"Everything: The Circle and the Heart
The Family in 2001"

By Fr. William Hart McNichols

Photography of Fr. McNichols When I received the invitation of the Editor, Gabriel Romero, to write something on the family I was naturally overwhelmed. There is the ideal of the traditional family, the reality for many, of the non-traditional family, the religious family, the family of friends, country, state, county, and it goes on and on. So I decided to ask a friend, Joy Romero - Ormerod, "what does family mean to you?" She paused, and then came up with one resounding word, she said, "Everything." That "everything" opened up a way for me to begin this article and brought to mind an image of an ancient Russian icon which has also been described as "everything."

On September 25th 1392 St. Sergius of Radonezh, the abbot of the Holy Trinity Monastery in Moscow died peacefully at 78 years old. Out of his own great store of interior love of God he had created a community of genuine affection and brotherhood, and at his death his monks were devastated and inconsolable. Where would they find again an Abba, a father to lead them into this communion? Sergius' disciple and spiritual son St. Nikon of Radonezh then commissioned a young iconographer from a nearby monastery to paint an icon in honor of St. Sergius, to lift and touch the sorrow of the monks, to focus Sergius' spirit and teaching in a visible form. The young monk was Andrei Rublev and in response he created an image which has become the "icon of icons," the standard by which all subsequent women and men were to measure their work. The icon of the Holy Trinity, though ancient and worn by time, still radiates a unity, a gracefulness and seeming simplicity. The simplicity however is deceptive, because in 500 years no one has been able to successfully copy it. Based on the visit of the three angels to Abraham and Sarah in the book of Genesis Andrei Rublev places these three lovely angels, neither male nor female, around a small table with a chalice. Behind the Trinity is the dwelling of the elderly couple with a tiny oak tree. The composition is circular so the viewer keeps circling round and round the angels waiting to overhear their conversation. But the conversation is a silent one, like the steady beating of a heart. The angels heads are tipped toward one another in reverence, in deference, as if to say, "I bow, I bend, I surrender, I yield, I defer to you..." All three are lovingly conscious of the gifts and the essence of the other. It is a circle of love and a gentle model offered to any family or community.

No doubt the image of "La Sagrada Familia" (the Holy Family on the cover) was created with St. Andrei Rublev's vision in mind. I noticed when the image was completed that I'd unconsciously placed the little family not in a circle but in a heart. At the center of the heart is the Holy Child in quiet motion as the Mother of God lifts him towards St. Joseph. Before the events of last September 11th people always asked why Mary looks so sad in icons, as if she is heavy with some grief? No one asks now. Joseph in contrast joyfully reaches for the Child and smiles as the boy touches his open hands with the typical grasp of a baby. The growing boy and adult healer would shock and hurt both his parents and later his disciples with some harsh words about the demands of family, "Who is my family? Those who hear the word of God and keep it, these are my family." Many of the great spiritual guides, The Buddha, Francis of Assisi and recently Dorothy Day and the Buddhist woman hermit, Tenzin Palmo, would also tear away from family eventually to find and give birth to a whole new family of spiritual children.

In looking at the two images of union we realize our hearts are made for this and deep down we ache and long for home, center... family. Real life does not always give us the love and harmony of a painting. Instead as a people we are immersed in wars, death, separation, brutality, racial intolerance, and on a day to day existence we struggle with old wounds, petty jealousies and live in a little sea of isolation inside. These are the many ways in which the circle and the heart are torn apart. We can stay adrift on this lonely sea, or see the similar pain and struggle we all share. The word compassion means to "sufferwith." Out of the fog of separation we notice that everyone is suffering too and communion begins with that first glance of compassion. I believe we are being called today to wider sense of family than ever before. As a result of the ever present media, most of all television, we are brought into the broken and whole lives of families all over the world. It is now possible to see ourselves and our children daily in the faces of all nations. This is the beginning of the end of the myth that any group of people alone are God's only children. For the past twenty years in Medjugorje, Bosnia, the Mother of God has told a group of children that we are not Christians if we do not respect other peoples' religions. This "respect" is not so far away and abstract as it sounds. I think she's pointing to simple things like the way we speak, the ways we open up or close with just one look, and finally the peace that either withers or lives in our own hearts. Perhaps peace too is just another word, another movement, another description of the heart in love. If we listen to the word peace, like the music it is, then it begins its work inside of us. In the words of the gospel of Luke about the first Christmas night:

"Glory to God
in the highest heaven
and on earth
peace
among people of
good will...
As for Mary, s
he treasured all
these things
and pondered them
in her heart."
(Luke 2)





Originally Published in Christmas in Taos, 18th Anniversary Issue, Published by Romero/Taos Publishing Co., Page 8. Electronically reproduced with Permission of the Author.





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