Last year, I enrolled in an intensive icon-writing course. Along with another Jesuit and about 25 retired church ladies, I spent a week at an Episcopal church in Princeton, New Jersey, learning how to write/paint/inscribe an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Russian Orthodox style. Each morning, our instructor would light a candle and burn incense, and together we would pray the Iconographer’s Prayer, based on Eastern Orthodox morning prayer. We became like a semi-monastic community, beginning the day with prayer, setting about our work in relative silence, breaking for meals, then repeating the process the following day. I enjoyed that week, but kept thinking about Jerónimo Nadal’s summary of Jesuit life: “We are not monks. The world is our cloister! The world is our house!”
My Benedictine friends will be quick to remind me that there’s nothing wrong with being a monk. Yet, Nadal’s sentiment still stands. I wanted to keep the spirit of the Iconographer’s Prayer, while recognizing that the Ignatian tradition already has a rich tradition of marrying creativity and spirituality. I thought of course of the Spiritual Exercises, but also the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Walter Burghardt’s description of contemplation as a “long, loving look at the real.” As I recently painted paintings for Pope Leo XIV and Jesuit superior general, Fr. Arturo Sosa, I developed this set of prayers.
Before the Work
Glory to you, O God.
Glory to you.
[Here it would be beneficial to pause briefly to compose the scene, person or idea that I hope to express or depict today.]
I ask you, O Beautiful One, for the grace of vision clear-seen, to sense with your senses, wide-hearted and undimmed, forsaking blame and barbed word, preferring instead eye-tender mercy and soul-soft affection.
O Holy Spirit, swift Source of all creativity, and grant-giver of all we have: Good.
Bright-winged Love, who over this bent world broods, tether your tent deep in my heart today.
Sweep away the soot, scour the smudge of sin, clean out what clings or clouds, and flare me, Favoring-Fire, into freedom.
Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us. 3x.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
All-Holy Trinity, thrice-bright Beauty, I beseech you: stoop low, bend, and bless.
Deep-Dark Fulness of my every desire, carve out my anxious ache for perfection. And in that hollow, leave mind, heart, and hands that wholly, only, and boldly quicken to the service, reverence, and praise of your Divine Majesty.
Lord have mercy. 3x.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
O Divine Lord of all that itself speaks and spells, in every age, you have raised up servants, who, with the Sweet Spirit’s freely-given graces in limbs and eyes not his—yet still—revealed Christ playing in ten thousand places.
Enlighten, enliven, and energize me by that same Spirit.
Purify my intention, steady my hands, and let the work I dare to begin today reflect Your radiant goodness and awaken wonder, compassion, and reverence in all who chance upon it.
Call, love, and forgive me, your sinful servant, and bless all who may stand before this work.
Meet them with Your long-loving gaze, and grant them whatever they need.
With the intercession of The Blessed Virgin Mary who bears God, Veronica who carries the Holy Face, Luke who paints the First Icon, Holy Father Ignatius who teaches us to contemplate, all the angels and saints, I make this humble petition in the Most Holy Name of Jesus, the Invisible made Visible, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit now and for ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
Our Father.
After the Work
O Good Jesus, both craftsman and Lord, I lay down my hands, my heart, my mind, all that I have made and unmade in this hour of creation.
I thank you for the gift of gazing, touching, expressing, and most of all for clarity and perspective.
Free me, O Tender One,
From the desire of being esteemed, deliver me.
From the desire of being extolled, deliver me.
From the desire for riches, honor, and pride, deliver me.
From the desire of being preferred, deliver me.
From the fear of imperfection, deliver me.
From the fear of being misunderstood, deliver me.
From the fear of being ridiculed, deliver me.
From the fear of being forgotten, deliver me.
From the accusing voice of the enemy, deliver me.
Grant, O Lord, that whatever has passed from my hands to this canvas, may speak only of your beauty.
May this work please you, O Light and Life, and hold me, untroubled, in your loving embrace. You have given me all I have. I return it all to you. Dispose of it wholly according to your will. Give me only the grace of loving you, so that tomorrow I may wake and labor with you joyfully for the good of souls.
In the name of Jesus Christ, the Lord.
Amen.
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In addition to Ignatius, Hopkins and Burghardt, I also borrowed from Fr. Greg Boyle, SJ’s insights about extravagant tenderness, and Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val’s Litany of Humility. I offer these prayers to this community of creatives in the Ignatian spirit of “tantum quantum.” Please use, adapt, ignore or change it insofar as it is useful for your own practice.