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Icons by Br. Robert Lentz, ofm.
Influenced by his Russian Orthodox background and a period of study with a master iconographer, Lentz's unique style blends classical Eastern iconography with contemporary elements and "witnesses."
Dimensions: 6" x 4.5". Each icon notecard comes with an outer envelope for mailing.
Navaho Madonna
This icon celebrates the beauty of Navaho culture, and it's closeness to the Christian Gospel. Beauty (hozho) is the highest Navaho ideal. Most Navahos are artists of some sort, and their spirituality is woven around beauty. Beauty includes harmony, goodness, well-being, and order. Sickness and other ills come when humans do not live in a beautiful manner. The Navaho phrase at the bottom of the icon is repeated four times at the end of their religious ceremonies: "Beauty has been re-established."
This is also the message of Christ's incarnation. Mary here wears her traditional Byzantine colors, but she is a Navaho woman, Jesus is strapped to a cradleboard and he is laughing for his first time - a special moment in every Navaho's life. His parents will now give a feast so that he will not be stingy as he grows up. The inscription by Mary's head is church Slavonic for "Mother of God." The inscription above the cradle board is "Jesus Christ," and the letters in Christ's halo mean "I am who am," the name God told Moses in the Old Testament. Around the bottom and sides of the icon is one of the Holy People of the Navaho religion - a Rainbow Yei - who always surrounds religious sandpaintings.
© Robert Lentz, 1988.
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