Monday, October 23, 2006
The icon and the human face
Came across this beautiful quote in Jean-Luc Marion book La croisée du visible (The Crossing of the Visible).
"There is a natural link between the icon and the face, the icon helps us to decipher every human face as an icon. For every human is an icon. Beneath all masks, all the ashes, every human being, however ravaged he or she may be by his or her destiny, every human carries within him or her the pearl of great price, this hidden face. During the liturgies in an Orthodox church, when the priest censes the people, he censes every individual Christian, and in every individual Christian he censes the possibility, the opportunity, of the icon, in some sense or other, the chance of the ultimate beauty, of true beauty."
Makes me think of the time that I went to a Coptic service in Egypt, during which the priest censed every person (there were about 500 people), at the time I wondered why he did that, and exclaimed that I was not suprised that their services take 4-5 hours, how different that part of the service now seems. Maybe we should organise a moot trip to an Orthodox church?
"There is a natural link between the icon and the face, the icon helps us to decipher every human face as an icon. For every human is an icon. Beneath all masks, all the ashes, every human being, however ravaged he or she may be by his or her destiny, every human carries within him or her the pearl of great price, this hidden face. During the liturgies in an Orthodox church, when the priest censes the people, he censes every individual Christian, and in every individual Christian he censes the possibility, the opportunity, of the icon, in some sense or other, the chance of the ultimate beauty, of true beauty."
Makes me think of the time that I went to a Coptic service in Egypt, during which the priest censed every person (there were about 500 people), at the time I wondered why he did that, and exclaimed that I was not suprised that their services take 4-5 hours, how different that part of the service now seems. Maybe we should organise a moot trip to an Orthodox church?
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