Sister Wendy chooses one charity's Christmas cards

Sister Wendy Beckett

World-renowned art historian Sister Wendy Beckett has personally selected the images for a range of Christmas cards for Aid to the Church in Need. Sister Wendy chose three images for the seasonal greetings cards which will be sold in support of the charity's work helping persecuted and other suffering Christians. She selected paintings by Giotto di Bondone (c. 1266-1337), Sano di Pietro (1406-81) and Albert Herbert (1925-2008).

The 81-year-old Carmelite hermit said she was delighted to choose the images for Aid to the Church in Need and expressed her support for the charity's work. She said: "There are many needs in the world but the church in need has a special call on our attention.

"In some parts, where our suffering brothers and sisters have little to comfort them, it is to the church that they look for support. But these churches are poor and often persecuted.

"We are privileged to give to them from our own relative abundance."

The first of the three images she selected for the cards was the Nativity by Giotto di Bondone, who is widely described as the first Italian Renaissance painter. Sister Wendy said: "Giotto brought to life the mysteries of faith, and art was never the same again."

The Carmelite hermit described the scene from Giotto's fresco in the Scrovegni chapel in Padua, Italy as "one of my favourite nativities".

Describing Saint Mary in the picture, Sister Wendy said: "Our Lady is so strong, so determined, so focused."

The second picture is a modern composition, Nativity with Burning Bush by Albert Herbert, a British artist who converted to Catholicism in the 1950s. In the picture, the Virgin Mary holds the new-born Christ child before an elderly figure, who could be St Joseph, while the burning bush of Mount Sinai is seen behind her.

The burning bush is symbolic of Mary carrying Jesus in her womb - as God is described in the letter to the Hebrews as a "consuming fire".

In St Gregory of Nyssa's fourth century work On the Birth of Christ, he wrote that just as the bush was on fire but not consumed, so St Mary carried God in her womb but was not consumed by his power. Sister Wendy described the figure in Herbert's painting as "just an old man on his knees holding out his arms to mother and child. "This is us - pitiful and longing and certain of divine love."

The final image is a Madonna and Child by Sano di Pietro, a Sienese painter famous for his depictions of the Virgin Mary with the infant Christ. Sister Wendy said: "This is a very tender little Jesus".

The cards are available now from ACN's online shop, with all proceeds going to support Aid to the Church in Need's work helping persecuted and suffering Christians.