BISHOP DOYLE'S PECTORAL CROSS > JEWELRY DESIGNS FROM PECTORAL CROSS

sterling silver quatrefoil pendant with lily design by Nancy Denmark
QUATREFOIL WITH LILY

$59 sterling silver pendant
$79 pin/pendant combo

LILY
The lily is a symbol of resurrection and Easter. The bulb seems to decay in the ground, until it finally grows and blooms at Easter again, releasing new life from the seemingly dead bulb. The lily's other significance is taken largely from Jesus' allegory in his Sermon on the Mount, telling his disciples, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."

CHRIST THE TRUE VINE
The grapevine border represents Christ who tells us in John 15, "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser...I am the vine, you are the branches." In referring to Himself as the stem that sustains the branches, and his Father as the vinedresser, He was using a metaphor that was well understood, since grape growing was widely practiced in the Holy Land. He describes how the vinedresser prunes so that it will bear more fruit and how a branch thrives in its connection with the stem and root system.

QUATREFOIL
The Quatrefoil is a suggestive cross form. In historic Christianity, the four lobes of the quatrefoil represent the four gospel evangelists and the four compass directions, serving as a symbol of the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth. Four equal foils represent equal proportion, balance, harmony, and wholeness. It doesn't protrude or intrude. It fills and includes. Having no sharp external edges, it can remind us that somehow, our faith walk and that of others must co-exist compatibly, to proclaim the truths of our own tradition without hard edges or harsh boundaries.