A Gift from a Carmelite Monk

The best gift I have ever received was from a Carmelite monk in California. My wife and I were traveling beside the Pacific Ocean on highway 1 in California with some friends when we decided to stop at a Carmelite monastery. Our main reason for stopping at the monastery was to see what books they had in their bookstore. It was at this bookstore that I bought a copy of The Country Parson by George Herbert which is one of my favorite books in the Anglican tradition. I thought I was taking away the best thing in the bookstore but I was wrong. As we were leaving the bookstore a Carmelite monk stopped us and said that he wanted to give us a gift. He gave us a small icon of Rublev's Hospitality of Abraham which is an icon of the Holy Trinity which you see posted here. I had no idea what an icon was but I knew it was beautiful. Little did I know that it would be used in the future by God to change my life. I kept the icon in my desk drawer for ten years before I started wondering about it. I discovered that icons are a very important part of Orthodox spirituality because they affirm the fact of history that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us". Icons are also a way that those who could not read Holy Scripture could learn and remember the Orthodox Faith. Icons are simply Holy Scripture made visible just as the Word, Jesus Christ, is made visible through the incarnation. I later discovered that the icon of the Holy Trinity summarizes the Christian Faith better than any sermon could because in one picture the meaning of existence is expressed. The meaning of existence is communion with God in and through matter which is seen by what is in the middle of the three persons of the one God. The chalice in the middle of the Holy Trinity teaches us that life is sacramental and the sacrament of Holy Communion is central to our communion with God. If you want to know the meaning of life, then study this icon of the Holy Trinity. When I realized what this icon was expressing, I started to get a thirst for Orthodox Christianity because a sacramental view of reality is at the very heart of Orthodoxy. Ironically a Roman Catholic monk's gift began to stir in me a longing for things Orthodox.