A New Icon for Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery

It started with an informal conversation a year ago. Br. Timothy was at Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, New York, where he happened to meet a man named Zachary Roesemann, an Associate of the Order of the Holy Cross and an iconographer. Br. Timothy expressed the wish that our community has had for a long time for a new icon of St. Benedict in our church. Zachary wasted no time and began asking for measurements and viewing pictures from our website for ideas. Then, already in January of this year, we received a phone call from Zachary that the icon was almost finished.

And, before we knew it, the icon was blessed by Zachary's home church, St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Brattleboro, VT, was visible during a Vespers service at the Order's Chapter at West Park in June, and then brought back by Bros. Timothy and Daniel from Chapter to be unveiled and placed in its final home in our monastery church. It now stands rather grandly in the corner of the monastery church, diagonally across from the wooden statue of Mary. We had a blessing ceremony of the icon in its place during our Sunday worship service on the 26th of June, 2011.

Zachary describes the icon as showing "Benedict dressed in the original white robe worn by his monks. He holds his Rule open to one of its most famous passages. At his feet is an image of the crow that Benedict used to feed, and that helped save him once from being poisoned by a jealous priest. At the request of the commissioning monastery, the crow and the landscape around Benedict are meant to suggest South Africa (the crow is shown as an African Pied Crow). Behind Benedict glows the uncreated light of Heaven."

We feel so blessed to have this luminous Benedict watching over us as we pray in our church. We thank Zachary for this very precious gift to us and to all who come to worship with us.

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