Ad Dominum

(Editor’s note: Our anonymous clerical friend is back with this meditation that is very fitting for the last week of this Church year.)

A few years ago, sitting in the only remaining part of Fort Augustus Benedictine Monastery, having tea with the only remaining member of the community, I heard about a hermit living in the wilds of the Highlands who was making a name for herself as an iconographer of real note. I was a frequent visitor to the Highlands, having family and friends there and I made a mental note to track down this fascinating person. A visit to Pluscarden Monastery, which is a thriving, austere Benedictine Monastery a hundred miles further North revealed more information, “But she is hard to find,” said Father Giles, then Prior. This seemed rich coming from a member of a remote community tucked in a hidden valley, so armed with a name and a vague address, I set to, not in my car, as Petrol does not grow on trees, but on Google. I finally found a fledgling website (now much improved and very thorough) and some contact details.

Over the course of the next year or two, I was going through my selection process for training for the priesthood and I thought that, whatever happened, an icon would be a good way to mark the impending end of that period. I spent a while thinking about what I would like and I kept coming back to the idea of Our Lady of Victories, who is also the patron of our branch of the Society of Mary. Sister Petra Clare, the Iconographer, agreed to produce an icon (a process known as ‘writing’ or ‘praying’ an icon, rather than the more prosaic ‘drawing’) for me and I left it with her.

Some months later, an email came announcing that it was completed. I was going to the Highlands in a month or so, for New Year’s Eve, so I set a date for the third of January to collect it. Leaving a warm hunting lodge in the middle of nowhere, leaving behind well fed people nursing sore heads, I got into a borrowed Land Rover and made the seventy mile trip over frozen moors and down icy valleys to Maryvale, a small community on a track at the end of nowhere. Sister lives in the old Presbytery of the Catholic Church of Saint Bean (pronounced Bann, an obscure Jesuit saint) and is in a skete, which is a collection of hermits who come together for some offices and, when a priest can be found, the Mass. It was snowing, freezing and there appeared to be nobody at home. About to leave, a door was flung open and Sister appeared in a mass of white gowns and oven gloves, “Ah, you must be the man from the internet,” she beamed, “Come in, there’s bread fresh from the oven and stew.” After saying our midday office and having lunch, by now itching to see the icon, Sister disappeared into the (women only) house, (the kitchen and small dining room is open to all) and returned with a marvel.

‘My’ icon was glorious! Painted in the modern style which Sister uses, it was on oak she seasoned herself and dovetailed beautifully at the back (indeed a carpenter friend has marvelled at it since) then she carved the image out onto the wood, gilded it and otherwise spent weeks making a great work of art. I took it back to our tiny chapel of Our Lady of Stratherrick and Father Paul put it on the altar for the Mass that Sunday, where she glowed with a brilliant light. She found a place at the end of my long hallway, which as anyone who visited me in Prestwich will remember, was very light and bright, indeed if the front door was open, on a light day you could see her shining from the end of the road. It was this shining that I saw when I came back home having had the good news of being accepted for training and this same light that I see now in my new curate’s house. Is it purely co incidence, I wonder, that Saint Georges, one of the Churches which I serve, has a wonderful statue and a great devotion to Our Lady of Victories?

(Random Eastern church, but very iconic, wouldn’t you say?)

I have been in touch with Sister Petra Clare since and I urge you to look at her website for a really good explanation of both the theology of icons and the art of the iconographer. One thing that is worth saying though is that icons are a reminder of the second coming. They are produced to last until the Messiah comes again and are an earthly reminder of His glory and the glory of the courts of Heaven. They are made with great prayer and contain something of the sanctity and grace of God within them, living prayers and watchmen at the gates of dawn. A bright icon shines like the lamp of the wise virgins, ever ready to greet the Lord as He comes again. In these dark days, an icon reminds us of the promise of His glory and illumines our steps as we seek, once again, to bring this Church of England out of darkness and secularism and into His own marvellous light.

May Our Lady of Victories pray for us. Amen.

(Ad Dominum welcomes submissions of all sorts. Send a message to t dot curnutte at gmail dot com for any submissions or questions. Many, many thanks to my unnamed clerical friend for this piece.)