The burning heart with which Ignatius of Loyola is often depicted, symbolising his ardent love for God, is given a contemporary interpretation on the yellow centrepiece. Flames, midway between energy, feeling, rays, drops of blood or fire, flow from this hand-heart symbol. ‘Ignis’ means fire in Latin. A fired cannonball wounded the young, well-to-do Ignatius on his leg, leading to his conversion.When Norbertus of Gennep was on his way, presumably to his fiancée, lightning struck right in front of his horse. The earth tore, He was thrown from his horse, but survived. The green panels show this moment of conversion. On trembling hands, the saint stands as a bishop with staff and as a young missionary. The seismogram depicts a large crack in the earth. The dirty layer over the composition depicts how currently the earth is being depleted by drilling, predation, deforestation, among other things, and how nature is recoiling.
The founders of each Holy Triangle faith community – Norbert of Gennep (St Catherine’s Valley), Ignatius of Loyola (Chemin Neuf, St Paul’s Abbey) and Benedict of Nursia (Our Lady’s Abbey) – were all extraordinary beacons of their time. ‘Influencers’ who, if they were alive today, would undoubtedly have had a large following. The artist noticed that in the legends about them, one of the four elements (water, air, earth, fire) plays an important role each time. The downpours and earthquakes they experienced remind Tom Heerschop of natural disasters resulting from climate change.The artist linked Benedict of Nursia to the element water. On the blue segment, his twin sister Scholastica, patron saint against rain and thunderstorms, pours a shower of rain on him on the evening of their last meeting, so that he stays with her all night. The hand of God hangs over his head, and in the water floats the “plastic soup”. The raven refers to the legend in which the bird pecked poisoned bread from Benedict’s chalice.