Out of the Mouths of Babes

(from an email titled “Have Icon, Will Travel”)

“I‘ve been teaching at a Catholic school in Texas for many years, but this year I have an especially unique and eclectic mix of classes, teaching students in prekindergarten through the 12th grade. Well, here’s the rub. One would expect the older students, of course, to exhibit academic prowess far beyond the abilities of the little ones. And they do. Yet it is the simplicity and wisdom of the very young that can floor you.

“It happened with one of the Monastery Icons that we’ve been buying over the years, mostly by recycling aluminum cans. For our All Saints’ Day class I took some of our smallest scholars to the floor that showcases a number of saintly icons, including Joan of Arc. When I told them that she was a patron saint of people in prison, this one little girl said, “Oh. So, she is like us, stuck in here, but we get to go home at night.” Exactly!  After suppressing the urge to laugh out loud, I told her that Joan was burned at the stake, so she had it worse than students. That comment led a boy to ask if Joan used her knife or the spear – pictured in the icon – “when burning the steak.” You get the picture!”

––Bob Brassil

See our icon of Joan of Arc here.

Jerusalem’s annual paschal miracle: THE HOLY FIRE

Every year on Holy Saturday a miracle takes place in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, where Christ was crucified and entombed, and rose from the dead. The miracle of the Holy Fire has taken place at the same time, in the same manner, in the same place every single year for centuries. No other miracle is known to occur so regularly and so steadily over time.

Beginning the afternoon of Holy Friday (Orthodox date) pilgrims wait in anticipation for the miracle, camped as close to the Holy Sepulchre as possible. Beginning at around 11:00 in the morning the Christian Arabs chant traditional hymns in a loud voice. These chants date back to the Turkish occupation of Jerusalem in the 13th century, a period in which the Christians were not allowed to chant anywhere but in the churches. “We are the Christians, we have been Christians for centuries, and we shall be forever and ever. Amen!”- they chant at the top of their voices accompanied by the sound of drums. The drummers sit on the shoulders of others who dance vigorously around the Holy Ciborium. But at 1:00 pm the chants fade out, and then there is a tense silence, charged with the anticipation of the great demonstration of God’s power for all to witness.

Shortly thereafter, a delegation from the local authorities elbows its way through the crowd. At the time of the Turkish occupation of Palestine they were Muslim Turks; today they are Israelis. Their function is to represent the Romans at the time of Jesus. The Gospels speak of the Romans that went to seal the tomb of Jesus, so that his disciples would not steal his body and claim he had risen. In the same way the Israeli authorities on this Holy Saturday come and seal the tomb with wax. Before they seal the door, they follow the custom of entering the tomb to check for any hidden source of fire which would make a fraud of the miracle.

The Patriarch of Jerusalem brings out the Holy Fire from the shrine encasing the Tomb of Christ

How the miracle occurs

The Orthodox Patriarch then enters the Holy Tomb alone. Listen to this account of Patriarch Diodorus, who was Patriarch from 1981 to 2000:

“I enter the tomb and kneel in holy fear in front of the place where Christ lay after His death and where He rose again from the dead. I find my way through the darkness towards the inner chamber in which I fall on my knees. I say certain prayers that have been handed down to us through the centuries and, having said them, I wait. Sometimes I may wait a few minutes, but normally the miracle happens immediately after I have said the prayers.

“From the core of the very stone on which Jesus lay an indefinable light pours forth. It usually has a blue tint, but the color may change and take many different hues. It cannot be described in human terms. The light rises out of the stone as mist may rise out of a lake — it almost looks as if the stone is covered by a moist cloud, but it is light. This light each year behaves differently. Sometimes it covers just the stone, while other times it gives light to the whole sepulchre, so that people who stand outside the tomb and look into it will see it filled with light. The light does not burn — I have never had my beard burnt in all the sixteen years I have been Patriarch in Jerusalem and have received the Holy Fire. The light is of a different consistency than normal fire that burns in an oil lamp.

“At a certain point the light rises and forms a column in which the fire is of a different nature, so that I am able to light my candles from it. When I thus have received the flame on my candles, I go out and give the fire first to the Armenian Patriarch and then to the Coptic. Hereafter I give the flame to all people present in the Church.”

When the Patriarch comes out with the two candles lit and shining brightly in the darkness, a roar of jubilee resounds in the Church.

The miracle is not confined to what actually happens inside the little tomb, where the Patriarch prays. For the blue light is reported to appear and be active outside the tomb. Every year many believers claim that this miraculous light ignites candles, which they hold in their hands, of its own initiative. All in the church wait with candles in the hope that they may ignite spontaneously. Often unlit oil lamps catch light by themselves before the eyes of the pilgrims. The blue flame is seen to move in different places in the Church. A number of signed testimonies by pilgrims, whose candles lit spontaneously, attest to the validity of these ignitions. The person who experiences the miracle from close up by having the fire on the candle or seeing the blue light usually leaves Jerusalem changed.

How old is the wonder?

The first written account of the Holy Fire dates from the fourth century, but authors write about events that occurred in the first century. So Saints John Damascene and Gregory of Nissa narrate how the Apostle Peter saw the Holy Light in the Holy Sepulchre after Christ’s resurrection. “One can trace the miracle throughout the centuries in the many itineraries of the Holy Land,” writes the Russian abbot Daniel, in his itinerary written in the years 1106-07.

Only the Greek Patriarch

The awesome honor of invoking the miracle of the Holy Fire is reserved for the Orthodox Patriarch – literally reserved by divine fiat. Several times over the centuries clergy from other churches or Moslem conquerors tried to exclude the Patriarch from the Holy Sepulchre on Holy Saturday. When this was attempted in 1579, as the Orthodox Patriarch Sophrony IV stood sorrowfully with his flock at the exit of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre near the left column, a divine light split this column vertically and the Holy Fire flashed out near the Orthodox Patriarch. A Muslim Muezzin, called Tounom, who saw the miraculous event from an adjacent mosque, immediately abandoned the Muslim religion and became an Orthodox Christian. The split column can be seen to this day.

Seeing is believing

Numerous online videos of the Holy Fire are available on youtube. One of the best is this 30 minute documentary:

“For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.”

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Theology in Line and Color: The Icon of the Resurrection

Most of us are familiar with the idea that after His death Christ “descended into Hell,” as it states in the Apostles’ Creed and the Athanasian Creed. It is this event, rather than Christ’s resurrection at the tomb, that is the most popular and traditional representation of the Resurrection in the Eastern Church and classic iconography.

Early Christian writers like Origen and Saint Ambrose wrote about this event as “the harrowing of Hell.” This otherworldly event is alluded to in an ancient homily read in the Catholic Church on Holy Saturday and in Saint John Chrysostom’s Paschal homily read in many Orthodox churches on Easter morning. Detailed accounts of it can be found in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus and in the transcribed visions of the German nun and stigmatist Blessed Anna Catherine Emmerich.

Both of these accounts tell how when the soul of Christ left His body on the Cross, He entered Hades — that is, the underworld or the world of departed spirits — where He came to those departed souls who were awaiting the Christ and had not yet ascended into Paradise, many of them righteous and holy people.

In this paschal icon these holy ones stand on either side of the radiant and dynamic risen Christ, looking on in worshipful joy: King David, Solomon, Saint John the Baptist, Abel the Righteous, and the Prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. Raising them up the Savior brings them into Paradise and sets them free.

He also raises Adam and Eve by the hands from their tombs, symbolizing the freeing of mankind from its imprisonment in fallen nature that was accomplished by the Resurrection. As the Holy Saturday homily relates: “The Lord goes in to them holding his victorious weapon, his cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees him, he strikes his breast in awe and calls out to all: ‘My Lord be with you all.’ And Christ in reply says to Adam: ‘And with your spirit.’ And grasping his hand he raises him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.

‘I am your God, who for your sake became your son, who for you and your descendants now speak and command with authority those in prison: Come forth, and those in darkness: Have light, and those who sleep: Rise.”

In the icon Christ stands on the fallen gates or doors of Hell and Lucifer lies chained and crushed beneath them, symbolizing the victory of the divine over evil:

“He that was taken by death has annihilated it! He descended into Hades and took Hades captive! … And anticipating this, Isaiah exclaimed: ‘Hades was embittered when it encountered Thee in the lower regions’ ” (Paschal Homily of Saint John Chrysostom).

This and many other classical icons depicting the great events coming up in Holy Week and Easter can be found on our website at Icons of Lent and Easter. All of these are available in sizes from 4 inches to 5 feet tall, all in our new Lumina Gold format.