Reading the Sacred Heart

As yet I have not blogged about the actual image of the Sacred Heart in the icon.  Let us begin with what  Ian has observed.   As is clear from his description, the Sacred Heart as depicted here is Christ Omega - the universal Christ we find in St. Paul. 

Christ’s Heart is shown 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.

 

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. 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 very centre of the icon  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.

( Here I would just draw attention to a few details of the heart which have struck me. First, that the mandorla  is transparent - diaphanous - that is significant for students of Teilhard.  Second, that as you look into the heart you can see a spiral which emphasises the pull or powerful attraction of divine love as a kind of gravitational force or energy towards which all creation is converging.  And third, that the whiteness of the centre powerfully evokes the Eucharist. )

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.

The final layer of the nimbus is an octagon, symbolizing the eighth day of the New Creation. 

Clouds

Just a little thing, really, but when I first saw the icon  I was drawn to the lovely blue clouds.  Ian says that they represent 'the heavens which manifest the glory of God in its beauty and order'.  They reminded me of a charming little episode in Dr. Jean Houston's recollection of her childhood  encounters with Teilhard in New York. She recounts that 'Mr. Tayer' told her: 

'Eh, Jeanne , look at the clouds! God's calligraphy in the sky!  All that transforming, moving, changing, dissolving, becoming.  Jeanne become a cloud and become all the forms that ever were.' Godseed: The Journey of Christ, Amity House Inc, Warwick, New York, 1988

And that is how I shall think of them: God's calligraphy.   A symbol of the nature of God's order. A complex universe constantly transforming,  moving, changing and dissolving.  God's creation is always  becoming.  Perhaps we are also like clouds: constantly becoming.  We should not be afraid of the fact that we and the whole of creation are always in the process of  becoming.  We are called  to become one with the centre of centres, one with the heart of the cosmos.  In the end we are complete and become one  and converge  with all the forms that ever were: we become one with the Sacred Heart at the heart of all things. 

Sorry..

Sorry, but the blog has some technical problems and some of the recent blogs have had to be removed as they are -somehow- interfering with the blog as a whole !! You just gotta love the internet!

The Mother of Christ: Pearl of the Cosmos

In Ian's design notes he observes: Crowning the vine is the Mother of God ...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.


When I first saw the design for the icon I was surprised and delighted to find that Ian had incorporated the Blessed Virgin Mary. The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary have long been connected. The presence of Mary interceding for us is just right. At one stage I though that it would be good if the icon could also show the immaculate heart of Mary, but I agree with Ian’s decision to let it be understood, rather than represented. But when we reflect on the image of Mary we naturally think of her immaculate heart. We go to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in this icon through Mary. We pray that she will pray for us – poor banished children of Eve and Adam – who kneels in the left hand corner. There is so much to be said here that it is best to say as little as possible! But of course, as I have reflected on Mary in the icon my mind keeps referencing what Teilhard says about the mother of Christ.

Some of the most beautiful passages written by Teilhard on Mary and her cosmic significance we find in his writings during the first world war. Here are some extracts. In them we are left in no doubt as to the centrality of Mary to the Incarnation and to God’s plan for the universe.

From the Cosmic Life.
With the origin of all things, there began an advent of re-collection and work in the course of which the forces of determinism, obediently and lovingly, lent themselves and directed themselves in the preparation of a Fruit that exceeded all hope and yet was awaited. The world's energies and substances — so harmoniously adapted and controlled that the supreme Transcendent would seem to germinate entirely from their immanence — concentrated and were purified in the stock of Jesse; from their accumulated and distilled treasures they produced the glittering gem of matter, the Pearl of the Cosmos, and the link with the incarnate personal Absolute — the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen and Mother of all things, the true Demeter . . . and when the day of the Virgin came to pass, then the final purpose of the universe, deep-rooted and gratuitous, was suddenly made clear: since the days when the first breath of individualization passed over the expanse of the Supreme Centre here below so that in it could be seen the ripple of the smile of the original monads,all things were moving towards the Child born of Woman.

Writings in Time of War, HARPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS. Pp 58-9


From the Eternal Feminine

When the world was born, I came into being. Before the centuries were made, I issued from the hand of God — half- formed, yet destined to grow in beauty from age to age, the handmaid of his work. Everything in the universe is made by union and generation —by the coming together of elements that seek out one another, melt together two by two, and are born again in a third. God instilled me into the initial multiple as a force of condensation and concentration. In me is seen that side of beings by which they are joined as one, in me the fragrance that makes them hasten together and leads them, freely and passionately, along their road to unity. Through me, all things have their movement and are made to work as one. I am the beauty running through the world, to make it associate in ordered groups: the ideal held up before the world to make it ascend. I am the essential Feminine.

In the beginning I was no more than a mist, rising and falling: I lay hidden beneath affinities that were as yet hardly conscious, beneath a loose and tenuous polarity. And yet I was already in existence. In the stirring of the layers of the cosmic substance, whose nascent folds contain the promise of worlds beyond number, the first traces of my countenance could be read. Like a soul, still dormant but essential, I bestirred the original mass, almost without form, which hastened into my field of attraction; and I instilled even into the atoms, into the fathomless depths of the infinitesimal, a vague but obstinate yearning to emerge from the solitude of their nothingness and to hold fast to something outside themselves. I was the bond that thus held together the foundations of the universe. For every monad, be it never so humble, provided it is in very truth a centre of activity, obeys in its movement an embryo of love for me:
The universal Feminine.

Writings in Time of War, pp 192-3


So what we see in the icon is Mary, the image of the Eternal Feminine. The complete embodiment of the love – that force and energy - that fills the cosmos ( that fills all things) and which glows brightly before us in the heart of her son. Love, the energy which is the beginning and the end of all creation. We contemplate the Blessed Virgin, who intercedes for us and looks at us and asks us tenderly as our mother to open our hearts to this love wholly and completely.


Blessed Virgin, Pearl of the Cosmos, Mother of all things, pray for us


Cor Iesu, in sinu Virginis Matris a Spiritu Sancto formatum, misere nobis.

Back to the Angel with the measuring rod!

Ian notes that:

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.

I should, of course, continue with the deisis by considering the image of the Mother of Christ on the left. But the Angel just above St John has some interest for us Teilhardians! The Sacred Heart as depicted here is very much inspired by St. Paul’s idea of the Parousia. In the epilogue to the Divine Milieu Teilhard expresses a hope that humanity will realize that we are not simply a product of evolution, but are called to work with Christ in building the earth: to Christify creation. We are called to build the earth : we are called the build a new creation in Christ. We are called to build the Jerusalem which will reach its fullness – its Pleroma – in the final Parousia when Christ becomes all in all. This needs faith in the future and faith in the capacity of humanity to help complete the creation.


Extracts from the Divine Milieu:

One day, the Gospel tells us, the tension gradually accumulating between humanity and God will touch the limits prescribed by the possibilities of the world. And then will come the end. Then the presence of Christ, which has been silently accruing in things, will suddenly be revealed -like a flash of light from pole to pole. Breaking through all the barriers within which the veil of matter and the water-tightness of souls have seemingly kept it confined, it will invade the face of the earth. And, under the finally- liberated action of the true affinities of being, the spiritual atoms of the world will be borne along by a force generated by the powers of cohesion proper to the universe itself, and will occupy, whether within or without Christ ( but always under the influence of Christ), the place of happiness or pain designated for them by the living structure of the Pleroma. …. Like lightning, like a conflagration, like a flood, the attraction exerted by the Son of Man will lay hold of all the whirling elements in the universe so as to re- unite them or subject them to his body.
…
This is our faith and our hope: that in Christ we build a new creation. In Christ we are completed. In Christ the universe is completed. But we have allowed the flame of faith and hope in the Cosmic Christ completing creation to to die down in our sleeping hearts. No doubt we see with greater or less distress the approach of individual death. No doubt, again, our prayers and actions are conscientiously directed to bringing about the coming of God's kingdom.
…
The flame must be revived at all costs. At all costs we must renew in ourselves the desire and the hope for the great Coming. But where are we to look for the source of this rejuvenation? We shall clearly find it, first and fore- most, in an increase of the attraction exercised directly by Christ upon his members. And then in an increase of the interest, discovered by our thought, in the preparation and consummation of the Parousia. And from where is this interest itself to spring? From the perception of a more intimate connection between the victory of Christ and the out- come of the work which our human effort here below is seeking to construct.
...
Those of us who are disciples of Christ must not hesitate to harness this force, which needs us, and which we need. On the contrary, under pain of allowing it to be lost and of perishing ourselves, we should share those aspirations, in essence religious, which make the men of today feel so strongly the immensity of the world, the greatness of the mind, and the sacred value of every new truth. It is in this way that our christian generation will learn again to expect.

We have gone deeply into these new perspectives: the progress of the universe, and in particular of the human universe, does not take place in competition with God, nor does it squander energies that we rightly owe to him. The greater man becomes, the more humanity becomes united, with consciousness of, and master of, its potentialities, more beautiful creation will be, the more perfect adoration will become, and the more Christ will find, for mystical extensions, a body worthy of resurrection. The world can no more have two summits than a circumference can have two centres. The star for wluch the world is waiting, with- out yet being able to give it a name, or rightly appreciate its true transcendence, or even recognise the most spiritual and divine of its rays, is, necessarily, Christ himself, in whom we hope. To desire the Parousia, all we have to do is to let the very heart of the earth, as we christianise it, beat within us.


Men of little faith, why then do you fear or repudiate the progress of the world? Why foolishly multiply your warnings and your prohibitions? 'Don't venture…. Don't try…everything is known: the earth is empty and old: there is nothing more to be discovered.' We must try everything for Christ; we must hope every- thing for Christ. Nihil intentatum. That, on the contrary, is the true christian attitude. To divinise does not mean to destroy, but to sur-create. We shall never know all that the Incarnation still expects of the world's potentialities. W e shall never put enough hope in the growing unity of man- kind.
Jerusalem, lift up your head. Look at the immense crowds of those who build and those who seek. All over the world, men are toiling-in laboratories, in studios, in deserts, in factories, in the vast social crucible. The ferment that is taking place by their instrumentality in art and science and thought is happening for your sake. Open, then, your arms and your heart, like Christ your Lord, and welcome the waters, the flood and the sap – of humanity . Accept it, this sap-for , without its baptism, you will wither, without desire, like a flower out of water;and tend it, since, without your sun, it will disperse itself wildly in sterile shoots.


From the Divine Milieu, Harper edition 1965: pp 150-154


The Sacred Heart – the divine centre – calls us to be active in building a new heaven and a new earth. The Sacred Heart is calling to our heart and desires that we become co-creators. Heart speaks to heart and calls us to join with Jesus and make all things new. The Sacred Heart is inviting us to participate in’ building the Earth’!

Thus the New Jerusalem being measured by the Angel has to be built out of the toil of human effort and action. It will completed and brought to its fulfillment in Christ. So, when I reflect upon that angel with his measuring rod, I have to reflect on what I have done to build the Kingdom of Heaven. The Sacred Heart calls us to be participate in building the New Jerusalem – wherever we are or whatever we do. Of such bricks the walls of jasper will be made. Of such efforts will the city of gold as clear as glass will be fabricated. Of such precious and beautiful minerals will the foundations be laid and the walls adorned. And we can help to build the new creation ( US, not the Angel who only measures it!) when we ‘let the heart of the world ..beat within us’! Above all ' We must try everything for Christ; we must hope every- thing for Christ.' since Jesus calls us to ' Open, [our] arms and [our] heart (s) , [like HIM] and welcome the waters, the flood and the sap – of humanity.' When we do this we are building the New Jerusalem being measured by the Angel.

The deisis: St John the Baptist

Ian notes of the ‘deisis’ * – the middle section of the Icon showing the Mother of Christ and John the Baptist praying and supplicating for us – that :

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 Covenant to the New, a witness to the evolution of salvation history where Christ must increase and all others decrease.



The icon has replaced a mirror on a wall, which is appropriate as in earlier blog I mused on the idea of an icon as a mirror or a window. The previous mirror was placed there to reflect light into a room, and the icon is clearly serving the same function: it reflects light and illuminates the room in a most beautiful way. At different times of the day and with different kinds of light the icon really does glow and draw you in: you have to stop and look as it is quite impossible to pass by! The golden glow of the iconic light is far more captivating than the light that was reflected by the mirror. But it is also a window or doorway through which we can reflect on the meaning of the Heart of Jesus. Over the past few days I have been reflecting on the image of St. John the Baptist.

As I reflected on the water flowing from the Sacred Heart the idea of water and baptism naturally comes to mind, and thus we look up to the Baptist on the right of the picture. It calls to mind the baptism of Christ in the river Jordan when we encounter the full presence of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove and a voice from heaven “ This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’. ( Matthew, 3: 17) St. John preached that he would baptize with water, but that the one who was to come would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire! ( Matthew 3: 11). And there in the center of the icon is this divine fire.

This brings to mind the litanies of the Sacred Heart such as:

Heart of Jesus, Son of the Eternal Father, have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, formed in the womb of the Virgin Mother by the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, in whom the Father is well pleased, have mercy on us.

St. John also reminds us of an important dimension of the Sacred Heart: expiation and atonement for our sins and the sins of humanity. Teilhard thought that the devotion was rather over pre-occupied with expiation and atonement as it took away from what might be described as the bigger ‘cosmic’ picture of Christ as the centre of all things we find in St. Paul. But St. John is there to remind us that when we contemplate the Sacred Heart we do so as sinners in need of repentance. We ask for Mercy and forgiveness for all the times we have returned God’s love with indifference and hate. We seek forgiveness for all the times we have closed our hearts to God and to our fellow human beings. We seek forgiveness for how we damage and wound the beautiful planet that was given to us to love and cherish. As we reflect on the Sacred Heart we are called to hear afresh the words of the Baptist to repent. And when we look around at our world today which is so full of hate and greed, violence and destruction, we realize that there is so much for which humanity must seek pardon. Our God has a human heart and weeps to see what we are doing to this world.

So much comes to mind as I reflect on the image of the Baptist praying and supplicating for us: asking for God’s Mercy on us all. I think St John stands for all the saints. The image reminds us that we are not alone. We believe in the Communion of Saints. We can ask the Saints in heaven to pray with and for us poor children of Eve as we struggle through the valley of tears.

Heart of Jesus, in whom the Father is well pleased, have mercy on us.


* From the Greek ‘δέησις’ , which means prayer or supplication.

The Sacred Heart : Fire and Water

In his design notes Ian wrote:

'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 fullness. The rivers burst forth from the Divine sphere into the square of the created order.'

This part of the icon is quite straight forward: Christ as ‘living water’. Having lived a few days with the icon my thoughts have centred on this theme of water and as with the other aspects of the icon it is rich in material for reflection and prayer. But here are just a few initial thoughts. The Sacred Heart is very much about fire and it is especially so in this icon. But it is also about water. One of the defining documents on the Sacred Heart is Pope Pius XII’s encyclical `Haurietis Aquas: on the devotion to the Sacred Heart’ (1956). It begins:

"You shall draw waters with joy out of the Savior's fountain." These words by which the prophet Isaias, using highly significant imagery, foretold the manifold and abundant gifts of God which the Christian era was to bring forth, come naturally to Our mind when We reflect on the centenary of that year when Our predecessor of immortal memory, Pius IX, gladly yielding to the prayers from the whole Catholic world, ordered the celebration of the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Universal Church….The Church, rejoicing in this inestimable gift, can show forth a more ardent love of her divine Founder, and can, in a more generous and effective manner, respond to that invitation which St. John the Evangelist relates as having come from Christ Himself: "And on the last and great day of the festivity, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, 'If any man thirst, let him come to Me, and let him drink that believeth in Me. As the Scripture saith: Out of his heart there shall flow rivers of living waters.' Now this He said of the Spirit which they should receive who believed in Him." For those who were listening to Jesus speaking, it certainly was not difficult to relate these words by which He promised the fountain of "living water" destined to spring from His own side, to the words of sacred prophecy of Isaias, Ezechiel and Zacharias, foretelling the Messianic Kingdom, and likewise to the symbolic rock from which, when struck by Moses, water flowed forth in a miraculous manner.

Read Haurietis Aquas in full here.

Thus, as with other parts of the icon, this section serves to connect the Sacred Heart with scripture and prompts us to reflect on how Jesus came to set fire to the world, but was also the source of living water. As we reflect on this our minds naturally remember the wedding at Cana when Jesus turned the water into wine, and how he was baptised in water by John – above right. But also of how blood and water flowed from the wound made by the soldier’s lance. ( And other parts of scripture concerned with water. )

As I am just starting to live with this icon, it strikes me that it is providing a powerful focus for prayer - especially in how the different elements connect with one another.