November Retreat - Wreaths and Icons

For our November Retreats, Margaret and I switched age groups. Margaret took the middle age group children on a nature walk through her back woods. There they discussed God's creation and his ability to make good out of bad by showing some pine cones which only release their seeds if exposed to high heat from things such as a fire. The children then took their knowledge of God and Nature and applied it to making advent wreaths. Yes, it seems a little early for advent wreaths, but it worked for the theme of nature and faith.

Isabella working on her wreath.

Anton making his with David holding the hot glue gun.

I took the older students and continued with Margaret's previous month's topic of prayer. I chose to introduce icon art to the children. We discussed how they were considered bad for a time when people thought others were worshiping them instead of using the activity as a method of prayer. In order to keep people from thinking of the icons as idols, artists (monks in the olden days) would not make exact images of the person but used colors and symbols to identify the subject. For example, if you were making an icon of a martyr you would use a red background color to show passion and blood shed for faith before applying a gold layer to symbolize light and closeness to God. This closeness is in reference to following God not equal to God (just in case anyone was misinterpreting my wording). Other symbols would be painted around the subject like writing materials for a gospel writer, a clover for St. Patrick, flowers for St. Therese, etc.

The icon painting is related to prayer in the method and meditation involved with producing the art. It is not really about the end product but about the journey. While painting the piece, one must meditate on this person's life, how they reacted to God's message and how their life can be an example for our own journey towards God or answering his call for us. Everyone got something different from the exercise. Many mothers asked if I could repeat the demo for just the mothers one evening as a way to refocus ourselves to our vocation in life amid the craziness of the rest of the world. I think we all need to take a moment every now and then "to re-connect" to what is the most important things in our lives less we loose focus by the world's distractions.