The Sacred Heart and diaphany of God

Looking at the latest developments on the heart itself, I think the idea of transparency is SO exciting. Transparency is a key theme in Teilhard. He often wrote about the DIAPHANY of God. ('la Diaphanie de Dieu' ) Thus the Sacred Heart as a transparent image is absolutelty right. I didn’t think to mention this idea : but (remarkably) you have arrived at it yourself in a very beautiful way. Which is how it should be.

Here is a relevant extract from the Le Milieu Divin


Like those translucent materials which a light within them can illuminate as a whole, the world appears to the Christian mystic bathed in an inward light which intensifies its relief, its structure and its depth. This light is not the superficial glimmer which can be realised in coarse enjoyment nor is it the violent flash which destroys objects and blinds our eyes. It is the calm and powerful radiance engendered by the synthesis of all the elements of the world in Jesus. The more fulfilled, according to their nature, are the beings in whom it comes to play, the closer and more sensible this radiance appears; and the more sensible it becomes, the more the objects which it bathes become distinct in contour and remote in substance. If we may slightly alter a hallowed expression, we could say that the great mystery of Christianity is not exactly the appearance but the transparence of God in the universe. Yes, Lord, not only the ray that strikes the surface, but the ray that penetrates, not only your Epiphany, Jesus, but your diaphany.
P130-131, Harper and Row, 1960 edition.

To read the book, go HERE.

In a letter to Leontine Zanta he says:

Have a good year , my friend, may it be filled with God, with his light and peace, and may we be granted the restorative vision of the mysterious Diaphany (I prefer that word to Epiphany ) by which the universal Christ illumines the unique and higher substance of things, so as to act on us through them and so draw us to their common summit.! The more I advance in life, the more I think that the true wisdom, true ‘philosophy’, consists in being able to discern – and then migrate to - this divine milieu.

Teilhard saw the Sacred Heart in terms of this diaphany : the transparence of God in the universe. ( This is why he liked the Pinta picture. SEE HERE ) The Sacred Heart as the divine diaphanous centre which draws us deeper into the furnace of God's love. I think the icon is capturing this wonderfully well.

And so a prayer for today which reflects on the transparency of the Sacred Heart:

May our life be filled with God’s light and peace, and may we be granted the restorative vision of the mysterious Diaphany by which the universal Christ illumines the unique and higher substance of things. May the Sacred Heart of Jesus draw us ever closer to the divine centre of all creation ! AMEN

Our Lady, St John the Baptist... today's developments!

 

I am not yet of a mind how to include Our Lady's Immaculate Heart. I would like to, as it is intimately connected to the Sacred Heart, but there is a question of aesthetics, will it look right? Let's see if I get some inspiration! Such symbols don't usually appear in classical Byzantine iconography. 

 

When Jesus is shown enthroned in Glory, He is usually flanked by Our Lady and St John the Baptist, who represent the New and Old dispensations. John bears witness as the last of the prophets to Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, which takes us to the very centre of what it means for us to encounter God's love as known in Jesus.

You will notice that I have done some more work on the red nimbus, adding a darker centre. Without this the shape was too dominant, overshadowing the figure of Jesus rather than drawing our eye to Him and His Sacred Heart. The heart isn't finished yet, and will be worked on further. However, so far I have been working to develop a sense of illumination and transparency. 

First attempts at the Sacred Heart

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

The red mandorla

Ian, as a looked at these latest pictures of the icon this morning the words from Teilhard's famous Mass on the World (READ FULL TEXT HERE) flashed into my mind! The swirling red mandorla really captures the fire of the Sacred Heart. As I think about the design it seems that you have elegantly and simply 'de-constructed' the Sacred Heart image: you have unpacked its underlying theology but also captured its poetry ( if that is the right word!) In brief, you have made the Sacred Heart more open to my heart!



From the Mass on the World


FIRE OVER THE EARTH
..In the beginning there were not coldness and darkness: there was the Fire. This is the truth. So, far from light emerging gradually out of the womb of our darkness, it is the Light, existing before all else was made which, patiently, surely, eliminates our darkness. As for us creatures, of ourselves we are but emptiness and obscurity. But you, my God, are the inmost depths, the stability of that eternal milieu, without duration or space, in which our cosmos emerges gradually into being and grows gradually to its final completeness, as it loses those boundaries which to our eyes seem so immense. Everything is being; everywhere there is being and nothing but being, save in the fragmentation of creatures and the clash of their atoms. Blazing Spirit, Fire, personal, super-substantial, the consummation of a union so immeasurably more lovely and more desirable than that destructive fusion of which all the pantheists dream: be pleased yet once again to come down and breathe a soul into the newly formed, fragile film of matter with which this day the world is to be freshly clothed....
..PRAYER
Lord Jesus, now that beneath those world-forces you have become truly and physically everything for me, everything about me, everything within me, I shall gather into a single prayer both my delight in what I have and my thirst for what I lack; and following the lead of your great servant I shall repeat those enflamed words in which, I firmly believe, the Christianity of tomorrow will find its increasingly clear portrayal:
‘Lord, lock me up in the deepest depths of your heart; and then, holding me there, burn me, purify me, set me on fire, sublimate me, till I become utterly what you would have me be, through the utter annihilation of my ego.’
Tu autem, Domine mi, include me in imis visceribus Cordis tui. Atque ibi me detine, excoque, expurga, accende, ignifac, sublima, ad purissimum Cordis tui gustum atque placitum, ad puram annihilationem meam.

…your main purpose in ..revealing to us .. your heart was to enable our love to escape from the constrictions of the too narrow, too precise, too limited image of you which we had fashioned for ourselves. What I discern in your breast is simply a furnace of fire; and the more I fix my gaze on its ardency the more it seems to me that all around it the contours of your body melt away and become enlarged beyond all measure, till the only features I can distinguish in you are those of the face of a world which has burst into flame.
……Glorious Lord Christ: the divine influence secretly diffused and active in the depths of matter,
and the dazzling centre where all the innumerable fibres of the manifold meet;
power as implacable as the world and as warm as life;
you whose forehead is of the whiteness of snow,
whose eyes are of fire,
and whose feet are brighter than molten gold;
you whose hands imprison the stars;
you who are the first and the last,
the living and the dead and the risen again;
you who gather into your exuberant unity every beauty, every affinity, every energy, every mode of existence;
it is you to whom my being cried out with a desire as vast as the universe, ‘In truth you are my Lord and my God.’

I have put in bold the words about his belief that the 'Christianity of tomorrow' would be portrayed in terms of the Sacred Heart. This is an important statement. The Sacred Heart for Teilhard is a powerful synthesis of the Christian faith which enables ' our love to escape from the constrictions of the too narrow, too precise, too limited image of [Christ] we ..[fashion] for ourselves.'
The message of the Sacred Heart for us today is the same as always: that humanity has to be less self-centred and focused on 'me, me, me'. Only by focusing on God, who is love, can we hope to become 'meek and gentle of heart'. So in meditating on the Sacred Heart we should all pray:

‘Lord, lock me up in the deepest depths of your heart;
and then, holding me there, burn me, purify me, set me on fire,
sublimate me,
till I become utterly what you would have me be,
through the utter annihilation of my ego.’
AMEN

Today's progress

Today I was working on the archangels holding the Cross, and Christ's garment. This I have changed from the red used in Naur, to white, placing Christ against a red swirling  mandorla. This moves the emphasis from the Passion to Light.

Productive week...

Today I pressed on with mapping out the colours, and have arrived at a balance but dynamic image. Unfortunately I got carried away and forgot to take a picture! However, some privacy for this stage of the process isn't a bad thing to be honest. Basically it is looking very much part of the icon tradition of the east, with a touch of 'stain glass' which touches into the western tradition.

I am back in Cheltenham for the weekend, so taking a break for a few days. Back on Monday!

What a difference a day makes!

It has been a busy day. Arriving at my office to see the latest progress on the icon was such a great start to a LONG day! I am now, more than ever, convinced that it is saying so much about the Sacred Heart. The colour illuminates the theology of the Sacred Heart in such a powerful way. And this is so important. Teilhard’s own ideas on the Sacred Heart were firmly embedded in scripture. Critics of Teilhard seem to ignore – or are just plain ignorant - of how he was utterly grounded in scripture and this is especially so in the case of the Sacred Heart. As I looked at your work this morning Ian I thought of a line from Teilhard and I looked it up when I got home. He said this:

‘the great temptation of this century is ( and will increasingly be) that we find the world of nature of life and of humankind greater, closer, more mysterious, more alive, than the God of scripture.’ ‘My universe’. Heart of Matter, p207

What this icon is doing – and now so vividly in colour – is to place the Sacred Heart in its scriptural context. Seeing the new pictures has really made my day. Nothing is more mysterious and alive than the God we encounter in scripture. This icon gives us a window into that mystery. As I say, it made my day!