An icon invites people to spend time with it, to move from seeing the icon with one’s eyes, to seeing it with the heart. An icon expresses the mystery of our human encounters with God and has the purpose of drawing us into the mystery.
An icon is a holy message written with shape, form, and color rather than words. The Church of the Epiphany in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, commissioned Clairvaux McFarland, OSF, to write the icon below, picturing the coming of the magi for which the church is named.
- As you look at the icon, what do you see with your eyes?
The icon shows Mary and her child in a cave, which symbolizes both the womb, the tomb, and the black chaos from which all life springs. The edges of the cave are green, life springing up around it. Green bushes grow.
Mary is wearing red, the color of earth. Jesus has an old face but a baby’s body. The magi are leaning into the cave, just getting a foot in. The mountains lean with them. The star outside the cave and the frame of the icon points to the child. Something important is happening.
- What more do you see in the icon with your eyes?
- What do you see with your heart?