Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Holiness= being your integral self.

As I have been discerning I feel God has been trying to communicate to me that what He desires is for me to be true to who I am. Sounds simple enough, right? But in reality it has been quite a challenge...and He's still breaking me down and planting a desire within my heart to be possessed by Him entirely. Holiness will happen when I let my desire for intimacy with Christ trump my desire to be in control. Controlling and manipulating God doesn't work, so why try? But part of me is still stubbornly trying to control, part of me is holding back from surrendering entirely to Him. Part of me doesn't trust God, part of me doesn't trust that His will for my life will satisfy my desires. I pray that God will win me over more and more and reveal to me more deeply how He is worthy of trust, that He is after all "for" me.

Danielle Rose is beautiful. This song really communicates the wisdom she has aquired, surely through her own wrestling with God, that holiness- intimacy with God- is about being fully alive in your own skin.



Monday, August 8, 2011

Marians of the Immaculate on the MoEs





Follow this link to read an article about the Missionaries of the Eucharist posted on the website of the Marians of the Immaculate. The Marians of the Immaculate promote the Divine Mercy message and devotion. It was a highlight of our walk to visit them at the Divine Mercy shrine in Stockbridge, MA.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

2011 Walkers

Here's an introductory video of 6 of the 8 people I walked around New England this summer with sharing the beauty of the Faith.



Saturday, August 6, 2011

Seeking the Image of God in the Human Person

(Originally posted on the blog of the Missionaries of the Eucharist)

A special aspect of the time that I've spent with the Missionaries of the Eucharist is being able to share in the lives of many different people, even if only for a short time.  Here are some sketches from life of some of the people I have been able to spend time with.  Some of them are fellow missionaries, some of them friends of the missionaries- members of host families and others who have spent time with us.  I feel that a special privilege I have as an artist is that when I am able spend time with someone through drawing them, it is a unique opportunity to reflect on the dignity and beauty of the human person and seek to perceive the image of God in people.

Blessed John Paul II's Theology of the Body has really had an impact on me as an artist.  Pope John Paul II really emphasizes in his teaching that the person, made in the image of God, is revealed through the body and therefore the human body communicates into the visible world the mystery of God more powerfully than anything else in the created order.  In his General Audience of February 20th he stated that:

The body, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden since time immemorial in God, and thus be a sign of it.

 Along these lines, in his Letter to Artists Pope John Paul II writes that "Art must make perceptible, and as far as possible attractive, the world of the spirit, of the invisible, of God."

For this reason I feel it my responsibility and privilege as an artist to go deeper into the mystery of the human person, whose spiritual mystery is expressed visibly through the body.  For going deeper into the subject of the mystery of the human person one reflects on the mystery of God.

-Shana