This is a piece inspired by one of the earliest icons of Christ and His Mother, attributed to St. Luke. In 590 A.D., in a time when the city was being ravaged by a plague—Pope Gregory the Great arranged for the icon to come to the city for the health of the people, hence the name! Currently the icon resides in the church Santa Maria Maggiore at the head of a magnificent shrine, which inspired the composition of this piece!

The saints in this piece are (starting from top left moving right and then downward): St. Michael the Archangel, St. George, St. Jude, St. Andrew, and St. Cecelia. Also featured is the medallion of St. Benedict. All of these saints bear some significance to the Armstrong family who commissioned this piece.

The thing that struck me the most about this piece is the idea of Healing, especially how an icon, an image painted by human hands, can change the course of a person’s life for the better. I think of the Caravaggio’s “The Incredulity of St. Thomas,” of Van Gogh’s “Olive Trees,” of Dawn Waters Baker’s “Emancipation.” How different would the course of my life be if I had never seen those images? These images all have stirred up in me the soul-yearning, the hunger for Eternal Beauty, the Awakened Life, etc. These are the names we have given to that indelible feature, which is the definition of our humanity. To be human is to yearn for eternal beauty, and live a life of faith—the belief that this yearning is meant to be fulfilled. Sometimes the yearning can get so bad, can make you feel so lonesome, you get sick… but the worse sickness is to lose the yearning and settle for a wonderless life. Thank God for His relentless Beauty, and thank God for art.

Art is human participation in God’s desire to awaken souls to reality, and reality is full of Beauty. We need art to fan the flame of our deepest yearning. The truly tragic thing about our existence is that the yearning is like a brief candle that can go out, but the God who is love—the God who made the world and everything in it—gives us what we need to carry on the flame.
 
A commission by the Armstrong family.