The Seasons Sacred
Pentecost and Ordinary Time
Red is the color assigned to Pentecost. It represents the tongues of fire that came to rest on the heads of the disciples Jesus left in charge of His message. Red signifies the Holy Spirit, “the fire of Life impassioned,” as Bach wrote in his “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”
The blues and greens of the Spirit have been moving through this piece since Advent. Now as the Breath, as the sound of a mighty wind or the roaring waters baptizing the disciples in the Spirit, they weave in and out of the flames. This was the riskiest part of the entire composition. The paint worked with me and showed me what it could do.
The Ordinary Time that follows turns to the Sea of Galilee where the disciples experienced God breaking through and transforming a situation. In this section of the composition, I also scattered seed and added wheat to suggest another theme dear to me: seedtime and harvest. Here the seeds yield an eternal harvest of gold and white in the final celebration of the liturgical year, Christ the King Sunday.