Icons "Gone with The Wind"

Icons are "window into heaven" and sacramentals, if blessed, like statues, medals and rosaries. To have icons stolen seems odd to me unless someone did not know the meaning of the label "icons". Sad to say, all the Evangelists are gone, as is a large icon of my beloved St. Bernard of Clairvaux. STS and I discovered Monastery Icons in 1996, almost six years after they began making and selling icons. In those days, things were made on site. Now, the icons come from somewhere else and the customer service is horrible. A friend of mine had to order the same icon three times as the first two came damage either because of poor packaging, or the icons were made in an inferior fashion.

So, someone decided that a box marked "icons' would be a good thing to take...interesting. Also missing are large icons of the three Archangels, matching ones, my very large Rublev Trinity given to us as a gift, and one of Mary, the Immaculata. Obviously, these were paced in separate boxes and now all are gone with the wind.

There are few icons of St. Bernard although there are several different writings of icons of the Evangelists. I had to mark all the boxes as these were going to be shipped overseas.

We are also missing St. Francis and the animals. Thankfully, I have some bought at Boscobel in 2004. If you are in Wisconsin, take time to visit the skete.St Isaac of Syria, there. The chapel holds one of the most magnificent collection of icons, as do the nuns at Clyde in Missouri, btw.  https://www.skete.com

Ephraim the Fool is missing, as is St. John the Baptist. Sigh, and I cannot replace these. Also gone is Christ, the Great Humility.....sigh. At least fourteen missing....not new ones, but ones which should have been in storage for four years.

I hope those who took the icons now are being blessed and not using these for nefarious reasons. If these were thrown away by disappointed thieves, like my old and venerable St. Thomas Summa Contra Gentiles years ago, with many rare books by or about the Benson family, some art work and my Montessori library, I hope they have had some type of conversion.

Anything is possible in God while there is still life....