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The Bride : Images of the Church
By Daniel Berrigan, SJ
Orbis Press, 2000
I have been unusually blessed to have prophetic, poetic as well as very talented writers look into the icons which have been "given to me." This includes Megan McKenna, Fr. John Dear and Mirabai Starr, all published through the kindness, insight and generosity of my friend Robert Ellsberg Editor of Orbis Press.
The first book was written by the late Daniel Berrigan, SJ and I chose the title to echo his very first book called "The Bride : Essays in the Church" published in 1959.
I had been introduced to Daniel Berrigan's writings in the Novitiate at age 19 and he became a mentor to me long before I actually met him in 1983. If you google the articles that have been written about Dan since his death on April 30, you will see how many thousands of people he mentored through his heroic peace work and activism, his hospice work at St Rose and St Vincent's in NYC and his searing, dazzling and absolutely unique writing of brilliant poetry and over 50 books on Scripture.
I was missioned by the Society of Jesus to begin an apprenticeship as an iconographer in 1990 and every icon and image (almost 300 now) have been for the Society and the Church. Dan commissioned 3 icons of Blessed Franz Jagerstatter, William Stringfellow and Holy Prophet Benjamin Salmon. After his brother Philip died in December 2002 I came home from his funeral in Baltimore and began work on his icon too. Now I am working on one of Dan and it's impossible to put into words the feelings and prayers I am having working on someone I knew so intimately. It's a blessing I knew someday would be asked of me, yet to actually sit with him, talk with him, continue to love him, is a mixture of grief and elation; a joy, an honor I pray, will come through to you when the icon is finished. One of my cherished memories is accompanying Dan to an upstate New York retreat center where a group of Vietnam Veterans had asked him to give them a retreat, they had felt he was the best priest to understand their suffering. A man who had shown the true meaning of compassion - "to suffer with."
Rest in Peace, in the Light of His Presence - dear friend, mentor to multitudes of people of all faiths, artistic genius guided by the Spirit, and Holy Prophet Daniel Berrigan, SJ. Watch over us dear Dan, and give us the courage to keep seeking for and listening to God's will and to be faithful to our vocations.
June 2016
Fr Bill McNichols
