h/t to freeper markomalley for the above image.Ping!
h/t to freeper markomalley for the above image.Ping!
One can respond only by recalling that an icon can never be reduced to a painting, whatever may have been the artistic genius that produced it, because unlike a simple painting, which invites the gaze of the viewer to verify its harmony and beauty, the icon makes present, in its way, the very person who is represented.
So no icons are simply pictures or paintings...Similar of course to Jesus 'made present' in the wafer...
Not only that. But since the icon is charged with the energy of faith that has been imparted to it by all those who in front of it, and thanks to it, have turned their hearts to the Lord, it distributes to all those who approach it with faith that which it has received.
In particular the icon, this icon - recognized by the Church as the occasion of particular “mirabilia Dei" that we generally call "miracles" - reflects, reproduces, and pours into the hearts of those who turn to it with simplicity and total openness to the will of God those same graces with which the Virgin Mother of God was fully graced, according to the measure of faith of each one.
So this idol reproduces the grace of God and hands it out to Catholics...
The authentic icon of “Salus Populi Romani" - and therefore not just any reproduction, like those we often carry in our wallets - is charged with all of this. In fact, it bears within itself the heritage of faith of the Christian generations that, urged on by the archetype to which the same icon refers, meaning the Virgin Mother of God, have asked for and obtained through faith: peace, safety, and health as a down payment on the salvation promised to all by Jesus her Son, the Savior.
Soooo unbiblical and unGodly...Idolatry at its finest...
The peace vigil worked! Kerry made a gaffe (no miracle there) that stopped the U.S. attacks.