The veiled icon

Ian, how very strange. And no, you could not make this up. Just read your blog. Today, off and on, have been reading chapter 6 of Henri Lubac's book The Eternal Feminine - which is a study of Teilhard's thoughts on the the feminine. And the title of the chapter - ' The Veiled Virgin'. I was reading this in preparation for some comments on Our Lady later on. The idea of the veil just kept getting in the way today. I was getting rather irritated!! And then I read your blog. It is obvious that a veil needs to be drawn. And people think computers are just stupid. Out of the mouths of babes and laptops....Just do what an iconographer gotta do. As for me, you have given me so much to think about! But then again, I don't think I am thinking, per se. I am just following a cord, a thread - a melody. So, one candle for you and one for the laptop!!

Under the Veil...into the Tomb

No picture yesterday because my Asus EEEpad has broken. This little gem has all my reference materials, as well as being an excellent method of photographing the work, and on Saturday it just decided to die. Trying to get it repaired demands a degree in patience! Meanwhile, from stubbing toes to busting zips on my rucksack, to spilling cups of tea, it was a rather frustrating day.

However, during the day I  re-worked Jesus robe almost entirely, as it didnt 'gleam' enough, and attended to some details of the face which needed adjusting. I have also removed the Sacred Heart as I wasn't satisfied with that either. So a funny sort of day, but one which has moved the image on in the right direction I think.

A few candles David for patience and the return of my EEEPad pls!

Today, I worked on the faces of the Mother of God and St John the Baptist and St Mary Magdalene. Apologies for no photos, but I was thinking that it is perhaps right that now the spotlight is taken off and a certain veil is thrown over the icon so it can now have its time 'in the tomb' before being resurrected. So perhaps all is aptly providential.

I must also say that I find David's posts most encouraging, as hunches turn out to be profoundly rooted in what the Sacred Heart is as revealed in the  Tradition of the Church, reaching back to the earliest centuries. I adopted the vine motif because of the image of Jesus as the True Vine and us as the branches, a sense of the enduring presence of Christ in all things, and of course the Eucharist. The Vine becomes an eschatological symbol of all things transfigured and being 'in Christ'. That this touches into the medieval mystical insights is no surprise but also quite a delight; the same with the Seraphim. Perhaps I have come across some of these things and they are buried deep in my subconscious, but I don't think so. Rather I think it is genuine inspiration, and entering into the theological stream and seeing what connects.  Sometimes I flick through various images and some just stick out, sort of resonate, and I juggle them all together seeing what comes together.

The true vine

The vine motif in the icon reminds us, of course, that Christ is the 'true vine'. It is this true vine which is the subject of a book written in the 13th century, the Vitis Mystica the mystical vine– which has a defining role in the history of the Sacred Heart. In it we find many references to the heart of Jesus as well as to the idea of love as fire. (READ IT HERE ) I thought that it was by Saint Bernard. But, it turns out that modern scholars now attribute it to none other than Dr. Seraphicus – Saint Bonaventure! So this part of the icon links us back to the Franciscan tradition but also prompts us to reflect upon the fact that the Sacred Heart has its roots deep in the history of Christianity – long before St Francis de Sales, St John Eudes and Saint Margaret Mary in the 17th century. In other words, the Sacred Heart as a focus of mystical devotion has been evolving – growing like a vine - over many hundreds of years. When we meditate on the Sacred Heart we therefore are in communion with the saints, mystics and scholars who have journeyed to God through the heart of Jesus. There can be no doubt that Teilhard saw the Sacred Heart qua Christ Omega - the Universal Christ - as part of that evolution: it was another shoot springing from the true vine. The vine with its grapes also enables us to reflect on an aspect of the Sacred Heart which was absolutely central to Teilhard’s spiritual life: the Mass and the Eucharist.

Teilhard and St. Francis

It fascinates me how this pilgrimage to the Sacred Heart (travelling by icon) has involved making quite complex linkages at so many levels. And yet, despite the fact that all the roads I take on my peregrinations seem to go off in a unexpected directions, and re-engage me with aspects of my own life, they always lead back to the heart of Christ. Ian’s seraph is a good case in point. I would never had thought that it would re-connect me with a saint for whom I am sure we all had a special love when we were children. In my mind’s eye I can see the picture of St Francis preaching to the birds that adorned the wall of my school room. And he remained special to me and undoubtedly informed my interest in ‘ecological’ and ‘environmental’ issues as a student. Having not looked at it for many many years I came across a book that I had given my wife as a present when we were students and I had forgotten how intense our love of St Francis was at the time. But I had never read any of the work by St. Bonaventure until a week ago. And that has been a revelation of a most profound kind . St. Francis was important to Teilhard – but it took Ian’s seraph, an email from a lay Franciscan and discovering Sister Ilia Delio's inspiring book on the Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective. ( SEE HERE) for the connections to be made!! And it is a very significant connection in terms of the Sacred Heart. It is wonderfully providential that the seraph should be in the icon - not as a kind of side character - but now as a vitally important dimension of the icon!!

Teilhard makes reference to Francis - and the seraph - in the Divine Milieu. He writes in ‘seraphic’ terms.

To have access to the divine Milieu is to have found the one thing needful: him who burns by setting fire to everything that we would love badly or not enough; him who clams by eclipsing with his blaze everything that we would love too much..

In a letter to Auguste Valensin (1920) he ‘dreams’ of a new St. Francis or a new St Ignatius who could show the way to a ‘new sort of Christian life’ which is ‘both more involved and more detached from the world’. The world, he thought needed another St. Francis! Whilst in his journal the same year he reflects on what Francis and other saints had accomplished and asks’ Who then will see and find the means of bringing about the reign of Christ Alpha and Omega, the Christ of St. Paul, the Universal Christ? May I be, in my or through my death, the humble precursor of such a man!’ (Cited in Sion Cowell, The Teilhard Lexicon, p85) .

And that is how we should see Teilhard in relation to the Sacred Heart: as a means of bringing about the reign of Christ Omega: the Christ of St. Paul. In this, he was apparently inspired by St. Francis. In Peking Teilhard befriended the Franciscan (the now ) Venerable** Gabriel Allegra ( PHOTO TOP RIGHT ABOVE) between the years 1942-45. Fr.Gabriel recalls that in conversation Teilhard remarked that :

‘Francis is so dear and close to me! I believe he assists me in my difficulties and blesses my work. In him one can feel the presence of God the Father and the refreshing perfume of the house of Nazareth.'

( in Gabriel M. Allegra, My Conversations with Teilhard de Chardin on the Primacy of Christ. Peking , 1942-1945, Franciscan Herald Press, Chicago 1971 p55 ) ( I should write more about these fascinating conversations......)

Thus, the close relationship between Teilhard and Franciscan spirituality is more important than we might suppose! And that seraph is becoming a key element of the icon!

As we approach the completion of the icon we should ask for St. Francis and St Bonaventure to pray for us. You never know, they might be on good terms with a seraph or two! And so we humbly entrust this project to their patronage. We should also ask the Venerable Gabriel Allegra- who knew Teilhard and had a special devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary - to pray for this work.

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**The Decree of Beatification was promulgated by the Holy See in 1994. The date of his beatification is yet to be fixed.

Reflective day

Looked at the latest work on the icon last night and continue to amazed at how the layers of meaning are unfolding. The gravitational energy waves in particular are very evocative and will be even more so when the cross is completed. Most of all, of course, I am drawn to the face of Christ and especially His eyes. Spent today -off and on - just being silent. The reading from Paul's Letter to the Romans (8: 26-27) in today's mass was thus very fitting.

The Spirit comes to help us in our weakness. For when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words, and God who knows everything in our hearts knows perfectly well what he means...

I think an icon can help us to pray without words.

Friday's offering

I worked on the Face of Jesus, and toned this into the existing body, adding the wounds to Christ's feet and hands. You will also notice the development of the figures in the four corners, the pedestal and waters at Christ' feet, the fish, and the scroll of the heavens at the top - based on maps of gravitational energy. There is still work to be done on Jesus' Face; it is rather small, just a couple of cms high so it needs a lot of concentrated working. I find taking photographs and looking at those helps me to see minor corrections that need to be made more clearly.

I am delighted that David has discovered the seraphim, and thanks for posting such an informative piece. I had only glimpsed their significance and your posting helps underpin that substantially. Really appreciated! It is one of the joys of this blog that David takes an inkling I have, and mines it into something substantial.

The Seraphim returns: Remembering St Bonaventure.

Since Ian suggested using a seraph in the context of the Sacred Heart I have been wrestling with the idea. ( See blog HERE.)

It all sounded interesting, but in truth it did not immediately ‘light my fire’. In the Sacred Heart in Naur Ian has used the Seraphim to great effect. In his original blog Ian used Giotto’s stigmatization of St. Francis which has a magnificent seraph. He also quoted from St. Thomas Acquinas’s Summa Theologiae. All of this struck a chord with me in terms of Teilhard’s idea of love as an energy which (gravitationally ) pulls us towards the divine centre: it is a force which is ( as St Thomas puts it ) ‘upwards’ and ‘continuous’ which impels us towards God. In this sense the Seraphim can be seen as the embodiment of the process whereby God’s light and fire is spread through all creation. But, I was not sure about how this could be translated into an image which could make the icon an aid to prayer. However, I have learnt that ‘trusting in the slow work of God’ is an essential part of the process of writing an icon. Then a while ago I had an email from a lay Franciscan requesting a copy of the Pinta card and that in turn prompted me to think about the Franciscan tradition. I went back to the Giotto which Ian used in his blog. Slowly, things fell into place. Eventually, I actually got the link between the Seraphim and the Sacred Heart: it is St. Bonaventure. ( Which means, of course, ‘Good chance’ or ‘good fortune’!!) Today, the 15th July, we remember a great Franciscan saint: Saint Bonaventure ( 1221-1274) . (READ MORE HERE) And until recentIy I only knew a few things about him: the first is that he appears in Dante’s Paradiso. The second thing I knew was, of course, his title – which I never really thought about before(!!) – ‘he is known as ‘Doctor Seraphicus’ the Seraphic Doctor. As I have discovered, his title of Doctor Seraphicus is because he was seen as someone who was on fire with the love of God. And, like a seraph, St Bonaventure was someone who was very close to God. And again, like a seraph, he fanned this love of God out into the world through his acts of charity and his mystical and theological writings. The third thing I knew about him is that he was a major influence on Benedict XVI. For an excellent radio program on Bonaventure and Benedict LISTEN HERE. Please do: it is a real revelation.

In the radio program Father Rick Martignetti of the Order of Friars Minor sums up Bonaventure’s approach: 'You can't learn about God intellectually unless you experience God in your heart.'

And that, it seems to me is the message which our seraph is imparting to us in this icon. It is the message of St. Bonaventure. God wants us to experience the transforming power of his love in our hearts - as well as understand it in our heads! We cannot learn about God purely from intellectualizing. We have to open our minds and hearts to the divine energy of God being fanned by those seraphs.

His great book ITINERARIUM MENTIS IN DEUM - JOURNEY OF THE MIND INTO GOD (READ HERE) ( and it is well worth reading!!) St. Bonaventure takes the image of the six winged seraph and uses it to structure his journey to the mind of God. He recounts how, visiting mount Alverna – where St Francis experienced his vision of a seraph - he began to understand the six wings of the seraph as denoting six steps towards the mind of God.


I turned aside with the love of seeking peace of spirit towards mount Alverna as towards a quiet place, and staying there, while I considered in mind some mental ascensions into God, among others there occurred that miracle, which in the aforesaid place happened to blessed Francis himself, that is, of the vision of the Seraph winged after the likeness of the Crucified. In the consideration of which it suddenly seemed to me, that that vision showed the suspension of our father himself in contemplating Him and the way, through which one arrives at that (suspension). For through those six wings there can be rightly understood six suspensions of illumination, by which the soul as if to certain steps or journeys is disposed, to pass over to peace through ecstatic excesses of Christian wisdom. The way is, however, naught but through the most ardent love of the Crucified.. The likenesses of the six seraphic wings intimates six stair-like illuminations, which begin from creatures and lead through even unto God, to Whom no one rightly enters except through the Crucified.

… ‘Blessed the man, whose assistance is from Thee, he has arranged ascensions in his own heart in the vale of tears, in the place, which he put them’ .Since beatitude is nothing other, than the enjoyment of the Most High Good; and the Most High Good is above us: no one can become blessed, unless he ascends above his very self, not by an ascent with the body [corporali], but with the heart [cordiali].

So, we ascend these steps with our heart!
Reading the book I was immediately struck by how these seraphic wings can advance our journey by prompting us to see God in the universe around us! We take the first step when we see God in his creation. The first three chapters are : ‘on the steps of the ascension into God and on the sight of Him through His vestiges in the universe’; and ‘ on the sight of God in His vestiges in this sensible world’; and ‘the sight of God through His image marked upon the natural powers’. In other words: we begin our journey to God by seeing him in his creation. Let me put it this way, I came to the conclusion that : Dr. Seraphicus is very Teilhardian - or Teilhard is very Seraphician!

Fortunately - bona ventura – I came across an excellent book – The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective- by a leading Franciscan scholar Ilia Delio OSF which does an impressive job in exploring the relationship between Bonaventure and Teilhard. Sister (Dr.) Ilia states unequivocally that :

Although Teilhard was not a Franciscan, his notion of a Christic universe complements Bonaventure’s theology of an Incarnation in the light of the humility of God.

For Teilhard, Christ is the goal and center of the universe and the reason for the universe itself… yet what Teilhard grasped was no different from the insight of Francis of Assisi or Bonaventure, namely, Incarnation is what creation is all about. In the incarnation God humbly bends down to lift created human nature into unity with the divine nature.. Ilia Delio, OSF, The Humility of God : A Franciscan Perspective, St Anthony Messenger Press, 2005 P4/ 126 GO HERE

The more I read about Doctor Seraphicus, the more do I realize the importance of that seraph which is emerging on the top left of the icon. Perhaps, just a thought, we are all called to be earthly seraphim: to draw close to God and like St Bonaventure, flap our wings to circulate the energy of love around us. But, of course, to do that, our hearts have to be aflame with the love of God. Perhaps, that seraph really captures and expresses the essence of what the Sacred Heart is about. Something to meditate on. It also directs our attention to the importance of the Franciscan tradition and what it can bring to our understanding of the Sacred Heart. To adapt Sister Ilia’s phrase: ‘ In the Sacred Heart God humbly bends down to lift created human nature into unity with the divine.’ I think from now on that top left hand corner will be a place to reflect on these words and on the lives of St Francis and St Bonaventure and what they tell us about the Sacred Heart! So seraph, flap those wings: all six of them!!