Icon Workshop

Have you ever been touched by an icon, a painting of a holy figure used as an aid to devotion in the Byzantine and other Eastern Churches?  

All last week several retreatants attended an icon workshop presented by Sr. Christopher Marie Wagner, OSF.  They were invited to deepen their prayer experience by writing the icon of the Mother of God of the Sign. which represents Mary as Mother of the Church.  The participants not only learned the history, theology and symbolism of icons but they learned the technique of gold leafing and painting on a board prepared for painting.  They each completed their own icon of the Mother of God of the Sign using acrylic paints.

The greatest joy for me was seeing the intensity of the experience.  As peaceful as the room was during that special moment of creation, you could also sense the fear and anxiety of venturing into a world unknown to them.  Many of us have the experience of praying with icons but never had I seen the experience of writing the prayer of an icon.  The acceptance of their lack of perfection and yet their desire to experience the moment with their whole mind and heart and soul was clear.  I witnessed an amazing bonding that spoke Mary's FIAT in their actions.  Their persistence and support of one another endured as each person presented their icon to be blest by Fr. Cyprian Rosen, OFM cap at our Mass on the final day.

The evening before the icons were to be blest they were laid out beautifully on a table in our chapel.  Later that night I returned to chapel to sit before them.  To my left was a magnificent and very large icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (probably one of the first icons) and to my right were the images of the Mother of God of the Sign created in our Spiritual Center.  I tried to imagine what Mary was communicating to me in both of these images.  I know it is always more than what is seen in the icon but rather what is seen through it – for me it was the love of God overflowing from Mary’s willingness to say yes.  Sitting with icons is a right brain experience of touching and feeling what is.  I’m normally a left brain person but when I calm my heart and let my right brain take over God always has a way of getting to my heart.  I know icons are not simply art, they are a way into the heart of God.  They are thresholds through which we walk into the stillness closer and closer to our God.  If we sit with them long enough and if we listen to them closely we can hear the voice of God.  I thank our participants for giving me that opportunity!