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December 26th, 2023
Our Lady of the Sign (of Ireland) and, A Christmas Blessing
“If you only knew how powerful it is to bless people, you would bless people all the time.”
(Paraphrase of the words of Our Lady of Medjugorje)
On one of my visits to Medjugorje, I heard these words which were given by the Blessed Mother, but I haven’t been able to find the exact quote. Yet, I never forgot them. So much so, that when I returned to my church at that time, San Francisco de Asis, in Ranchos de Taos, I taught all the children to bless during one of the weekday Masses, just for the school children.
Then, just this morning I was once again given the children’s Mass at St Charles Borromeo, here in Alburquerque, because the pastor was ill.
I had already taught them all how to bless last September during the homily at Mass, so today I renewed that teaching and told them the same thing, that Our Mother wanted us to bless everyone. I also told them that some of the greatest blessings I have received were from the “anonymous” people behind the counter at gas stations and small convenience stores all over town. I also told them how it really helps when you’re in a car desperately trying to get to some place on time and you bless the people right in front of you, impeding your speed, rather than yelling or cursing them.
At this, I received bewildered looks but I meant it. I have a friend who has been receiving Hospice Care for quite some time, and I often stay at his house when his caregiver is unable. On the way over, I end up stopping to get him some food, coffee, brown sugar, milk or whatever I think he might need. It’s a very rare occasion when I don’t get the blessing of a smile, joke or some kindness that restores me in a moment. We never really know how many people we actually touch by, as the Buddhists say, a simple act of kindness.
In my 44 years as a priest I can’t even begin to tell you how many people and things, like houses, specific rooms, photographs, cars, motorcycles, statues, Rosaries, Miraculous Medals, medals and Crosses of all kinds, holy pictures, and an abundance of other things too numerous to list. So yesterday when Pope Francis announced that we can bless same sex couples, I thought, well it’s about time and quietly laughed at all the objects I’d been happy and willing to bless... “If you only knew how powerful it is to bless...” - these words came back to me again.
I met Fr Patrick O’Brien (+ 25 November 2021), a pastor of St Joseph’s church in Caherlistrane, Co. Galway, Ireland in New York, in Daniel Berrigan’s apartment in the 80’s. Pat was utterly devoted to Dan, and to his prophetic poetry and prose writing, also a friend of poets like Seamus Heaney and Fr John O’Donohue ... who helped unearth the Catholic Celtic Heritage of Ireland, with books like “Anam Cara.” An extraordinary man I was also privileged to meet.
Pat O’Brien was an avid collector of Irish contemporary abstract artist’s works. He was not so much infatuated by Byzantine icons, but he loved my work so I decided to “write” him an icon with the colors of county Mayo (my ancestors too, on the McNichols side of the family) and bring it to him on my last visit to Ireland.
This icon based on Isaiah 7: 14, Our Lady of the Sign, is one of the most prominent depictions of the Mother of God. I poured all my love for Pat and Ireland into the long/lovely experience of working on this icon. It’s obviously meant with the Christmas Star, for this holy season of Advent moving into the Christmas season which begins, not ends ... with Christmas Day.
If you count the benedictions and blessings in Holy Scripture (even the stolen blessing of Jacob over Esau !) you’ll find there are over a hundred. St Clare of Assisi, (who only had apparitions of the Christ Child, never the adult Jesus) is said to have cured many people of illnesses, just with her blessing.
I believe in your ability to bless. I believe in your intercessory prayer. I believe you can change an ambiguous or tense situation with your blessing. I believe in blessing people you know you can never ever, reach or change. I believe in the arrows of love, as the Carmelite saint,
Mary Magdalen de Pazzi gushed after receiving an apparition of St Aloysius Gonzaga,
“... Oh, how much he loved on earth ... he shot arrows into the heart of the Word when he was alive, and now that he is in Heaven those arrows rest in his own heart, because those communications of grace that he merited through his acts of love and of union that he made, he now understands and enjoys.”
“May you have great dignity
And a sense of how free you are
Above all, may you be given the wonderful
Gift
Of meeting the Eternal Light that is within you. “
Fr John O’Donohue (+ 1956 - 2008)
A Christmas Blessing🖖🏼 I know and pray,
you will give away this Christmas
Fr Williams Hart Dominic McNichols 🌠🎄 🌠 December 2023
December 26th, 2023
El Santo Nino de Atocha (Christmas card illustration, 1985)
“Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that
Her service is at an end ...
A voice cries out: in the desert prepare a way for the Lord!”
Isaiah 40
“For those who love God, all things work together for the good. “
Romans 8:28
Long ago, after my first visit to the Santuario de Chimayo’ in northern New Mexico, I became entranced by this little Christ Child, whose legend grew out of Spain. I was later to learn, the Dominicans had brought the legend up from Mexico, into New Mexico, long before it became part of the United States. In fact the last house I lived in, on 16th Street down near Old Town Alburquerque, was built while we were still part of Mexico.
So this illustration I did in pen and ink, while living at the former Jesuit Retreat House In Manhasset, Long Island, in 1985, was stimulated by my growing affection for (truly) this “Land of Enchantment” - New Mexico. A land that has managed to retain the strong influence of the Pueblo Indians, Spain and Mexico. Even the food here has elements of the Pueblo Indians, Mexico an Spain. I revere this land because it is “La Tierra Sagrada.” For me it’s like a person, if I’m away too long, I miss it.
Our Lady of Guadalupe and El Santo Nino, are everywhere in New Mexico.
I learned the ancient legend of Santo Nino and couldn’t wait to get it out. So I asked my late friend, Fr Jim Janda, to write it for me and Paulist Press agreed to publish it, in 1986, along with 3 other children’s books by Fr Janda ...and I joyfully illustrated them.
At that time I was deeply committed to a ministry of those dying of HIV-AIDS, so Our Lord provided me with these children’s books to emotionally balance living with all the tragic deaths.
“Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God ...”
These words along with so many from Isaiah, have made him my favorite prophet. And though Jesus quoted the Psalms more than any book in the Hebrew Scriptures, he also loves quoting Isaiah.
Because of Handel’s musical masterpiece we are all familiar with the words of Isaiah,
“For unto us a child is born...”
That this Child be born in you and me again, each year at this time, is imperative.
And each year His birth in us gets more important; that His tender yet very strong love continues to flow into the whole World.
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:
and the
government shall be upon
his shoulder:
and his name shall be called
Wonderful
Counselor
the Mighty God ,
the Everlasting Father,
the Prince of Peace “
Isaiah 9:6
Fr William Hart McNichols 🕎 December 2023
December 26th, 2023
The Advent of Hagia Sophia
“She it was I loved and have searched for from my youth; I resolved to have Her as my Bride, I fell in love with Her beauty.
Her closeness to God lends lustre to Her noble birth, since the Lord of All has loved Her. Yes She is an initiate in the mysteries of God’s knowledge, making choice of the works He is to do. If this life wealth be a desirable possession, what is more wealthy than Wisdom whose work is everywhere?
... I am your servant, child of your serving maid, a feeble man with little time to live... Despatch Her from the Holy Heavens, send Her forth from your throne of glory to help me and toil with me and teach me what is pleasing to you, since She knows and understands everything. She will guide me prudently in my undertakings and protect me by Her glory. That all I do will be acceptable... As for your intention, who could have learned it, had you not granted Wisdom and sent your Holy Spirit from above?”
From The Book of Wisdom, chapters 8,9, The Jerusalem Bible
Do you ever wonder why all the anger at Pope Francis and his inclusion of women and men in the recent Synod? In Scripture Holy Wisdom is always feminine.
Why haven’t we heard from Her in the official meetings of Holy Mother Church?I believe Pope Francis heard Her calling representatives of the whole Church to speak and be heard.
Lately I find myself saying, I was a lot smarter when I was younger. The older I get, I realize the less I know. I am naturally deeply humbled and aware that most of the rest of my learning must now come from only the Holy Spirit.
As the author of The Book of Wisdom wrote I’m getting to be, “a feeble man” with not a long life ahead of me. I’m offering some of what I’ve learned through art and conversation with my brilliant theologian and friend, Christopher Pramuk, in our book coming out from Orbis Press, in Spring of 2024, “All My Eyes See.”
This may sound odd, but it is very comforting to me to know I will never “know or understand” in my tiny human mind, the presence and full concept of the Holy Spirit or Holy Wisdom.
But I have experienced that the Holy Shekhinah, Holy Wisdom or as many of us have learned to describe Her, in a semi-secular, commercial way, “the Christmas Spirit” descends sometime in Advent.
I do know this is real, palpable, because you can feel it when She ascends again, sometime in January.
In this icon I’m trying to portray Her descent.
This year Advent is basically only about 3 weeks and so I have no idea when She will choose to descend. Some years She comes around the 9th or 12th of December and some years, She waits longer until its almost Christmas Eve. Sounds very much like a pregnancy doesn’t it? And indeed it is.
Many churches teach that the Word of God is simply or only, in the Bible and some teach the Word is in the same book, the Bible, but also pregnant in each one of us.
We are asked to give birth to the Word and then follow His maturity and infusion into our world, whether it be a huge city like New York or Washington DC, or in a smaller city like Alburquerque, or in the vey small, ancient,Taos Native American Village. Wherever you are, whoever you are, you bring Christ into the world in an absolutely unique way; a way only you can bring Him.
“O Come thou Wisdom from on high,
who orderest all things mightily;
to us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us
in Her ways to go ...
Rejoice, rejoice, O Israel, to thee
shall come Emmanuel.”
Fr William Hart McNichols 🕯... always a New Advent, 2023
December 26th, 2023
Mother of God Seeker After the Lost
When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his Mother said to him,
“Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s House?”
St Luke 2: 48, 49
“Once Mary would go wandering
to other land would run
that she might find her Son,
that she might find her Son.”
“Mary’s Wandering”
Traditional song, date unknown (but I tried to find it !)
From Noel, 1966 Christmas Album by Joan Baez
“As portrayed by the Gospel, the Holy Family is a family that is
painfully opened up,
undergoing suffering that surpasses that known by earthly families, yet in a
manner exemplary for all ... The Son has been obedient to his parents and will continue to be obedient, but obedience to the eternal Father rules obedience to earthly parents - even though they cannot understand it and are filled with the anxiety of an unsuccessful search and an even deeper anxiety caused by the words, ‘Did you not know?’ “
from “Light of the Word” by Hans Urs von Balthasar
When I first began my apprenticeship in 1990, I was utterly dazzled and deeply “soul-touched ”by the hundreds of beautiful poetic titles given to the icons of the Mother of God. So much so, that anytime I would get a commission and the person would allow me to do anything I wanted I’d choose an icon of the Mother of God with a title I could spiritually explore. This is one of those icons.
Not just this year, but for the past few years, I’ve had so many people tell me, almost shamefully, that they feel lost. There is no shame in feeling lost, but often we get the message that being emotionally guarded, strong, or ... God forbid, spiritual is the “right” way we should feel.
The Servant of God Dorothy day once said, “We are all called to be saints. We might as well get over our bourgeoisie fear of the name.” And CS Lewis ; “How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints.”
Because of my vocation as an iconographer I’ve been able to meet so many completely different kinds of Saints and holy ones. In so many cases, they suffer tremendous anxiety, Hildegard of Bingen famously said she never had a moment without anxiety. Read any of the multitude of books on St Padre Pio, and you’ll be overwhelmed by his moment to moment dependence on the touch of God in his soul to keep him going.
I believe it takes great humility and enormous strength to admit you’re lost at times. And right now the severe state of our world’s suffering is almost impossible to ignore; you can choose denial, but ultimately you will find yourself or someone you love, to be in a place that cannot be “fixed.”
Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks to God and those we love, who have been brave enough to open themselves to the suffering in our world and in themselves. And to be thankful for those who have not run away from accompanying us in the times we feel lost.
It is also a time of joyful family meals and laughter. It’s always the smallest things that give us real joy.
Mother of God Seeker After the Lost
You find us and your Son, deeply seeking
Our Father’s House.
You too found it difficult and painful
to watch Him leave you and begin the
Work that would lead him through
Prophetic actions, meant to bring us back to God,
and into his death and
Resurrection.
Lead us through these challenging times, and please,
Never stop your tender care, following after,
Seeking after, us !
Amen
A most blessed Thanksgiving 🍂 2023 !
Fr William Hart McNichols
December 26th, 2023
The Souls of the Just Are In the Hands of God
Wisdom 3
The last Requiem Mass written for a Mass, was by French composer, musician, and organist for Cathe’drale Notre-Dame de Paris, Maurice Gustave Durufle’, and was first performed on All Souls Day, 2 November 1947.
Final additions were added in 1961, and everything (to my ears) in Durufle’s Requiem anticipates Vatican Council II, which took three years of preparation, 1959 to the opening, which occurred on the Feast of the Maternity of the Mother of God, 11 October 1962.
Gone are the bombastic notes of terror, in Mozart and Verdi.
Durufle’ is softly beautiful and I always see a leaf, or small boat floating down a river or creek when I hear this gorgeous work.
In grade school I was part of a Latin choir from 4th grade through 8th grade and we’d sing the beautiful Ambrosian Chant, lifted by Durufle’ in his Kyrie Eleison, at the very beginning of his piece.
Already he had anticipated a change in the Church’s attitude toward death.
Personally, I sense that the Season of the Holy Souls lasts about a month; around 15 October - 15 November, and then it lifts, palpably, for the Season of Advent to begin. St Albert the Great’s feast (15 November) Is 40 days before Christmas.
Accounts of the Holy Souls in Purgatory go way back into the ancient church, and mystics who speak about them are practically innumerable. The most recent are St Padre Pio, Mystic Maria Simma of Sonntag, Austria and the visionaries of Medjugorje.
Cultures all over the world speak of this season as the “thin veil between worlds” lifting, as the Souls come near, asking for Masses and our prayers. And I’ve read they are most happy for us to call upon them , as they really, really, want to help us too.
We were counseled as children to pray for them on 2 November, and as a little kid I had it in my wild imagination, that I’d pray for them that day and imagine them literally flying out of Purgatory. But maybe they just lift softly, as Durufle’ sees and hears them ? This is how I tried to envision them in this image.
Now as a priest, I offer every single Mass for them. I think of names in the daily news and wonder if anyone is inclined to offer their help ? Especially those who die suddenly, tragically and alone. Though I’ve read no one ever dies alone, and I’m inclined to believe their Guardian Angel, at the very least, is always with them.
“Eternal rest, grant unto them, O Lord, and let Perpetual Light, shine upon them.”
Amen
Fr William Hart McNichols 🍂🧡🍂 October 2023
(This image was commissioned by Fr Robert Fisher for All Souls Church in
Denver, Colorado)
December 26th, 2023
Francis : “I Hold Out My Hand and My Heart Will Be In It” (1979)
“Adrienne saw his stigmata, she was deeply horrified. And she thought everyone would have been horrified as she was ...
And now he sees the stigmata on his hands. They strike him as something foreign, as something that simply does not belong to him. As if the Lord’s wounds were like two rose-petals that accidentally fell into his hands as he gazed at the rose bush. And as if the petals served simply to contemplate the roses better...”
The Book of All Saints by Adrienne von Speyr (dictated to Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar)
Paintings of Francis receiving the stigmata have always deeply moved my soul, especially those of Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267-1337) and Taddeo Gaddi (1300-1366). In fact I made an eight day retreat in Boston, visiting the Harvard Fogg Museum every day, to sit in front of the Taddeo Gaddi. Little did I know I’d be trying to copy that painting for the Ranchos de Taos Church, of San Francisco de Asis, in 1999.
Immediately after my Ordination to the Priesthood 25 May 1979, I was asked by Fr Michael Sheeran, SJ, to be artist in residence at St Regis University in Denver. The only requirement was that I have an exhibit of my work at the end of the year, 1980. I called that exhibit “What A Fool Believes” after the popular song by the Doobie Brothers. It opened on April Fool’s Day, 1 April 1980.
To make a long story short, I created two Chapels for St Regis University. One was based on the now, ecological patron, St Francis mixed with paintings of the 4 Seasons, bringing in the father of modern poetry, Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ, and his passionate love of the “wild.”
The other chapel was called “La Sangre de Cristo,” in the basement of the Jesuit Residence, Carroll Hall.
Francis, the first person to ever receive the wounds, was spending time on Mt La Verna, in September 1224, two years before he died at age 44. He was grieving what he felt, were his complete failures.
Near dawn he had an apparition of Jesus Crucified blended/with/a/Seraph with six wings, fly down from Heaven, and when the apparition slowly disappeared, he was left with the 5 wounds of Jesus Crucified, and the fiery love of a seraph.
So blest was I to visit La Verna in 1984. Outside of Israel, I have never felt so breathless, truly almost unable to breathe, at the palpable holiness of a place.
The chapel and community of La Verna is on a mesa, very similar to the Acoma Pueblo here in New Mexico. It was snowing heavily that March of 84, when the bus I was taking pulled up to the Santuario de La Verna and dropped me off. Nothing was open in the small town. I panicked as I watched the bus leave and looked up at the mesa and knew I’d have to hike up.
I spent 3 days (because of the weather) with the Friars and novices. I’d walk into a chapel and there were authentic Della Robbia bas relief masterpieces, right in front of me. I know I’ve never been as ecstatic as those 3 days. There was very little heat so I slept in all my clothes and the Friars insisted I down 3 large glasses of red wine, and it did the trick; I slept warm and well.
This painting done years before that experience, 1979, shows Francis on the mesa, (St Regis University) contemplating the wound in his hand.
It’s has perhaps become an annoying cliche’ to say again,
that we all, all, have wounds.
I have come to believe that as we grow older we have one decision to make; are we going to withhold love, or finally, just give it away, wounds and all ?
I’ve been inspired by so many women and men who decided to just give love, like my Dad, who died in 1997. He gave me a map to old age I’m presently trying to follow. I don’t intend to confuse you that you have to “let back in” abusive people, but Dad inspired me to slowly shed the scales of years of protection and love. Also meeting St John Paul II In August 1993, has had the same glowing effect.
This is my road now and my hope is that Dad and St John Paul will guide me patiently into the elder years. Everyone imagines Francis as elderly when he died but he was only 44. Everything I’ve read about him tells me he died with nothing; nothing but his love nakedly, passionately on display. On October 3, 1226, he asked to be laid down on the earthen mud floor, naked, and at sunset his soul flew into God.
He had nothing.
Yet, has made the greatest contribution to Catholicism of any saint. Just ask Pope Francis. Look at him. Now look again. Look at him now creating much controversy at the synod.
See his passion for our creation and ...
what what what about the church ?
Who is worthy enough to get in ?
To quote Pope Francis,
“Tutti, tutti, tutti”
Fr William Hart McNichols 🍂🧡🍂 October 2023
December 26th, 2023
Francis : “I Hold Out My Hand and My Heart Will Be In It” (1979)
“Adrienne saw his stigmata, she was deeply horrified. And she thought everyone would have been horrified as she was ...
And now he sees the stigmata on his hands. They strike him as something foreign, as something that simply does not belong to him. As if the Lord’s wounds were like two rose-petals that accidentally fell into his hands as he gazed at the rose bush. And as if the petals served simply to contemplate the roses better...”
The Book of All Saints by Adrienne von Speyr (dictated to Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar)
Paintings of Francis receiving the stigmata have always deeply moved my soul, especially those of Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267-1337) and Taddeo Gaddi (1300-1366). In fact I made an eight day retreat in Boston, visiting the Harvard Fogg Museum every day, to sit in front of the Taddeo Gaddi. Little did I know I’d be trying to copy that painting for the Ranchos de Taos Church, of San Francisco de Asis, in 1999.
Immediately after my Ordination to the Priesthood 25 May 1979, I was asked by Fr Michael Sheeran, SJ, to be artist in residence at St Regis University in Denver. The only requirement was that I have an exhibit of my work at the end of the year, 1980. I called that exhibit “What A Fool Believes” after the popular song by the Doobie Brothers. It opened on April Fool’s Day, 1 April 1980.
To make a long story short, I created two Chapels for St Regis University. One was based on the now, ecological patron, St Francis mixed with paintings of the 4 Seasons, bringing in the father of modern poetry, Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ, and his passionate love of the “wild.”
The other chapel was called “La Sangre de Cristo,” in the basement of the Jesuit Residence, Carroll Hall.
Francis, the first person to ever receive the wounds, was spending time on Mt La Verna, in September 1224, two years before he died at age 44. He was grieving what he felt, were his complete failures.
Near dawn he had an apparition of Jesus Crucified blended/with/a/Seraph with six wings, fly down from Heaven, and when the apparition slowly disappeared, he was left with the 5 wounds of Jesus Crucified, and the fiery love of a seraph.
So blest was I to visit La Verna in 1984. Outside of Israel, I have never felt so breathless, truly almost unable to breathe, at the palpable holiness of a place.
The chapel and community of La Verna is on a mesa, very similar to the Acoma Pueblo here in New Mexico. It was snowing heavily that March of 84, when the bus I was taking pulled up to the Santuario de La Verna and dropped me off. Nothing was open in the small town. I panicked as I watched the bus leave and looked up at the mesa and knew I’d have to hike up.
I spent 3 days (because of the weather) with the Friars and novices. I’d walk into a chapel and there were authentic Della Robbia bas relief masterpieces, right in front of me. I know I’ve never been as ecstatic as those 3 days. There was very little heat so I slept in all my clothes and the Friars insisted I down 3 large glasses of red wine, and it did the trick; I slept warm and well.
This painting done years before that experience, 1979, shows Francis on the mesa, (St Regis University) contemplating the wound in his hand.
It’s has perhaps become an annoying cliche’ to say again,
that we all, all, have wounds.
I have come to believe that as we grow older we have one decision to make; are we going to withhold love, or finally, just give it away, wounds and all ?
I’ve been inspired by so many women and men who decided to just give love, like my Dad, who died in 1997. He gave me a map to old age I’m presently trying to follow. I don’t intend to confuse you that you have to “let back in” abusive people, but Dad inspired me to slowly shed the scales of years of protection and love. Also meeting St John Paul II In August 1993, has had the same glowing effect.
This is my road now and my hope is that Dad and St John Paul will guide me patiently into the elder years. Everyone imagines Francis as elderly when he died but he was only 44. Everything I’ve read about him tells me he died with nothing; nothing but his love nakedly, passionately on display. On October 3, 1226, he asked to be laid down on the earthen mud floor, naked, and at sunset his soul flew into God.
He had nothing.
Yet, has made the greatest contribution to Catholicism of any saint. Just ask Pope Francis. Look at him. Now look again. Look at him now creating much controversy at the synod.
See his passion for our creation and ...
what what what about the church ?
Who is worthy enough to get in ?
To quote Pope Francis,
“Tutti, tutti, tutti”
Fr William Hart McNichols 🍂🧡🍂 October 2023
December 26th, 2023
Our Lady of Sorrows * Jesus Christ Extreme Humility * St John the Apostle : Triptych of the Passion (Our Lady of Sorrows + 15 September)
“You are the ones who stood by me in my trials...” Luke 22:28
( I made a copy of this triptych for every priest of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe after the scandal and tragedy of the abuse of children began to come out in 1992, with these words of St Luke on the back. At that time, no no one was thanking the innocent priests who stayed under the Cross ...)
This very early diptych of Jesus and the Mother of God was commissioned by a Jesuit friend whose sister had just been diagnosed with HIV-AIDS. He first commissioned an icon of Our Lady of Sorrows, and then when she passed away, he commissioned The Man of Sorrows sor Jesus Christ Extreme Humility. He was one of my first patrons and the first person to put my work on the internet. Because of his lavish generosity, I decided to look at a Cimabue painted Cross, and found St John the grieving Apostle on the right wing of the Cross. I gave it to him as a gift. And so it became a triptych.
The two prototypes (originals) are found at the 14th century monastery of Meteora, Thessaly, Greece. At their peak in the 16th century there were 24 monasteries high above these ancient rock formations.
And as I mentioned, (from my college Art History classes at Boston University) I remembered the many late medieval Crosses which had Mary and John on the left and right wings of the Crosses. These figures of Mary and John appear in my favorite Crosses by Giotto and his teacher, Cimabue, and just a few years later, I’d be copying both of these deeply spiritual and passionate artists. I can’t express what a joy it is to try and copy great artists, and great iconographers.
I would say, the first ten years I was so grateful, happy and excited that I painted almost non-stop. My teacher demanded this work ethic, and I am eternally grateful to him, because by myself, I would never have thought I could give myself so completely to another vocation. After 33 years, I’m now trying to paint images and icons of people that have had a great influence on my life, people maybe some of you have never heard of, but by meeting them through books or providentially, they encouraged me to continue.
Sometimes there are people I’d love to do (for example, Mahatma Gandhi, or St Dominic, the Apache or Masai Christ, the Navajo Madonna on and on and on) but my teacher (Friar Robert Lentz) has done them so magnificently, I always point people to him. When I began, in October 1990, he told me there were probably around 15 people working on icons, now there must be over 1500, at least.
I truly believe it’s because of Robert Lentz, who singlehandedly created this renaissance of interest in icons, in the 1980’s. I say this because he was the first iconographer who figured out how to make modern clothes like skirts, dresses, pants, shirts etc, into “iconographic clothes,” so even those who openly disrespect him, must copy him. And he was the first to create icons of people’s of all races, not only black and white people, but all races. All the young iconographers are indebted to Robert.
In these times of rampant disrespect, in these times when mockery and violence are encouraged...as we get closer to the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, it’s essential (and healthy) to contemplate the Mother of all nations and peoples; asking her how we her ever-children, can move closer again. Because of its continued relevance,
I’m going to recall the prayer used to open Vatican Council II on 11 October 1962 :
“Almighty God, we have no confidence in our own strength; all our trust is in you. Graciously look down on these pastors of your church. Aid their counsels and their legislation with the light of your divine grace. Be pleased to hear the prayers we offer you, united in faith, in voice, in mind.
Mary, help of Christians, help of bishops; recently in your church at Loreto, where we venerated the mystery of the Incarnation, you gave a special token of your love. Prosper now this work of ours, and by your kindly aid bring it to a happy, successful conclusion. And do you, with St. Joseph your spouse,the holy apostles Peter and Paul, St. John the Baptist and St.John the Evangelist, intercede for us before the throne of God.
To Jesus Christ, our most loving Redeemer, the immortal King of all peoples and all ages, be love, power and glory for ever and ever.
Amen”
Pope St John XXIII, 1962
Fr William Hart McNichols 🍃 September 2023
(If you should feel called to pray with this triptych, it can be ordered in this way, or as individual icons. Our Lady of Sorrows is my sister Mary’s favorite icon)
December 26th, 2023
The Child Mary Soon to Become the Ark of the Covenant ( for Mary’s Birthday 8 September)
“One meets the Blessed Virgin inevitably when one attains a certain intensity of spiritual aspiration, when this aspiration is authentic and pure. The very fact of having attained a spiritual sphere which comprises a certain degree of intensity and purity of intention puts you in the presence of the Blessed Virgin... just as the experience of having a mother belongs naturally to human family life on earth. It is therefore as ‘natural’ for the spiritual domain as the fact of having a mother is natural in the domain of one’s terrestrial family. The difference is that on earth one can certainly be motherless, whilst in the realm of the spiritual this can never happen.”
Valentin Tomberg
Page 281 “Meditations on the Tarot : A Journey into Christian Hermeticism” (published in English 1985)
I know that sounds pretty dense but I think he’s saying two things:
If you really long to meet Mary with an intense longing, you will.
And that she is the Mother of all of us, even if we never had, or no longer have an earthly Mother.
Please don’t be put off by his words about spiritual intensity and purity.
Like, I’m not good enough, Mary would never come to me.
I’ll tell you something our Croatian guide told us in Medjugorje, and she knew the visionaries there. She said a few of the kids (24 June 1981) were out sneaking a smoke when Mary first appeared and they all immediately ran home, when they saw her. But the next day at exactly the same time, without communicating to each other, they all showed up at the same time and place, and there she was again.
If that’s not true, the point is they were all very normal kids, and when they asked her, why us, she told them basically... that’s why. Mary wanted to turn a fairly normal parish into a place where people could come meet her, and prepare the world for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
So how do you define meeting Mary ? Since 1981 over 30 million pilgrims have traveled to Medjugorje, Bosnia, Herzegovina. And most of them come back with some kind of experience of meeting Mary, not an apparition, but in a million different ways. As I’ve said before, she lets you know that she knows you’re there, and that she actually brought you there.
She also gave the visionary Vicka an account of her life, and a date when it can be published. She promised to leave a major “sign” that she’s been there, when the apparitions are finished, which can be photographed but not touched.
Now if it turns out that all this is untrue, it won’t shake my faith at all, and I’ve been there 4 times.
In the early 80’s I did a beautiful watercolor and gouache painting of the Colorado mountains with a circle of bright stars above it. I never had it professionally photographed, and I don’t know where it is. If I find it, I’ll show it to you. The title is “The Birth of the Virgin.”
This image is really an Advent painting I’ve shown before, but I think you’ll see it better now, with no holiday stress around you. It’s a symbolic painting of the mist of the Shekhinah surrounding the child Mary, as she floats above the Ark of the Covenant, which the Israelites carried with them; a physical sign that they were walking with the presence of God.
And I imagine the child Mary just a few years before she was visited by Archangel Gabriel, and told that she would be carrying God inside her. That’s why the Litany of Loreto, calls her the Ark of the Covenant, House of Gold, Mystical Rose, and many more beautiful titles, like Seat of Wisdom, Gate of Heaven, Morning Star, Health of the Sick, Cause of Our Joy, Refuge of Sinners, Comforter of the Afflicted, Mirror of Justice, etc etc.
One title I love, not in the Litany, is Enclosed Garden. Maybe someday, hopefully, I can come up with that image. I have a friend here in Alburquerque who has this very beautiful enclosed garden, and it gets a lot of shade so everything blooms there constantly. It has a vey holy feeling to me, and he has a large statue of Mary, who seems to change her facial expression from softly gazing at you to outright smiling. I know, it sounds crazy, but ...
“Hail Mary full of grace
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women, and
Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners, now and at the
Hour of our death.
Amen “
Fr William Hart McNichols 💮 September 2023
December 26th, 2023
St John the Forerunner (John the Baptist - “The Angelic Man”)
“...Then the King regretted what he had said; but because of the vow he’d made in front of his guests, he issued the necessary orders. So John was beheaded in the prison, and his head was brought on a tray and given to the girl, who took it to her mother.
Later, John’s disciples came for his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus what happened.
As soon as Jesus heard the news, he left in a boat to a remote area to be alone...”
Matthew 14: 9-13
“To lead a better life, I need my love to be here.
Here, making each day of the year,
changing my life with one wave of (his) hand
Nobody can deny that there’s something there ...”
Lennon and McCartney 1966
The birth of John the Baptist comes at the beginning of summer, and his death, at the end of summer. A brief time just like his brief life. John in the Eastern Church is called “the Angelic Man” because of his preternaturally impossible existence in the desert. Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich’s visions of him, claim to tell many details of his childhood alone, in the desert wilderness. And her accounts are a delight to read, filled with miraculous interventions of John being taught by angels and led by the Holy Spirit.
Most often icons go unsigned because it is hoped that the Holy Spirit is the author. But this magnificent Greek Icon by Michael Damaskinos (1530 - 1593) is signed by the master. Whenever I copy any icon I try to be sure to give credit to the one who did the original (prototype) because “in the icon world” you learn by copying the masters.
This icon was created for the sight of the continuing apparitions, in Medjugorje, Bosnia, Herzegovina.
On 24 June 1981, the feast of the birth of John, Our Lady of Medjugorje appeared, later announcing herself as the Queen of Peace. And symbolically announcing that Medjugorje was the place chosen as the “new Jordan” where people could come and be transformed (baptized) awaiting the second coming of Christ. And Mary will be the prophet to prepare us for the second coming as John was the prophet for the first coming of Christ.
So I changed the original slightly, to reflect the apparitions and this is the companion to the icon of Our Lady of Medjugorje, which I was commissioned to write by the Franciscan friar, Fr Svetozar who lived in the Friary, in Medjugorje at that time. I believe the two icons are still in that Friary.
I have not been to many apparition sights of Mary, except for Knock, Ireland, Akita, Japan and Medjugorje.
Through the generosity of my dear late friend, Mimi, I was given the gift of 4 trips to Medjugorje .
When people ask me what it was like, did I feel her presence (?) I can only come up with an analogy, I say,
“Do you know what it’s like when someone across the room is looking at you and your back is turned away so you couldn’t possibly know; but you do. You turn around and they are looking at you. How do you know ?” That’s how I felt all 4 times in Bosnia.
As soon as we left for day trips to Dubrovnik or some other town, that feeling was gone. As we’d re-enter the boundaries of Medjugorje, I could feel her presence again. That’s my poor and inadequate way of explaining. It is further said that each person who travels to Medjugorje is aware, through some simple or bold “hit you over the head obvious way,” that she knows you have come, and that actually, she drew you, specifically you ... to her side.
The young visionary’s all adults with children and grandchildren now, have miraculously managed to stay sane throughout the years, and keep pointing to her and her monthly messages, given on the 25th of each month,
she, who still appears with the words, “Praise be Jesus.”
At the time I was working on this icon I could find very few books on him, except by two women; the amazing “John the Baptist in Second Temple Judaism “ by Biblical scholar Joan Taylor and John’s life interwoven into the “Life of Christ” by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich. So I was blessed to be nourished by a scholar and a mystic. Now if you go looking for books on John, you’ll find plenty.
I have to add a very poignant note here, about my personal relationship to John through a work of art. When I was nineteen as a Jesuit novice in Florissant, Missouri, we took a trip across the state to the Nelson Art Gallery in Kansas City, Missouri. I encountered a Caravaggio masterpiece “St John the Baptist in the Wilderness,” done in 1604. I was about the same age as John in the painting that first visit . The last time I visited this painting I was in my fifties, so I’ve spent many years being overwhelmed by one of the few Caravaggio’s in the United States. But on account of my long loving relationship to this painting, it’s my favorite Caravaggio.
Because of my friend and editor, Robert Ellsberg, I entered into email correspondence with the brilliant art critic, the late Sister Wendy Beckett. Robert would send her books (published by Orbis Press) of my work, and she really wanted to do a book with her own dazzlingly unique commentary on my icons. Can you imagine how excited I was ! But because of her declining health, she was unable to work on it, but managed to write on a very few, one was this icon of John. If you’d like to read it, it’s in the recent book “Dearest Sister Wendy : A Surprising Story of Faith and Friendship” by Sister Wendy Beckett and Robert Ellsberg. But, Sister Wendy gave me the greatest compliment I’ve ever, or will ever receive. She said (paraphrasing) I can’t write about his icons because every time I look at one I go into a prayer. She singlehandedly affirmed my whole life’s vocation of the past 33 years, in one sentence, really just meant to be a sincere apology. And that one sentence continues to be as affirming to me as if she had written a whole book. She also warned me of the cost of this vocation, which still rings in my ears.
I’d love to quote her whole meditation on the icon of John but then you might never read the wonderful book Robert published after her death. And this book is truly a spiritual experience to read, “two saints” talking intimately with one another.
“... He knew well that he would die as he was against the king, but he preferred virtue to safety.”
St Ambrose Doctor of the Church (340 - 397)
Fr William Hart McNichols 🌠 29 August 2023