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Sunday, May 31, 2009

While Dove Cote of Our Lady gathers example of images in which the Mother of God is shown guiding the soul to Christ, in this section I will be gathering examples of images in which the dove is a symbol for the soul's personal and intimate relationship with Christ himself. Contemplation, adoration, prayer, appreciation for the Eucharist, and above all friendship with the Savior deepen was we see His love depicted through the metaphor of the dove.
The artists were true to Scripture, making use of ways Our Lord revealed himself by word and example, but you have to allow for the freshness of metaphor. The Good Shepherd, for example, was reinterpreted as the Divine Bird Keeper. This image, entitled Le Divin Abri, can be translated as The Divine Shelter, and it can also literally be translated as The Divine Nest. By inference the Church of Christ is described metaphorically as the Divine Bird Sanctuary, the place where the soul is safe. It is showing us a state of being; it is describing the sanctuary or the safety that is assured by a life lived in relationship to Christ, and at the same time it is showing us Jesus, the Lord of Life, eternally at work: "I will be with you always" we seem to hear again as we see Him hovering, like a bird with young in the nest, nurturing the soul and preparing it for the strength and lightness it will need to reach its ultimate freedom: the state of Divine Union.

The relationship of the soul to the Savior was explored in a variety of ways, and the collections I am building will be linked on the left of this page. Some of the images may appear in more than one collection.

I invite you to listen to music from the Mass of the Angels as you scroll through images of the Savior and the nest.