Abide 2024 artwork

Following a silent retreat in the spirit of the Discalced Carmelites

Last week, I posted about a silent retreat that I had attended, and about the clarity it brought to my life.

After it, I really wanted to draw something that would convey the most important aspects of the retreat. And as promised in my last post, here it is!

‘Abide’ Silent Retreat © JessMcK 2024

A bit of background

During the first day of the retreat, as I was assailed by a host of turbulent inner thoughts — struggling with the challenge to confront myself, struggling to come to terms with the reality of God’s infinite love — I thought of Saint Paul:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

– 1 Corinthians 13:12

In my journal, I quickly sketched a clouded mirror, and inside it the blurred, grey figure of a person reaching blindly through the fog.

The idea kept recurring in the evening, but I was too exhausted from working through my inner turmoil to put pen to paper.

Then, on the second day, Father Joy gave a very moving talk on the Eucharist and the Blessed Presence.

During his talk, my understanding shifted — I realised that though we walk in the fog, Christ is with us always, protecting us. Strangely, my mind went to a chapter in The Horse and His Boy, by C.S. Lewis, where Shasta is wandering helplessly through the foggy mountain ranges of Archenland. He thinks he is lost and alone, but then becomes aware of a terrifying, reassuring presence at his side — Aslan walks with Shasta on the mountains, protecting him from the ravine so that Shasta will not fall and die.

In much the same way, the Eucharist is His presence here, hidden and humble, yet brilliant and visible. We have a Light in the fog.

I knew, then, that the Eucharist had to become the centerpiece of the artwork that was slowly burgeoning in my mind.

As I mused on the retreat afterwards, I thought about drawing an old-fashioned ornate cross, with the Eucharist at the center and an image on each side, top, and bottom.

The cross idea was ultimately scrapped as I didn’t think I could pull it off to my satisfaction. I decided on a design with the Eucharist at the center, large and simple and wonderful, and four accompanying images on each side that represented an aspect of the retreat.

At the bottom, I wanted to put the “seeing through a glass, darkly” idea (I couldn’t get the ‘fog’ to look as I wanted, so the bottom picture became more of a representation for the struggles that beset us daily, and then the middle figure raising their heart to God for help.)

On either side, I placed two more important facets of the retreat: the two Carmelite Saints whose writings we had been delving so deeply into, under the guidance of the Carmelite religious at the retreat. These were Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila, absolute giants in the spiritual life, compatriots in the reform of the Discalced Carmelite order.

The Paschal Lamb was the last element to be added; the idea came to me as I was inking the other features. It is still Eastertide, and part of Father Joy’s talk went into a discussion of Christ fulfilling the Passover by instituting the Eucharist at the Last Supper and then by dying for us. And Pax — Latin for ‘Peace’ — was appropriate for many reasons, not least of all because it expressed what I think all of us are searching for, and part of what I found spiritually by the end of the retreat: Peace.

So, Pax Christi, my friends: may the Peace of Christ be with you!