Windows to Heaven

windows

to heaven

a reflection on iconography

by fr. jay kythe

something is an act of virtue. The recent Iconography Workshop, taught by Elizabeth Zeller at St. Benedict’s Abbey, took only three days, July 27-29, 2015. Yet even this, spending at least eight hours a day pouring ourselves over a piece of wood that would eventually hold a holy image, gave us a glimpse into a way of praying and gazing into Heaven where the angels and saints assist us in our everyday needs.

For icons are incarnational. Through them the holy comes into our secular world so that we might be brought into the heavenly realm. The vehicle by which this is done is the one who “writes” the icon, opening a small piece of wood to hold a window into heavenly glory. Natural elements are used—earthly pigments, water, egg yolk, gold leaf—and synthetic elements are only accents to the natural and used sparingly.

What image shall I write? I wondered as I gazed upon the empty white board. Of the selections, I saw the image of our Sorrowful Mother, tear-filled eyes wide with shock and horror, pointing upwards towards the Cross. Her right hand was raised, pointing upward, towards her Son, for that is what the Blessed Mother does. Her left hand clutched her scarlet cloak at the heart, the wrinkles of the fabric catching my attention. This image touched me somewhere in my heart where grief bubbles up to the surface. Grief—that tired old bone once broken, which aches when the rains come, began to ache. Yes, this is the one!

Applying some ochre pigment to the back of the image, I traced it onto the white surface of the wood. I etched the lines with a pin so that the lines may be more visible when the color was applied. And lest I forget the glory of God as I worked on this sorrowful piece, wherever gold leaf was to be applied, red pigment was spread. Then the adhesive. Then the hours of waiting—for nothing is to be rushed. Finally, it was ready for the gold leaf. My very breath was needed, the moist breath to make the fragile gold leaf stick. Apply and rub and breathe, until it was shiny and polished. The red background made the gold appear more rich, more vibrant, shimmering with heavenly light.

In the spiritual life, faithful souls must pass through darkness. Unlike most paintings, which go from light to dark highlights, the icon begins in darkness. The image was colored with many layers of dark tones, and in some cases the original image is obscured. Beginners in the workshop (including me) felt that despair of the darkness—or rather, the despair of a ruined work of art. Temptations to give up arise. God feels distant, silent, remote. His work is ruined, by me! Shall I leave the workshop and give up, admiring other people’s work from a distance? This is the danger also of the spiritual life. When darkness enters in, the faithful fall away. Perseverance is needed. Faithful guides who have experienced the darkness before, like Elizabeth Zeller, are needed. Most of all, the understanding that God has not departed is needed. He is blindingly close. Truly, You are a hidden God!

Lighter pigments are then applied. As the darkness of grief has its own landscape, shape and texture arise out the darkness. Clothes become folds of garment. The hands become alive. And the face of the Sorrowful Mother comes into focus. Her cheeks are

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On Iconography

Iconography is the depiction of holy images using a partic ular ancient technique and following ancient set of rules.

It is a language of symbols, meant to create an object for veneration and contemplation.

I practice iconography because It is deeply relax ing, prayerful, contemplative, quiet...these are things that our society lacks – and all of us yearn for quiet, prayer, and contemplation.

Like any practice...the medi tative focus of it quiets your spirit and that opens a space where the divine can commu nicate with you. I was painting St. Francis, and there is a dialogue that is created... what do I learn about God as it’s being portrayed to me by St. Francis? I am in charge of what it looks like, but I’m not really – the icon tells me what it needs or wants. It’s clearly a dialogue and you get a clear message from the heavenly figure that you’re painting.

There is meaning in every expression.

stained with tears, her quivering lips pursed in sorrow. A simple red halo is applied with a compass. The symbols of the title “Mother of God” are applied in the corners. And some more gold leaf for the embroidery of her gown and the stars on her forehead and shoulders are applied. And it is finished!

Incense swirls over the icons. They are blessed with holy water and touched with holy oil. They are laid out on the altar on which Holy Mass is celebrated. They become windows to heaven.

The best painting, beautifully made and with devotion, cannot hold a candle to even the most poorly and painstakingly written icon – filled with prayers, for icons are windows to heaven. They teach us that God almighty has written icons too, first in His Son, who is the human face of the ineffable Creator, and in every single one of us. If we can see heaven in the innocent face of a baby, we should even see heaven in the faces of all of us. Our icons may have become a bit dirty by the world, the flesh, and the devil, but His icons are still there, waiting for the cleansing power of grace to open us up into heavenly reality. Christ became one of us, so that we may “become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). Icons instruct us on how we might share in Christ’s divine nature. Abbey Retreat Master Fr. Jay Kythe with his icon of the Sorrowful Mother.

the power

of the icon

by Br. Benedict Mary Geist

The icon is an often misunderstood and over-

looked form of art. Many who see them don’t know how to react to them. They seem primitive, sometimes remote and plain. Where are the shadows? Why are the backgrounds either non-existent or abstract? Why do the subjects show little to no emotion?

Yet it is because of all these things that an icon holds a special power. Icons have a firm canon dictating what and who may appear, what colors can be used, and how. This serves to make the icon an encounter with the persons or events portrayed. The gold background especially makes this clear. Gold represents heavenly glory and the mystical light that comes from God. The gold background in an icon indicates a mystical reality – we are encountering the saint as he or she is now, not as a historical event that happened a long time ago. God, before the Incarnation, transcends time – he is outside of it. But at the Incarnation, God became man, entering time and drawing it up into eternity by his Life, Death, and Resurrection. By doing this he sanctifies time and makes it fully accessible to us at every moment. This is what theologians mean when they say that we are mystically present at the Last Supper, the Cross, and the Empty Tomb whenever we attend Mass. This is what gives the Scriptures their power to impact us in a way beyond a mere story. By encountering these things we are made present at the events they signify. It is the same way with the icon.

An icon is first and foremost an encounter with a person. The saint invites us to pause and look inward at ourselves. There have been times in my personal experience when I found myself unable to look steadily at an icon because of shame at some thing I had done. At other times I have found myself unable to look away – having been drawn into contemplation of and conversation with the person portrayed. I have even had a sense of an icon “calling” out to me – the two saints in the icon offering to pray for me when I was dealing with a particular frustration. One will find these experiences are rather common for those who encounter icons. They have a power of their own and are, in truth, “Windows to Heaven.”

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