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Page 4 of 5 All right, what do we do with an icon? And what does it do for us? I don’t know about you, but I sometimes have a very short attention span and am easily distracted. I welcome anything that will help me stay focused on the task at hand, whether the task is cooking, writing a letter, helping a child on a project, or praying. Of course, it is in praying that I am most easily distracted. All I have to do is close my eyes and shut my mouth, and a myriad of images and thoughts invade my quiet space.
Contemplative prayer is intended to lead us into deeper communion with God and help keep us there. Icons are perfect for this. They present us with an image of something spiritual, and serve as a constant reminder of spiritual things. Every time we wander away, we can always be brought back by a glance up at a holy face. It is like repeatedly looking at a photo of a beloved child or parent. Every time you look at the photo, you “contemplate” that person, and remember them and love them all over again.
On first looking at icons, one notices that they are rather primitive in their artistic style, with un-life-like exaggerated features. The same visual representation is repeated in every newly painted icon, relating it to icons of hundreds of years ago. Tradition is everything in iconography. Icons are different from other religious art because the iconographer intentionally retreats as an artist to emerge as a spiritualist. The spiritual message is what is important in the icon, not the artistic expression. An iconographer living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has painted an icon of Oscar Romero, the El Salvadorian Bishop who was martyred a few years ago. Even though this icon is new, it bears a striking resemblance to icons that are hundreds of years old. The icon is a prayer in itself, which is what all icons are for those who paint them.
How do we pray with an icon? Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, wrote a classic book called Spiritual Exercises. In it, he has his monks meditate on scenes from Christ’s life as a way to enter into Christ’s passion. The icon is a way to experience this passion and sacrifice and love. Just gazing into Christ’s face or his wounds, being brought into scenes from Christ’s life or the lives of saints can lead us deeper into confession and compassion, and upward into thanksgiving.
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