~prayer, icons and God's mercy~

Some thoughts that I wrote before

we became homeowners and are in the two weeks of busy 

{preparing our new place to move in and moving in!} ~ Enjoy!

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When I was not yet a catechumen in the Orthodox church, I was living in Walnut Grove BC in a small studio that had a lovely gas fireplace, with small mantle.  I remember being at church there and seeing a few icons for sale.  I was a student and did not have much money and did not know really anything about icons.  I saw an icon of St. Xenia of Petersburg, who looked gaunt and unwell.  There was an icon I think of Christ as baby and He looked very well, as in round face, healthy.  I went to my Aunt J.’s that Christmas with my family and the icon of St. Xenia kept coming to my mind, even though I had wanted the icon that looked ‘healthy’ to me.  So with the ten dollars I was given by my Aunt H. for my birthday, I bought this icon of St. Xenia.  I had no idea what to do with it, so I just sat it on my gas fireplace mantle and looked at it.  I remember once I felt like I was falling inside the icon… I just kept looking at it, for varying lengths of time.  I told my Orthodox friend, P., that this is what I did and he just said that this sounded like a good start.

Sometimes I think it is just good to sit quietly and allow oneself to look at an icon and become present to it.  It is by being quiet and looking that we begin to realize that the icon and Saint depicted are indeed present to us, in God’s great mercy.