Post 36 - What the saints teach us

Chicago - COS icons

To create an icon is to encounter a person you think you know. Through prayer, sounds super simple eh?
HA!
Once my knees hit the ground all bets are off. I might be changed, if I am lucky. I might have a conversation, if I try. I could find inspiration if that is what I seek.


Choosing a saint to create I must put myself in the way of prayer.
I submit to choosing and being chosen.
Choosing a saint to create I must put myself into a place of wonderment.
How did this happen that this person became who they were? What draws my attention in this time?
Curious I engage you?
I draw not what you looked like but who you are - to me - to the world - to spirit - to prayer - to the holy - to faith - to Gd.




Did they become themselves?
Did they dive into a holy presence?
Did they dance so hard that the body they knew shook off in favor of becoming a new being?




Of course I have heard of John, Francis, Jude, Simone, Theresa. I know they inspired others. They became so much that they emanated the presence of Gd.

As I understand it to become a saint in the Roman Catholic tradition you have to have performed three miracles. What would I do?
- Be nice to someone I really do not like.
- Gave away something that I loved.
- Heal myself so that I might heal some others in the world.
- Live simply
- Love with mercy
- Seek forgiveness
- Trip and rise, and trip again
Today all of these seem like simple miracles. Probably not enough to make a saint but still they are a place to start.

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About Icons: (From the service at COS)

An icon is an image that speaks to us. In fact the most important thing is not so much that we look at the icon, but that we allow the saint to look at us through this sacred sacramental image. A quick glance does not allow us to enter its mystery. We must quietly contemplate an icon before it can speak to us.
Beauty cannot be grasped, manipulated or owned. It is always a gift. We can only gaze and enjoy. Icons show us a way into the divine beauty that can sustain and refresh us.

An icon is an invitation to the experience that Francis Thompson expressed in his great poem ‘In no strange land’:
O world invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee, 
O world unknowable, we know thee, 
Incomprehensible, we clutch thee.