Meek and Humble of Heart, 12

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One last one, found on artist Daniel Mitsui's page.

On his facebook page (search Daniel Mitsui, Artist), he explains the image:

When challenged by one of my patrons to create a new image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I determined to reconnect this devotion to its early expressions in the visions of St. Gertrude, and to create an image with the vigor and precision of late medieval art. The 1467 Sanctus Salvator engraving by the Master E.S. is the most obvious artistic influence on the figure I drew.  
The Sacred Heart itself, in its oldest depictions, is flat, simple and symmetrical. Later artists gave it more dimension and detail, but without making it accurate anatomically. Their result, I think, is artistically disastrous: something like a dripping strawberry with a tube projecting from its top. Here, I have done the opposite: I started with the shape of a realistic heart, and reduced that to a stylized emblem.  
I placed the emblem within a frame shaped as an ogee trefoil intersecting with an equilateral triangle. This is meant to suggest the triple invocations to the Holy Trinity and the triple petitions in the Kyrie Eleison that begin the Litany of the Sacred Heart. The Crown of Thorns fills the entire space beteween the edge of the heart and the frame.
The animals that appear in the halo include sea horses, embryonic dogfish in their tendrilous egg cases, platypodes, chameleons, lyrebirds and a pangolin. Here, I further another of my long-term artistic projects: the application of the vision of God in nature (one of the most important principles of medieval art) to contemporary knowledge of nature. As I wrote in 2013: 
The temptation, for a modern man, is simply to snicker at the authors of the bestiaries for their zoological naïvety. But they were working with the best knowledge they had, and their being mistaken in the details does not prove that their method of interpretation was fallacious. If we no longer find symbols of Christ in the behavior of pelicans and lions, is it because they are not there, or is it because we have ceased to look for them? Were we to embrace again a theophanic worldview, might not our current knowledge yield even more profound symbols? 
In the animals chosen here, I see symbols of universality; they represent all of creation worshipping its God. Chameleons are creatures that seem to contain within themselves all colors, and lyrebirds are creatures that seem to contain within themselves all sounds. Platypodes and pangolins are beasts so peculiar in their anatomy that they resemble animals of every class. Dogfish and sea horses (as their names suggest) are aquatic creatures that resemble terrestrial ones.  
The Latin inscription that runs around the perimeter is the versicle and response that end the Litany of the Sacred Heart: Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make our heart like unto Thine. On the cope worn by Jesus Christ is a pattern composed of the words Jesus Christus Deus Homo in orthogonal letters and a labyrinth that once decorated the floor of the Basilica of St. Bertin at St. Omer.

Meek & Humble of Heart, 11

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"The Sacred Heart" by Maurice Denis, 1930

Meek & Humble of Heart, 10

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Still Sacred Heart month. This one's for sale over at Etsy, where you can also see it much better.

Solemnity of the Sacred Heart (Meek And Humble of Heart, 9)

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It's the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. (Also, for Catholics of strict observance, a meat Friday, woohoo! Though also a good day for Adoration and Reparation.)

Here's a decent primer on the devotion.

Also: why did no one tell me before this week that this book exists?

Meek And Humble of Heart, 8

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From the resolution problems, I gather this image discovered in a random google search must have come from this story about iconography in Bethlehem. At any rate, a Byzantine take on the Sacred Heart.

Meek & Humble of Heart, 7

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Statuary at the family plot at Graceland, personal photo 

As I mentioned in the first post of this irregular series, if you're looking for him, the Sacred Heart turns up everywhere. Even Graceland, to my surprise. 


Meek & Humble of Heart, 6

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another image for which I can find no artist or explanation; 

This shows up in a lot of "black Jesus" collections on the 'net, which I think is interesting because it suggests the enduring attraction of the Sacred Heart. 

Meek and Humble of Heart, 5

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by sculptor Cristine Duniec, roughly this year 

Meek & Humble of Heart, 4

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Meek & Humble, 3

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I suppose this won't be to everyone's taste, but I love it. I think of Christ's heart as tender, yes, but wild, and not tamed to the dimensions of what we can handle or expect.

Meek & Humble of Heart

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I'm uncertain of the provenance of this icon. The internet suggests "Mexican folk art," and that could be right, but I don't find anyone using the image who explains where it comes from.  What I did find, via Google, was this nice post on how the devotion developed. He looks meek and humble of heart here, I think.

Update: an internet friend says this is, "Icon of the Sacred Heart painted by Clotilde Devillers for the Abbey of Saint Madeleine." Mexican, French, whatevs! 

Feast of Mary, Mother of the Church

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Protection of Theotokos, Mid 17th century, Ukraine


I said I was going to be doing a series of Sacred Heart images, but a memorial intervened and I thought this was purdy. 

(But on the theme, here's a proposal to everyone post Sacred Hearts all month.)


Come, Holy Spirit

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Too late for this year, but next year we should all meet up in Philly for the Pentecost Vigil, a special liturgy almost no one uses. 




Meek & Humble of Heart Month

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“Sacred Heart” by Georges Desvallières, 1905. Image courtesy of P. Henriot and the Catalogue Raisonné CR 1102

In traditional Catholic piety, each month is dedicated to a particular aspect of Christ or Christian discipleship. June is the month of the Sacred Heart, a devotion I love, even while its most common images are often unfortunate exercises in the worst of saccharine piety. 

Here are two columns about that (and why you shouldn't let the bad art keep you from what is a profound devotion).  There's 4 Things the Sacred Heart Says Without Words, which sets up the problem nicely: 

The Sacred Heart used to bother me. I found the pictures of Jesus with his heart hovering in front of his shirt weird. I also found most expressions of Sacred Heart piety archaic-sounding and off-putting.
I liked Jesus. I just didn’t see the point of focusing on his cardiovascular system.
The author then explains why he took a second look.  An older piece in the same vein includes lots of pope quotes in case you need heavier hitters to be convinced. 
Several years ago a young seminarian friend led a group on a walking tour of a part of Rome none of us knew well, and he introduced me to the practice of seeking out the image of the Sacred Heart in every Church. It's a relatively late devotion (1673 for the famous apparitions to St. Mary Margaret, though the devotion is older), and didn't become a universal feast on the Roman calendar until 1856, yet rare are the Churches where you won't find such an image. I've adopted my friend's practice and this is now my personal version of "Where's Waldo?" (And it's amazing where He turns up --even at Graceland!) 
This is all a long introduction to why I've thought to post a series of worthy images of the Sacred Heart. (Or if not worthy, than at least interesting in some cases).  I'll begin with the above, which probably can't be topped, actually.  I just discovered it, and the accompanying article about the artist and the artistic movement involved are well worth a read.