The Mother of God Overshadowed By The Holy Spirit

he Mother of God Overshadowed By The Holy Spirit
“...I do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands / the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses / nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.”
From the poem “somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond” by e.e. cummings 1923
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”
Romans 8:26,27
“The Acquisition of the Holy Spirit is the main aim of man (people) upon this earth, for it is through the struggle of ‘pulling down ‘ the Holy Spirit into a repentant, humble heart that man gains justification before the Face of God. Christ is our savior as long as we realize we are perishing; and the acquisition of the Holy Spirit is the actuality of being saved...”
From “The Acquisition of the Holy Spirit In Ancient Russia” by Professor Ivan Kontzevitch, 1950
“In 2018, Pope Francis decreed that the Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church be inserted into the Roman Calendar on Monday after Pentecost (also known as Whit Monday) and to be celebrated every year. The decree was signed on February 11, 2018, the memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes apparitions. It was issued on March 3, 2018.”
Mother of the Church, Wikipedia
This icon was commissioned by Weston School of Theology, formerly in Cambridge, Massachusetts, now part of Boston College. Because I had graduated from Weston in 1979, this commission meant a lot to me. In some ways I feel I “grew up” in New England because I had graduated from Boston College in 1973 and for so many reasons, from childhood I had been fascinated by our Puritan past. I have always loved the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne and his novels and short stories of New England. They teach you so much about the blind attitudes we still carry to this day. I think someday you would be deeply moved by reading his story, “The Gentle Boy,” (1839) about the Puritan persecution of the Quakers. With the publication of “The Scarlet Letter” In 1850, the Europeans all agreed, that America had finally produced a genius novelist, and a book they felt could truly be designated as great. His great-great-great grandfather William Hathorne had Quakers whipped in the streets of Salem, and his son Judge John Hathorne, sentenced 18 innocent women, and one man to death on the charge that they were witches. Nathaniel added the “w” to his name out of shame - to distance himself from the Hathorne’s and it is not just me, who believes his life’s work was an artistic attempt of repentance for his ancestors.
When I first visited Salem in the summer of 1971, there was one little museum about the horrific murders. When I returned in 1996, the town of Salem had decided to face its past, and put up a beautiful monument of stone-hewn benches with the name of each victim chiseled into the seat of each stone bench. We still believe that running from our past here in America is the best way; witness the banned books, the irrational fear of critical race theory, the denial of the genocide of Native peoples, the lust for tyranny, the insurrection’s unveiled hatred for democracy.
The Holy Spirit is so many things; notably this year, the Spirit of Truth, Advocate...Comforter. The Spirit is usually represented as a dove, sometimes a flame of fire. But in this icon he takes an angelic form. After I completed this icon I read this depiction in the account of the Annunciation by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, she saw the same form. Though we will never know exactly what form the Spirit took, it was comforting for me to read.
Mary is reading from the Hebrew Bible, the Song of Songs. The Spirit irradiates waves of light surrounding Mary, she is overshadowed also by the Light and Love of the Father, with whom she’d had an intimate relationship with since early childhood. She is the Mother of the Word of God and the Bride of the Holy Spirit. Mary is immersed in the Most Holy Trinity .
I admit to being shocked and taken aback by my own lack of faith in the Holy Spirit when Pope Benedict retired; and then Pope Francis was given to us. “For nothing will be impossible for God.” Luke 1:37
“In this shewing He brought forth our blessed Lady to my understanding, I saw her ghostly, in bodily likeness; a simple maid and a meek, young of age and little waxen above a child, in stature that she was when she conceived...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 the littleness of herself that was made - caused her to say full meekly to Gabriel: Lo me, God’s handmaid !”
From the Middle English, “Revelations of Divine Love” by Lady Julian of Norwich (1343 - +after 1416)
Fr William Hart McNichols 🔥 🎶🎶 Veni Creator Spiritus ... Deo Patri sit Gloria, et Filio qui a mortuis Surrexit, ac Paraclito, in saeculorum specula. Amen 🎶 🎶 Pentecost 2022