The term “write” is used because an icon is considered to be an expression of visual theology. So, this being the context, it is correct to say that one is “writing” an icon. (This is much to the chagrin of my brother John – the journalist and writer.)

Further, through the medium of image and symbol not only does the icon express great truths of our faith but it also brings one into a living encounter with those truths. It can be said that it is just as much the icon that observes us as it is we who take in the icon.

Here, a key distinction in perception might be helpful. In standing before an icon a person is not viewing a static, passive object that one then assimilates by his or her own powers – similar to reading a textbook in order to solely draw out what one needs to know. In coming before an icon one is fundamentally entering into an encounter and a dialogue with a reality that is active and present and that has something to say and teach what we need to hear.

In iconography the active agent is not just the viewer – it is also the icon itself. The icon invites one into the openness of a dialogue between a person and the eternal.

Theology is the dialogue between the soul and God who has fully and definitively revealed Himself in Jesus Christ – the Logos, the Word “made flesh” – and who communicates Himself to us through our senses, our conscience and our reason. Jesus is the primary and fullest image (icon) of God the Father. “He (Christ) is the image of the unseen God, … for God was pleased to let fullness dwell in him.” (Col. 1:15, 19). The theology of iconography springs from the incarnation – the choice of God to become en-fleshed. All this being said; when one paints an icon, one is “writing” a theology of God and salvation – a theology that has its roots in nothing less than the incarnation itself.

But for the ones within the embrace, in whatever setting, there is found a deep joy and communion of heart.

There is a deep tenderness and understanding in this specific encounter between Mary and Elizabeth. It is, I believe, a silent moment. The very foundation of the world has been shaken and these two women know it. In fact, they are at the very epicenter.

The world rushes by – not even noticing these two women in the embrace. What is so special about it? It happens all the time. What the world fails to see and what these two women know is that everything has changed. The world and all its structures has been turned on its head.

A new communion has been established between God and us, and therefore, between me and you.

I have just seen that if one traces the outer edges of the two halos and carries the tracing down to where the arms cross then the image of a heart is drawn.

Mary decides after the angel’s departure to set out to visit her cousin Elizabeth in the hills of Judah. Some scripture translations add “in haste” as the descriptive.

The decision is no light matter. The journey would have taken four days. A young girl (14 or 15 years old) walking alone would have been quite vulnerable. The journey certainly had risks and would have been a fearful thing to contemplate. But Mary’s decision to go brings out an important dynamic in the life of Christian faith.

Simply put, Mary makes the choice for hope and not for fear. Hope here is not naive, unrealistic optimism but rather a virtue given, a gift from God that is acted upon. Hope is the choice to trust in God’s promise and to live by God’s promise.

In many ways, I believe – as we come to Advent in the year 2007 – we live in a culture and a context ruled by (and manipulated by, I might add) the mechanics of fear. “Terrorists on the outside, “illegals” on the inside.” Mary’s choice for hope and not fear is a witness to us. It points out a different way.

(By the way, I hate the phrase “an illegal” that is being used to describe a whole grouping of people – a human being made in God’s image is never an “illegal”. Human dignity is determined not by any country’s mandate but by God-given inalienable rights that our own country’s Declaration of Independence speaks so movingly of. I think that the fear-mongers in the media and society who toss this term around need to re-read their own country’s founding documents.)

The mechanics of fear choke, stifle and ultimately kill off all life. The opposite of fear is not bravado and strength, rather it is hope. To choose hope is to step away from fear and to make the choice to trust in God. It is the choice to live by the vision of the Kingdom of God that is inaugurated by the coming of God’s own Son.

At the very beginning of the gospel – before all the disciples time and again do “not get it”, before the religious authorities misunderstand, before the political rulers fear – Mary understands what is beginning to unfold and she sings of it in her canticle.

At fifteen years of age, Mary setting out on a four day journey shows us a different way – the way of hope.

Right now I copy the icons that I write – either I print them off of the Internet or photocopy them from a book. Once I have the copy I use tracing paper in order to sketch out the cartoon. I trace the lines, the tilt of the head, the movement of the hand all from the original.

I have been told that in iconography this is legitimate and accepted. There is no copyright being infringed upon – this helps to calm my scrupulosity. Through tracing one learns to write as an iconographer would write. Your own hand learns to move as the hand of an iconographer’s would across the board. The very discipline of tracing reminds one that we receive from those who have gone before us even when they are unknown to us. I do not know who originally wrote this icon of the Visitation that is my source but I am now learning from her or him. In fact in the tracing of the icon I am listening to what the original iconographer has to say about this particular moment in Scripture. I am standing with the iconographer and together we are reflecting on the mystery of the Visitation.

Advent itself leads one to a recognition of and gratitude for all the unknown people who have preceded us on the journey and from whom we have received the beautiful gift of faith. Advent calls us to remember and even stand with all those generations who yearned for and awaited the coming of the Messiah. They were the ones who learned to read the great promise in the words of Scripture and build their lives centered on the hope of the promised Savior – the unknown Simeons and Annas. Advent further helps us to remember and again stand with all the generations who have lived since the great Christ event – all the unknown people who have formed and lived what we in turn have been given and entrusted with. All these unknown people teach us how to write our own lives as Christians.

Iconography demonstrates that in faith and probably throughout all aspects of life we may not so much invent on our own as we 1. receive, 2. enflesh and, in turn, 3. pass on.

To whoever wrote this icon of the Visitation, “thank you”.

My icon writing “place” is a drafting table. A gift given by some friends a few years ago. Currently the table occupies an area in my office at the Catholic Center looking out the front windows. Sitting at the desk with the blinds open I look straight out onto the front porch of the house and beyond that onto Locust Street. I many ways – I have come to realize – I look out onto life. Across University Parkway from campus with well kept sidewalks, beautiful old houses (large and small) and large shading trees the tree streets neighborhood is very inviting to many people.

So far during my first five months at this residence I have seen a July 4th parade pass by (replete with children on tricycles and even a fire truck with flashing lights) and a Halloween costumed group of revelling, college students walk by – to the next house party I assumed. Everyday I see college students ride by on bikes going to a from campus. I have seen whole families out for a stroll and have even witnessed a grandmother pulling two infant grandchildren in a red wagon. Couples hand in hand, young and old, find the trees streets to be a very inviting place to stroll. And always there are children either carrying book bags or baseball bats…

A few days ago I looked up from my desk in order to catch the sight of a gust of wind moving a swirling cloud of fall leaves down the street. “The Spirit blows where it wills…” I thought.

Place is important – where God has put us at this moment, at this time in our lives. Wherever this may be, God has us here for a reason. For me, my place is now the Catholic Center at ETSU in Johnson City, TN. – my hometown, being close to family and ministering to this community.

I also hold that the move to make a space for God is also important because allowing God a space sanctifies the place we happen to find ourselves occupying. Whether “making space” means setting aside fifteen minutes a day to pray, making a prayer corner in one’s home (and using it) or having a drafting table to write icons on – the space allows God in. The space allows God to touch the movement of our lives and to bless it.

Mary and Elizabeth – the two women embracing in the icon of the Visitation – allowed a space for God in their lives. They let God in and they knew joy for it.

With the predawn opening of America’s department stores on Black Friday we have entered (willingly or not) into the frenzy of the secular holiday. We are now officially awash in the sights and sounds of the season and we are told to buy, buy, buy … not only is it good for the economy but it is also an act of patriotism!

In the Feast of Christ the King, our Church throws us a lifeline to hold onto and to help us go deeper in order to find “the true reason for the season”. This Sunday we remember and reflect on who Jesus Christ is and what his birth means for us and for all of history. This Feast allows us to skip forward to the “last chapter” of the book – as it were – before we enter into the opening pages of Advent.

Christ is King – but in what does his kingship consists and how is it achieved? The kingship of Christ consists not in worldly might and the ability to impose one’s will and dominate (attested to by both Scripture and Tradition) but rather in the ability to reconcile and to make peace. Christ holds together. He heals that which has been fractured by sin. This is truly the work of God alone. The hymn found in The Letter to the Colossians proclaims, “For in Christ all the fullness was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile all things for him, making peace by the blood of his cross through him…”. Christ the King makes peace. Christ heals that which is fractured both individually in our hearts and universally in our world and all creation.

How is this achieved? Here we are confronted with nothing less than the mystery and the paradox of the cross. At this moment, a quote from Thomas Merton might be an aid as we contemplate the work of Christ the King on the cross.

Hanging there on the cross (being jeered at and mocked by all around him) Christ the King is “doing” the work of peace and of reconciliation, not by the imposition of his will but by the very rightness, the very truth of the work itself – the rightness of the giving of himself and the truth of obedience to the Father’s will. Here alone is where peace is found and where the work of peace is built and achieved.

We always pray for peace during this time of year. We pray for it, we yearn for it, we even sing songs testifying to our desire for peace. In all this our Christian faith says “yes” it is right to pray for peace but also it is right to work to build true peace. Here though (our faith also wisely cautions) let our work be true and let our action be informed by the full revelation of Christ – peace is not built through the power of an action and the imposition of will but through right action – doing something because it is the right thing to do – no matter how small, seemingly insignificant and maybe even disparaged and mocked. Christ the King – “making peace by the blood of his cross” – teaches us that peace (both in our hearts and in the world) can only be built through the rightness and the truth of the work itself.

“While some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings, Jesus said, ‘All that you see here – the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.” (Lk. 21:5-6)

When we approach this passage of Luke’s gospel with a thought to the final days we tend to do so with an interpretation that is “writ large” I believe. All the great structures of humankind – we reflect – from the Temple in Jerusalem to the Taj Mahal to the Eiffel Tower to the latest skyscraper of capitalism will be torn down, will crumble before the approach of God. All the great accomplishments of humankind – as many and as varied as they are – are as dust before God and his Kingdom. In other words, look to what is happening without (most notably in the big events of the day’s news) in order to see the approach of God’s Kingdom, to predict the “End Times” and therefore to best be ready.

I wonder though if Jesus’ summons to be vigilant for the coming of the Kingdom might not be so much one of prediction and looking without to the “big” events of the world as more of a call of preparation and looking within – in humility and in truth. Through my relationship with Jesus, is the Kingdom being born within my life? Is the Kingdom witnessed to by my life and my actions? With this turn within we are led to ask what are those “costly stones and votive offerings” that we cling to in our lives – those attitudes and objects that we want to think offer protection, security and a sense of forever but which, in fact, really offer nothing in the end but imprisoning walls?

Here, the Litany of Humility prayed each week by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity might help open our eyes to the “costly stones and votive offerings” of our own lives.

From the desire of being esteemed,
From the desire of being loved,
From the desire of being extolled,
From the desire of being honored,
From the desire of being praised,
From the desire of being preferred,
From the desire of being approved,
From the desire of being consulted,

Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of being humiliated,
From the fear of being despised,
From the fear of suffering rebukes,
From the fear of being calumniated,
From the fear of being forgotten,
From the fear of being wronged,
From the fear of being ridiculed,
From the fear of being suspected,

Deliver me, O Jesus.

Deliver us, O Lord, from our own costly stones and votive offerings – all those objects and attitudes that seek to stand in the way and prohibit the inbreaking of your Kingdom, your light and your truth into our lives! Lord, throw down the stones of these walls in order that your Kingdom and its life will grow within our hearts! The “stone not left on another stone” in the life of the disciple is a testament not of woe and doom but of the emergence of true life. As we grow in the Kingdom we learn to value less all those costly stones and votive offerings of our lives that we can so readily cling to.

We best ready ourselves for the coming of the Lord by looking within in a spirit of humble preparation and welcome and not by looking without in a false spirit of prediction.

A few weeks ago in Naples, Italy Pope Benedict XVI gathered with representatives from the world’s major religions (Christian and non-Christian) in order to dialogue and prayer for peace in our world. At the end of the gathering the religions gathered signed a joint “Peace Appeal”. Below is a copy of the Appeal. It is worth reading and reflection. This annual gathering is coordinated by the Community of Sant’Egidio. If you want to add your own name to the Appeal – which I have – you can go to http://www.santegidio.org/ and click on the “Peace Appeal”. “Never can evil and violence be justified by invoking the name of God.” (Pope Benedict XVI). Pray for peace!

Men and women of different religions, from many parts of the world, we have gathered here in Naples to forge bonds of brotherhood, and call to God for the great gift of peace. The name of God is peace.

In the heart of the Mediterranean Sea and in this extraordinary city, which is well acquainted with poverty and greatness of heart, we stooped down upon the wounds of the world. There is an illness that pollutes every thing and its name is violence. Violence is the grim daily companion of too many men and women on our planet. Violence becomes war, terrorism, poverty and despair, exploitation of our planet. It is fuelled by contempt, it stuns people with hatred, it kills hope and sows fear, it strikes down the innocent, and debases humanity. Violence seduces the hearts of human beings and tells them, “nothing can change”. This pessimism makes people believe that living together is impossible.

From Naples we can say, stronger than before, that anyone who uses the name of God to hate the other, to practice violence, or to wage war, is cursing the name of God.

As Benedict XVI told us, “Never can evil and violence be justified by invoking the name of God”.

We focused on our diverse religious traditions, we heard the sorrow of the South of the World, and we felt the burden of pessimism rising from the 20th century with its weight of war and shattered illusions. We need the strength that comes from the spirit of love, which helps rebuild and mend the unity of humankind. The power of the spirit changes the hearts of men and women and transforms history.

In the depths of our religious traditions we have discovered that a world without dialogue is a world without hope, where people are fated to fear each other. Dialogue does not cancel differences. Dialogue enriches life and dispels pessimism that makes one see the other as a threat. Dialogue is not the illusion of the weak, it is the wisdom of the strong, who rely on the weak power of prayer. And prayer changes the world and the destiny of humankind. Dialogue weakens no-one’s identity, and it encourages everyone to see the best in the other. Nothing is lost with dialogue, everything is possible through dialogue.

To those who still kill, to those who still sow terrorism and wage war in the name of God, we say: “Stop! Do not kill! Violence is always a defeat”.

We commit ourselves to learn the art of living together and to offer it to our fellow believers. There is no alternative to the unity of the human family. We need brave builders, in all cultures, and in all religious traditions. We need the globalization of the spirit, which reveals to us what we no longer see: the beauty of life and of the other, in all circumstances, even the hardest.Our religious traditions teach us that prayer is an active power in history, and it moves peoples and nations. Humbly, we offer this ancient wisdom to the service of all peoples, of every man and every woman, to open a new era of freedom from fear and contempt for the other. It is the spirit of Assisi, and here, from Naples, full of courage and strength, it challenges violence and any abuse of religion as a pretext for violence.

Following in this path, confident that peace can be a gift to the whole world, we commit ourselves to the Most High.

Naples, 23 October 2007

The well known story of Zacchaeus, the diminutive tax collector, (Lk. 19:1-10) reveals to us the two movements of salvation.

Throughout the gospels, the “good news” of Jesus Christ, we find Jesus coming to meet us where we are at. This, I believe, is the lived reality of the canticle of descent found in the second chapter of the Letter to the Philippians. Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, emptied himself and took the form of a slave not just in the lowliness of the incarnation nor just in the pain and suffering of the crucifixion and death but also throughout his life and ministry. Jesus’ words to the tree perched tax collector are worthy of note here. “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” It is the slave, the obedient servant, who must do something. Jesus is continually obedient to the will of the Father and his direction in his life and this leads the Lord to meet us where we are at. To listen to Luke’s account, one could say that it even impels him. Jesus is led to meet us even in our sin, even in our forsakenness. This is the first movement – God seeks us out, God comes to meet us where we are at.

The second movement is our response. Yes, Jesus comes to meet us where we are at but he does not intend for us to stay there. Visited by God, we must now respond in kind (as much as a creature to its Maker can). Zacchaeus stands his ground against the criticism of the crowd. “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.” Our shall responds to Jesus’ must. There is a deep irony in this which raises the worthwhile reflection of “in what true freedom consists”. Here, I propose that the more one welcomes Jesus; the more our limited shall begins to share in the very must of Jesus (the obedient servant) and, further, the more one discovers true freedom.

Responding to this welcome of Zacchaeus and his response of shall, Jesus says, “Today salvation has come to this house … For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”

Salvation comes in two movements – God seeking and our responding, God’s must and our shall.

I love the Feast of All Saints! It is one of my favorite feasts in the Church’s year. These men and women from throughout the centuries (our elder brothers and sisters in the faith) literally show us what it looks like to follow Christ and, by so doing, what it means to be fully human. The saints are true icons as opposed to pop cultures’ rip-off versions. (I find it interesting how pop culture in all its flash and bravado continually needs to steal the language and imagery of religion. If pop culture is such a powerful force why does it need the language and imagery of another worldview? Shouldn’t it be able to create its own language and imagery? Hmmm, it makes one wonder…)

One of the lessons that the saints teach us is that we learn the Christian life by doing the Christian life. I remember as a youngster learning to ride a bike for the first time. I did not spend weeks in preparation studying the mathematical equations and wind velocity of the bike. Nor did I take apart every piece of the bike and scrutinize it. No, I got on the bike one day (my dad ran behind me) and I learned how to ride. Yes, I faltered and went off balance some at first (this is where my dad came in) but before I knew it I was riding the bike! The saints tell us that it is the same in the Christian life. If we want to be a forgiving person then forgive. If we want to be prayerful then pray. If we want to reach out to the poor then don’t just talk about it, go and encounter the poor! “Its that simple?” we ask. “Yes” say the saints.

We learn the Christian life by doing the Christian life!