Art, Poverty & Prayers that change the worldAndy Freeman - 10 Mar 2016

This week's throwback blog is from 2014, and is a great challenge for our identity and prayer life... 

"These are the lives God cherishes and upholds: The needy and broken are our heroes and heroines"

Just on the edge of Trafalgar Square in London is a wonderful art gallery: if you’ve ever visited the area you’ll have noticed the large and imposing National Gallery which houses some of the greatest art treasures from around the world. But take a walk to the right of the square and you find the smaller, slightly hidden National Portrait Gallery.

It's set over a few floors, looks and feels contemporary, and is filled with faces.

Each year the Portrait Gallery hosts the BP National Portrait Awards and one of this year's winners is a special painting; 'Man in a Plaid Blanket' by Thomas Ganter depicts a homeless man, sitting on a bench, covered in a tartan blanket.  He could be sitting on any street anywhere.  

He has a cup of tea to one side of him, a scruffy beard and he looks like he’s lived a tough life.  

But what makes this picture amazing is its background.  This homeless man is set against a gold background you’d normally see in a Religious Icon.  This sort of decorated design might accompany St. Gregory or St. Francis.

Instead, here is a man who sleeps on the street painted as a saint. It’s beautiful. Ganter has painted the most accurate of Icons.  His portrait says that the ordinary and most unlikely people are who make saints.

These are the lives God cherishes and upholds: the needy and broken are our heroes and heroines.

Over the past few weeks I’ve taken to praying with this portrait and using it with the Beatitudes or Blessings from Matthew 5.  

"Blessed are the poor in spirit... Ordinary saints

Blessed are the peacemakers... Ordinary saints 

 Blessed are those who mourn... Ordinary saints"

A friend asked me the other day how to pray when you’re confronted with the impossibilities of Gaza or the horror of Iraq or the trauma of Ebola.  It’s a hard one to answer.  But over these last few weeks I’ve taken John Ganter's picture; I’ve begun to ask for ordinary saints – for peacemakers in Gaza, for the humble in the global community, for carers and the kind and the mourners of Iraq.  

God would you fill those people with your Spirit?  Would you do miracles in the hands of ordinary saints today? 

Maybe that’s what might change our world.  

All images are used by permission in accordance with commons copyright license terms: Feature image is a derivative of the images 'National Portrait Gallery London 044' by DAVID HOLT, 'National Portrait Gallery' by Herry Lawford, 'Saints' by Quinn Dombrowski and 'National Portrait Gallery, 3rd Floor' by djLicious

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