Gilfedder Designs

Over the years I have been privileged to receive commissions to paint icons of saints for individuals, churches and religious communities. Each commission has been an opportunity to interpret the life and spirituality of a particular saint while remaining rooted in the Christian iconographic tradition. Together, they represent many years of commissioned work and my continuing exploration of sacred art. The following selection shows some of the commissioned icons I have painted over the years.     Saint Michael     Saint Raphael Saint Theresa of Avila Saint Veronica Saint Catherine of Siena Saint Bernadette Saint Camillus Saint Clare Saint Issac Blue Madonna Commissioning an Icon  If y...

How must Mary have felt when she encountered the Angel Gabriel and was asked to allow the Holy Spirit to overshadow her and thus conceive the Christ Child? Saint Augustine in his Sermons says about Mary: “When the angel had spoken, she, filled with faith and conceiving Christ first in her mind before she did so in her womb, replied: ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word’.” (Sermon 215) In another sermon on the Nativity, he makes the same contrast between Mary’s conceiving the Eternal Word in her mind through faith and conceiving him in her womb. It works better in Latin: Angelus nuntiat, Virgo audit, credit et concepit: Fides in mente, Christus in Ventre. (The Angel announces : the Virgin hears, believes and conceives: faith in her mind, Christ in her womb) Saint Augustine also makes the obvious link with us when he says: The mother carried him in her womb, but we do so in our heart – or mind, through faith, as she first did. Therefore ‘Blessed is she...