Painting

Through Death Into New Life

Peter Koenig, Christ as Second Moses

 

A perennial theme in the New Testament and in Christian reflection concerns how we are called to live through death into new life. When we die to our worldly attachments, and their hold upon us, we open ourselves to a greater life beyond. As the Christ our Passover canticle from The Book of Common Prayer puts it,

Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; *
death no longer has dominion over him.
The death that he died, he died to sin, once for all; *
but the life he lives, he lives to God.
So also consider yourselves dead to sin, *
and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Peter Koenig’s painting, centered on themes within this Easter season, expresses this motif in a particularly evocative way. Just as Moses led the people of Israel through the waters of death into a new covenant life with God, so Christ leads us through and to the same. This happens for us liturgically in the rite of Baptism. As Koenig explores this idea, he not only depicts Christ parting the waters but also shows the water emerging from the Lord’s side. This reflects John’s account of how blood and water came forth from Jesus’ side on the cross, but also suggests how water from the rock in the wilderness brought life to God’s people during Israel’s wandering toward the Promised Land. The “Thanksgiving over the Water,” in The Prayer Book Baptismal Rite articulates these ideas in a compact way:

We thank you, Almighty God, for the gift of water. Over it the Holy Spirit moved in the beginning of creation. Through it you led the children of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt into the land of promise. In it your Son Jesus received the baptism of John and was anointed by the Holy Spirit as the Messiah, the Christ, to lead us, through his death and resurrection, from the bondage of sin into everlasting life.

We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.

Notice how, in the painting at the top, Peter Koenig portrays the crucified and risen Christ before what appears to be a darkened tomb filled with people. As we hear Isaiah quoted in Advent, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.” Christ leads the way, and makes possible our journey from the darkness of death into our new covenant life with God.

The two side paintings that accompany Koenig’s Christ as Second Moses artfully yet powerfully suggest the drama within the Exodus account of Israel’s Red Sea Crossing. The chariots of Pharaoh succumb to the waters of death while Israel is safely delivered on dry ground to their Covenant encounter with God at Sinai. Another canticle from The Prayer Book puts it well:

I will sing to the Lord, for he is lofty and uplifted; *
the horse and its rider has he hurled into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and my refuge; *
the Lord has become my Savior.
This is my God and I will praise him, *
the God of my people and I will exalt him.
The Lord is a mighty warrior; *
Yahweh is his Name.
The chariots of Pharaoh and his army has he hurled into the sea; *
the finest of those who bear armor have been drowned in the Red Sea.
The fathomless deep has overwhelmed them; *
they sank into the depths like a stone.
Your right hand, O Lord, is glorious in might; *
your right hand, O Lord, has overthrown the enemy.

Most of us have the blessing of not facing the equivalent of Pharaoh’s army. But we do have an enemy. And our enemy is the darkness and death of loving self and this world, even to the contempt of God, when God bids us to love him, even to the contempt of self and this world. When we live as we pray, to the Father, through the Son, and in the Spirit, we experience new life.

 

The above painting is Peter Koenig’s, Christ as the Second Moses, also known as The Rainbow Resurrection (used by permission of the artist). The final paragraph contains a paraphrase of St. Augustine concerning how we love God, from The City of God (Book 14, chapter 28).

What does it mean to touch – and be touched?

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An image provided by the Jesuits of Ireland

 

Many of us are sacramental Christians. For us, what is tangible —that is, what we can touch— is often our doorway to the intangible. And so, practical material things having spiritual meaning can become our doorway to immaterial things that are spiritual and mystical.This is especially true in the Eucharist, but also in Baptism. In these rites, we touch, and are touched.

This is one reason why Jesus was so influential in the lives of the original 12 disciples. To see him, to touch him, and to hear him speak ~ these had been critically important experiences for them. Even before his death, they began to sense that knowing Jesus was in some way an entrance into deeper truth and greater life. But this also made it harder for them to deal with his empty tomb, when they had to face his apparent disappearance and absence. With their loss of immediacy with Jesus, fear was added to their sadness. Then, they hid behind locked doors in the crowded Holy City. What should we to make of their experience in that room, especially as we hear about it in John’s Gospel?

Visitors to this blog know I like to find images from art to help us hear the Gospel. This is because artists can help us see and notice things that might otherwise escape our attention. And yet, works of art can also sometimes lead us to mishear what a Gospel reading actually says. This is especially true of the annual day when we hear about Thomas and the other 10 disciples who are hiding after Jesus’ death. As always, we need to engage this Gospel with discernment. For it is really about all of the doubting disciples, as well as about how they all came to believe. Unfortunately, most paintings of this event mis-portray what John actually says, and what he doesn’t say. The classic picture is the one by the famous painter, Caravaggio. He portrays Thomas not only peering closely at Jesus’ side; but also shows him with his fingers poked into Jesus’ spear-wound. (Note also the one above.)

Why are such images misleading? It’s because paintings and labels like these lead us to overlook or misperceive some very important details within the story. For though Thomas has been invited to touch Jesus, John does actually describe him as doing so. (Also, note how Bible editors sometimes steer readers toward certain conclusions by editorial headings before paragraphs.)

First, we find ten of the disciples hiding behind locked doors out of fear. Consider how Jesus had more than once told them to fear not! And at the Last Supper, he had already given them ‘his peace.’ Rather than remember what Jesus had shared with them, as well as his miracles, the remaining disciples have succumbed to fear. Even though Mary Magdalene had already told them she had seen the Lord. How can these facts be squared with any other description than that the ten behind locked doors are doubting, as well?

Second, observe how John describes Jesus’ initial appearance to the ten, when he finds them fearful and doubting. At first, they do not recognize Jesus. It is only after he shows them his hands and his side that they then recognize him, and rejoice at his presence. When they see him, then they believe, and not before. And so, once again, Jesus leaves them with his peace, and now gives them his Spirit.

Notice what the others say to Thomas when he then arrives: “We have seen the Lord” ~ the very same witness Mary had earlier given to them, but without having had much prior effect. Thomas naturally replies to them by saying something like this: ‘Look, I haven’t see him, like you guys have. And so, just like you, I won’t likely believe until I see him, as well.” Thomas’ statement to them therefore does not need to be heard as him setting the conditions for his belief. It may simply be a practical prediction of fact, opening a doorway to his and their later way of experiencing Jesus sacramentally. And, as N.T. “Tom” Wright observes, in John’s Gospel Thomas was the first to call Jesus “God.”

 

See John’s Gospel, chapter 20, for this story in its wider context. To see the homily/sermon on which this text is based, please click here.

Beauty Over the Reality of Chaos

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Peter Koenig, Good Shepherd Resurrection

 

The Resurrection of Jesus is all about grounded hope, and the strength to persevere in the face of adversity. Peter Koenig’s Good Shepherd Resurrection provides a compelling image of its power. The painting builds upon ancient biblical imagery of chaos manifest as a sea monster, and acknowledges how death and resistance to the will of God in the order of Creation pervade the world. The painting is brilliant in its conception, precisely because it is so counter to our culture-bound world of Easter bunnies, daffodils, and pastel-colored candy.

The Resurrection of Jesus is not mainly about hopeful feelings, a positive attitude and self-improvement, even though it can enable these things. His Resurrection is really about the defeat of evil and death, and triumph over pain and suffering. We may not immediately experience that defeat and triumph in our every moment of need. But, we live by Easter faith, and not by Easter feelings.

Peter Koenig risks showing us the Risen Lord stepping out of the mouth of a sea monster. The fresh water from his side recalls the water he made into wine, his crucifixion, and also -much earlier- the water from the rock in the wilderness. All these give us fresh water that fulfills genuine human need, as compared with the inhospitable salt water in which the dragon finds its abode. Every one of us is the lamb, held safely upon his shoulders, as he carries us out of the jaws of death into the new life where he is preeminent.

To me, this is real hope. Precisely because it is hope that deals with where we are now, rather than hope for something that might be, some day, somewhere. Both you and I want the kind of hope that squarely addresses all the things we’ve been worried about this last month. We all want hope that squarely confronts all the things we fear might go wrong in the coming month. And that is the kind of real hope that God brings to us in Jesus’ resurrection.

 

It pleases me once again to feature Peter Koenig’s painting, Good Shepherd Resurrection. This painting continues to give me confidence and courage. Click here to visit the website where this and other paintings by him may be viewed, or search his name on the internet. To see my Easter homily from which this is adapted, please click here. For background, see Revelation 12 and or do an internet search for biblical texts related to the words dragon, Rahab (i.e., Job 26:12-13 & Isaiah 51:9-10), Leviathan (i.e., Job 3:8, Psalm 74:13-14 & Isaiah 27:1), the deep, etc.

Beauty in Holy Week

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Stanley Spencer, The Crucifixion (1958)

 

During this Holy Week I find myself reflecting on the paradox at the heart of Jesus’ Crucifixion. In it we perceive a dramatic juxtaposition of serenity with antagonism, of beauty with its dark opposite, and of moral good with apparent evil.

We can see this in a remarkable parallel between two paintings that were completed some 500 years apart: Hieronymus Bosch’s (attributed), Christ Carrying the Cross (1510-35), shown below, and Stanley Spencer’s, Crucifixion (1958). Both portray the tranquil visage and peaceful heart of Jesus, even in the face of vicious hostility.

Like Bosch, Spencer helps us see what the beautiful One in our midst sometimes provokes. Especially when the shining light of his presence exposes the dark shadows within and around us. For his light sometimes prompts fierce anger and envy, as well as a callous indifference to cruelty and suffering. Things of which we are all capable. And we are likely to have much invested in denying that ugly truth. Strangely, when confronted face to face with a divinity that is the opposite of our perversity, we will either fight the light that we encounter, or surrender to it. The Passion narratives give us examples of those who resisted and even fought against the Light of the World. Especially against the disturbing possibility that Jesus might conquer their pervasive ungodliness.  And so, they sought to do away with his godliness.

An encounter with true beauty can be unsettling and troubling, especially if we have already settled for so much less. It may be our sensitivity to the same juxtaposition of opposites I have noted, and their apparent lack of resolve. We often hope for the triumph of good over evil, that beauty will overcome darkness, and serenity displace antagonism. But we cannot find it within ourselves to do more than hope. We cannot achieve the redemptive resolution for which we haltingly reach out with our feeble hands and hearts.

It is not an accident that the Christ figure in Stanley Spencer’s painting recedes visually in the foreground, while those who oppose and crucify him grab our interest. Spencer, after mastering traditional realism, adopted what he called a neo-primitive style. He was a gifted colorist, and highly proficient with composition. And so, as Spencer has rendered him, Jesus’ skin tone and color roughly match that of the wood of the cross, as well as the clothing of the man with the hammer swung over his head. Spencer’s rendering of the Lord’s skin tone and color also matches much of the sky and the ground below, including the tunic of Mary Magdalene, prostrate at the foot of the cross. This forms a compelling visual symbol of Jesus’ total identification with us, in his Incarnation and in his Crucifixion. It symbolizes his complete joining with us, and with our world of tearing hurts and suffering.

In fact —as we see in Spencer’s composition and coloring— it is precisely because Jesus blended in so well with everyday life, that those who opposed him could literally gain the upper hand, ultimately with hammers and nails. But this is the marvel of the incarnation of our God in Jesus, that the fullness of divinity could be so thoroughly joined to our fallen humanity. As the Gospels attest, this joining was so complete that many did not notice or have regard for his divinity. When we do notice his total identification with us, when we come face to face with the truth it represents, we have either one or the other of two reactions. We throw ourselves down in humility before him. Or, we seek to throw him down, to humble him before us.

Spencer at work on his Crucifixion

Entry Into Jerusalem

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James Tissot, The Procession in the Streets of Jerusalem

 

This coming Sunday will be Palm Sunday in the Church’s western calendar, when we commemorate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The day will also mark the beginning of our observance of Holy Week and the Passion of our Lord.

In James Tissot’s painting (above), look at the crowd of excited people he portrays, who await and greet Jesus’ entry into the Holy City. Two things are obvious about the arrival of this rabbi from the north in Jerusalem. We notice the huge and enthusiastic crowd. And, we notice the object of their attention, Jesus, who is riding on a donkey. At first, we naturally assume an affinity between the crowd and Jesus. The crowd is joyful about Jesus precisely because he is the answer to their questions, and the apparent solution to their concerns. Who he is seems to fit neatly with who they are, and with where they want to go. After all, who wouldn’t be happy when long-nurtured hopes and expectations are about to be fulfilled.

As Matthew describes the scene, the crowd responds to Jesus’ arrival in two ways, both of which evoke historic precedent. We learn from 2 Kings about the followers of Jehu. When they learn he has been anointed king, they spread their cloaks for him to walk on. And in 2 Maccabees, we learn how Judas Maccabaeus was greeted upon arriving in Jerusalem, after defeating Israel’s enemies. The people honored him by waving palm branches in the air. To clinch the point, Matthew want us to know that when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, the crowd’s dramatic response was a fulfillment of God’s word through the prophets: “”Tell the daughter of Zion, look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

In other words, as Matthew describes Jesus’ arrival in the city, the crowd’s greeting of him suggested a similar hope, that he might vanquish the repressive powers causing God’s people to suffer. This Nazarene might be the one to make God’s Kingdom present in their time. These observations can help us appreciate how Jesus was greeted when he entered Jerusalem, and how he was viewed soon after. For, like so many leaders in history, he was the object of an immense amount of hopeful projection. And yet, he did not arrive as a warrior on a horse.

Look again at this crowd in Tissot’s wonderful painting of Jesus’ arrival. How many in this crowd are looking directly at him? And of those, how many actually see him, and for who he is rather than for what he represents among their pre-existing desires? Look at how many in the crowd are carried away by the moment. They are excited by imagined possibilities, rather than by the Kingdom concretely at hand. This situation is not merely of historical interest, nor is it primarily about other people, living at another time. Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem is also about us. His arrival invites us to consider our own hopes and expectations as we greet Him with palms and walk along beside him this Holy Week.

 

This image is from James Tissot’s painting, The Entry Into the City. I am indebted to N.T. Wright for the specific references to earlier biblical precedents regarding the way Jesus was greeted upon his arrival in Jerusalem.

Beauty in Potential

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This week I take the risk of sharing with you some things that are more personal. I try to do that regularly, but not often in the form of sharing my own visual work.

While as an art student in college I became fascinated with the shapes and colors of various seashells, largely through the help of a coffee table book containing high quality photos of them. The above is an example of a colored pencil study of one that I did a few years later.

More recently I became familiar with the paintings of William Dunlap of the Delta region of northwest Mississippi. To Dunlap I attribute the phrase, ‘hypothetical realism,’ words which I think well describe many of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings. I understand Dunlap’s phrase as referring to a desire to capture seen and known objects in a realistic way, but in imagined settings. I think the influence of Georgia O’Keeffe is evident above in my own willingness to superimpose the beautiful form and color of a shell upon an imagined seascape setting, without any shadows cast by the former upon the latter.

Notice, also above, how I am by temperament a water colorist… meaning that I am inclined to start with light tones before the dark, not only with traditional water colors and colored pencils, but even with with oils and acrylics (heresy admitted!).

Then, in 2021 and after about 35 years of neglect, I made what felt like a brave decision to attend an artist’s retreat at a nearby Benedictine Abbey, which has an art studio. I share below my effort to revisit an earlier love, expressing by it something of an unfulfilled potential. The painting is still unfinished, and this time I have approached the subject with acrylics.

Perhaps these days following the Epiphany, and our observance of the Baptism of our Lord, can be for us a time to appreciate gifts we have been given, whether of the physical and material kind we tend to associate with Christmas, or of the more spiritual kinds we may associate with the Epiphany. Both call for appreciation. But the form that appreciation takes in each case, as well as the timing with which it occurs, may well differ.

 

Witness of the Magi

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Peter Koenig, panel from his Christmas-Epiphany triptych

 

“When the wise men from the East … set out… there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road (from Matthew 2:1-12, the Gospel for this day).”

Peter Koenig, in a painting I much admire in relation to this present season, not only presents the visit by and the adoration of the Magi, as well as their presentation of gifts. He also helps us discern how our celebration of Christmas and Epiphany anticipates our observance of Holy Week and Easter.

As we know from hymns and readings, the visitors from the East brought costly offerings, including gold, incense, and myrrh. This much is obvious from a first look at Koenig’s imagery. Much more subtle are additional features of his painting that should also attract our attention. Based on the imagery in Genesis 3, note the serpent under Mary’s foot. Note also how the Christ child is wrapped in what appears to be fabric prefiguring his eventual burial shrouds. Behind the figures in the painting, we see an anticipation of the empty tomb with its stone covering rolled away. And, in front it, we seen an image of the cross portrayed as also being the tree of life, bearing the vine from which will come the cup of salvation.

O God, by the leading of a star you manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (from The Book of Common Prayer)

May our Lord, who was and is, and is to come, bless us and our loved ones during this holy time.

Joining Mary’s Joy

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El Creco, The Annunciation (1600)

 

With three prior Annunciation images I have pointed to some aspects of the Annunciation to Mary: fear at an unexpected encounter with the divine presence; surprise and wonder about such a greeting; and, the opportunity to accept the significance of God’s visitation. Today, I want to highlight a fourth aspect of Mary’s experience of the Annunciation, her response of joy at having said, “Yes.”

It is not hard for us to admire Mary and her willing response to God’s initiative, at first in her life, and then in and for ours. But how easy is it for us to identify with Mary’s joy, reflected in the words we know as the Magnificat, her song of praise, with regard to the promise of Jesus’ birth?

For many of us, these 12 Holy Days may be a time in which we challenge ourselves to feel as ‘joyful’ as we think we should be – or, perhaps, to criticize ourselves for failing to experience the same. But what is ‘joy?’ I have an icon that depicts St. Thomas Aquinas, wherein he holds a text on which is printed, “Joy is the noblest human act.”

Joy at this time, as always, is not just a spontaneous feeling prompted by fleeting circumstances. Joy is actually an act, a choice, and a willing participation in divine initiative. For the word joy is related to the verb rejoice. God says to us during these 12 Holy Days – as God always does – I am come unto you to bless you, to bring you new life, to transform everything you think you know, and in ways you have yet to imagine.

Until we get to ‘the other side,’ and can ask Mary, herself, none of us will know what she really imagined would be part of her acceptance of God’s strange and unanticipated plan of redemption for our fallen and troubled world. What we can be most thankful for is at least one implied word that was part of Mary’s response to God’s initiative. She said, yes. With her beautiful example, and so many compelling artistic representations of the same, isn’t it a wonder why we so often find it hard to respond as she did.

In this last of the 12 Days of Christmas, let us say “yes” to God with Mary. And then, starting with the feast of the Epiphany, tomorrow, may we live into the real joy of that “yes.” Her uplifted hand, in El Greco’s painting above, says it all.

May our Lord, who was and is, and is to come, bless us and our loved ones during this holy time.

 

Saying “Yes” to the Gift

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The spirit of attentive openness is at the heart of a third aspect of Mary’s response to God’s call through the Angel Gabriel. God’s call often challenges us to live in a different way or try and be a different person, especially in our relationships with our family, our friends, and those with whom we work. Receiving this call, we can react at first in fear at what this call might mean in practice. We can also respond with uncertainty, wondering about our worthiness or suitability for what God may have in mind for us.

But we can also see that — in faith — we are able to go into the heart of our fear and find God’s power. Receiving God’s grace, we may move beyond relying on our own strength, and not depend upon our estimate of our own abilities and worthiness for what God may have in mind. We can then choose to respond to God’s gracious invitation into the Spirit’s redeeming work, just as Mary did, by saying, “Yes!” As John Lennon so simply captured the spirit of it, in the words of his famous song, “Let it be.” Or, as Mary said to God through the angel, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be unto me according to thy Word.”

This is the spirit of Mary’s response to the message of the angel as portrayed in the fourth Annunciation image I am sharing with you in these 12 Days of Christmas, in Trygve Skogrand’s photo-collage, pictured above. The artist has skillfully juxtaposed a traditional painted figure onto a contemporary scene. We see a simplicity and spirit of humility in Mary’s posture, as she kneels in her plain gown. In the plain ‘bed-sit’ room in which she prays, we notice her uplifted eyes. They are now focused on the divine source of the message she is receiving.

Attentiveness is key to meaningful perception, just as we found recently in the Gospel reading for the third Sunday in Advent. John the Baptizer sends his disciples to Jesus with what should be our most persistent question, “Are you the One?” Are you the One for whom we are looking, and whom we are awaiting? Notice Jesus’ response: “Go and tell John what you hear and see…” For they only hear and see if they are attentive. This is one reason why the Church commends to us the season of Advent, in addition to Christmas ~ to encourage our attentiveness, so that we can hear and see, and then accept God’s Word to us.

“Let it be as God would have it.” Let things be as God wills. Let God be God! Perhaps nothing is so hard in our lives as to say those words in faith and in humility. Our pride objects! Our desire to be at the center of reality intrudes. But to say, “Let it be…,” in faith and in humility, is to return to the Garden of Creation Grace. And it is also to begin to live forward into the fullness of the Kingdom, as God would have things be, and as God will have things be..

May our Lord, who was and is, and is to come, bless us and our loved ones during this holy time.

 

The image above is a detail of Trygve Skogrand’s photo-collage, Bedsit Annunciation (an image I have shared before). This post is adapted from a prior post based on my homily for the Third Sunday of Advent, December 15, 2019, which can be accessed by clicking here. The Revised Common Lectionary, which provides the readings for Sundays and other Holy Days, can be accessed by clicking here.

Surprised by God

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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Annunciation (1850)

 

During the remaining of these 12 Days of Christmas, I plan to share with you further images of the Annunciation to Mary, moving on from yesterday’s post featuring the theme of Holy Fear. We might refer to these as four moments of God’s decisive intervention in human history in the Incarnation of our Lord. And in each of these four moments we may find a personal connection with our own spiritual journeys, especially as Mary prefigures the church in some very significant ways.

Yesterday, we began with the unexpected moment of Mary’s encounter with the divine presence through the holy angel, and the holy fear that such a meeting might bring. Today, we consider what may often happen next, which is introspection prompted by being surprised by such an encounter.

One of the first things that strikes me about this painting by Rossetti is how Mary’s gaze is fixed on the middle distance. And this suggests that she is focussed more upon the potential significance of what she has just been told, than upon the prior object of her attention, the angelic visitor. She is now focussed on the possible meaning of the angel’s message. And so, as she abstractly looks outward, apparently not focussed on the stem of lilies held by the angel, she looks within.

Not only does she not appear to register the significance of the lilies, suggestive as we have noted both of her purity but also of the future resurrection of her son. She also seems to overlook the potential significance of the red colored, draped, fabric upon which perhaps she may have been applying needlework, placed so prominently by the artist in the foreground. Suggestive of both a priest’s or a deacon’s stole, as well as of altar fabrics, red is traditionally the color used for Holy Week as well as for saints days commemorating martyrs. And, once again, we notice the emblem of the lilies upon the needlework.

Four details briefly worth noting: the dove depicted above the angel’s left hand, symbolic of the Holy Spirit; that Mary is draped in white, in purity and resurrection motifs; the blue color of the fabric hanging behind Mary, in what is often referred to as Marian blue; and, the way that Rossetti depicts the angelic messenger hovering above the floor.

But note her gaze! I find it arresting. Especially as we consider the reality of God having come to us, to share our nature, our being, and our lives.