Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Book # 9: An Open Door: Entering the Sanctuary of Icons and Prayer

by Frederica Mathewes-Green

This is the third book I have read by Frederica, and I will say that I enjoyed the other two more. This one takes a beginners look at icons and their use in the Orthodox church. Frederica looks at the four most prominent on the iconstasis, and then travels around her church to explain eight more icons that are displayed there. It is a great introduction, and she has masterfully intermixed descriptions of the icons, explanations of their design, and hymns from the services. It was a great review for me, and it was a pleasant book to read. A favorite quote of mine from a story she tells is "A saint is somebody whom the light shines through." (page 81) Definitely something I would recommend to someone new to Orthodoxy and the use of icons in churches.

3 comments:

Stephanie said...

Hi, Kelly,

This is Stephanie... Nick & I know you from when we all used to attend St. Nicholas Church in McKees Rocks. What a small world! I found your blog through a link on Molly Sabourin's "Our Life in Pictures" blog. When I read your "about" section and saw Josh, Kelly & Madilyn named, I wondered if it was you. So, I looked through your blog and saw your picture and found out I'm right! Just wanted to say hi! I'd love to hear how you're doing... heard you moved... we're all a little closer now...

Stephanie

Kelly said...

What a small world! I've been wondering what happened to you, as we tried sending you a Christmas card, and it ended up coming back to us. Are you on facebook? I think I remember seeing you were a friend of Kristie's on there. I'll look you up and see. If I can't find you, then I'll pass on my email address, so we can catch up.

Stephanie said...

I just started the whole facebook thing and haven't done much with it... haven't figured it all out yet. but trying to work on it. we actually had a baby present for madilyn when she was born that we wanted to send. long story as to what happened to it (read: young child). we were in the midst of moving into our new house & preparing for our new baby & it all got lost in the shuffle (along with the Christmas cards we didn't get around to sending for the SECOND year in a row :-) i'll look forward to touching base with you... somehow :-) tell josh we said hi!