Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy #3

# THE SHAPE

Looking at the Logo for the Year of Mercy, one could wonder, why that shape of say, an almond... the oval? Why not a more perfect shape like a circle that would have symbolised the complete and unending love of God. But the oval, has more to say than what apparently appears. 

The shape of an oval is said to be a highly familiar shape used in the traditional iconography of the early church. It came to mean something very deep and fundamental within the faith expression of the early christian artists. The clue is in how this Oval is formed? It is formed when two circles intersect and find a common space...that is, it is formed in the union of two circles. That was why it came to symbolise for the early christians, the union of the two natures of Christ - the human and the divine.

Amidst the controversies that existed in the Early Christian Theology, whether Christ was more man or more son of God, this symbol came to express the right understanding of Christ as the perfect union of humanity and divinity. Today the logo for the year of Mercy picks up on that one composite nature of the Son of God, which is the epitome of the expressions of the Mercy of God - Jesus Christ is the face of the Mercy of God.

The Call that this element of the Logo gives us, is to understand the divinity that the Lord has placed within our beings and live to be deeply human and deeply holy at the same time.