Renouncing Iconoclasm

Yesterday on my favorite blog, Fr. Stephen shared with his readers some thoughts about icons and human nature inspired by the Sunday of Orthodoxy. My friends will recognize these both as recurring subjects in my own thinking, reflected most clearly, perhaps, in my occasional lectures on Marian devotion, icons, and (what else?) Marian icons. I commend the whole post for your consideration, but especially these concluding paragraphs:

Thus when we celebrate the return of icons to the Churches, we also have to look at ourselves. The icon, the image of God, must be restored to the Temple of our self. We must renounce false images and embrace what God has revealed of Himself. The Holy Icons of Christ are precisely part of that revelation. We honor Him in His icon lest we fail to honor Him in the Truth.

At the same time we have to renounce iconoclasm. In so doing, we inherently set ourselves against certain forces within modernity. The truth is indeed eschatological, that is, it lies in the future, but we also believe that this eschatological reality was incarnate in Christ, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega. We do not oppose the future in embracing the Tradition we have received. We embrace the future that is coming in Truth, rather than the false utopias of modern man’s imagination.

May the Holy Icons truly be honored and may we all be restored to the image in which we were created. Thy Kingdom Come, O Lord!