Our Lady of Mariapocs, part 6

I was able to paint again, after a few days of working late.  All I added in this icon was the black border, but it is amazing how much a simple solid border can bring the colors together in an icon or a painting.
Black is an amazing color in religious art.  Although it sometimes invokes symbolism of death and ignorance (particularly in Western art), in iconography black is more often used to illustrate that God is unfathomable.  For example, the icons of the Transfiguration or the Nativity of Christ show Christ surrounded by a black sphere, diamond, or almond shape (there are other shapes used as well). 
As a border, of course, the color black "merely" indicates the power and greatness of the persons in the image.  Which is quite enough.  Who is more powerful and great than the awesome God, our Beloved Jesus Christ?  We believe that Christ's mother has a very real share in this power and glory, so much so that we pray to her to intercede for us to her Son.  And we are always answered, even if that answer is no, and that something better is yet to come. 

Our Lady of Mariapocs, part 5

 

The colors of this icon came out far brighter than I anticipated.  It looks very retablos-ish.  Which goes to show that religious art in many different cultures imitate each other.  There is a "primitiveness," a simplicity, in religious art that is able to speak to the heart of man.  Either that, or it merely shows my inability to keep my New Mexican upbringing apart from my art!!  Which is good too.  

An artist may try very hard to keep the self out of an image, but this is impossible to do.  The reflection of the artist's sufferings, joys, prayers is part of what makes art so beautiful.  It is also one way in which Christ is imaged in the icon.  Christ, in His humanity, experienced all things but sin.  He loved, He was joyful, He was sorrowful.  He fought with righteousness, He was a peacemaker.   

In John, chapter 4, the Samaritan woman flirts with Christ.  "I have no husband!" She tells Him.  This isn't a side of Christ we usually think about.  We want Christ to be aloof, to show only His Divine nature.  But it is His humanity that makes the wonderful Incarnation.  It is Christ' humanity that creates the bridge between Heaven and Earth.

Jesus reads the Samaritan woman like a book.  He is not afraid of this woman, but loves her, and wants her for the Kingdom, just as He wants you and me.

God is a true romantic.  He loves us and desires us for Himself, in the purest most perfect way.  I am amazed how often God draws me to himself daily.  Whether it be in the flowers I received today, in the laughter of my children, and yes, even in their screams of rage, which prove they are human beings with wills of their own, albeit, wills that need to be directed properly.  

God is everywhere, loving each of us wholly, completely.  Yet we are sinful creatures, and so find it hard to believe that anyone, much less our perfect, beautiful, and all-good God, could possibly really love us.  God's love IS hard to accept.  He died for us, after-all.  How easy is it to believe that God died for YOU?  Or if you believe it, how easy it to accept that Someone, no, the beloved God, had to DIE for you?  Few want another to suffer, especially because of one's own sin.  

Yet this is our goal in life, to accept God's love, to allow it to purify us, move us, perfect us.  May we see God and His love in all things, and allow all things to bring us closer to God.  And then, let us tell the whole village, like the Samaritan Woman, and bring them to Christ too!

Our Lady of Mariapocs, part 4

Last night I worked a little on the angels in the Mariapocs icon.  Since the copies of Our Lady of Mariapocs I found were a little ambiguous as to the color of the angels, I chose to make the angels seraphim.  The red, in regard to these angels, indicates the the color of flame and divine love.  The Seraphim stand before God to honor Him, and it was also a seraph who carried the purifying coal to Isaiah's lips.

In the last week I have undergone some fire.  Monday night I started having symptoms of miscarrying our third child.  When I went into the doctor's office, the first thing she said was: "So, I understand that you already have two young children?"    

"Yes," I replied, "A two and half year old and one year old."

"Wow. And you and your husband are happy about this new one?"

 And it struck me, that we live in such a society in which the first response isn't "Congratulations on your new little one," but "Oh, poor you!  How could such a mistake have happened?!"  With Gabriel it was a doctor asking me over and over if I wanted to "terminate" the pregnancy.  After all, my eldest daughter wasn't even one at that point, and who would want TWO babies?  With Anne it was a doctor explaining why I would want to abort her for sure if she had any disability.  

All last week I was in torment, torn between one side which was filled with hope and faith in God that my baby was not dead.  The other-side was the side that wept when the nurse called to tell me: "the doctor says that you are almost certainly having a miscarriage."  But, still I couldn't believe it.  And thanks be to God, after a series of tests, a different doctor called Saturday to tell me that my little one is still alive.  

In a discussion, my mother-in-law pointed out that child sacrifice and worship of sex have always gone together in history.  That was Jericho's sin.  Sodom and Gomorrah.  The people who died in the flood during Noah's time.  And each of these nations were wiped out.  God gave up on them, so to say, the people were so corrupt that He could not let them live.  The entire society was destroyed.   And yet, worship of sex and child sacrifice are indeed the sins of our society today.  We contracept and abort our children so we can live as we wish to, having sex without the responsibility of begetting and raising children.  

It is an oddity to see a mother with six kids in a grocery store.   How sad.  How much life and joy we are losing.

Is it time for America to be wiped out?  No, it is time for us to repent like Nineveh.  There are still many good people, people who are fighting for life, goodness and Truth.  America is still giving God children for the Kingdom of Heaven.  God is still blessing us with the lives of our children.  Let us stand in the presence of God with the Seraphim and say: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; heaven and earth are full of His glory." (Isaiah 6:3) 

Gabriel adores Our Lady

Our Lady of Mariapocs!  Give me the strength and peace of God today!

Anne explains why Our Lady is her favorite part of the icon.

Candles and Prayer

I've had a crazy few days and haven't been able to work on my icons.  But I wanted to share a few thoughts about our Byzantine tradition of candles. 
The candle means many things.  Most importantly it symbolizes Christ, the Light of the world.  The candle consumes itself, a voluntary self-giving sacrifice, like Christ's.  But the candle also symbolizes our own selves praying to God, wholly giving ourselves to Him.  Even after we have left, our candle keeps vigil before the living icon of God, and gives our prayers to God. 
When I was little, our priest always used to say that a real icon came alive in candlelight.  When it is dark, the whole world is transformed, it becomes surreal, even spooky.  Light the candle before the icon, and the faces in the icon glow with life, and one is transported to Heaven. 
Our icons truly live.  They are sacramentals, windows into heaven, as it were.  When we pray before the icon of the Pantocrator, the true Pantocrator is present.  More than a mere picture of a Loved One, the icon is a means by which God is really present with us, in a very special and unique way.
Tomorrow is Candlemas in the Latin Church.  It is a good day to have one's votive candles blessed, as we end the Christmas season.  Byzantine Catholics usually have candles blessed on Easter to symbolize the life of the Resurrection.  But of course priests can bless candles anytime!

Our Lady of Mariapocs, part 3

Tomorrow we celebrate the feast of St. John Bosco.  John Bosco fought for people, for the youth and homeless especially.  Hundreds sought and continue to seek help from this mighty saint, a man with a most loving heart.  It is hard to imagine that this vibrant man needed any assistance in his amazing work.  But in order to be or do anything one must give everything over to God.  What better way to give ourselves to God than through God's own mother?

Most Holy Virgin Mary, Help of Christians,
how sweet it is to come to your feet
imploring your perpetual help.
If earthly mothers cease not to remember their children,
how can you, the most loving of all mothers forget me?
Grant then to me, I implore you,
your perpetual help in all my necessities,
in every sorrow, and especially in all my temptations.
I ask for your unceasing help for all who are now suffering.
 Help the weak, cure the sick, convert sinners.
Grant through your intercessions many vocations to the religious life.
Obtain for us, O Mary, Help of Christians,
that having invoked you on earth we may love and eternally thank you in heaven.

Our Lady of Mariapocs, part 2

I started working on the image of Our Lady last night.  The colored image behind mine is the holy card from Hungary that I am working from.
I forgot how difficult it can be to be accurate to the original!  Part of  what makes this particular icon difficult is the disproportion in the faces of Our Lady and Jesus.  I want so much for my paintings to conform to common ideas of beauty - shapely eyes, small noses, big lips, heart shaped heads... But what is amazing is that this icon is perfect without such uniformity.  Our Lady doesn't need the "perfect" features to speak to the whole world and win the hearts of all her people.  And she is beautiful.
God can give me such confidence, if He wishes, and in the way He wishes for me.  He desires me for the person He made me (baldness and all!), in the capacity of love for which He made me.  If I am beautiful in His eyes, I will move the world.  God both knows us each to be beautiful, and at the same time desires each of us to become the fullness of beauty.

Our Lady of Mariapocs, part 1

My husband, Sean, went to work yesterday, for a six day trip.  Before he left, however, he made me four boards in his workshop.  Last night I began to gesso the boards.  While I gessoed I meditated on my next icon. 
I am leaning toward writing Our Lady of Mariapocs.  I went to school just outside of Vienna for several years, and visited the original icon at St. Stephan's Cathedral many times (written by Stefan Papp for the ikonostas of the Monastery of the Basilian Fathers in Pocs).  It is a miracle working icon, witnessing the protection and intercession of the Mother of God.  Mariapocs has wept tears in Pocs (now called Mariapocs), Hungary.  She was moved to Vienna because the Austrian Emperor had heard of her miraculous tears.  The Hungarians were not happy with this, and insisted on stopping the carriage that carried her, every step on the way to Vienna, so as to pay homage to Our Lady.  However, the Viennese couldn't bear to part with her either.  They made a copy and sent the copy back to Hungary.  God has his way: It is the copy in Hungary that now weeps.
I prayed before the original Our Lady of Mariapocs many times with Sean.  I prayed in particular for our discernment of marriage to one another (we were either friends or dating during that time), and mostly that he would fall in love with me and be my husband.  Our Lady has her way too!