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Valentin Tomberg Holy Christian Hermeticist

December 26th, 2023

Valentin Tomberg Holy Christian Hermeticist

Valentin Tomberg Holy Christian Hermeticist (27 February 1900 - 24 February 1973)
“...the role accorded to the Virgin Mary does not stop growing. The Queen of the Angels, the Queen of the patriarchs, the Queen of apostles, the Queen of martyrs, confessors, virgins, and saints, the Queen of Peace, is, in the text of liturgical prayers, also the Mother of God, the Mother of Divine Grace, and the Mother of the Church. In the churches of the Greek Orthodox Church one sings : ‘More honoured than the Cherubim, more glorious than the Seraphim - thou who art the true Mother of God, we honour thee.’”
Valentin Tomberg
“...For these (letters) are in essence twenty-two spiritual exercises, by means of which you, dear Unknown Friend, will immerse yourself in the current of the living tradition, and thus enter into the community of spirits who have served it and are still serving it...The essence of the tradition is not a doctrine, but rather a community of spirits from age to age.
There remains nothing more to say in this introduction to the Letter-Meditations on the Tarot, because all other questions concerning them will find a response in the Letters themselves.
Your Friend
greets you, dear Unknown Friend,
from beyond the grave.”
Valentin Tomberg
By now it’s acceptable to say that Valentin Tomberg is “the Anonymous author” of what has been called, his magisterial work, “Meditations On The Tarot : A Journey Into Christian Hermeticism.”
Let me just get this out of the way from the very beginning, this book is not about doing or how to do a reading of the Tarot cards. And also tell you there is a photo of St John Paul II, with the German edition of the book, right next to him. It is said that von Balthasar gave it to him. Did he read it ? We’ll probably never know for sure.
As Catholic Christians we were taught that card reading was anathema, sort of like the worst case scenario; King Saul, desperate to hold onto his power, asking a Witch to summon the dead spirit of Holy Prophet Samuel ( 1 Samuel 28: 3-25). No surprise that it is not Prophet Samuel who arrives, but a false spirit. As the old saying by the Roman playwright Plautus goes, “a word to the wise is sufficient.”
So imagine my surprise when I read a review in the Catholic Commonweal Magazine In 1986, that the great theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar (considered at that time to be very conservative) had written an Afterword to the book :
“...By way of these Major Arcana, the author seeks to lead meditatively into the deeper, all-embracing wisdom of the Catholic Mystery.
Firstly, it may be called to mind that such an attempt is to be found nowhere else in the history of philosophical, theological and Catholic thought.”
Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar is also the author of countless works of theological and spiritual nourishment. One of my favorites is “Dare We Hope ?”
He became alarmed at how willing “good christians” were and are, to condemn each other to hell. So basically it’s about “dare we hope that all people will go to Heaven!?”
Here is where I must also say that during the last days of painting this image, I became aware of You Tube videos where some of the followers of Valentin Tomberg, were repeating dangerous conspiracy theories and criticizing our present Pope. From my reading of the Meditations, I found the loving spirit of a truly Catholic mind and heart, who I cannot believe would ever act or write in such a misguided and condescending way.
One of the most practical things I learned from Meditations, is that evil is only capable of repetition; evil has no imagination. And that God can create miracles, just at the right (kairos) time. How many times in your life when you were ready to give up, did the Holy Spirit create a way up or out for you that you never dreamed of ?
On 10 July, I wrote a birthday post about my experience of different models of the church, just in my lifetime alone.
If you read it you’ll see my present experience is that we have been led into a desert, similar to the Book of Exodus, where we’ll do just about anything to go back to Egypt... or the ways of the former church. I said clearly that this desert is also terribly uncomfortable for me too, but I know for certain, the Holy Spirit never goes backwards and always, always, forward.
Speaking to those who honor the Sophianic presence in the church and world, I would say that another great Russian theological master,
Vladimir Soloviev
(von B wrote an essay on him in his book “ The Glory of the Lord : A Theological Aesthetics : Lay Styles, volume 3 )
had one of his apparitions of Sophia, in the Desert. Isn’t this often where we meet Sophia in a literal or spiritual Desert ?
I believe that we as a church are always dependent on the Holy Spirit to bring us back to the center, to the Gospels.
And I truly understand, after the horrors Tomberg experienced during the Bolshevik revolution, that this alone, could have caused his painful ptsd to become enflamed during the iconoclastic period following Vatican II.
I look with wonder at secular France lovingly rebuilding the fire damaged Notre Dame of Paris. I could write much about what that Gothic Cathedral might mean to them, but it’s got such spiritual power, that it means as much to many all over the world.
Right in the middle of my vocation as a Hospice Chaplain, (I was in my mid-thirties) I was hungry ... starving for personal new life, because of the thousands of deaths we were all experiencing during the AIDS Pandemic.
So after reading that Commonweal Review, I immediately took the subway down to a bookstore and carried the beautiful first English edition home with me. The photo on the hard cover was a bas relief from Chartres Cathedral of Jesus Christ (the Pantocrator) in Glory surrounded by the traditional figures given to the 4 Evangelists. Inside the dedication was :
To
Our Lady of Chartres.
I devoured the book in one month understanding only about half of what I read. I felt a feeling inside of me, exactly like a few of the blurbs quoted on the back cover:
“The most extraordinary work I have ever read.”
Basil Pennington, Trappist Abbot
“The greatest contribution to date towards the rediscovery and renewal of the Christian contemplative tradition.”
Thomas Keating, Trappist Abbot
“Simply astonishing. I have never read such a comprehensive account of the perennial philosophy.”
Father Bede Griffiths
Another word to the wise from my friend Professor James Robinson, of Iona University in New York,
“Wisdom figures are to be communed with, not co-opted.”
This is not a book for everyone but certainly not to be treated as a book only the elite can manage. As I mentioned before, in my first reading I could only understand about half of it, but I kept coming back, because I knew this was a hidden treasure. A book you could read into all through your life, and grow in understanding with it... “And the Child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom...” (Luke 2:40)
In our church we consider little Francisco and Jacinta Marto as great as the most erudite of our saints. So as I see it, Tomberg ‘s book is an invitation to a spirituality similar to our great orders of women and men. Some people will love the Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, some the Catholic Workers, some Ignatian spirituality, some African American Theology, some the Liberation Theology of Latin America, or the Servant of God Nicholas Black Elk and Native American spirituality, some Feminist theology like the great Edith Stein or Elizabeth Johnson.
Some will fervently insist on “only Scripture” ... and some just want and need to simply pray the Holy Rosary. This is what I love about Catholicism; the innumerable ways to God.
Just as in music, I am attracted to a specific voice; it’s the same with theology.
I have mentioned before I love the voice of Biblical Scholar, George Bradford Caird, the voice of Adrienne von Speyr, the voices of “my 911 Saints,” Padre Pio and Therese of Lisieux, the voices of the Jesuits, Robert Southwell, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Teilhard de Chardin, Daniel Berrigan, Jim Martin, the voices of my friends, Christopher Pramuk, Kathleen Hendricks, John Dadosky, Mirabai Starr, and Robert Ellsberg...
I could go on and on. But it doesn’t mean these are the only or even “right” voices, just a very few of the ones who speak (sing) to me.
My first reaction to this book was “what a beautiful non-judgmental voice.”
The voice of Valentin Tomberg is a beautiful, loving, humble, and simply inviting voice. He never harangues or finger wags, or tries to convert you to what he has found.
I believe that if you really believe and love something, you don’t have to force people into it; and actually, in the end you can’t.
This is the very quality I want from Valentin; what I admire most about him.
Right now I’m discovering more each day as I look into a new biography which came out in 2022. So I have a lot yet to learn from him. This is a man who escaped Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution, after his mother was shot, and then the Nazi Regime in Holland. Much of his life he was in conflict, especially as he moved closer and closer to Catholicism. And a few jealous people sought to “cancel” him, as they say today.
After becoming a Catholic everything seemed to fall into place for him
and he wrote with his vast philosophical and spiritual knowledge with such transparent humility.
I have been wanting to paint an image of Valentin ever since 1986.
I’m not yet certain why he had to be blue, (I’m sure I’ll find out someday) as my artist friend Tyler says, just because the artist didn’t realize what he or she was putting into a work, doesn’t mean it’s not there.
I know that I had to indicate
that to me, he was and is led by the Holy Spirit; still speaking to us “from beyond the grave.”
Fr William Hart McNichols ⚜️Ⓜ️⚜️ The Queenship of Mary Mother of God 💠
22 August 2023

The Dormition of the Mother of God

December 26th, 2023

The Dormition of the Mother of God

The Dormition of the Mother of God 🦋 (15 August )
In virtually every icon of the Mother of God, she pleads for, prays for, grieves for and radiates with
the presence of
the Son.
To look at her is to see her love for Him.
The essence of the Dormition is the Son’s love for her, His mother.
In the west we celebrate the Assumption, in the east the Dormition (or falling asleep) is celebrated. The Son arrives at the moment of her passing, (falling asleep) in a mandorla of light and cradles her soul, as she so often cradled Him, and carries her Home.
The Archangel Gabriel, first to announce the miraculous news to her, is naturally there, bowing low, in a reverent proskynesis.
St John the Apostle, designated by the Son from the Cross to care for His, Our Mother, is bent over with sorrow aching with his indescribable loss.
This icon was commissioned by the Jesuit America Magazine around 1993 (if I remember correctly), and I wrote this poem/prayer, to accompany the Icon :
“The Dormition
She sleeps who
knew no rest here.
Promised early on a
knife in her soul, then
watching relatives, friends,
eventually multitudes ... dividing,
deciding, and finally calling for the
Blood of the Word clothed in her
very own flesh.
Stabat Mater Dolorosa
all through
the grisly Passion she echoed
a helpless harmony.
Tears that would not stop,
the convulsive grief, and then
all life leaving
from her eyes,
from His wounds.
Now He returns to take
her soul and body.
She of the abused and powerless,
She of the stifled and wordless,
She of the outcast and empty...
She is crowned forever
Queen of Heaven, indeed the
Universe,
in the kingdom of reversals.
And we, her waiting children
are assured such an ending.
After dust, we too shall be
carried Home
in the mandorla
of the Rising Son.
Amen “
Fr William Hart McNichols 🦋 15 August 2023

Charles Rich Holy Lay Contemplative

December 26th, 2023

Charles Rich Holy Lay Contemplative

Charles Rich Holy Lay Contemplative (1899 - 1998)
“With everyone else who works, can’t God want one person just to pray ?
... About two weeks ago, I was on the steps leading to the ground floor when all of a sudden I felt my inner being, Iight up in a way I would not attempt to describe. It was as if I were suddenly transported into another world, the one eternity is. The whole thing lasted only a few seconds ... it was a feeling of delight so excessive that I no longer felt myself to be where I am ... it was as if I saw God Himself.”
Charles Rich from a letter, 1983
“Woe unto you, when all men speak well of you !
For so did their fathers to the false prophets.”
Luke 6:26
“Now, ain’t it good to know that you’ve got a friend
When people can be so cold?
They’ll hurt you and desert you
And take your soul if you let them
Oh, but don’t you let them...”
Carole King
I think it was 95 or 96 I first came across a book by Ronda Chervin about
Chaskel (Ezekiel) Reich who later became simply, Charles Rich. I read her book “Hungry For Heaven: The Story of Charles Rich, Contemplative,” and his book, “Charles Rich : Autobiography.”
Personally, what attracted me to Charlie, was not so much his miraculous conversion story at age 33, but how he was able to live as a complete contemplative for 65 years after his conversion. Here is a brief introduction to Charlie ...
“Charlie Rich was born in 1899 to a devout Hasidic family in a small village in Hungary. As a child his schooling was entirely religious, and he had a prayerful, pious nature, spending many hours alone in the woods around his home in loving contemplation of God. However, after his family immigrated to the United States and settled in a Jewish ghetto in New York City, Charlie lost his faith and became an atheist. Desperate to find the meaning of life, and unable to afford formal education, he spent most of his twenties in the public library, studying philosophy and religion. When he was unable to find the answer there, he fell into despair and twice tried to commit suicide. Then, at the age of thirty-three, he found all the meaning he had been hoping for, and more, in Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church. He spent the rest of his long life as a lay contemplative, most of it with a Jesuit community in New York City. He died in 1998.”
from a chapter in the book, “Honey From the Rock” by Roy Schoeman, 2007.
I think it was when I was a novice, in the Florissant, Missouri Jesuit Novitiate of St Stanislaus Kostka, that I first heard the Ignatian concept of getting a-or-the-“Grace of office.” Simply put, if you are to become something new in your already existing vocation, you get a new grace of office. This actual need, really has to be recognized first. Like, I’m going to be a teacher now, or I’m going to be a parent now, or I’m going to be a painter now, please give me the grace to go 100% into that vocation within a vocation. It’s like Adrienne von Speyr ‘s portrait of St Clare of Assisi in her “Book of All Saints,”
“...she had to renounce the main hallmark of her character: the reasonability which was hers (and quite rightly) and the spontaneous readiness to help and to serve. It is harder to renounce something that is good and beneficial than something deficient. At the beginning of her contemplative life she would have gladly left contemplative prayer to others and not only out of innate inclination but for reasonable grounds.
But
she lets herself be formed
into what God wants to make
out of her.”
(Translated from the German “Das Allerheiligenbuch, 1” by the late Fr Edward T. Oakes, SJ)
Personally, when I began my apprenticeship with Friar Robert Lentz, I had to go from being a daily busy hospice chaplain to a contemplative painter. It took me well over 6 months to even realize I needed the grace of office to become a new person.
When I finally knew what I was asking for, it shook me to my foundation. I had severe doubts I’d be able to spend that much time alone, and work alone. Whereas as a chaplain I got energy and life from the people around me and the very powerful energy of the Island of Manhattan itself. As an iconographer I had to get the life and energy from God alone. It was about a year and a half until I gradually fell totally in love with this new vocation within my vocation. And I’m not sure I ever came out of it ?
In the early 90’s I was blessed with a friendship with a woman, Susan McClees who had been trained by Michael Harner, in the ancient Shamanic tradition. In 1995 I was able to visit Magadan, Far East, Russia, and a museum, in Magadan, of the very beginnings of Shamanism. And two of my favorite films are stories about a young boy becoming a Shaman, to save his people; “The Emerald Forest,” 1985, and the Norwegian film, “The Pathfinder, “ 1989.
Susan told me once, you can never call yourself a Shaman, others may do so if they experience that you deserve the title.
I feel the same way about the world’s Mystics, of every religious tradition.
If you find Charlie calling to you, there are two small books about him I’d suggest again, as a beginning :
“Hungry For Heaven : The Story of Charles Rich, Contemplative “ 1993, by Ronda Chervin
And
“Charles Rich Autobiography,” 1990
Both published by St Bede’s Publications,
Petersham, Massachusetts
So, let me end with another hopeful quote from Charlie...
“We are conscious of a change that has taken place in our thinking and feeling; but what exactly that change is, we are unable to say in words of any kind...All we do know is that something has occurred within ourselves, which we cannot express in a clear-cut-way and that, though we are the same people we have been prior to our conversion, in a mystical way, we are other than we have been.”
Charlie Rich, 1990
Fr William Hart McNichols 💮 August 2023

St Ignatius Collapsing At The Altar

December 26th, 2023

St Ignatius Collapsing At The Altar

“St Ignatius Collapsing At The Altar” (pen and ink drawing 1982)
“Even if someone were to express everything that is ‘within him,’ we wouldn’t necessarily understand him.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein
“No one points to God with such shrewd intelligence as St Ignatius.”
The Servant of God Adrienne von Speyr
“While preparing the altar, after I had vested, and during Mass, I experienced great interior impulses and wept very copiously and intensely, sobbing violently. Often I could not speak. The same continued after Mass. During much of this time, before, during and after Mass, I felt and saw clearly that Our Lady was very propitious, pleading before the Father.
Indeed during the prayers to the Father and the Son, and at His consecration, I could not but feel or see her, as though she were a part or rather portal of the great grace I could feel in my spirit.
At the consecration she showed that her own flesh was in the flesh of her Son, with so many intuitions that they could not be written...”
Spiritual Diary of St Ignatius * 15 February 1544
I’ve often wondered whether St Paul ever expected his letters to the different churches to be read at Mass, or part of the New Testament. But they are, and because they are so candid, and filled with his spiritual experiences and “motherly kvetching” over even the smallest things, we see a very personal side to Paul we’d never see otherwise .
I also don’t know if Ignatius ever intended to have his spiritual diary printed.
But for me, a single part of a sentence like “... her own flesh was in the flesh of her Son,” stops me. I am led into a contemplation of why he said that and what this extremely intimate “motherly detail” means for us. Personally, I never forget those words during Mass.
The diary is an account of how he came to discern what the vow of poverty would be in his Society of Jesus. So it is not a diary in the normal sense of the term. Fr Philip Endean, SJ, says “... a descriptive title would be “A Discernment Logbook. It is an exceptional document in the fullness and in the sensitivity of its entries, and must be one of the finest accounts in the world’s spiritual writings of one process of discernment.”
For me it is a breathtaking glimpse into Ignatius’ intimacy with Our Lady and the Holy Trinity; something to be held in reverence and holy awe.
During my career as an illustrator, 1980-1990) I wanted to express Ignatius’ depth of feeling during Mass. Then I asked my dear friend, Fr Jim Janda, to use his “poetic license” to write a poem that I could illustrate to bring people into the spiritual life of Holy Father St Ignatius.
Please keep in mind this is a luminous interior vision, not, in this case, an apparition.
“When I write this my understanding feels drawn to see the Blessed Trinity, and appears to see, although not distinctly as before, three persons...it seemed to me in spirit that whereas before I had seen Jesus, as I said something white, that is his humanity, on this occasion my feeling in my soul was different. I was aware not of the humanity alone, but of Jesus as being completely my God, with a fresh rush of tears and great devotion.”
Spiritual Diary of St Ignatius * 27 February 1544
Fr William Hart McNichols 💮 31 July 2023

Holy Prophet Philip Berrigan of Jonah House

December 26th, 2023

Holy Prophet Philip Berrigan of Jonah House

Holy Prophet Philip Berrigan of Jonah House (5 October 1923 - 6 December 2002)
“We pray that : God intervene in the ecological crisis as Lord of Creation, because we refuse to change our abuse of the earth... and that the global war against children be lifted...”
Philip Berrigan
“Peacemaking goes nowhere, and yet, it must be done.”
Daniel Berrigan, SJ
Tomorrow evening I will go with two friends to see “Oppenheimer.” From everything I’ve heard, it is a masterpiece, coming at “the last hour” as a cinematic plea for us to have a metanoia or dramatic change of heart...heart and soul, especially about the putrid, infectious, multitude of lies we are knowingly fed daily, and must swallow and live in; not to mention the horrors of Ukraine.
So I reflect on the heroic life of Philip Berrigan who spent his adult years as a Prophet calling us out of violence, and paid the price spending a total of 11 years in prison. In the above prayer he made in the months before he died are many petitions. One is “That Americans grasp that war is our #1 business: that we are a violent, killer people.”
This was in 2002, what would he think of us now, as there are daily mass shootings?
And his petition for us to stop abusing the earth as we live through a summer of fires, tornadoes and floods. And the war against children; what would he think about Ukraine or the order from the Texas Governor to push migrant children back into the water, the water ... which is seeded with barbed wire which lacerates their tender bodies ... one brave border agent has called “in humane.” This is what we’ve become. In humane.
We know from Jesus that prophets are never respected during their lives but persecuted, mocked and often murdered.
I have to raise up Philip right now as I know the conversation about nuclear annihilation will begin, after tomorrow, because of an artistic masterpiece which I imagine, I hope, will begin to invade our entire world.
Because I was so close in the 1980’s to Daniel Berrigan, I was blest to be brought into his extended family. This included the Syracuse branch of Jerry and Carol Berrigan (Jerry often spoke to me about the incredible privilege and experience of serving St Padre Pio’s Mass during WW II) and the Maryland branch of Philip, Liz and children. These are people quite extraordinary in every sense of the word, and committed to non-violence in a ways you rarely ever see. But they were/are also loving, funny and delightful makers of a community of friends who stretch round the world.
I was/am deeply grateful for the continuing impact they have on my life. You naturally change around such holy people and they changed me in ways I continue to discover.
I’d say number one, you never give up your love of God and the vocation God’s given you. Never.
They were ultimately, very respectful of each person’s particular way of serving God.
Being around Phil and Liz I felt tremendously loved. And I have so many stories I can’t even begin to tell you.
Before Phil died those of us close to him were called and I flew in from Alburquerque to Jonah House in Baltimore. His son Jerry had made his coffin, at Phil’s request, and for days I was asked to paint it. When he died around 9pm on December 6, I remember that day Amy Goodman and her partner Denis Moynihan, had made a visit to pray Kaddish prayers for the dying with Phil. The whole house was hushed and I cannot forget those precious days.
When it came time to bury Phil I was asked to do the nighttime burial rites. It was freezing cold in the snow and friends of the family stood round the grave with torches; it was like you’d imagine, the burial of King Arthur.
Phil was a rather fierce man, who hid his tenderness, but he always treated me with the gentleness and the love of a true brother. His love was palpable and I can still feel it.
Liz, Liz... so much to say and ponder. I have always loved her as an example, someone to look up to and as an incredible artist, friend, mother, wife ... Prophet.
I realize these words are woefully inadequate. So please google him and the family, and their many books, and find out more !
But after tomorrow, and “Oppenheimer” I don’t expect I’ll be able to say much, except to praise the artistic accomplishment and to pray everyone sees and is shaken awake by the film.
This icon shows a ghastly nuclear fire partially blocked by the sufferings and numerous imprisonments (once visiting him in prison with his brother Dan, Phil called prison “a minor inconvenience” ) of Holy Prophet Philip while he was on earth.
But we have choices too. Through his intercession and example, “Teach us your ways O Lord,” from Psalm 25.
“The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!’
And let him who hears say, ‘Come!”
And let him who is thirsty come,
let him drink of the waters of life
without price.”
The Apocalypse 22: 17
“Dear Lord,
Fill us with that spirit of courage
which gave to Your Holy Prophet Philip
the strength to offer his life in faithful witness.
Help us to learn from him to cherish Your Law
and to obey You rather than men and women.
We ask this through Our Lord Jesus Christ,
Your Son, who lives and reigns with You
and the Holy Spirit, One God, forever and ever.
Amen”
Fr William Hart McNichols 💮 19 July 2023

Write what you see in a book and send it to the Seven Churches

December 26th, 2023

Write what you see in a book and send it to the Seven Churches

“Write what you see in a book and send it to the Seven Churches...”
The Apocalypse 1:11
“The end is not an event but a person.”
From “The Revelation of St. John the Divine” by
George Bradford Caird (17 July 1917 - 21 April 1984)
“We are all in exile on earth because Heaven is our true Home.”
St Padre Pio (1887 - 1968)
I wanted to write something for my 74th birthday post and I wanted to speak about the Church and my images of the church, during different periods in my life and the current image of the church as I see her now.
During the first years of my life I thought of her as most people do; as the buildings. Starting of course with St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the Vatican. And the beautiful ancient cathedrals all over the world, the large or small chapels.
Then with the sudden arrival of Vatican Council II, in my seventh grade year, things began slowly to change. In eighth grade, at St John the Evangelist School, our teacher, Mrs. McGuire, asked me to make a ship out of felt for the class bulletin board. A ship ?
This was something new for me. A ship is not firmly planted on the ground but is moving across the waters.
I did not realize this image went way back to the early church and was often portrayed as the Barque of St Peter. Briefly, Carol Lee Flinders tells a fascinating tale of St Catherine of Siena, in her lovey, unique book, “Enduring Grace : Living Portraits of Seven Women Mystics.” As probably you all know Catherine was alive during the chaotic time when there were three Popes. God had chosen her as the one to find the true Pope who had escaped to Avignon, France, then bring him back, and end the chaos... always temporarily.
One day Catherine was praying in St Peter’s Basilica before a huge mosaic of the Barque of St Peter. Suddenly the Barque jumped of the wall and landed on her shoulders. My teacher Friar Robert Lentz, OFM, did a most beautiful icon of Catherine with the ship on her shoulders.
This of course was a sign, that she alone, was carrying the fate of the entire church.
So I too, began to do illustrations of the church as a ship.
And this image very much helped me talk about the church to the dying young men I met during my Hospice Years, 1983 - 1990, and beyond.
In the midst of the child abuse scandal I was attracted to the church as The Bride.
An image I “encountered” in the 80’s and later on in icons and St Hildegard of Bingen too.
It felt like “the church had left the buildings” and the “ship was almost sinking,” and so I read deeply into the Jesuit, Henri Cardinal de Lubac’s masterpiece, written while he was silenced by the church ...”The Splendor of the Church.”
Of course we all know of references to the church as the Bride in scripture. But what appealed to me, was the Bride was on the move; moving through everything for over 2,000 years, always toward the Groom, and that a “radiance” protected her.
Nothing or no one could ever hurt or even touch her. I finally painted this image for my exhibit “Silence in the Storm” in 2008, at the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, NM.
The Greek meaning of the word Patmos, the rocky island where St John was exiled for his adherence to Jesus Christ, is “my killing.”
Very significant and at the same time, rather bone chilling.
“ I John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.” (Revelation 1:9)
This image has been with me ever since I read GB Caird’s book on Revelation. I had read many commentaries on the Apocalypse during my 3 years of theological studies, 1976 - 79, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
But as they say, they all went “ in one ear and out the test.” And though I passed the tests, I still could not, for the life of me, begin to tell you what the Apocalypse or the Book of Revelation, was about. Finally, Caird opened or unsealed the book for me. Illustrations and drawings poured out of me in a flood of excitement; in just three years, beginning in 1983, I’d have a tragic experience of watching the deathly arrival of the Pale Horse of the Apocalypse ; I’d be thrown into the midst of the AIDS Pandemic.
With the miraculous anointing by the Holy Spirit, a new Pope would be chosen to lead the church on the 13th of March 2013. Born on 17 December 1936, the first day the church begins to sing the ancient “O Antiphons;”
17 December is “O Wisdom.”
Now everyone has heard of the resistance Pope Francis has been getting, almost exclusively from the United States bishops, priests and laity. When the Catholic media and television began to consistently attack him, his response was short and blunt.
He said “You can criticize me because I’m a sinner too. But when you divide the church, that’s from the devil.”
For me I’m beginning to see another image of the church and that’s
the Desert experience in the Book of Exodus. Moses was asked to lead the people out of Egypt into the desert and finally 40 years later, after the unbelieving generation died off, they were led into the promised land. At first, the people were overjoyed to be free from their slavery in Egypt. Then mistrust, panic and violence began to take over and they slandered Moses, blasphemed God and wanted at any cost to be back in Egypt .
In my final year of theology a brave teacher told us, “If you choose to be ordained, you will sow the seeds for the new church, but you won’t live to see it.
If that’s clear to you, and you still want to be ordained, then go ahead, if not I’d advise you not to be ordained.”
I was stunned when I heard this, but extremely grateful that someone was telling us the unvarnished truth. This is (just) one of the graces that has contributed to my staying in during the past 44 years in the “Church of the Desert.”
So we are in the Desert and once again people are angry and want to go back, to a church most of them, never remember, what it was actually like. They want the clericalism and even the language of the church of the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. ( I can truly understand the desire for a reverent Mass, but the language does not bring this about. The celebrant or priest has to pray the Mass with reverence and the people will too).
People who want to go back really don’t believe the Holy Spirit
is and always has, led us forward.
The Holy Spirit, never, ever, goes backwards.
I understand why people are angry about being in the Desert, I don’t like it either, but this is the way the Spirit is moving us, with Pope Francis as our Shepherd. And if you ask me , that’s why he gets attacked, not for the other things he does to make the church more inclusive. It’s really our discomfort not knowing where we are going
...yet.
Scripture “makes a miracle” of the desert, in these beautiful prophetic words, from Holy Prophet Isaiah,
that I used with an illustration of the Desert, on my ordination invitation:
“Let the wilderness rejoice and bloom.
Let it bring forth flowers.
For water gushes in the Desert,
and the thirsty land
springs of water.”
Isaiah 35
Fr William Hart McNichols 💮 10 July 2023

St Maria Goretti- Patroness of Abused Children

December 26th, 2023

St Maria Goretti- Patroness of Abused Children


St Maria Goretti : Patroness of Abused Children (1890 - 6 July 1902)
“We are not to make of the work of Acts of the Apostles such an object of veneration that we take small account of this on going story; how God continues to write large the lives and deaths of our saints today. The great momentous acts of hope against hope, of love against hatred.”
from his book “Whereon to Stand : The Acts of the Apostles and Ourselves” 1991
Daniel Berrigan, SJ (9 May 1921 - 30 April 2016)
Alessandro Serenelli was in prison nine years for the attempted rape and murder of the 11 year old child, Maria Goretti ... before Maria came to him in a dream. She was gathering flowers and she gave him, one by one, fourteen flowers; one for each stab wound she had received. I learned this while painting/writing, her icon, and later from the film “St Maria Goretti : Fourteen Flowers of Pardon.”
When my niece Carry was going to be Confirmed in 1996, she asked me to be her sponsor. I was so touched and excited about what name (of a saint) she was going to choose. I admit to shuddering when she told me, Maria Goretti. When I asked her why Maria, she said, “Because she forgave.” I was very impressed by the depth of her understanding of Maria and decided to paint a very small ( 5” x 7”) icon for her as a gift.
In my theology years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, we were allowed to take courses at three other schools beside the Jesuit Weston School of Theology. I had heard that James Fowler was teaching a course at Harvard called “stages of faith” in preparation for the book he published, by the same name, in 1981. Since we are all at different stages in our growth in faith, the course was very enlightening, and to this day, I use it to understand where I am and to understand others too. I remember James telling us that people die at all different stages, including the saints. I’d like to go deeper into his theories but I think it’s best to let you read the book for yourselves if you’re interested. Basically we have very young saints like Maria, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, and the early child martyrs like Agnes, Tarcisius, Pancratius...Emmerentiana. And then we have saints and holy people like Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Mother Teresa, Sr Dianna Ortiz, Dorothy Day, Sr Dorothy Stang, Thomas Merton, Sr Thea Bowman... all who lived longer lives. If you’re often perplexed by “us adults” who often seem to be stuck or adamantly self-righteous, I’ll just offer that today, with all the theological disagreements and outright battles, it’s helpful to know Fowler’s compassionate insights from his book.
The saints are like New Testament prophets and their “Acts” are the continuation of a book that will only close with the return of the Lord as Christ the King; a feast we celebrate, usually in late November, as the end of the Liturgical Year.
I don’t have to remind anyone of the recent deaths of children from Sandy Hook to Uvalde, just to name 2. As I mentioned in my blog on Daniel Berrigan, he was often bewailing what he called “the war on children.” By this he meant deaths from wars, starvation, the unborn, sex trafficking, and all other kinds of abuse. He was frequently accused, as all prophets are, of having something to offend everyone.
Maria Goretti surfaces over and over in the culture as a stumbling block and witness. In 1996 Kathleen Norris reopened Maria’s story for another generation in her beautiful book “The Cloister Walk.” She connects Maria to a contemporary murder where a young girl says to her killer, “...there are some things worth dying for.” I think here of the horrifically tragic film “The Lovely Bones;” a film I sometimes wish I’d never seen, but ... I’m such a big fan of Saoirse Ronan, that I decided to watch it. But honestly I don’t suggest seeing it. If you have a vivid, empathetic imagination, it’s just too traumatic.
Maria is the prematurely “old child” bearing heavy responsibilities because of the death of her father and the family’s subsequent poverty.
Maria is the “radiant child.” Her Mother, who lived to see her canonized, said she would have been a saint anyway, had she not been murdered. She carried herself with a dignity beyond her years, and radiated the light of holiness which always attracts good and evil.
Maria is the “abused child” determined to protect herself while being worn down, stalked, and continually threatened by Alessandro.
Finally Maria is the mature “Christ figure” forgiving the unforgivable from her hospital death bed; a sign and symbol of the Flowering Cross.
I’ll never forget years ago, seeing a powerfully visual symbol of the universality of the Catholic Church. I saw a photo in Maryknoll Magazine of a procession in a village church in Africa dedicated to Maria. The villagers were carrying a banner of this 11 year old white child because in heaven and on earth, she is their (our) sister too.
“Then I saw the Lamb who appeared to have been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders...and they sang a new song : You are worthy to take the scroll and open it’s seals, because You were slain, and You purchased people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”
Revelation chapter 5
Fr William Hart McNichols 💮 in the beginning of July; the month dedicated to the Precious Blood of Jesus.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help

December 26th, 2023

Our Lady of Perpetual Help

Our Lady of Perpetual Help * Feastday 27 June)
“It has been said that Our Lady of Perpetual Help
never refuses a request, no matter how small or frivolous it may seem.
Many who have felt unworthy to call on her in their direst need report hearing
a calm voice saying,
‘Why don’t you just ask ?’”
And so Dear Lady Mary,
We have a very long list, beginning with
Ukraine
and then all the other countries horrifically
burdened by wars and starving children.
Mother of All Nations, do not forget those
affected by “natural” disasters we see consistently
on daily, nightly, news.
And then in the last days of this month,
Your feastday month, of
June, all lgbtqia2s+ people.
Next, Dear Lady and Mother,
all your
children who experience the violence of
racism, bigotry and even
the unseen abandoned ...
indeed invisible elderly,
who have no families or any real connection,
to simple human Community.
O and Dear Mother, what about the intense
suffering of young people today who have
been hypnotized by the alluring dark content
of our social media?
Also the once rational adults who have become
addicted by conspiracies religious or political?
(I’m sure I could spend all evening adding more)
As you look down on so many of us, frantically
swimming upstream,
Hold out your tender hand and
bring us Home to our
Faith
Hope
and the Love that the
Holy Spirit sets aflame in us
for simply
Asking.
Amen”
Fr William Hart McNichols 🌳 June 202

St Charles Healer of Mount Argus Dublin

December 26th, 2023

St Charles Healer of Mount Argus Dublin

St Charles Healer of Mount Argus, Dublin (1821 - 1893)
“Become accustomed to repeating these words so sweet and so meritorious: Blessed be God. May His will always be done. I adore thy holy will, O my God...What does it matter where we are on earth if only we are united with Jesus and Mary through all eternity.”
St Charles of Mount Argus
For me, being an iconographer has meant stretching myself, sometimes so far into different lives, different centuries, from the earliest Christian martyrs to the present day holy ones. And I think my poor friends often experience me, or my present theology, as “very oddly, idiosyncratically stretched” that way too !
In my 20’s as a Jesuit high school teacher, I was at table with other young Jesuits and they were going around the table deciding who was “conservative or radical” - the present term “liberal” was used as its original meaning and was still a compliment then. When they got to me, everyone paused and finally one of the guys said, “O Billy, he’s medieval.”
A “successful” image or icon means to me, that you as the viewer or pray-er, feel the presence of a St Charles or a Dorothy Day. Today we finally have a term for this kind of ancient contemplation with images: “Visio Divina.” This is the slow, thoughtful contemplation of a picture, photo, work of art, image, icon or anything visual that helps you find God; as “Lectio Divina” is praying slowly with Scripture, or the written life of a saint, etc.
When God led me into my apprenticeship here in Alburquerque, in 1990, I knew after my second Icon, Our Lady of Vladimir (or Kyiv which is on my website as Our Lady of Grace) that I had been firmly led into another vocation. It was as Jesus said,
“finding the pearl of great price or the net cast into the sea, which gathered of every kind,” (Matthew 13).
Every kind ... that’s a very good description of what it’s like to be asked or allowed to artistically, respectfully, look into all these holy lives. Then after looking, try as much as possible, to be faithful to who they were and are now to us, in the veritable communion of the saints.
I vividly remember the joy of “being 11 again” as I looked into the life of St Francisco Marto of Fatima, or feeling the “long loneliness” and simultaneously, the winter cold of Manhattan during my time with The Servant of God Dorothy Day.
And yet the iconographer’s vocation is to also show them as they are now, with God in Heaven, so they can intercede for you. This is a delicate balancing act, so I’ve chosen to call some of my works images and some icons, and then, ultimately, leave it up to God to decide, which is which. So this time, I went from the year 303 with Pancratius of Rome, to 1874 in Ireland with Charles of Mount Argus.
Charles was born John Andrew Houben on 11 December 1821, in Munstergeleen, Holland. His family practiced a very natural and simple piety, devoted especially to praying the Rosary.
John Andrew was naturally friendly yet quietly shy at the same time, and found studying difficult. At 19 he was enrolled for military service, but was not very comfortable as a soldier because he always wanted to be a priest. During his service he heard of the Passionist Order founded by St Paul of the Cross, and joined the Order in Belgium, in 1845. He was then given the religious name Charles Andrew and after being ordained a priest, he was sent to England and then to Ireland in 1857. He was apparently not a good preacher because he never mastered the English language, but was an extraordinary confessor, comforting the sick and broken hearted in the confessional. He loved the Irish people and the feeling was mutual. It was through his blessings that people began to feel, and be healed, not only physically, but spiritually as well.
Like the other fairly contemporary “healer- saints,” Blessed Solanus Casey and St Padre Pio, Charles was in a constant prayer. And like them too, the persecutions began; doctors claiming he was telling people they no longer needed their medical assistance, which of course was not true. He always told people to seek medical help first, but the slander of some of the doctors and other jealous people got him moved back to London for 8 long years.
In 1874 he was allowed to return to his beloved Ireland and spent the last 19 years of his life among “his people” as he called them, but also suffered persecution amongst his own Order. One of his fellow Passionists was tasked with “micro-managing” Charles, even during his celebration of the Eucharist. Like Padre Pio, Charles during Mass, would become so deeply aware of the sacredness, the utter holiness of the Mass, that others felt, his Masses were too long, etc etc... The people however, were led into his prayer simply by praying with him at Mass, and then after, asking for blessings, through which, so so many were healed. People all over Ireland and Europe came to seek his help.
Charles was so constantly available to them, that his poor body began to break down.
This always reminds me of St Francis at the end of his life, finally apologizing to his own body he called “Brother Ass,” for his poor treatment and neglect of it.
Charles died at 5:30am on 5 January 1893, that date is now his feast day.
His body lay in state within the Church of Mount Argus for 5 days. Through the bitter winter weather snows, thousands waited to walk by him and say goodbye. In 1949 his remains were moved from the cemetery behind the church to inside the church.
Charles was canonized by Pope Benedict on 3 June 2007. Today, people come to Mount Argus to be blessed with his relic, twice a day.
I can only say that having this experience of being with Charles was very “hushed and holy, a time-out- of-time;” similar in many ways, to the one I had during Advent, with the icon of Holy Prophet Thomas Merton. I felt both of their their lives so deeply, and that’s always such a beautiful and sacred gift, which I hope n’ pray, now translates through this icon, to you.
“St Charles of Mount Argus, you knew the isolation of being exiled from your home and family. Living in a foreign land, you must have found it hard to say what you really wanted, to find words to express how you felt. Be a friend to me in my pain and isolation. Intercede for me that I may know God’s peaceful presence in my daily life.
Amen”
From the “St Charles of Mount Argus Prayer Book,” Glasgow, 2009
Fr William Hart McNichols ☘️ 3 June 2023 ( on the anniversary of his canonization)

The Holy Spirit

December 26th, 2023

The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit: (Viriditas- The Holy Spirit - detail)
“Behold, a sacred voice is calling you; All over the sky a sacred voice is calling.”
The Servant of God Nicholas Black Elk
“She is Divine Wisdom... For She is with all and in all, and of a beauty so great in Her mystery that no one could know how sweetly She bears with people, and with what unfathomable mercy She spares them. “
St Hildegard of Bingen : Doctor of the Church
We are at the end of May, the month of Mary, and the season of Joan of Arc who heard critically important voices all through her brief 19 years of life.
While contemplating writing something about hearing “a voice” I realized how vast this could be, and the subject of an entire book. I so wish someone would write such a book but it would be several volumes, for sure . From the Biblical Prophets, holy women, men, children ... like Samuel, through St Paul, and almost every saint afterwards; they heard a voice, a strong nudge, a call. Or they saw some heavenly being who called them into a vocation that would alter their lives forever.
And it would be wonderful to include, interview, people of various religions and people who are agnostic. I know many people who are non-believers who have told me of an experience of knowing, hearing or seeing.
As the great photographer, Minor White experienced, “For the right photographer, Nature will pose.” For the open heart, God is everywhere. At times of loss and grief, we are like fish swimming in God, but still asking, “Where is God ?”
This Pentecost, I turn to the beginning of the visions of Nicholas Black Elk, who is now being considered for canonization as a saint.
“It was when I was 5 (or some say probably 9) years old that my Grandfather made me a bow and some arrows. The grass was young and I was on horseback. A thunderstorm was coming from where the sun goes down, and just as I was riding in the woods along a creek, there was a kingbird sitting on a limb. This was not a dream, it happened. And I was going to shoot at the kingbird with the bow my Grandfather made, when the bird spoke and said: ‘The clouds all over are one-sided.’ Perhaps it meant that all the clouds were looking at me. And then it said: ‘Listen! A voice is calling you.’ Then I looked up at the clouds, and two men were coming there, headfirst like arrows slanting down; and as they came they sang a sacred song, and the thunder was like drumming. I will sing it for you ...’Behold, a sacred voice is calling you; All over the sky a sacred voice is calling.’ “
Both books dictated by Nicholas Black Elk, “Black Elk Speaks” and “The Sacred Pipe”
Have been the source of countless studies and books. Speaking of a study by Joseph Epes Brown, the great author of “The World’s Religions : Our Great Wisdom Traditions,” Houston Smith said, “Brown stands alone in his detailing, in his important study, the way in which the Native American Religion embodies the Sophia Perennis (perennial wisdom) in its own distinctive idiom.”
The Vatican II document “Nostra Aetate : In Our Time” October 1965, encouraged dialogue, concerning the Holy Spirit’s “omni-presence,” and in 1998, “The year dedicated to reflection on the Holy Spirit within the context of preparation for the Great Jubilee also invites us to fix our attention on the presence and action of the Spirit in other religions and in the world,” from the Commission for Interreligious Dialogue, by Giovanni Cereti.
The excitement around the coming of the Jubilee Year, was created by Pope St John Paul II, in his apostolic letter, “Tertio Millennio Adveniente” promulgated on 10 November 1994.
Don’t mean to over intellectualize or complicate something so memorable and joyous, because that Apostolic Letter
came at me like a Personal Commission; a voice. I was very aware of those 3 years (97, 98, 99) and I “painted to them” with an ecstatic, deliriously happy, heightened awareness. I felt part of a spiritual awakening, which unbeknownst to me, (the Spirit) ushered in Pope Francis for the world we live in right now.
Pope St John Paul prayed for a New Pentecost, very much aware of the prayer of Pope St John XIII invoked to convene Vatican II :
“Divine Spirit, renew your wonders in this
our age as in a New Pentecost, and grant that your Church, praying perseveringly and insistently with one heart and mind
together with Mary, the Mother of Jesus,
and guided by blessed Peter, may increase the Reign of the Divine Savior,
the reign of truth and justice,
the reign of love and peace.
Amen”
Fr William Hart McNichols 🕊 🔥 Pentecost 2023
(Monday after Pentecost is now followed by a new Feast Pope Francis wanted to
promote, he did so on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, 11 February 2018 : “The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church.” If you’d like to see the icon, it’s on my website under the category of “Mary, Mother of God.”)

 

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