The image can be artwork, a photograph, a scene, or even an icon. As you gaze at the painting below, consider the questions at the bottom in quiet reflection. Some parts may speak to you while others may not. Allow about 5 minutes of contemplation per section, but there are no hard and fast rules. Simply be present to the image and allow God to speak to your heart without any particular agenda.

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In Rodríguez Calero’s Christ of the Nations, a Black man stands in for Jesus, whose intense gaze holds the observer. Her image of the man’s face is cut off just above the mouth, rendering The Word mute.

 

Born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, in 1959, Calero moved to Brooklyn, New York when she was just a year old. Her signature style of painting is termed acrollage, an evolution of mixed media combining acrylic paint, various types of paper, and printmaking. Calero’s work merges Catholic iconography and hip-hop culture, integrating and reflecting the diverse, multiethnic and multiracial environment she grew up in. “My inspiration really comes from just being in the neighborhood . . . the people walking the streets,” she says.