By Fr. Peter Fennessy, SJ
Ivan Milev, Prayer (1925), Iskra Historical Museum, Kazanlak, Bulgaria.
Ivan Milev was said to be the first and only artist to paint Bulgarian rural Christians where we can see their souls, customs and hopes. His attention to the poor villagers led him to appreciate their spirituality and prayer.
In his “Evening Prayer in the Field” (1925) two peasants pause, sickles still in their hands, to bow, bless themselves and pray in the midst of their work. In “Prayer” (also 1925) a peasant woman prays before her home icons. Her pious features are also iconic—geometric, abstract, intimating her unearthly, eternal and spiritual dimension. She has turned away from her daily labors and also from us to be absorbed in her prayer and intent only on the Lord.
She symbolizes and models for us why Manresa Jesuit Retreat House was founded. It is a holy place to which we withdraw from our usual lives. We enter into its silence and the silence of our hearts, the better to hear God’s words and receive God’s graces. It is holy ground where we refresh ourselves, our spiritual energies and our relationship with the Lord, and from which we return again to our usual lives strengthened in the Spirit and more fully ourselves.
