in Juneau for tomorrow's Day of Prayer and Fasting for Peace in Syria and the Middle East.

It's impossible to grasp exactly all that is at stake in our President's apparent decision to intervene in the Syrian civil war or to predict what sort of new world we may all be living a week or a month or a year from now. But the necessity to ask the Lord to " convert the hearts of all who have taken up arms" seems more urgent than ever.
The truth is, to quote (inexactly) Pope Francis, there are no violent solutions. Violence, as we have seen at every turn in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt and now Syria, begets suspicion, fear, distrust, wrath, hatred, a desire for revenge and more violence.
A mother and a child. Powerless against the powerful and their armies and weapons. So true, yet, their embrace is both a sign and the embodied reality of love. About which another Pope, Blessed John Paul II famously said: ' Only love is creative.'
The love of this Mother and Holy Child is the lifegiving love of the Blessed Trinity that holds humanity, our world and the entire cosmos in being. Jesus, God's love Incarnate, depicted in the icon as a weak and vulnerable child tenderly embracing his loving mother, on the Cross overcame forever the powers of sin and death.
Tomorrow we will unite ourselves in prayer and fasting to the Divine Love, which overthrows the powerful, disarms the violent and raises up the lowly. May God strengthen us to persevere in prayer for the beloved people of Syria.

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Finishing Touches

Putting the finishing touches on an icon is usually the most difficult stage, spiritually, of the entire process. At least it is for me. Which is not what one would expect, as this is the point at which the icon actually begins to come together. This should be an occasion of satisfaction and accomplishment. But not for me.

Just the opposite. It's at this juncture that I find myself dwelling on the weight of my sins and begin to feel paralyzed by my undeniable inadequacies and limitations (which seem insurmountable.) It's just a squalid mix of fear and pride. Fortunately, as soon as I feel this coming on, I know enough now to put down the brush and pick up the prayerbook.
Tonight, when I felt myself being pulled down into that confusing place I was grateful to discover that the theme of the psalms and reading for Evening Prayer were all about humility. Although the important thing is simply to pray -- Lord have mercy is just fine -- the psalms tonight reminded me to trust in God's faithful love and leave it at that.
So I went back to finishing the icon. I completed the faces of Mary and Jesus and painted-in the inscription that translates "Our Lady Queen of Peace". (Thank you to Deacon Greg Kandra who supplied me with the Arabic text!)
Tomorrow I hope to complete the other inscriptions and the borders. I hope to be able to have the icon available at the Cathedral in Juneau for the Day of Fasting and Prayer for Peace in Syria.

Our Lady, Queen of Peace, pray for Syria, pray for us!

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O Savior, Save Us!

I'm close to completing the Korsun Mother of God that I've been working on since the beginning of August.
Aid to the Church in Need began a week of prayer for Syria that began on August 30th. The prayer they have proposed was my prayer today as I painted the faces of the icon of Jesus and his Mother this day.

Prayer and Intercession for Peace in Syria

God of compassion hear the cries of the people of Syria. Comfort those who suffer violence. Console those who mourn the dead. Give strength to Syria's neighboring countries to welcome the refugees. Convert the hearts of those who have taken up arms and protect those who are committed to peace.

Let us pray.

God of hope, inspire leaders to choose peace over violence and to seek reconciliation with their enemies. Inflame the Universal Church with compassion for the people of Syria and give us hope for a future built on justice for all.

We ask this through Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace and Light of the world. Amen.

Through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos, O Savior, save us!

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Mary, Queen of Peace, Pray for Us!

Pope Francis this morning (Rome time) spoke of his deep distress at the escalating violence (especially the alleged use of nerve agents by the Syrian govenment to kill hundreds and possibly thousands of innocent civilians ). He argued for the urgency of a negotiated settlement to the conflict and for outside nations to avoid intervening in the civil war. He called on all Catholics to undertake a day of fasting and prayer on Saturday, September 7th for peace in Syria and the Middle East, noting that this day is the eve of the feast of the birth of Mary, the Mother of God, the Queen of Peace.
He invited Christians of all denominations, as well as believers of other faiths to fast and pray for peace in Syria on that day as well. I welcome his call to be in solidarity with all of our brothers and sisters subject to the scourge of war and its attendent disasters, to pray for them and to pray for peace.

Juneau, Alaska is a world away from Syria and the Middle East, but this afternoon following Mass at the Shrine of St.Therese, this group of Armenian pilgrims from California gathered in the chapel to sing the Lord's Prayer and to pray, which they did in the beautiful chant of the Armenian liturgy. They had heard of the Holy Father's call for prayer and fasting for peace in Syria and they shared with us that some of them were originally from Syria (where there are Armenian communities) or had family members living in Syria. Afterwards, they invited our Bishop, Edward Burns and me to join them for a group photo.
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to have been with these pilgrims as they prayed the prayer Jesus taught us. We are in the midst of a deepening crisis for all of the people of the Middle East but especially for the ancient Christian communities there who are faced with grave threats to their continued survival in their countries of origin.
May our prayers be joined to theirs and to those of all people of faith and goodwill to deliver the people of Syria and the region from the evil of war.

Mary, Queen of Peace, pray for us!

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Within a World Torn By Grief

I've been slowly re-reading "Hidden and Triumphant:The Underground Struggle to Save Russian Iconography by the Russian scholar Irina Yazykova. A couple of years ago my friend Bob Hurd sent it to me and I immediately and eagerly read through it. I was particularly interested in learning more about the rediscovery of the icon in the 20th century.
In returning to it again, for a more reflective re-reading, I was struck by this sentence by Ms.Yazykova concluding the introductory chapter:
"We will explore together the icon's path of development within contemporary culture-- a culture so often referred to as post-moder, post totalitarian, and post Christian-- and see that icons continue to be windows onto eternity, and, within a world torn by grief, the constant testimony to divine joy and the inexhaustibility of hope."


We are confronted daily with "a world torn by grief". During recent days, of course, there are the appalling reports from Syria of hundreds (possibly thousands) of Syrian civilians killed and wounded by nerve agents, presumably at the hands of the Syrian government. And the flight of tens of thousands of refugees from Syria to Iraqi Kurdistan (only the most recent wave of refugees trying to escape the murderous violence of the civil war in their country)

Each person who has been killed or wounded there, or who has been forced to flee, is not a statistic but infinitely precious to our loving Creator, the Father of us all, and thus, our brothers and sisters. That they are Sunni or Shia, Christian, Alawite or Druze adds or subtracts nothing from their human dignity, made as they are, in the image and likeness of God. Each of them is a living icon, a witness, even in their suffering and torment, to the compassion, goodness and love of God.

Far removed, except in the solidarity of prayer from so much destruction and sorrow, It is good to be reminded as an iconpainter of my vocation to work in the service of the icon, the silent but eloquent witness to the One who is Beauty, Truth and Goodness.

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Ora et Labora (continued)

Today and yesterday were all about gilding and prayer. Yesterday I applied gold leaf to the haloes of the icon of the Mother of God and Jesus which I am working on.

The red bole on the halo is a mixture of clay and glue. First, I breathe on the bole. The warmth and moisture of my breath makes the bole become sticky for just a few moments (perhaps 10-15 seconds).


Then I quickly press the gold leaf onto the bole and gently rub on the back of the paper that the gold is attached to.

It's a time consuming process, because in order to be able to burnish (or polish) the gold leaf, I have to gild the halo not once but twice.

It took me most of yesterday to gild the haloes and then to begin burnishing them.

Burnishing the gold also takes time - there is no rushing the process. If everything goes right, burnishing is simplicity itself. Using an agate burnisher (a completely smooth agate set in a wooden handle), you rub the gilded surface with the agate until it begins to shine. Piece of cake! Unless something goes wrong. Which always seems to happen. There may be tiny holes in the gilding or the burnisher lifts up some of the gold or there is one spot that just doesn't want to shine, no matter how much you burnish it. Which usually means making corrections (faulting) to the gilding. but in the end it is worth it.

These last few days have also been a time of prayer. I'm grateful that my studio is also my oratory.

My urgent prayer of supplication has been for Egyptian Muslims and Christians in the aftermath of the coup that toppled the government of Muhammed Morsi, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who was elected President of the country a year ago. This has led to demonstrations against the new government by Morsi supporters, demonstrations that that army and security forces have fired upon, killing hundreds of protesters in at least four separate incidents that can only be charactorized as massacres.

In addition to violence between pro and anti-Morsi rioters in various Egyptian cities and towns, extremist elements in the Muslim community appear to be scape-goating the Christian minority around the country and mobs have looted and burned over 60 churches and church related buildings in the past week.

Praying evening prayer tonight was for the feast of St.Bernard of Clairvaux, the great eleventh century reformer and Doctor of the Church (called the Doctor mellifluus, the Honey-sweet Doctor for his love of the word of God and devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary) yet preached the catastrophic Second Crusade.
The reading, from the Letter of St. James, gives me much to ponder.
"Wisdom from above is first of all innocent. It is also peaceable, lenient, docile, rich in sympathy and the kindly deeds that are its fruits, impartial and sincere. The harvest of justice is sown in peace for those who cultivate peace."
May it be so, in our hearts and in the hearts of our brothers and sisters in Egypt.

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