In my last year of Seminary, I was short
units in Theology, so Fr. Larry Terrien offered me an independent study of
Theology and Art. One of the projects
was to depict the Trinity. I tried a
number of mediums including three overlapping painted panels, but finally
realized that a stained-glass rose window would be most fitting. It went through a number of variations but I
found this one spoke best to Fr. Terrien’s prompt.
Perichoresis is a Greek term which dates back to Maximus
the Confessor in the 7th century referencing the Trinity as being perpetually in
a ring dance, giving place to each other out of love. Two spinning circles, containing three and
six swirls (the yin and the yang, with an extra swirl and then doubled*), one
inside the other, represent a dynamic.
The Trinity is in the center of the window, while the outer ring expresses
our experience of them in our lives, through covenant and sacrament (clockwise
from the top: Pentecost, Covenant, Triumph of the Cross, Eucharist, Creation,
Healing). The use of the color wheel,
which begins with the three primary colors (yellow, blue, red) and expands into
the secondary colors made from combining them (green, purple, orange) serves to
connect the swirls, giving a unity to the dynamic. The quality of a stained-glass window that
most attracted me was that the experience of the work would change as the sun
moved, so that it was another level of dynamic.
The idea that we would experience God in a constantly changing world,
not as contrary to it but as a part of it, the source of its dynamic, was very
attractive to me as my sense of God as a static reality was changing.
--Fr. Patrick Michaels
*Note: The yin
and the yang capture a concept of dualism in ancient Chinese philosophy, describing
how seemingly opposing or contrary forces (like male and female) may actually
be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and
how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.
Images courtesy of
the artist, Fr. Patrick Michaels.
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