How often have you heard it said: "I feel closer to God in the woods and fields than in church"? But why contrast 'nature' with 'church' in a way that magnifies one and belittles the other? Out upon God's wide earth we see a beauty sprung from the Creator's hand; while here, in church, it is an inner beauty that is called into being, here, so distant from the tumult of the world that we can almost glimpse it, that inner beauty who was born a babe in Bethlehem and who seeks to be reborn in us. If the Lord spoke to Elijah in a still small voice, he can also speak to us in the quiet inward-searching gaze of the icons. And these icons, in their gaze not asking and asking the selfsame and myriad questions of holiness–in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit–from the cave of Bethlehem, from the banks and waters of the Jordan, from the Lord's all-holy and life-giving Cross, from the Mount Zion of the Mystical Supper and Pentecost...? Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches: "I will make you a pillar / icon in the temple of my God, and I will write on you the name of God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name."

[ The Sign of theCross ]

[ In His Image and Likeness ]

[ Icon of the Mystical Supper ]

[ Icon of the Descent of the Holy Spirit ]

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