Preparing for the gold...

The unspeakable and prodigious fire hidden in the essence of things, as in the bush, is the fire  of divine love and the dazzling brilliance of God’s beauty inside everything.  St Maximus the Confessor

I just read the above quotation, and thought it aptly captures the essence of the Sacred Heart as ICON, so thought it best to post it here before I forget!

Today saw the board being prepared for the gold leaf: final tweaks to the design, final sanding of the board, and the transfer of the outline of the image where it touches the gold to the board.

Then, to the areas to be gilded, several layers of bole have been applied. This is a fine red clay, mixed with gelatine, which acts as a 'cushion' to which the wafer thin layers of gold will be applied, and then burnished.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary

Today we celebrate and honour the Blessed Virgin Mary, who as Luke puts it ‘treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart’(Lk2:19.) The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary are closely linked. We find this stated most clearly in the writings of St John Eudes. ( see link in list of useful links). And it is rightly very close. God loves us with a human heart. This heart was formed from the DNA of Mary. For many months two hearts beat within her body and this means that we reserve a special place for Mary in our devotion to the Sacred Heart. At one stage when I was thinking about commissioning an icon I thought about an icon showing both Jesus and Mary, but because of the added complexity in the end I decided on just the Sacred Heart of Jesus. When Ian was completing the Rosary paintings it provided an opportunity for me to reflect on Mary ( Hodegetria) ‘pointing the way’**** to the Sacred Heart. For this reason I am delighted that Ian's design has included a picture of Mary showing her Immaculate Heart in the icon.

Our prayer today is taken from the 1st preface of the Blessed Virgin Mary in today's mass:


Father, all-powerful and ever living God,
We do well always and everywhere to give thanks
as we celebrate the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary.



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**** Having looked more closely at the drawing, it is clear that the Virgin is standing Interceding for us ! Thus (correct me if I am wrong Ian) this is Mary 'hagiosoritissa' (of the Holy Chest) and not 'hodegetria'. In the context of the Sacred Heart, of course, this makes perfect sense. Mary is interceding for us (rather than 'pointing the way' ) and asking for God to be merciful to the children of Adam.

Feast of the Sacred Heart

It seems such a long time in coming this year , but today (1st July) is the feast of the Sacred Heart. So it gave me a great deal of pleasure to light a candle for Ian today. The prayers, readings and hymns during the mass all illuminated different aspects of the Heart of Jesus – like the many votive candles by the statue of the Sacred Heart itself. Thinking of Ian’s design (SEE 27th June, below) today greatly helped my prayer and enabled me to focus on a few of these dimensions. As this icon is very much on my mind, I was reminded during mass of what the Directory of Popular Piety and Liturgy says about the Sacred Heart of Jesus, because I think it has a good deal of relevance for this project. The Directory ( See HERE ) states that the Sacred Heart of Jesus :

denotes the entire mystery of Christ, the totality of his being, and his person considered in its most intimate essential: Son of God, uncreated wisdom; infinite charity, principal of the salvation and sanctification of mankind. The "Sacred Heart" is Christ, the Word Incarnate, Saviour, intrinsically containing, in the Spirit, an infinite divine-human love for the Father and for his brothers.

In other words, as a 'thesaurus' or 'treasury' it is a lot to take in! It can, as Teilhard observed, rather overwhelm our feeble minds. I reflected on this during mass and it seems to me this is where the role of the artist ( and musician, but that is another issue!) is so important because art can help us to focus our prayer and enter more fully into the mystery. Indeed, the Directory goes on to say:

Popular piety tends to associate a devotion with its iconographic expression. This is a normal and positive phenomenon. Inconveniences can sometimes arise: iconographic expressions that no longer respond to the artistic taste of the people can sometimes lead to a diminished appreciation of the devotion's object, independently of its theological basis and its historico-salvific content.This can sometimes arise with devotion to the Sacred Heart: perhaps certain over sentimental images which are incapable of giving expression to the devotion's robust theological content or which do not encourage the faithful to approach the mystery of the Sacred Heart of our Saviour.

This is the challenge facing Ian in writing this icon. And this is why he needs prayer – and all the candles he can get! I think that the art associated with the Sacred Heart has indeed ‘diminished the appreciation’ of the devotion and has not served to illuminate the theological basis and content of the profound mystery of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. (If anything it can serve to obscure its theological content.) Ian’s design has, I believe, great potential to provide an iconography which can serve to take us beyond the sentimental images and open a window into the deep theological content which the devotion contains. And I continue to pray that the Lord will guide his hands.

And so a simple prayer on this great feast day.

Sacred Heart of Jesus

Place your Heart deep in the centre of our hearts
and enkindle in each heart a flame of love
as strong, as great, as the sum of all the reasons
that I have for loving you.

Saint Claude de la Colombiere.

Ian's design

I have been reflecting on Ian’s design for sometime now and I still have a sense of amazement and surprise. Amazement, because of how Ian has managed to say so much in this design. If the Sacred Heart is a summary of the Christian faith, then Ian’s design has captured in the most complete way so much of what that faith is about! Teilhard said that the very thought of the Sacred Heart ‘is almost more than the mind can compass.' It is indeed the treasury of all ‘wisdom and knowledge’ ( as the Litany puts it). Ian’s design has amazed me in how it helps my mind to better ‘compass’ and comprehend what Benedict termed ‘the core of Christianity’. In this regard the word design is interesting. It comes, of course, from the latin ‘signare’ (de-signare): it means to signify or give something a sign. ( You give yourself a sign with your ‘signature’.) A design in this way seeks to make sense of something. A designer takes a problem and makes sense of it: she/he asks you to look at something differently. Good design helps us to make sense of our problems. And that is what is so surprising about Ian’s ‘design’ : it helps me make more sense of the core of my Christian faith as expressed in the Sacred Heart. ( I was not expecting that! ) Above all it is a design which will lead me (and hopefully others) to prayer: and that must be the ultimate test of any icon.

Clearly the money spent on all those candles has not been wasted!

The Design!

Well after all these weeks and months, the basic design is now complete. Obviously I will continue to work on it and develop it, not least once painting commmences. But this is fundamentally the new image, inspired by the continuous devotion to the Love of God at the heart of all things which begins with the Fathers, and passed on int the Western Church through the medieval mystics such as St Bernard and St Gertrude, visualised in a unique way in the visions to St Margaret Mary and all of which seen through the prism of the prophetic theological vision of Teilhard de Chardin.

This is my desk where I work on the design. Several layers of paper, lots of pencils and a compass. But I left one thing out... my new Asus Etab which is an absolutely gem for enlarging images I am working from!

So, a description of the piece:

Christ sits enthroned in the midst of the cosmos, symbolised by the circular nimbus (Divinity which has no beginning or end point) in a square (the created, delineated order). The final layer of the nimbus is an octagon, symbolising the eighth day of the New Creation. In the centre of the nimbus is a swirling rhythmic shape of fire. Christ’s Sacred Heart sits at the centre of the geometric shapes and is encircled with the Greek letter Omega.

  

Around the edges of the composition we have the created order, spiritual and corporeal, gathered together as one in the process of transfiguration at the Parousia, a time of transformation of the old order in the new heaven and the new earth.

In the lower register we have a stylised vine for Christ is the True Vine of which we are the branches, with leaves and fruit, entwined with fantastical creatures, to the left animals, to the left, fish.The Vine recalls the Eucharistic life both a foretaste of the Life to come but also an actual participation in the transfiguring new Life which is offered to all humanity 'in Christ' through His Body the Church whereby he draws all people to Himself. The animals represent the earth, the fish the sea. Entwined on the left is Adam prostrating himself, representing the whole of humanity in need of redemption, the weary and heavy of heart whom Christ bids come to Him, while to the right we have St Mary Magdalene, who was commended for desiring the ‘One thing necessary', the women who forgiven much, loves much and who stood at the foot of the Cross alongside the Mother of God and St John. She thus represents the ‘new Man in Christ’, those whose hearts have been transfigured by Divine Love and who witness to the Love even in this present age as a foretaste of the consumation of all things in the new Jerusalem when Christ the Bridegroom will take His Bride to Himself.

Crowning the vine is the Mother of God and St John the Baptist, in a deisis of supplication and prayer, honouring the Son as is Manifested as King of Kings and Lord of Lords as He glorifies His Father through His Passion. She is, as it were, the flowering of grace, the Beautiful Woman clothed in the sun, the Immaculate Mother who is all for and in Christ whose transfiguration in death at the assumption was a foretaste of the new life which is for all those who welcome her Son. John meanwhile heralds the One who is to come, manifesting the transition from the Old Covenent to the New, a witness to the evolution of salvation history where Christ must increase and all others decrease. At the Lord’s feet gushes forth seven springs of Life Giving water, just as water gushed forth from the temple in the vision of Ezekiel, the waters of life that water the earth with sweet water that brings the barren trees to bloom and the desert to spring forth, the waters of grace and new life that are the treasure of the Church. This is also representative of the gift of drink which Christ promises in the book of Revelation to those who are thirsty (Rev. 21:6). Hence the seven rivers represent the seven sacraments, the number which itself speaks of completion and fulness. The rivers burst forth from the Divine sphere into the square of the created order.

Above all of these are the supernatural or spiritual powers, what St Paul calls the powers, dominions, authorities, angels, archangels etc. To the right we have the angel carrying a measuring line from the Book of Revelation (Rev 21:15), measuring out the new Creation, principally the new Jerusalem. This reminds us of the profound order within Creation which will continue and be fulfilled in the new. On the left is one of the seraphim, a being of fire and flame which traditionally is understood to have the purpose of fanning the flames of the Love of God into a bright furnace whose heat permeates the whole of creation. The visions and reflections on the Sacred Heart speak powerfully of this energy of love, and in this teaching of the Church about these spiritual beings we have an important connection between the later devotion and its roots deep in the Patristic and Biblical theology of the Church from its earliest times.

The Archangels Michael and Gabriel hold the exalted Cross which crowns the composition, behind which the sun and moon, set against a map of gravitational energy, emanating from the planets and stars, being rolled up to make way for the new heavens and the new earth. In the visions of the Sacred Heart it is surmounted by the Cross, so the whole icon is here with the exalted Cross. The Cross touches into the depth of the darkness of God's Mystery, while reaching out into the heavens, displayed between the portents of the sun and moon. The heavens here are as a scroll being rolled up, and the pattern behind is drawn from one of the latest imaging of gravitational energy. Modern science has enabled us to perceive far more of the wonders of the universe than ever before in the history of the world, and maybe even of the cosmos as a whole. There are invisible forces at work, all within the marvellous order of creation, and all of which has its ultimate fulfilment in Christ. 

Thus we find Christ’s Heart as the culmination point for the whole of creation, both temporal and spiritual, a process with both an end or omega point, but which is also evolving through time as the energy of God’s Love, which first created, then redeemed and will finally consummate all things brings all things into unity in the Person of Christ who not only entered into Creation but entered also into death, giving Himself completely, beseeching all humanity to come to Him who is meek and gentle of heart so that they might be refreshed.

Jesus is placed within a nimbus which represents the manifestation of His Divinity, moving from a dark, unknowable centre to a bright circumference. The circumference billows with cloud forms representing the heavens which manifest the glory of God in its beauty and order. At the centre is the Sacred Heart itself, surrounded by its own mandorla within which is inscribed the Omega, denoting Christ's Sacred Heart as the Omega point as explored by Teilhard de Chardin.  

June Prayers to the Sacred Heart ( 15) Prayer to St Claude de la Colombiere

The Queen's chapel, London. The place where St Claude de la Colombiere first brought the devotion to the Sacred Heart to Britain in 1676.



London - city of the Sacred Heart!

The fact that London is home to the mother house of the Congregation of Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (SEE HERE ) means that it is rather special. In this city we are blessed to have a community that is wholly dedicated to a perpetual adoration of the Sacred Heart in the Blessed Sacrament. London is truly a city of the Sacred Heart! But London has another important connection to the Sacred Heart; the time spent here by St Claude de la Colombiere. St Claude was the Jesuit priest who, more than any other, championed the cause of St Margaret Mary after he became her spiritual director in 1674. Two years later - in 1676 - he was sent to London to become the preacher to the then Mary of Modena, wife of the Duke of York who was later to become Queen Mary II when her husband ascended to the throne as James II in 1685. This was a brief reign, coming to an end in 1689 after Mary produced a Catholic heir to the throne! James fled to France and was duly replaced by a more acceptable protestant who became William III ( this is known as the ‘Glorious Revolution.’)

What is most significant – and is, I think, sufficient in itself for London to be called a city of the Sacred Heart - is that whilst in London St Claude was to practice and preach the devotion to the Sacred Heart, and furthermore share this devotion with Mary - the then Dutchess of York. Now this was at a time when it was dangerous to be a Catholic and minister to Catholics in London. In 1678 St Claude was accused of being part of a Catholic plot ( the so called Titus Oates plot – which proved to be a complete invention and fiction!). Poor Claude was arrested and thrown into jail. It was only his association with Mary which may have saved him from Tyburn : otherwise his name might have been recorded on the list of martyrs at Tyburn convent. He spent three weeks in prison and returned to France a very sick man. He never really recovered his health again and died in 1682.

Mary was the first person of (Royal) note to petition the Holy See to recognize the devotion with a feast. ( This eventually happened in 1852. ) When we reflect upon these facts it is really quite amazing. The man who was most responsible for championing the visions of St. Margaret Mary and who was her spiritual director spent a few years spreading the devotion to the Sacred Heart in St James’s palace and to the beleaguered Catholic community of London whilst at the same time guiding St Margaret Mary by letter! So in many ways St James’s palace may, with some justification, be said to be the first place outside Paray-le-Monial where public devotion to the Sacred Heart occurred – and in the lifetime of St Margaret Mary. St Claude ministered to Mary in the Queen’s Chapel ( photo above left) which had been built for the Catholic wife of Charles I - Henrietta Maria. After Mary II it no longer functioned as a Catholic place of worship.

It is about time that this Chapel is recognized for its significance in the history of the devotion to the Sacred Heart.

St Claude was canonized by John Paul II in 1992.
Official Vatican site for St Claude: HERE


Prayer for today.

Dear St Claude, who once suffered in a prison in London, pray for the City that in your day persecuted Catholics. Pray that we may once again hear the words you preached in this city so that we may open our hearts to the divine love radiating from the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The sacred heart of London

Seeing Ian’s most recent drawings has made me think quite intensively about the Sacred Heart. And on my return home yesterday I found myself staying put on the Central line, and making for Marble Arch. I was turning over in my head Teilhard’s famous lines about harnessing or capturing the energy of love. ( I quote it fully in French here, with the standard translation underneath.)


Quelque jour, après l’espace, les vents, les marées, la gravitation, nous capterons, pour Dieu, les énergies de l’amour.- Et alors, une deuxième fois dans l’histoire du Monde, l’Homme aura trouvé le Feu. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, L’Évolution de la Chasteté, ( Les Directions de L’Avenir, Éditions du Seul, Paris1973, p92)

The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

It is important to note here that so often this is quoted with ‘pour Dieu’ / ‘for God’ just cut out!! In doing so it greatly distorts what Teilhard is saying. For Teilhard love is an energy – the universal energy that drives human evolution. The Sacred Heart is the end point – the Omega point – of that energy. The whole purpose of human existence is to harness this great cosmic energy FOR GOD.

And that is when I thought that I had to stay on the Central line. Why, you might ask?

From Marble Arch station it is only a short walk to one of the most important places where we can experience the devotion to the Sacred Heart in London. As I reflected on Ian’s drawings I thought about the Convent at Tyburn: a place which is wholly dedicated to the task of harnessing love, pour Dieu. In the heart of all the noise of the city there is a small convent founded by MARIE ADELE GARNIER in the first year of the twentieth century. The order she founded is known as the Benedictine Adorers of the Sacred Heart. If you ever have the chance please go the Tyburn Convent and spend some time with the Sacred Heart. They have ten other convents ( in Australia, Ireland, Peru, Scotland, Ecuador, Columbia and Rome – and two in New Zealand )

When my wife and I first came to London – as a newly weds - we lived not far from the convent and we would always make a point of spending a little time as we walked into shop in Regent Street and Oxford Street ( not that we had any money!) . And over the years as we have moved further out of the city we have not been exactly regular visitors. But today, on the Central line I felt called to go to Tyburn convent. As I thought about that Teilhard quote in the context of Ian’s drawings it became clearer to me that I had to go there: and there I went.

The full title of this Benedictine order is the ‘Congregation of Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus , of Montmartre, OSB’ .The congregation was originally established in Montmartre in 1898 - the district of Paris in which the Sacre Coeur is located. However, like Teilhard’s order – the Society of Jesus – the congregation was forced to leave France under the infamous 1901 laws against religious orders. Mother Marie Adele Garnier re-located to London and settled in Tyburn. This is, of course, the location of the gallows at which more than 100 Catholics were brutally executed during the reformation. She died in 1924, but the congregation she established is still there and has spread all over the world.

The sisters maintain a perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. It was, as always, a great privilege to be able to join the sisters in this great act of adoration and it brought back so many memories. All the time I have been running around the world and making my way in it they have been here in Tyburn adoring the Sacred Heart in the Eucharist. These good sisters had been harnessing the energy of love. I reflected on what kind of mess the Church – and the world - would be in nowadays if not for their adoration. But as I reflected on their love for the Sacred Heart I also felt anxious. Outside was a noisy busy London full of all kinds of (crazy) people. At any moment ‘they’ could burst in and destroy the peace which filled this small space in the middle of a great big city. And then I understood what placing all your trust in the Sacred Heart means: an absolute openness to God. It involves an acceptance of vulnerability.

People came in and out during the hour or so I was there. And it was remarkable the effect it had everyone who came in and shared in the devotion. Cutting through the silence was the general noise of the city outside and the throb and hum of the traffic and the underground made me feel that we were in a kind of spiritual engine room of the city. The adoration of the Blessed Sacrament did not feel as if it was taking place outside or removed from the world outside, quite the opposite. As we adored, we became more inter-connected with the fabric of the ‘real world’. It did not feel as if the convent chapel was at the periphery or margins of the life of London: we were at its very core – its heart.

As I walked towards the tube station to return home I felt so overwhelmed by the sheer mass of humanity and became increasingly depressed by the gap between the world of the sisters whose lives were dedicated to the adoration of the Sacred Heart and the world I had now rejoined. It was a world as described by Teilhard: a world being compressed. So many people, from so many countries all squished and pressed together. I have to confess I felt rather scared by the sheer mass of humanity: swarming and faceless. Questions buzzed around my head: We have to trust in this world and the evolution of human life? How could the Sacred Heart unite all things? What sense could I make of Christ Omega? By the time I reached Oxford Circus I had rather lost faith and hope. (... What is that line from Wordsworth : ‘ As I high as I had mounted in my delight in my dejection I sunk as low’? * ..) I felt totally confused and unable to really say why I felt so low. And then, I thought of those sisters in Tyburn. I thought of their silence and their adoration and I understood how, whilst we were all rushing about,they were busy at work harnessing that divine energy and somehow they became the still point in the eye of a storm. In harnessing the energy of love - for God - those sisters who had been brought to London all those years ago from Montmartre were in fact the beating heart of the Church and of the hope of the human race. What was taking place in that chapel 24 hours a day seven days a week was not a relic from the past brought to London over a hundred years ago: their adoration of the Sacred Heart was pointing the way to the future. They are showing us ‘le Feu’. Knowing that is what makes the difference: I stopped seeing the human mass, and began to see individuals once more!

Goto the website of Tyburn convent: HERE:

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*
From Resolution and Independence ...The stanza captures exactly how I felt!

But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might
Of joy in minds that can no further go,
As high as we have mounted in delight
In our dejection do we sink as low;
To me that morning did it happen so;
And fears and fancies thick upon me came;
Dim sadness--and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could name.