The Glenstal Book of Icons: Praying with the Glenstal Icons

by Gregory Collins and Gregory Collins OSB

Book Overview

From the same Irish monastery that gave us the best-selling "The Glenstal Book of Prayer," with over 150, -000 copies sold worldwide "The Glenstal Book of Icons" presents meditations and prayers on a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814629350
• ISBN13: 9780814629352
• Release Date: November 2002
• Publisher: Liturgical Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 4.7" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

Lovely book of reflections

A Roman Catholic Benedictine, Gregory Collins does a nice job of linking East and West and this lovely book of reflections. While not all of the icons depicted are in the best of condition, Collins lovingly explains each icon in terms of its visual symbolism, traditional background, and style, opening up the story of each saint depicted. I enjoyed his use of prayers from across Roman and Byzantine Catholic liturgy, as well as those of Eastern Orthodoxy.

Prayers made manifest

The Glenstal Abbey in County Limerick, Ireland, is a wonderful place to behold. They are a Benedictine monastery, operating a school, a ministry of hospitality, and providing an expression of Benedictine spirituality in the modern world. The pattern of their liturgical and prayer life is a modified form of the ancient Benedictine structure; this book takes a particular aspect of this - praying with the icons that are in the Abbey's Byzantine Chapel. Protestants particularly have lost the tradition of the use of art work as representative objects for worship. However, the debate over the appropriateness of icons and other imagery is almost as old as Christianity itself. There was a time when icons of Christ were banned because Jesus, being of divine nature, wasn't suitable for depiction. That Jesus could be depicted without violation of the 'no graven images' commandment took a long time to be decided, and finally was deemed permissible because of Jesus' human nature. Rare the depiction of God or God the Father as anything more than a cloud, a hand, or some other vague symbol meant to characterise, more than anything else, the mystery involved rather than an actual physical likeness. Michaelangelo's depictions on the Sistine Chapel ceiling are remarkable not simply from their aesthetic quality, but also in that the image of God is very direct and distinctly human in form. Williams devotes many pages of the introduction to looking at precisely the issue of the theology behind the depiction of Jesus. However, icons are a special form of art. They are not simple paintings, however elegant, but take the form, from their origination to their veneration, as a form of prayer in and of themselves in very real ways. Christian art was a long time in developing (indeed, the earliest Christians were sometimes thought to be atheists since they had no visible evidence of gods around). This book gives a brief introduction to the role of icons in liturgy and theology, relating it to both ancient and postmodern ideas. Prayer need not be elaborate or done with exacting precision, despite the appearance of many kinds of liturgies to the contrary. 'The work of prayer is very simple,' the text tells us, in making us mindful of the presence of God. The icons help remind the pray-er of this presence; while some prayers are often said with the eyes closed, it can also help for the mind to meditate upon the images as the prayers are said, aloud or internally as silent prayers. Icons presented here include images of Christ in various times (baptism, crucifixion, ascension, etc.), the Mother of God, various saints (Basil, Nicholas, Athanasius, etc.), and the Trinity - unusual in a way, as both the Eastern and Western Trinity representations do not show the actual person of the Trinity, as iconography (particularly Eastern iconography) doesn't generally permit depiction of Father or the Holy Spirit in a 'personal' form. Each of the icons is presented with descri

Presents diverse prayers and meditations on various icons

The Glenstal Book of Icons: Praying With The Glenstal Icons by Gregory Collins OSB (Lecturer in Orthodox Theology, Benedictine University of Sant' Anselmo, Rome), presents diverse prayers and meditations on various icons from St John's Abbey's Byzantine chapel. Full-color photographs of the icons themselves (which in the monastic practice of lectio divina are seen as "texts" prompting meditation on Christian mysteries), as well as an extensive and erudite commentary on the practice of praying with these classic works of art and faith, make The Glenstal Book of Icons the next best thing to personally visiting the abbey to view these venerated icons on location.