Every one of us is a living icon of God. He created us
in his likeness and in his own image.
As you can see, this Icon of St. Dominic is not yet
finished. At first I was disappointed not to have completed it in time for his
Feast. Then it occurred to me that there was a message for me in this. Like
this icon each one of us is not quite finished. We are still on a journey from
darkness into the light. It is my hope that the image of St Dominic portrayed
or perhaps more accurately, revealed to us through this icon may help us
to enter the hidden, inner sanctuary of his heart and there discover more
deeply the depths of our Dominican vocation---WHAT WE SHOULD LOOK LIKE.
The first portrait of St. Dominic was a word picture
given to us by St. Cecilia, one of the first nuns of the Order, who knew him
personally. For a long time historians did not give much credence to St. Cecilia’s
description. Then, after World War 2, a scientific examination was done by
anthropologists on St. Dominic’s remains and the results confirmed the
authenticity of her description. Cecilia had said that he was of medium height-
the measurements taken of his relics show that he was five feet six inches
tall. She noted that, “His figure was supple; his face handsome and somewhat
ruddy; his hair and beard had a reddish tinge. He was not a bit bald; his hair
had a touch of grey.” At the bottom of the reliquary the examiners found some
shreds of Dominic’s hair. It was exactly as Cecelia had said it was. “From his
brow and his eyes” she continued, “there came a radiant splendor which won the
respect and admiration of all; his eyes were large and beautiful. His hands
were long and handsome and his voice was powerful and sonorous. He was always
joyous and smiling except when moved with compassion at the affliction of his
neighbours.” There are very few saints of so long ago whose personal appearance
is so well documented.
The face is the mirror of the heart. Those who are pure in heart, have faces that
are transparent, unprotected. In them we see the nakedness and vulnerability of
Christ. They have his freedom and spontaneity. Joseph Pieper has a lovely
insight about this. He says “Only he who has a pure heart can laugh in a
freedom that creates freedom in others.”
During the process of his canonization another very
beautiful word picture of Dominic is given. It was said of him that ‘he spoke
only with God or about God’. It is this particular depiction of Dominic that is
the inspiration for my icon.
If you look at the icon you will notice that only the
left hand of Dominic is visible. In his right hand he carries the Gospel of
Matthew and the letters of St. Paul.
These were his most loved books. We know
from Bl. Jordan of Saxony, that they were his constant companions and he knew
them by heart. We do not see his
hand. It is not important that he
carries the book in his hand but that he carries the Word in his heart. And it
is from his encounter with the Word of God in his heart that he goes forth to
bring that knowledge of God in Jesus to others.
His left hand is stretching up towards heaven. In this
is revealed his deep closeness to God. “He spoke always with God”. “O Lord,
have mercy on your people, what will become of sinners?” was his constant cry.
His soul, writes Jordan, “was a sanctuary of compassion where he offers God all
human misery.” Christ is the answer to the brokenness in each of our lives.
Dominic’s whole life and mission was given over to preaching THIS truth.
The centrality of Christ our Saviour, in his saving
mystery made sacramentally present in the Church, lies at the heart of
Dominic’s spirituality.
It is important to note that while stretching up to
God, Dominic’s left hand is also breaking through the frame of the picture. I
was not happy with this at first and kept attempting to change it- to keep his
hand within the contours of the outline. But it just wouldn’t work. Finally it
dawned on me. I wasn’t meant to change Dominic but rather to hear what he was
saying to me through what I considered to be a flaw in my icon writing. And
there it was. Because Dominic’s hand is stretched out towards God it is
automatically also stretching out beyond the boundaries of his comfort zone to
reach out to the peoples on the margins, just as Jesus did. This is the change
contemplation works in us. We become the icon of Jesus, acting as Jesus did or
allowing him to live through us. Last year Pope Francis wrote a letter to the
priests and consecrated persons and invited them not to sit comfortably in
their houses and churches but to go out to the fringes of society, to the
uncomfortable places and bring the evangelical message to the broken and
distant. Do we do that? Dominic did. He left his cloister in Osma, Spain when
he discovered that the people of southern France did not know the truth about
Christ. And when he heard about the pagan people of Prussia, Lithuania and
Esthonia, the Baltic countries, he had a huge desire to bring them the Good
News, the Word of Truth. Brothers called it “a dream of St. Dominic.” He never
in fact got that far in person but his desire and prayer went beyond all
boundaries, to even the most distant lands. I can say that my own vocation
speaks to the reality of this holy dream of Dominic. I am one of those Baltic
peoples that he so longed to bring Jesus to.
Now we come to Dominic’s halo. His halo like his
prayer and zeal for souls is as large as his heart. It too goes beyond the
frame designed to contain it and encourages us to dream our dreams, big dreams.
But that is not all, Dominic has also feet, beautiful
feet! Feet with a fire in them! On Wednesday as we celebrate his Feast, we will
hear in the first reading at Mass. “how beautiful are the feet of those who
bring the Good News of Salvation”
Do we want to follow in his footsteps.
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