Lately, I’ve been understanding “the grace of God” as a term to describe the breaking in of heaven from above, infusing all the world with His love — including our own lives! God himself makes intervention to grab our attentions, empower our wills, and lead us further up and further in to His own very essence. The only way to perceive the grace of God is by faith: exceeding one’s reason, expanding one’s mind, and believing that the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

The biggest irony is the blindfold on St. Lucy, who had her eyes taken from her by torturers who tried to force her into marriage. The viewer sees Lucy blindfolded, and yet, St. Lucy looks down from heaven and sees everything clearly now, that to which we on earth are too often blindfolded: the grace of God.

St. Lucy is an emblem of perfected faith. We may never see where we are going, what path we are on, or whoever is accompanying us, what our reward is, but a saint is someone who has the faith to take a step.

St. Raphael the Archangel is portrayed here as both healer and warrior. His positioning has some ambiguity to it: does he stand behind, beside, or before St. Lucy? In another visual cue, we can see straight through Archangel Raphael’s eyes, and glimpse the heavenly halo behind him. A saint is someone who lets people look through them to catch a glimpse of heaven.

The rest of the piece seeks to affirm Hopkins: “the world is charged with God’s grandeur.” Modeled after the style of Da Vinci and Botticelli, it is beauty of the world that comes into clarity when we meditate on the ultimate journey of all things to God. A saint is someone who sees the heavenly world above breaking in to make new the world below. And He calls it: “very good.”