Many thanks to Association member Clare McReynolds for sharing her beautiful icon of the Hospitality of Abraham and Sarah.
The icon was blessed last year by Fr Seamus O Connell (RIP) on Trinity Sunday and he gave it to St Patrick’s Glen Church, Maghera, Co Derry.
The inscription on the icon reads ‘The Manifestation of the Life Giving Trinity in Abraham’s Tent’.
In the Byzantine icon tradition God the Father should not be represented in human form as He never took on human form. In this icon the Trinity are represented as the three angels who visited Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 18: 1 – 15). Abraham addresses them as “My Lord” in verse 3. In prophesying the birth of their child, verse 10 tells us:
“The LORD said, I will surely return to you in the Spring, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.”
In a sense, the passage from Genesis and the icon present us with a foreshadowing of the Trinity. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews seems to refer back to this incident when he writes:
“Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” (Hebrews 13: 1 – 2).
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