This presentation was developed by Thomas A. Lesser, Ed.D. an Associate of Blessed Edmund Rice. It gives a background and provides information on specific parts of the Edmund Rice icon.

1. Icon of
Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice
Click the left mouse button
to advance each slide.

2. Presentation of Mary
The left panel begins with the
presentation of Mary. Through Nano
Nagle, this mystery influenced
Edmund Rice greatly. Mary, the
finest flower of the Old Testament,
moves toward her destiny within the
oval-shaped aureole (symbol of
virginity and holiness), the Cross of
her Son barely visible at its center. A
text which touched Edmund deeply
is the open Scriptures.

3. Before the Eucharist
Edmund is in prayer before the
living God. The star of David
and the triangle of the
descending Deity point to him in
adoration before the Eucharist,
represented in muted but
powerful imagery.

4. Classroom Scene
The man of deep spirituality is also
the man of down-to-earth
practicality. Edmund finds Christ
in his mission as easily as in the
Eucharist. His vision of the future
for his poor boys shines in his eyes
and radiates from his posture. The
classroom scene is positioned
directly besides Edmund's
befriending hand in the center
panel.

5. Bake House
Edmund had a bake house
established in Mount Sion, and also
a tailor’s workshop: he was deeply
sensitive to the wants and feelings
of his pupils, and he did not wish
them to experience either the pangs
of hunger or the shame of being
clad in rags.

6. Gallows
During the early nineteenth century,
prisons were miserable and crowded and
the death sentence was frequently handed
down for relatively trivial offences. It
became the established practice for
Christian Brothers to visit prisoners in
Waterford, and later in Dublin and other
centers, and to accompany the condemned
to the gallows. Here, a young man, his
hands fettered behind his back, is being
comforted, as he is about to mount the
steps to the gallows. (It might be one of
Edmund’s former pupils.) There is a prison
building and a river flowing, as it were,
into the sky.

7. Live Jesus in our hearts, forever.
Edmund is here enjoying the fruits of his
labors. He has fulfilled his mission and he
stands wrapped in symbols of the Trinity,
a man of his time, a man of all times, a
man placed in the context of the eternal
present. Behind him the Divinity spiral,
the Sacred Host at its center, fills the area;
on his breast is the Heart of Christ
embodying the cross and with inbuilt
spirals suggesting the spiritual energy of
the risen Christ; the fire of the Holy Spirit
swirls around him, and the globe of the
world is at his feet.

8. Men of Holiness and Wisdom
Across the bottom images recall men of holiness and wisdom.

9. Men of Holiness and Wisdom
There is the boat in the first symbol
bearing peregrini pro Christi
(pilgrims for Christ) from the
shores of Ireland to spread the
Good News. It was a missionary
initiative which would
subsequently embrace the globe,
with Irish Christian Brothers
making a singular contribution.

10. Men of Holiness and Wisdom
Here is the father figure of the
monk missionaries-Colmcille,
saint, scholar, poet and artist, the
island of Iona nestling in a
seascape, the spiral repeated once
again, and the dove of the Spirit
overshadowing him.

11. Men of Holiness and Wisdom
Here is the wheeled shape of the Celtic
High Cross-a cross which is unique in
Christendom, with the circular sun
symbol of the older religion now
dominated by the cross of Christ.
Significantly the whole internal
movement of the icon flows downward
to find its root in the Celtic Cross, or,
perhaps, there is an upward movement
of inspiration from the Cross to and
through the figure of Edmund Rice.

12. Men of Holiness and Wisdom
Here is Colmcille again, now an artist,
a master craftsman, bent in
concentration on his work. He is the
patron saint of Irish artists.

13. Men of Holiness and Wisdom
Here is a Celtic motif that leads to the age of Celtic Druids
and Bardic schools, sources of learning and rich tradition.
Colmcille made a spirited defense of the Bards at the
Convention of Drumceatt in 575 AD when they were
threatened with abolition, and here the long and illustrious
Bardic line is represented by the blind Carolan, the last of
the Bards. He plays his harp, and its notes are suggested in
a rhythmic pattern suggested by stonework in the great
doorway of St. Brendan’s Cathedral, Loughrea, but in this
case inverted. Artistic license leads to aesthetic effect.

14. A.M.D.G.
(Ad maiorem Dei gloriam)
At the right of the spiral are the letters
AMDG, AD MAJOREM DEI
GLORIAM (All My Work Done For
God), the Jesuit motto which also
became the motto of the Presentation
Brothers.
Edmund was instrumental in looking
after the finances of the Jesuits when
they were suppressed for a time and
helped them re-establish themselves at
Clongowes Wood in Dublin. This was
in conjunction with his close friend,
Fr. Peter Kenney.

15. St. Teresa of Avila
Edmund feasted on the writings of St.
Teresa of Avila, a Carmelite mystic of
the preceding century, and there are
strong similarities between the two. She
was magnificently practical and
expressed her profound spirituality in
very plain language. She is seen here
with her staff and her book "Interior
Castle". Around her are some of her
favorite symbols-mountains, rain, river-
and there is an affinity between her
features and those of Edmund-strength,
vision and eyes that look into the far
distance.

16. Nano Nagle
Nano Nagle, foundress of the Presentation
Sisters, makes her way through the back
streets. The lantern she carries became for the
poor of Cork a symbol of God’s love touching
and helping the realities of their hard lives.
Nano and Edmund might almost be described
as spiritual twins: what she accomplished for
the poverty-stricken young girls of Cork, he
accomplished for the poverty-stricken young
boys of Waterford. She sold everything to
give to the poor, and so did he. Holy and
heroic they both were, and when Edmund
established his Congregation, the rule laid
down by Nano for her Order was originally
followed by the Brothers.

17. Heart of Christ
The Sacred Heart - Its dynamism
epitomizes the source and outflow
of compassionate energy which
both Nano and Edmund harnessed
and worked out of.

18. Family Rosary
Here is a scene depicting a traditional
Irish event, the family Rosary. It was
part of the daily routine in the Rice
home, and in the panel, the woman
leading the prayers represents Margaret
Rice, Edmund’s mother. The curving,
rhythmic shapes around the group
betoken the mantra-like manner in
which the Rosary was recited, or
intoned, and the all-pervasive, ever
present Divinity spiral moves through
the family circle. The imagery has a
message for a generation that has let the
tradition of the family Rosary die out.

19. Community Life
Colmcille and his brother monks are
relaxing together. There is food and drink,
conversation and story-telling, and an
atmosphere of shared peace and
contentment.
The scene evokes a lovely Irish proverb:
“Is ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine.”
“It is in the shelter of one another that the
people live.”

20. Window from Temple McDuagh
in the Aran Islands of Inishmore
Here is expressed the simple beauty of
an end window from Temple McDuagh
in the Aran island of Inishmore. Aran of
St. Enda was another great nursery of
learning, and many were the saints who
studied there.

21. Central Icon Panel
Edmund Rice
Edmund Rice dominates the
central icon panel. The spiral is
symbolic of God, the Creator.
The flames represent the Holy
Spirit. Rings of fire surround the
haloes of Mary and the baby
Jesus.
Mary looks at us while Jesus has
turned to look at Edmund.

22. Homestead at Westcourt
The Rices were a competent, and in many
ways a fortunate people when compared with
the great majority of their country folk. This is
expressed in a glimpse of their comfortable
homestead at Westcourt, where Edmund was
born. The traditional thatched farmhouse looks
across to the mountains of Slievenamon, and
the setting sun.
Here too is a scene from Edmund’s boyhood.
He and Brother Patrick Grace, a gentle
Augustinian who was well known and well
loved in the Callan area as the “Little Grey
Friar”, sit talking. The two are engrossed in
conversation, their bare feet resting on the
brink of a well.

23. Edmund’s left hand caresses the
head of his daughter.
Edmund’s left hand caresses the head
of a child. There is gentleness, love and
fatherliness in the caress. The child is
his handicapped daughter, Mary Rice,
the broken reed (whom Christ promised
not to crush), and he draws her close to
him.
What mysterious part she may have
played in directing the course of her
father’s life, and in unfolding the divine
plan, is beyond human wisdom to
gauge, but here she is a central figure in
the symbolic treatment of the mystery
and meaning of brokenness and
suffering.

24. Young boy who is representative
of the marginalized.
With his right hand, Edmund extends
his fatherliness beyond the confines of
family to a distressed young boy who is
representative of a multitude of poor,
illiterate and wretchedly disadvantaged
children of Waterford. In this case, the
gesture is one of friendship, an open
invitation to a future of fulfillment and
dignity through the development and
proper use of God-given talents. To
Edmund, education was an obvious and
practical answer.

25. Locations Critical to the Mission
From his right hand, a group of seven stars
moves away and upwards. They betoken the
seven men who helped him lay the foundation
of his work (stars also signify spiritual
brightness, and faith, and the presence of the
Divinity and much else).
The one second closest to his hand rests over
the stable school in New Street, Waterford.
Nearby, another star rests beside the
Presentation Convent at Hennessy Road.
Higher up, yet another star sits on the roof of
Mount Sion, the mother house.

26. The Lamb of God
The Lamb of God, placed in
opposition to the serpent, close to
the well of living water, the fire of
love alight in the halo - an image of
immense serenity, sacrificial
innocence, suffering and hope.

27. Icon of
Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice
This icon was done by the Irish artist, Desmond M. Kyne, who also provided the
detailed narratives.
This presentation was developed by Thomas A. Lesser, Ed.D. an Associate of
Blessed Edmund Rice.
For more information, please contact:
Christian Brothers Foundation
145 Huguenot Street, Suite 402
New Rochelle, New York 10801
brothers@cbfoundation.org
© 2000