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“I John, your brother...” (color pencil, 1982)
“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. I was in the Sprit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, ‘Write what you see in a book...”
The Apocalypse or Revelation 1: 9-11
“The last book of the Bible introduces itself as a ‘revelation’ or ‘apocalyipsis’ in Greek which suggests that it discloses things that would not otherwise be known. Although ‘revelation ‘ could simply mean the ‘uncovering’ of what is hidden, New Testament writers used the word in a more dynamic sense for a manifestation of God’s power (Rom. 2:5), for the second coming of Christ (1 Cor. 1:7; 1 Pet. 1:7), and for messages inspired by the Spirit...
The criterion for authentic prophecy is finally whether the prophet’s message promotes faithfulness to God or whether it leads people away from God...”
Craig Koester from “Revelation & the End of All Things” 2001
Because Christopher Pramuk and I are at work on a book of my early work (drawings, illustrations, images, paintings) I am looking back at them and remembering how much I was influenced by the commentary “The Revelation of St John the (Theologian) Divine” by George Bradford Caird. And then after meeting Craig Koester, in June of 2018, I began to read his book too. So I would like to present some of these images and paintings during this Lent. And the other obvious influence is the life and legend of St John the Apostle and Evangelist. In all this, I had to quote Craig about authentic prophecy, I mean in this case, authentic writing. My intention is always to bring you closer to God, and if my writings don’t do that, then please ignore them. Like every painter, musician and writer, I have my favorites. If they don’t work for you that’s fine with me; I’m just here to unveil what I’ve found.
Through the mysterious providence of God, I ended up at St John the Evangelist School after we moved into the Governor’s Mansion in 1962, I was just beginning 7th grade. This put me in a kind of spiritual proximity to St John. That year we had to write a short story and I wrote one in the voice of John. I was ordained at age 29, on 25 May 1979 (Padre Pio’s birthday 🙌🏼) and wanted to have my first Mass at St John’s, 27 May. Later on, they consolidated parishes and John lost his Parish. It was renamed Good Shepherd. I was so grieved I offered them a free, very large icon of John if they’d change it back; but you know how that goes...
There are so many legends about John, that he was given a cup of poison when a serpent crawled out of the cup, warning him. Also a legend that he fell asleep (died) at age 93 in Ephesus after caring for Mary (John 19:25) following a hint (John 21:22) that he would not die. Some of the Eastern Churches celebrate his assumption on 26 September. He is also commemorated on 6 May as “St John Before the Latin Gate” - a feast celebrating his escape from a pot of boiling oil - ordered by the Christian persecutor, the Emperor Domitian.
I’m most familiar with the late Johannine Scholar, Fr Raymond Brown (+8 August 1998) author of the “Anchor Bible Commentary on the Gospel of John,” “The Epistles of John,” and the disturbing (to me) account of “The Community of the Beloved Disciple.”
But I have to say I also love the commentary by John Marsh and most of all, the very original one by John A. T. Robinson.
Perhaps the most famous apparition of St John was 21 August 1879. It was at Knock, Ireland ; around 8pm, and it was totally silent. John appeared along with the Lamb of God, Mary and Joseph. I’ve been there, and because of the silence of the apparition it has always seemed like a living icon to me...
In my last post I pointed to the John-like character, Jabril, in the Netflix Series “Messiah.” If I watch Jabril, I feel like I’m getting a glimpse of what John was like. According to tradition, John died surrounded by his disciples, his last words were,
“Little children, love one another.”
“I see him at prayer...the moment he begins, he is so seized by divine love that he no longer needs to do anything else: he is taken up; the Lord accepts his offer; and his sacrifice is confirmed. He no longer needs to make an effort; he no longer needs to will anything: God’s will and his love fill him entirely... He is never so happy as when he is in this prayer, since grace enables him to share himself with everyone who is waiting for it.”
John the Apostle from “Book of All Saints” by Adrienne von Speyr, page 215
Fr William Hart McNichols 🦅 Lent 2023

“I John, your brother...” (color pencil, 1982)
“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. I was in the Sprit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, ‘Write what you see in a book...”
The Apocalypse or Revelation 1: 9-11
“The last book of the Bible introduces itself as a ‘revelation’ or ‘apocalyipsis’ in Greek which suggests that it discloses things that would not otherwise be known. Although ‘revelation ‘ could simply mean the ‘uncovering’ of what is hidden, New Testament writers used the word in a more dynamic sense for a manifestation of God’s power (Rom. 2:5), for the second coming of Christ (1 Cor. 1:7; 1 Pet. 1:7), and for messages inspired by the Spirit...
The criterion for authentic prophecy is finally whether the prophet’s message promotes faithfulness to God or whether it leads people away from God...”
Craig Koester from “Revelation & the End of All Things” 2001
Because Christopher Pramuk and I are at work on a book of my early work (drawings, illustrations, images, paintings) I am looking back at them and remembering how much I was influenced by the commentary “The Revelation of St John the (Theologian) Divine” by George Bradford Caird. And then after meeting Craig Koester, in June of 2018, I began to read his book too. So I would like to present some of these images and paintings during this Lent. And the other obvious influence is the life and legend of St John the Apostle and Evangelist. In all this, I had to quote Craig about authentic prophecy, I mean in this case, authentic writing. My intention is always to bring you closer to God, and if my writings don’t do that, then please ignore them. Like every painter, musician and writer, I have my favorites. If they don’t work for you that’s fine with me; I’m just here to unveil what I’ve found.
Through the mysterious providence of God, I ended up at St John the Evangelist School after we moved into the Governor’s Mansion in 1962, I was just beginning 7th grade. This put me in a kind of spiritual proximity to St John. That year we had to write a short story and I wrote one in the voice of John. I was ordained at age 29, on 25 May 1979 (Padre Pio’s birthday 🙌🏼) and wanted to have my first Mass at St John’s, 27 May. Later on, they consolidated parishes and John lost his Parish. It was renamed Good Shepherd. I was so grieved I offered them a free, very large icon of John if they’d change it back; but you know how that goes...
There are so many legends about John, that he was given a cup of poison when a serpent crawled out of the cup, warning him. Also a legend that he fell asleep (died) at age 93 in Ephesus after caring for Mary (John 19:25) following a hint (John 21:22) that he would not die. Some of the Eastern Churches celebrate his assumption on 26 September. He is also commemorated on 6 May as “St John Before the Latin Gate” - a feast celebrating his escape from a pot of boiling oil - ordered by the Christian persecutor, the Emperor Domitian.
I’m most familiar with the late Johannine Scholar, Fr Raymond Brown (+8 August 1998) author of the “Anchor Bible Commentary on the Gospel of John,” “The Epistles of John,” and the disturbing (to me) account of “The Community of the Beloved Disciple.”
But I have to say I also love the commentary by John Marsh and most of all, the very original one by John A. T. Robinson.
Perhaps the most famous apparition of St John was 21 August 1879. It was at Knock, Ireland ; around 8pm, and it was totally silent. John appeared along with the Lamb of God, Mary and Joseph. I’ve been there, and because of the silence of the apparition it has always seemed like a living icon to me...
In my last post I pointed to the John-like character, Jabril, in the Netflix Series “Messiah.” If I watch Jabril, I feel like I’m getting a glimpse of what John was like. According to tradition, John died surrounded by his disciples, his last words were,
“Little children, love one another.”
“I see him at prayer...the moment he begins, he is so seized by divine love that he no longer needs to do anything else: he is taken up; the Lord accepts his offer; and his sacrifice is confirmed. He no longer needs to make an effort; he no longer needs to will anything: God’s will and his love fill him entirely... He is never so happy as when he is in this prayer, since grace enables him to share himself with everyone who is waiting for it.”
John the Apostle from “Book of All Saints” by Adrienne von Speyr, page 215
Fr William Hart McNichols 🦅 Lent 2023

Park Slope Lamp, Brooklyn (watercolor and gouache 1982)
“I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me will not remain in darkness...” John 9:5
I wanted to start off Lent this year with Light. Full disclosure; I can hardly look at anything without seeing a symbolic presence. This is probably part of my training by our grade school teachers, at least that’s what I got. In the Nicene Creed we say “I believe in the seen and unseen.” Though I know it has been a source of annoyance and skepticism for most of my life, I am so grateful for this way of seeing. I look for authors, musicians and artists who lead me further into a deeper understanding. Valentin Tomberg (“Meditations on the Tarot : A Journey Into Christian Hermeticism”) awakened me to the ancient tradition of Christian Hermeticism, which is a tradition of people likewise-afflicted with this longing too. In no way is this better or even necessary in our Christian pilgrimage; it’s just one other way. And in no way does it make you a mystic or saint; It’s kind of a terrible awe or curiosity.
What I really love about Catholicism is that our church is practically bursting with an almost infinite amount of possible “ways.” The saints we love are living representatives of these wildly varied ways. So someone like St Bernadette can say of herself, “Mary used me like a broom and then put me back in the closet.” Or little St Francisco Marto of Fatima, or St Jacinta his sister, are as equally great saints to me, as the brilliant Albert the Great or Hildegard of Bingen, both Doctors of the Church. I guess all that matters is that we let God mold each one of us into what he wants us to be. And we can learn from each one who calls to us. A friend once told me that our attraction to certain saints, is really our actually noticing they chose us.
This lamp was across the street from where I lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn, if I remember correctly. Because it had an eagle on the top I always associated it with St John the Evangelist, whose symbol is the eagle; the Gospel which soars the highest with great poetic, contemplative and enigmatic strength. The Servant of God Adrienne von Speyr makes the audacious claim, that John dictated 4 volumes on his Gospel to her. Many contemporary experts in scripture and theology don’t believe that St John the Apostle is the author of the 4th Gospel and have various ideas about who the beloved disciple really is? So ... you can imagine what they think of Adrienne.
Anyway, she says that of all the apostles, John is the one who understood the most about who and what Jesus was in his lifetime and could understand the most about what he was saying. So think of Jesus talking about “I and the Father are one.” John is slowly nodding some kind of interior recognition and the others are just scratching their heads.
I have come to really love the young character Jabril, in the Netflix series “Messiah.” He is the John-like character in this imagining of the second coming of Christ. Jabril is seared with a divine love and faith in Jesus. His path is filled with incredible pain and terrible obstacles but he never wavers. Jesus asks an awful lot of Jabril. His face beams with this affliction of love of God, it’s just a beautiful face and story. When I try to imagine loving Jesus unconditionally I think of Jabril’s face.
So I could have shown you my icon of John (after Giotto’s teacher, Cimabue) but I chose this Lamp, this representation of his Gospel. I will never forget a brilliant fellow novice comparing the voice in John’s Gospel to Lewis Carrol’s voice in “Alice in Wonderland.” In other words, it’s severely enigmatic. There are those who love and are challenged by this voice and others who find it like Lewis Carrol.
It’s difficult to get through John’s Prologue without stopping to pray. No one could be “farther away from each other” than St Mark, and St John (I just recently posted about St Mark). And that’s one reason why we have 4 Gospels, instead of one. I think maybe John is more attractive to those who have lived a long life and are ready to seek a life of contemplation. And the actual tradition is that John wrote his Biblical books and letters as an old man banished to the barren island of Patmos, Greece.
I think when we get older we are naturally contemplating death and the Light has a possibility at least, of being more attractive; of pulling us into it. John was no naïf. What he saw and went through personally is equal to what we see now and are going through. So I offer John to you at the beginning of this Lent, not as some kind of escape but as a heavenly friend who knows.
“And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. His name shall be on their foreheads. There shall be no night there: they need no lamp nor light of the sun for the Lord will give them light... these sayings are faithful and true...”
Revelation 22: 3-6
Fr William Hart McNichols 🦅 Ash Wednesday 202

Algae On The Lullwater Pond, Prospect Park, Brooklyn
(watercolor and gouache, 1982)
“All day I’ve faced the barren waste
Without a taste of water, cool water...
The shadows sway and seem to say,
Tonight we pray for water.
And way up there
He’ll hear our prayer
And show us where there’s water,
Cool, clear water.”
Bob Nolan 1936 ( recorded together by Willie Nelson and Joni Mitchell In 1988)
“Mary delivers us from a catastrophic vision of things. No matter how low we may fall, her maternal help will never fail us. She is the woman who, in the Book of Revelation, in the midst of the turmoil and tumult of the universe, crushes the head of the serpent. God has placed her ar the forefront of human history, and she accompanies, as a most loving Mother, our chaotic journey towards the Homeland of Heaven...When despondency makes us doubt others, ourselves and the Church, the ‘little girl of hope’ evoked by Charles Peguy, who is personified by the Virgin Mary, opens a way for us...”
Bishop Dominique Rey of Frejus-Toulon, France
The alternate title for this piece was “Beautiful Wormwood Pond,” from Revelation 8:10-11.
In this chapter the avenging angel poisons our water because we have already, purposely, poisoned all of creation.
In 1982 I was preparing to have an exhibit of my paintings as a part of the graduation requirement of the Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn. We also had to write an accompanying statement of our work. Because I was living in Park Slope, Brooklyn, I was very close to Prospect Park, and used to wander around the park and take in its beauty, created by Frederick Law Olmstead , and Calvert Vaux, in 1867. Olmsted and Vaux, also created Central Park in the midst of Manhattan. Although Prospect Park was much larger than Central Park, and essentially more spacious and beautiful, at that time, it also held it’s dangers, so you wouldn’t want to go there after dark.
Being from Colorado I was born with a love and need to be in the natural world, and often my friends in New York used to chide me about this, saying, well, there’s Central Park or Prospect Park ! And I’d roll my eyes, as if, this, was a sufficient amount of nature ! At the same time I was living on the top floor of 361 11th Street and had easy access to the roof which held a glorious view of Manhattan. And I was deeply involved in trying to understand the Apocalypse with the help of my favorite Biblical commentator, George Bradford Caird. His comforting and most beautiful book “The Revelation of St John the (theologian) Divine” was my constant companion. I had studied the Apocalypse in Theology classes in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but was never able to grasp its meaning until I read Caird’s book. Suddenly he opened up the meaning for me. Much later in life, I was asked to give a power point presentation on Biblical Icons, at Georgetown University, along with Craig Koester, who happened to be the author of two brilliant books on Revelation. Craig gave talks on Revelation which presented the final book of the Bible with much more hope and positivity than I had ever imagined.
For my master’s thesis at Pratt, I painted 14 watercolor and gouache paintings. I have only been able, so far, to recover 5 of them which I asked my sister Marjory to put up on my website under the paintings category. I hope I can ultimately find the missing 8.
All of this was, I see now, a preparation for my coming vocation as a Hospice Chaplain for people dying of AIDS. These paintings are innocent snapshots and heavenly flickers of hope; prescient prophetic warnings of what was about to overtake my life.
Every catastrophe I have lived through, has contained both impossible suffering and incredible beauty. This to me, is articulated in the Book of the Apocalypse, both filled with descending plagues, brought on, as with the time of Noah, by us, and also filled with the promise of the bow in the clouds; the proverbial rainbow.
I so much wanted to share these innocent, yet partly ominous paintings with you. I knew at the time, that they were subtly infused with a meaning, I was incapable of seeing. But St John too, struggled with the understanding of giant scorpions in the sky shooting and harming “the inhabitants of the earth.” I wonder now, was he seeing helicopters and aircraft he could not have possibly understood?
My favorite words from the Apocalypse are about the Healing Tree, in chapter 22. I did one of these paintings of such a tree, without knowing. Indeed I think of nearly every tree as living, healing beings, and yet ready to defend our earth as in a Tolkien/Hildegardian battle for our Mother Earth.
Isn’t this perhaps why we love the Christmas Tree so much and decorate her with so much light and love? Isn’t this the luminous tree of life we spurned in the Garden of Eden which refuses to spurn us ? Jesus the Living Tree who will, never, ever, stop trying ?
“It flowed down the middle of the street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit for every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the Nations.”
Revelation 22:2
“In this shewing He brought forth our blessed Lady to my understanding. I saw her ghostly, in bodily likeness: a simple maid meek and young of age and little waxen above a child, in the stature that she was when she conceived. Also God shewded in part the wisdom and truth of her soul: wherein I understood the reverent beholding in which she beheld her God and Maker, marveling with great reverence that He would be born of her that was a simple creature of His making. And this wisdom and truth: knowing the greatness of her Maker and the littleness of herself...In this sight I understood soothly that she is more than all that God made beneath her in worthiness and grace; for above her nothing is made but the blessed manhood of Christ, as to my sight.”
Lady Julian of Norwich
Fr William Hart McNichols 🌲 💧 🌳 February 2023

Algae On The Lullwater Pond, Prospect Park, Brooklyn
(watercolor and gouache, 1982)
“All day I’ve faced the barren waste
Without a taste of water, cool water...
The shadows sway and seem to say,
Tonight we pray for water.
And way up there
He’ll hear our prayer
And show us where there’s water,
Cool, clear water.”
Bob Nolan 1936 ( recorded together by Willie Nelson and Joni Mitchell In 1988)
“Mary delivers us from a catastrophic vision of things. No matter how low we may fall, her maternal help will never fail us. She is the woman who, in the Book of Revelation, in the midst of the turmoil and tumult of the universe, crushes the head of the serpent. God has placed her ar the forefront of human history, and she accompanies, as a most loving Mother, our chaotic journey towards the Homeland of Heaven...When despondency makes us doubt others, ourselves and the Church, the ‘little girl of hope’ evoked by Charles Peguy, who is personified by the Virgin Mary, opens a way for us...”
Bishop Dominique Rey of Frejus-Toulon, France
The alternate title for this piece was “Beautiful Wormwood Pond,” from Revelation 8:10-11.
In this chapter the avenging angel poisons our water because we have already, purposely, poisoned all of creation.
In 1982 I was preparing to have an exhibit of my paintings as a part of the graduation requirement of the Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn. We also had to write an accompanying statement of our work. Because I was living in Park Slope, Brooklyn, I was very close to Prospect Park, and used to wander around the park and take in its beauty, created by Frederick Law Olmstead , and Calvert Vaux, in 1867. Olmsted and Vaux, also created Central Park in the midst of Manhattan. Although Prospect Park was much larger than Central Park, and essentially more spacious and beautiful, at that time, it also held it’s dangers, so you wouldn’t want to go there after dark.
Being from Colorado I was born with a love and need to be in the natural world, and often my friends in New York used to chide me about this, saying, well, there’s Central Park or Prospect Park ! And I’d roll my eyes, as if, this, was a sufficient amount of nature ! At the same time I was living on the top floor of 361 11th Street and had easy access to the roof which held a glorious view of Manhattan. And I was deeply involved in trying to understand the Apocalypse with the help of my favorite Biblical commentator, George Bradford Caird. His comforting and most beautiful book “The Revelation of St John the (theologian) Divine” was my constant companion. I had studied the Apocalypse in Theology classes in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but was never able to grasp its meaning until I read Caird’s book. Suddenly he opened up the meaning for me. Much later in life, I was asked to give a power point presentation on Biblical Icons, at Georgetown University, along with Craig Koester, who happened to be the author of two brilliant books on Revelation. Craig gave talks on Revelation which presented the final book of the Bible with much more hope and positivity than I had ever imagined.
For my master’s thesis at Pratt, I painted 14 watercolor and gouache paintings. I have only been able, so far, to recover 5 of them which I asked my sister Marjory to put up on my website under the paintings category. I hope I can ultimately find the missing 8.
All of this was, I see now, a preparation for my coming vocation as a Hospice Chaplain for people dying of AIDS. These paintings are innocent snapshots and heavenly flickers of hope; prescient prophetic warnings of what was about to overtake my life.
Every catastrophe I have lived through, has contained both impossible suffering and incredible beauty. This to me, is articulated in the Book of the Apocalypse, both filled with descending plagues, brought on, as with the time of Noah, by us, and also filled with the promise of the bow in the clouds; the proverbial rainbow.
I so much wanted to share these innocent, yet partly ominous paintings with you. I knew at the time, that they were subtly infused with a meaning, I was incapable of seeing. But St John too, struggled with the understanding of giant scorpions in the sky shooting and harming “the inhabitants of the earth.” I wonder now, was he seeing helicopters and aircraft he could not have possibly understood?
My favorite words from the Apocalypse are about the Healing Tree, in chapter 22. I did one of these paintings of such a tree, without knowing. Indeed I think of nearly every tree as living, healing beings, and yet ready to defend our earth as in a Tolkien/Hildegardian battle for our Mother Earth.
Isn’t this perhaps why we love the Christmas Tree so much and decorate her with so much light and love? Isn’t this the luminous tree of life we spurned in the Garden of Eden which refuses to spurn us ? Jesus the Living Tree who will, never, ever, stop trying ?
“It flowed down the middle of the street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit for every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the Nations.”
Revelation 22:2
“In this shewing He brought forth our blessed Lady to my understanding. I saw her ghostly, in bodily likeness: a simple maid meek and young of age and little waxen above a child, in the stature that she was when she conceived. Also God shewded in part the wisdom and truth of her soul: wherein I understood the reverent beholding in which she beheld her God and Maker, marveling with great reverence that He would be born of her that was a simple creature of His making. And this wisdom and truth: knowing the greatness of her Maker and the littleness of herself...In this sight I understood soothly that she is more than all that God made beneath her in worthiness and grace; for above her nothing is made but the blessed manhood of Christ, as to my sight.”
Lady Julian of Norwich
Fr William Hart McNichols 🌲 💧 🌳 February 2023

St Mark the Evangelist
“...and they all forsook him and fled. And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him: and he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked. And they led Jesus away to the high priest: and with him were assembled all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes.”
Mark 14: 50-53
“Towards the end of the Gospel, when Jesus is arrested in the middle of the night, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Mark suddenly tells us a seemingly irrelevant little story about a certain young man, who arrives on the scene, clad it would seem, only in a sheet. It takes a couple of verses, ‘And there followed him a certain young man having a linen cloth cast about his naked body and the young men laid hold of him and he fled from them naked.’
Well many people believe, and I agree with them, that the certain young man, was Mark himself. It’s perfectly possible that he was in Jerusalem during Jesus’ last days. And it’s perfectly possible that he heard the great multitude with swords and staves, passing by his window, and that he rushed from his bed to try and warn Jesus. This would certainly explain why the story is there and the modesty of the account is typical of the writer...
I started learning little passages to see if it would come alive, and instantly realized it was absolutely right. The style had a blunt astringent quality which suited me. And it was a Gospel of action, not teaching, one which had plenty of episodes and dwelt on none too long.”
From the one man theater presentation of The Gospel of Mark, by Alec McCowen
“Writing in The New Yorker in 2010, Adam Gopnik recalled Mr. McCowen’s Jesus as ‘a familiar human type - the Gandhi-Malcom-Martin kind of charismatic leader of an oppressed people, with a character that clicks into focus as you begin to dramatize it. He’s verbally spry and even a little shifty. He likes defiant, enigmatic paradoxes and pregnant parables that never quite close, perhaps by design.’”
I was privileged to see Alec McCowen perform The Gospel of Mark, and like all great art, it continues to affect, shock, enlighten and challenge me. Recently I bought the 1990 DVD of his dazzling performance just to be able to write this, so that I could re-experience the theatrical bolt of lightning his performance had on me in my youth. Like Pasolini’s 1964 film masterpiece, “The Gospel of St Matthew”, and the Netflix haunting portrait of the returning Jesus in “Messiah.” I keep returning to these three troubling, unconventional, re-enactments of the Gospels, to keep me electrocuted and overjoyed by the original person and message of Jesus and his good news. I think we get so used to our idea of Jesus, that at times we need to step back and hear him new - all over again.
Through the providential action of grace in my life, I have often felt the Spirit telling me inside, that I haven’t lost faith, or am experiencing a dark night of the soul, but my God has disappeared precisely because my very idea of God has become too small. So I let go, and wait for God to reveal himself anew. Even to say “he” is just too small already. And though one of my favorite artistic images is Michelangelo’s “God creating the waters” from the Sistine Chapel in Rome, nobody has to tell me that’s not a true depiction of God. I just love the massive loving movement in that fresco.
This small icon of St Mark was created as a “thank you note” to my friend Fr Mark Bosco, SJ. He is responsible for two commissions that were so challenging that they “pulled out of me” visions I could not have ever imagined before: “Viriditas: Finding God In All Things” for Loyola University in Chicago and “Our Sister Thea Bowman” for Georgetown University, in Washington DC.
Mark Bosco has been a loyal friend, an honestly true mensch, and I cannot thank him enough. As I tried to say, he has given me the opportunity to create two very large pieces with my friend Roberto Lavadie (a master woodworker). We all know when someone believes in you, you believe that you can do as much as they require and you go the extra mile to try and create something that will touch and re-touch the hearts and minds of all who take the time before your work to experience themselves, your vision. Thank you, thank you Mark Bosco.
“Though the doctrine the apostles preached was spiritual and heavenly, and directly contrary to the spirit and temper of the world; though it met with much opposition, and was wholly destitute of all worldly supports and advantages; yet in a few years the sound went forth unto the ends of the earth.”
From “The Gospel of St Mark” by Matthew Henry
Fr William Hart McNichols 🕊 February 2023

St Mark the Evangelist
“...and they all forsook him and fled. And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him: and he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked. And they led Jesus away to the high priest: and with him were assembled all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes.”
Mark 14: 50-53
“Towards the end of the Gospel, when Jesus is arrested in the middle of the night, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Mark suddenly tells us a seemingly irrelevant little story about a certain young man, who arrives on the scene, clad it would seem, only in a sheet. It takes a couple of verses, ‘And there followed him a certain young man having a linen cloth cast about his naked body and the young men laid hold of him and he fled from them naked.’
Well many people believe, and I agree with them, that the certain young man, was Mark himself. It’s perfectly possible that he was in Jerusalem during Jesus’ last days. And it’s perfectly possible that he heard the great multitude with swords and staves, passing by his window, and that he rushed from his bed to try and warn Jesus. This would certainly explain why the story is there and the modesty of the account is typical of the writer...
I started learning little passages to see if it would come alive, and instantly realized it was absolutely right. The style had a blunt astringent quality which suited me. And it was a Gospel of action, not teaching, one which had plenty of episodes and dwelt on none too long.”
From the one man theater presentation of The Gospel of Mark, by Alec McCowen
“Writing in The New Yorker in 2010, Adam Gopnik recalled Mr. McCowen’s Jesus as ‘a familiar human type - the Gandhi-Malcom-Martin kind of charismatic leader of an oppressed people, with a character that clicks into focus as you begin to dramatize it. He’s verbally spry and even a little shifty. He likes defiant, enigmatic paradoxes and pregnant parables that never quite close, perhaps by design.’”
I was privileged to see Alec McCowen perform The Gospel of Mark, and like all great art, it continues to affect, shock, enlighten and challenge me. Recently I bought the 1990 DVD of his dazzling performance just to be able to write this, so that I could re-experience the theatrical bolt of lightning his performance had on me in my youth. Like Pasolini’s 1964 film masterpiece, “The Gospel of St Matthew”, and the Netflix haunting portrait of the returning Jesus in “Messiah.” I keep returning to these three troubling, unconventional, re-enactments of the Gospels, to keep me electrocuted and overjoyed by the original person and message of Jesus and his good news. I think we get so used to our idea of Jesus, that at times we need to step back and hear him new - all over again.
Through the providential action of grace in my life, I have often felt the Spirit telling me inside, that I haven’t lost faith, or am experiencing a dark night of the soul, but my God has disappeared precisely because my very idea of God has become too small. So I let go, and wait for God to reveal himself anew. Even to say “he” is just too small already. And though one of my favorite artistic images is Michelangelo’s “God creating the waters” from the Sistine Chapel in Rome, nobody has to tell me that’s not a true depiction of God. I just love the massive loving movement in that fresco.
This small icon of St Mark was created as a “thank you note” to my friend Fr Mark Bosco, SJ. He is responsible for two commissions that were so challenging that they “pulled out of me” visions I could not have ever imagined before: “Viriditas: Finding God In All Things” for Loyola University in Chicago and “Our Sister Thea Bowman” for Georgetown University, in Washington DC.
Mark Bosco has been a loyal friend, an honestly true mensch, and I cannot thank him enough. As I tried to say, he has given me the opportunity to create two very large pieces with my friend Roberto Lavadie (a master woodworker). We all know when someone believes in you, you believe that you can do as much as they require and you go the extra mile to try and create something that will touch and re-touch the hearts and minds of all who take the time before your work to experience themselves, your vision. Thank you, thank you Mark Bosco.
“Though the doctrine the apostles preached was spiritual and heavenly, and directly contrary to the spirit and temper of the world; though it met with much opposition, and was wholly destitute of all worldly supports and advantages; yet in a few years the sound went forth unto the ends of the earth.”
From “The Gospel of St Mark” by Matthew Henry
Fr William Hart McNichols 🕊 February 2023

St Francis Wounded Winter Light
“First Corinthians 2: 1-5 shows us God’s power in the very act of preaching...A crucified Savior can be preached in divine power only by crucified preachers.”
Raymond Ortlund, Jr.
A few nights ago I finally got to see Wim Wenders (maker of the unforgettable 1987, “Wings of Desire”) 2018 documentary “Pope Francis : A Man of His Word.” I had heard of the film but never really realized that the word “His” meant also Jesus’ word. Perhaps because I have a very dear friend receiving Hospice Care I am in a very vulnerable condition. I found the film so moving that I had to stop it often just to digest the beauty coming from the spirit of Pope Francis. There are scenes from an old black and white film about St Francis, and Assisi itself is a character in the film. But the bulk of the film is Pope Francis ministering to the most vulnerable people all over the world. If you need a shot of hope, watch this film.
St Francis was the first saint I remember loving. And because of Bartolome’ Esteban Murillo’s classic painting, “St Francis embracing the crucified Christ,” as a five year old, I thought Francis was there at the foot of the Cross instead of St John, and in one of my first drawings, I put him there (you can see this drawing, if you like, on my website).
As a little gay boy I felt hidden and that out of fear, I should hide. Somehow I connected all these mixed feelings with the wounds St Francis received from Christ the Crucified Seraph, in September 1224. I would much later learn from Lian Hearne’s magnificent “Tales of the Otori” that the early Japanese Christians were called “The Hidden.” They had to hide because they were hated by everyone.
Pope Francis asked priests to consider their ministry in the Church to be that of ministry on/in a field hospital. True ministry is always messy, and like any parent, you always feel like you’ve never done enough, or that you’re nor good enough even to be a minister. But whenever I’ve had the chance to counsel another priest who feels that unworthiness, I always say, it’s really not about you. It’s about how much suffering you’ll be able to touch and heal because of your priesthood, and because of your own wounds/suffering, too.
In the winter of 1984 I made a solitary pilgrimage to Assisi, and in that bitter old, I imagined Francis right outside my window, in the Piazza Commune, frozen in his tracks, ecstatic over the supernatural-geometric-beauty of a single snowflake.
“Ciao Francesco wounded winter light
you are stricken with love
by God’s smallest creatures...”
(From my poem “Ciao Francesco” 1984)
Fr William Hart McNichols ❄️ Winter 2023

Holy Prophet Thomas Merton : Gaudete ! Christus est natus !
“Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is no room for him at all,
Christ has come uninvited.”
Thomas Merton
"Even if a unity of faith is not possible, a unity of love is."
Hans Urs von Balthasar
When I was a child in the 50's we were not allowed to go into any church that was not Catholic; let alone any synagogue, temple or mosque. Native American religion was considered paganism as were all eastern religions.
At the same time the monk and priest, Thomas Merton, was beginning to scan the entire world's religions in a Spirit led search for the similarities in our common need and common journey into God.
By the age of 24 as a teacher at St Regis High School in Denver, I was required to teach St Mark's Gospel and Houston Smith's book "World Religions."
Just a few years later in 1983, at the age of 33 in New York City, as a Hospice Chaplain for people with HIV/AIDS I was speaking to people of every faith and performing funerals for people of no faith and all faiths.
What had happened to open the Church to embrace the world instead of condemn it?
Certainly Vatican Council II and it's great theologians who influenced the Council and began to dialogue with the reformed churches and world religions ... von Balthasar with Barth, de Lubac with Buddhism, Rahner , Schillebeecxk , and even de Chardin ... with the entire cosmos.
But most of all, I believe Thomas Merton is responsible for giving us all "permission" to engage and respect people of all faiths. His writings and actual life journeys, spread far and wide into the lives of men and women theologians, and ultimately into all of our lives.
So it seems totally natural to invoke him during this week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Here is a man whose insatiable spiritual curiosity led him into dialogue with not only other Christian denominations but also with the world.
This is my second commissioned icon of Thomas Merton. When I was commissioned earlier this year, by the Thomas Merton Center, I found it extremely daunting, challenging and also a blessed opportunity to find a part of Merton, that I felt was often unrepresented; his priesthood. I don’t mean only his priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church, but his priesthood for and to the entire world.
Because Thomas died 10 December 1968, I waited until Advent to begin this icon along with commencing again, my research about the man who has become more influential as the years go by. In the many books I consulted, I was acutely aware of his lifelong immersion in one war after another. Like Jesus himself, Thomas was born “into this demented inn,” a world afflicted by violence and continual war, that followed him all through his life. An idea for the icon began to emerge.
In 1968 Gaudete Sunday was 15 December, just five days after his death. There are only two times in the liturgical year when the vestments for Mass are rose or pink colored, which is the liturgical color signifying Joy. These two sundays are Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday in Advent and Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent.
I chose to portray Thomas in the vestments of Gaudete Sunday, something he would have experienced that year, 1968, in heaven. I am definitely not a Merton expert, but I know that the Eucharist is the center of the life of most every priest I have known or know now. We don’t always talk about it, because it’s something that is so much a part of our lives, that we all hope it should be easily seen. I saw that clearly in Thomas’s life.
In this icon Thomas offers Christ to the world, a broken world in every way. The debris of violence and war clutter the background behind him. It could be the debris of any war, the tragedy of 9/11, or the present wars in Ukraine and around the world. He emerges from that broken world, from which his life and work continue to minister and contribute to the eventual arrival of the kingdom of God.
Once Daniel Berrigan, SJ, when we were in the same community in the 1980’s, told me that it took him 10 years to get over Merton’s death. So many of my friends and especially my theologian friends, feel the same way about his ongoing impact in their lives. I think, I hope, and I pray, in this icon Thomas is inviting you/us to bring Christ into our world. We are each given absolutely unique ways to do that, and God is capable of giving the gifts freely given to us, to a world so desperately in need of beauty and love...
“For nothing shall be impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37)
Fr William Hart McNichols 💮 January 2023

The Mother of God of Vatopedi
Feast day of Mary Mother of God : 1 January 2023
Then Mary said 'Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word."
Luke 1: 38
This is a very early icon, Our Lady of Vatopedi, written for an Orthodox Church and a companion to "Christ All Merciful."
Several of my friends have fallen in love with this icon because of Our Mother's tenderly kissing the Child's hand.
This loving showing of tenderness is somewhat rare in these chaotic times, and this icon is not only a silent teaching but also a reminder.
As we enter 2023 I am full of hope because I see Mary's love as not only tender, but a show of true strength. We all know how strong you have to be to do "random acts of kindness," as the Buddhists say, and to continually pledge to keep an open heart.
Part of the reason I've always loved Confession (the holy Sacrament of Reconciliation) is that I get to start all over again; I get to feel my heart rebound.
My brother Steve and his wife Kathy have a tradition on New Year's Eve of writing down their hopes and wishes for the New Year and then opening last year's list and seeing almost everything that has happened. So I always think of them on 31 December. My sister Margie just posted that an old Irish tradition on New Year’s Eve is to open the door at midnight and let the old year out and the new one in .... which added an extra comical thought “I think this year deserves all the doors, windows and the garage doors too.”
I also think of the Holy New Martyr (Ukrainian) St Nestor Savchuck, who was martyred 31 December 1993. Dear Nestor, please intercede with Our Lord to end that war 🙏🏼🇺🇦
We all have a host of issues, problems, hopes, dreams, desires that we can bring to the "strongest Woman/Mother" in the world on one of her annual Feastdays. Watch her this year, as not only a tender person but as the first disciple of Jesus.
A most blessed New Year and let's begin again today to "allow God to continue" to love Us that we may all await the reign of Jesus Christ, our only King.
Fr William Hart McNichols 💮 1 January 2023