Iconography of The Holy Chalice
The iconic significance of the Chalice grew during the Early Middle Ages. In the fourteenth-century frescoes of the church at the Öja, Gotland (illustration, right), when Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane, it is a prefigured apparition of the Holy Chalice that stands at the top of the mountain, illustrating the words "Let this cup be taken from me". Together with the halo-enveloped Hand of God and the haloed figure of Jesus, the halo image atop the chalice, as if of a consecrated communion wafer, completes the Trinity by embodying the Holy Spirit.
Read more about this topic: Holy Chalice
Famous quotes containing the words holy and/or chalice:
“And, indeed, is there not something holy about a great kitchen?... The scoured gleam of row upon row of metal vessels dangling from hooks or reposing on their shelves till needed with the air of so many chalices waiting for the celebration of the sacrament of food. And the range like an altar, yes, before which my mother bowed in perpetual homage, a fringe of sweat upon her upper lip and the fire glowing in her cheeks.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“There lies intact that chalice of ours,
And its presence adds to the rhyme of love
Persistently sung by the fall above.
No lip has touched it since his and mine
In turns therefrom sipped lover’s wine.””
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)