Book Launch | 'I saw him and I sought him' | 18th August |
‘I saw him and I sought him’- Julian of Norwich & The Holy Icons
by John-Michael Mountney with an Afterword by Sheila Upjohn.
Drinks Reception and Book Launch on Friday 18th August at 5.30pm
The Julian Centre, Norwich NR1 1QT, following 5pm Low Mass at St Julian’s Church.
If you wish to attend please email Fr Richard Stanton on richard_stanton@btinternet.com
All are welcome at this gathering to celebrate a new publication bringing together the use of icons with Julian’s writing.
'Today the word icon means a computer symbol, an entry point to hidden information. A holy icon has a similar purpose; it is an entry point to hidden mysteries. Icons enable us to use our gift of sight to strengthen our relationship with God and the saints, and to bring us closer to them. For an image can in a mysterious way make present the person shown. Totalitarian regimes which are quick to destroy religious images, are just as quick to replace them with giant posters of their own leaders. An icon is not a life-like portrait, but an expression of the subject’s holiness; their ‘inner light’; their direct and living link to God. Gazing on an icon can open the heart to God.
The practice of ‘holy gazing’ has been forgotten in the west but has continued in Orthodoxy. ‘I saw Him and I sought Him’ has passages from Julian and from liturgies of both Western and Orthodox traditions opposite full page colour icons.
There are directions on how to pray with icons and the book can be propped open so the icons can be used for contemplation.
The Afterword gives an outline of the thousand-year history of the Universal Church before the disastrous separation between the Christians of the East and the West in the 11th century; the Soviet Union’s determined campaign to destroy Orthodoxy; and the attempt by the present regime to subvert it'.
‘I Saw Him and I Sought Him’ is available to buy online here and also from the Julian Centre. Introductory offer £16.99, the usual price is £25.