Photo from the Convent at Le Bec taken by the Sisters.
At the Weekend, I posted a blog item about Sister Irène-Marie, a beautiful nun and iconographer. She was a member of the community at the Monastère Sainte Françoise Romaine, Le Bec Hellouine, Normandy. You can read more about her if you scroll back two blog entries.
Her funeral is today, Thursday 9th, at the Convent and I just wanted to mark the entry into heaven of a dear friend. So I have written the following poem.
Dear Sister Irène-Marie, bearer of Peace, held in the love of Mary, you brought a singular joy into our lives. We met you and sensed your nearness to God. We were enraptured by your sacramental eyes which mirrored the Divine.
Extending monastic hospitium , you encircled us with welcome, embracing our need with thoughtfulness and gentle love, which was kept warm within the folds of your habit.
Your listening expressed concern for a broken world from which you could draw a reservoir of experience. No hidden cell housed you. The lives of others glazed your windows and held open the door from which rays of love shone.
Most of all, you ‘wrote’ visible signs of God’s Presence in Jesus and the Saints. You dipped your brush and pen in the palette and inkwell of God. From the depth of your prayerful iconography you led us into the heart of faith which has led you now into the bosom of your Saviour, for as you said, that is what you, (and we,) “are here for.”
Thank you for opening and sharing the images of your faith with us. By you we have been truly blessed.
Icon of the Transfiguration. written by Sr. Irene of Le-Bec, in the Chapel of the Transfiguration, Parish Church of St John the Baptist, Epping, Essex.
Sr Irène
‘Pray to your Father who is in secret’. Matthew 6:6
A number of years ago I was searching for an iconographer to write an icon of St. John the Baptist for a church dedicated to him in Epping, Essex.
On a visit to Bec-Hellouin in Normandy I arrived at a Convent which sold what appeared to be original icons. When I enquired about them, I was immediately introduced to Sr. Irène. By the end of our visit she was commissioned to write the icon for us. Not, however, without a small consultation! In the original icon, the figure of John was part of a triptych with our Lord and the Blessed Virgin Mary. He occupied the right hand panel. Because of where he would be positioned, with his hands facing the Blessed Sacrament, I needed him on the left! Sister Irène had to consult in prayer with St Tikhon, the original writer before it was agreed! She was to write three other icons for me. Two are of the Transfiguration and one of St. John.
Tonight we have just heard that Sister Irène died at Candlemass. I was so glad that I had been able to see her again last August.
These notes are from Sr Marie-Patrick of the Community at Bec.
Of Burgundian origin, and an elder sister to three boys, Chantal Boillot – Sister Irène Marie – entered the monastery at the age of 38, after caring for her elderly parents. She joined a novitiate which was then numerous (9!) and which shook her up a bit… She made profession as an Oblate nun on the feast of St. Benedict, July 11, 1979, and was soon sent to our little foundation at Mesnil saint Loup, near Troyes. As life in Troyes proved difficult, she was transferred to our other foundation in Abu Gosh in the Holy Land, on 1 February 1984. She stayed there for a good eight years but was called back to Le Bec at the end of 1992, a decision that was painful for her and that she never explained.
Back at Le Bec, she was able to deploy her talents as an iconographer, and even organised a few training sessions in this art. Very cultured and quite original, her interventions were sometimes unexpected, always enriching, but you didn’t want to be in a hurry!
In recent years, she bravely faced serious health difficulties, with cancer spreading despite numerous operations. Heavy treatment – which exhausted her – proved necessary. Recently, the nurse who came early to take a blood test found her struggling for breath and called the paramedics. Taken to Evreux, to the department that was treating her for her cancer, she was quickly transferred to cardiology: her heart problem – which had remained in the background until then – had worsened! Under oxygen and perfusion, she did not know when she would have a heart operation; and on her last visit, Mother Prioress admired her confident state of peaceful abandonment: “That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it? Sister Irene said to her with simplicity, leaving us with an exemplary testimony of a profound life of faith of which she spoke little. Her condition deteriorated rapidly despite the care of the clinic staff – whom we thank warmly – and she passed away at the age of the prophetess Anna, at the end of the first Vespers of February 2, (Candlemass), entering into that eternal Light to which she aspired with all her being.
If I were to try and sum her up, I would say that she was a person of deep holiness with a careful eye on the world. A writer of Icons which she infused with prayer and which she treated with utmost reverence. A woman of determination who served her Lord with dogged determination, not least through her long illness and sometimes in times of spiritual trial. All this and more framed in a gentle face with twinkly eyes and a genuine smile. We have a new and caring friend in heaven.
This photo of Tarn Hows on a misty morning, was taken by my friend, Gill Henwood. She gave it the title ‘Through a glass darkly,’ which is a quotation from verse 12 of what is probably St. Paul’s most well known writing – 1 Corinthians Chapter 13.
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face. (that is the King James Version. The more recent NRSV has, see in a mirror, dimly, which, to my mind is poetically is weaker.)
As I contemplated the feast day of the ‘Conversion of St. Paul,’ I found the title Gill chose, and the fascinating and rather evocative scene, kept coming back to me. I wrote this poem and tried the let the photo speak to the event I am trying to address.
It is a very amazing photo and it deserves to highlight a very amazing event.
The Conversion of Saint Paul
Brooding mist blurs edges of perception. Colours muted. A whisper of wind kisses the water, rippling on the shore of the soul. Visibility impaired, a cloak of quietness drawn across the mind. Stilling all movement. Intentions passionately held, melt into deep darkness. Yet this is not the cause of fearfulness nor of despair. Out of the shadows, of seeing “through a glass darkly” there is a pinprick of growing light which slowly, perceptively, burns away the haze as new vision takes shape.
A Voice, crisp, gently directive, unfettered by illusion, beckons, touching eyes to see a wonder, “face to face.” The waypath is irrevocably changed.
One of the joys of having friends in the Lake District is that I am sent wonderful, scenic photographs from time to time.
Over many years I have visited, camped, trecked over hills and down a few ‘mountains, visited bookshops in Ambleside and Grasmere, where I have also partaken of the famous and delicious ginger bread. I could go on and on. More recently I have come to know something of Josephina de Vasconcellos, an amazing sculptor and her husband, the watercolourist Delmar Banner. They lived near Hill Top. Through them I have found a connection with Beatrix Potter.
But my ‘living’ connection is with my friend, Gill and Stephen and, further North, Lesley and John, and in Carlisle, my friend Michael who ministers at the Cathedral. It is through Gill’s camera eye that I am able to share the photos with you. The recent mixture of wild, snowy, frost dressed weather has provided contrasts. We are now in the thick of winter and just over halfway through January. Yet there are signs leading to expectation of new growth and new life.
Gill supplies me with reflections, notes and thoughts.
The photo above looks towards Fairfield Horseshoe on the Helvellyn range, over mist rising from Windermere and the River Rothay. In the foreground, the frosted roof of the sheep shed shelters 250 expectant ewes. Another 95 are due to join them as they prepare for lambing from 12th March. The local fell breed ewes beloved of Beatrix Potter, Herdwicks, are up on the thin grazing sheltering at night by dry stone walls, foraging in the sunlit uplands by day. Here she suggests, sheep may safely graze, the ‘Herdies’ are sheltering and nibbling their way down the slope.
There has been a recent storm. So much of nature around Tarn Hows has been battered but there is also resilience. We dare to be confident whilst woefully aware that the real damage to Nature is being done by human beings. Up in the Lakeland Hills it is easier, perhaps, to see that beauty and sustainability come at a cost, not so much to us but the struggling animal kingdom. I often hear it referred to as the ‘natural world’ (of Nature), which ironically suggests that we are the ‘unnatural’ world. I think that the way our humanity is behaving right now, that could be very true!
Storms in Nature are often followed by silence; a time of re-collection and respite. Gill talks of a ‘still small voice’, as that which surrounded Elijah on the mountain. (1 Kings 11;9-13) She calls it The Shekinah – the Glory – of the Lord – as cloud over Hellvellyn ridge.
Frost and snow, wind and cloud, rain and sunshine, air and life. New growth bringing new hope. Gratitude, Thankfulness . Dependence on God. Love assured. Kindness lived out in hearts warmed by grace.
Mr G's Ponderings 