EPIPHANY

 

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THE MAGI

It might have been just someone else's story;
Some chosen people get a special king,
We leave them to their own peculiar glory, 
We don't belong, it doesn't mean a thing.
But when these three arrive they bring us with them,
Gentiles like us, their wisdom might be ours; 
A steady step that finds an inner rhythm,
A pilgrim's eye that sees beyond the stars.
They did not know his name but still they sought him
They came from otherwhere but still they found;
In palaces they found those who sold and bought him,
But in the filthy stable, hallowed ground.
Their courage gives our questing hearts a voice
To seek, to find, to worship, to rejoice

                        Malcolm Guite, Anglican priest, poet

ART:Christmas in the Air Raid Shelter.  With Russia still deploying cruise missiles and suicide drones against Ukraine, Olya Kravchenko constructed a three-dimensional painting that shows the Holy Family huddled in the basement of an apartment complex, hiding out from air raids. A large, bright star hovers overhead, showing the three magi to the spot where Jesus lies. (2024)

THE MOTHER OF OUR GOD

 

We start a new year and as the war in Ukraine continues, we pray the beautful prayers to Theotokos:

Rejoice, Virgin Birthgiver-of-God, Mary, Full of Grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, for you have given birth to the Saviour of our souls.

 It is right, in truth, to call you Blessed, Birthgiver of God, Ever-Blessed, Most Pure and the MOTHER OF OUR GOD. More honorable than the cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, in virginity you gave birth to God the Word. True Birthgiver-of-God, we magnify you. Amen.

 Beneath your tender mercy we flee, Birthgiver-of-God. Reject not our prayer in our trouble, but deliver us from harm, Only Pure and Blessed Lady. Amen

Mykola Rybenchuk, is a monumental artist and icon painter. Since the war between his country and Russia, he has painted many pieces depicting war, but this very gentle icon, I think, depicts the love of Mary for her Child and nature at peace.

He is an Honored artist of the arts of Ukraine, awarded the gold medal "For sacrifice and love of Ukraine" by Metropolitan Epiphany. He has painted many Christian Churches in Ukraine.  His paintings show the beauty of nature through the effect of color. He uses pure colors, without mixing more than two colors, depicts volume and perspective with beautiful colors, which gives his paintings additional exceptional imagery and makes the paints himself, using natural organic pigments, wax, and linseed oil.

Recently, the artist paints pictures on the theme of war. The pictures depict children who survived the war. The artist's paintings are in museums and private collections of various countries around the world. He is married to the artist Lyudmila Rybenchuk, also an icon painter.

HOLY FAMILY IN EXILE

 

Irenaeus Yurchuk’s Nativity is a response to Russia’s 2022 military invasion of Ukraine. We do not seen the traditional, peacefilled birth of our savior, but rather a war-zone Nativity. It shows the Holy Family, rendered in iconic style, sheltering at night in the rubble of a bombed-out apartment complex. Surrounded by fallen steel beams, concrete, and broken glass, the Virgin Mother Mary holds the newborn Jesus while a downcast Joseph sits beside them with head in hands. Though their circumstances are dire, through the building’s shell shines one particularly bright star, signifying hope in the horror.

CHRISTMAS LEGEND

Christmas Eve and we, the poor,
All night long will be sitting here
And the room is cold that we house in
And the wind that blows outside blows in.
Come, dear Lord Jesus, enter too
For truly we have need of you.

We sit around this holy night
Like heathen who never saw the light.
The snow falls cold on these bones of ours.
The snow cannot bear to be out of doors:
Snow, come indoors with us, for sure
They’ll not house you in heaven either.

We’ll brew up a toddy and then we’ll feel
Warmer and easy, body and soul.
We’ll brew a hot toddy. Round our thin walls
Blindly some brute beast fumbles.
Quick, beast, come in with us – your kind too
This night has nowhere warm to go.

We’ll feed our coats to the fire and so
We’ll all be warmer than we are now.
Oh the joists will glow and we shan’t freeze
Not till the hour before sunrise.
Come in, dear wind, dear guest, welcome:
Like us, you have no house and home.

Bertolt Brecht ~ 1923    Translated from German by Tom Kuhn & David Constantine

Born in Ukraine and raised in Upstate New York, Irenaeus Yurchuk moved to New York City to earn an Architecture degree from The Cooper Union and graduate degrees in Urban Design and Planning from Columbia University. He has participated in group exhibitions in North America and Europe, and his works are held in private collections in the US and abroad.

“I have a special interest in characterizing buildings, which reflects my background in architecture and urban design,” he says. “Works in the show include reexamined images of distinctive edifices, abstractions of topographic components, and some observations of the natural environment in the Narrowsburg area, where I have spent more than 40 summers.”

 

HOLY FAMILY

 

House of Christmas   - G. K. Chesterton

There fared a mother driven forth

Out of an inn to roam;

In the place where she was homeless

All men are at home.

The crazy stable close at hand,

With shaking timber and shifting sand,

Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand

Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,

And strangers under the sun,

And they lay their heads in a foreign land

Whenever the day is done.

Here we have battle and blazing eyes,

And chance and honor and high surprise,

But our homes are under miraculous skies

Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable,

Where the beasts feed and foam,

Only where He was homeless

Are you and I at home;

We have hands that fashion and heads that know,

But our hearts we lost – how long ago!

In a place no chart nor ship can show

Under the sky’s dome.

This world is wild as an old wives’ tale,

And strange the plain things are,

The earth is enough and the air is enough

For our wonder and our war;

But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings

And our peace is put in impossible things

Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings

Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening

Home shall men come,

To an older place than Eden

And a taller town than Rome.

To the end of the way of the wandering star,

To the things that cannot be and that are,

To the place where God was homeless

And all men are at home.

This Holy Family by Andriy Vynnychok  is unique in the placement of the two animals. I love how St. Joseph appears to be holding the lamb, as if to predict the future of his Child, the sacrificial Lamb of God.

Andriy was born  in 1967 in Chervonograd, in western Ukraine. In 1986 he graduated Lviv State College of Decorative and Applied. In 1996 he graduated from Lviv National Academy of Arts. He works in monumental and panel painting as well as in Christian iconography. He participated in exhibitions and En plein air activities in Ukraine and abroad. 

WAR AND PEACE- A SAVIOR IS BORN

 

 

WARTIME CHRISTMAS

Led by a star, a golden star,
The youngest star, an olden star,
Here the kings and the shepherds are,
A kneeling on the ground.
What did they come to the inn to see?
God in the Highest, and this is He,
A baby asleep on His mother’s knee
And with her kisses crowned.  

Now is the earth a dreary place,
A troubled place, a weary place.
Peace has hidden her lovely face
And turned in tears away.
Yet the sun, through the war-cloud, sees
Babies asleep on their mother’s knees.
While there are love and home—and these—
There shall be Christmas Day.    ~ Joyce Kilmer (d.1918)

In a 2024 Nativity scene, by the Ukrainian artist Natalya  Rusetska,  the manger in Bethlehem has become the planet earth, in which the struggle between good and evil is depicted as war between heaven and earth, with the birth of the Savior in the middle.

She says of her work: My art is about the eternal, the timeless, the extraterrestrial, the hidden. One of the inherent features of sacred art is symbolism. This is a figurative creation that reveals the inner essence of the depicted. Sacred art affects and changes the spiritual state of the human.

Born in 1984 she studied at the Lviv National Academy of Arts (department of sacred art). Lives and works in Lviv. Engaged in modern sacred art.Since 2019, she has been working at the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv. Her works are in private collections in Ukraine, Poland, Italy, Canada, and USA.  

CHRISTMAS BLESSINGS

 

We have not done much these past weeks in Advent, with the art of Ukraine, and as the war there rages on and on, with the people living through another war, we present some new art (at least for me) during this Holy Season of the Child’s birth. Most of us, in our country have food and shelter, heat and water, and so celebrate in comfort.  We must not forget those who have none of these necessities for survival.

 An unusual, but very lovely scene by Uliana Krekhovets titled “Nativity Scene”, shows the Virgin Mary extending her cloak to dampen the flames in a besieged city, while the swaddled Baby Jesus lies safe on the far shore of a body of water. The flowing river serves as a symbolic boundary between war and peace, life and death, the past and the future. In place of the shepherds and wise men, and overcrowded boat of Ukrainian refugees draws near the Child with eyes  fixed on Him, hoping against hope, that He comes to bring them peace. 

The poem by Madeleine L' Engle completes the meditation for this wonderous day.

The Risk of Birth, Christmas, 1973

This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honor & truth were trampled by scorn —
Yet here did the Savior make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn —
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.  

4TH SUNDAY ADVENT- THE LORD IS NEAR

 

 

  

 The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him.” Habakkuk 2:20

 

We are in the last days of Advent, which means Christmas is close, and hence the demand on our time can cause a frenetic toll on our well-being: physically, emotionally and spiritually.

 In these last days it is important to carve out time and space to go into a silence with the Lord, even if only for short periods. By doing this, we can discover a deepening loving communion with our God, as he fills us with the graces given during these very holy days. Days which should continue even after the tree and decorations have been put away.  Remember the carol- "The Twelve days of Christmas"? These days are after the feast, not before.

 May our resting in the silence this Advent as we joyfully anticipate the coming of the Child at Christmas, find us rejoicing each day,  in the loving, merciful gift of the Father, in His only Son.

Painting: Elizabeth Wang