An Elliptical Glory: MOTHER HEN - -Daily Images of God Lent 2022 Day 12 March 13

Sunday, March 13, 2022

MOTHER HEN - -Daily Images of God Lent 2022 Day 12 March 13

Daily Images of God--Lent 2022

Day 12

March 13

Mother Hen

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, … how many times I intended to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you refused! (Luke 14:31-32, the Ashland Bible) (from today's Gospel)

Mosaic on the altar at Dominus Flevit (‘the Lord wept’) Church on the Mount of Olives across the Kidron Valley just east of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. (image h/t Fr. Robert Clay Calhoun; and Deacon Meredith Pech)

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This web log is intended to share homilies, some liturgical materials I have prepared or adapted (prayers, litanies, etc.), and occasional journal entries.

"Elliptical" can mean "fragmentary, with words missing," or "in the shape of a flattened circle." While "glory" refers to the brilliance surrounding the Deity, it can also refer to the grace that reflects such radiance in life. In Christian iconography, a "glory" is the whole body halo around the Christ or the Blessed Virgin in paintings and statuary.

According to Kepler’s First Law of Planetary Motion, an object in orbit follows an ellipse, with the center of mass as one of the foci. The ellipse was called “imperfect” by theologians who originally objected to its use by Kepler to refine Copernicus’ heliocentric model of the solar system, as opposed to the “perfect” circles of Aristotelian geocentric cosmology. "Elliptical" can thus also imply the 'imperfect' path between two centers, or falling toward the true center, but moving forward fast enough to avoid collision, but slowly enough to prevent escape.