About the Artwork:
Harrowing of Hell
Kateryna Shadrina
2021
30 x 40 cm
Acrylic on gessoed wood

“The harrowing of hell” is the term for the triumphant descent of Christ into hell between the time of his crucifixion and his resurrection and it implies the bringing of salvation to the righteous who had died since the beginning of the world, but before the arrival of the Messiah. The iconography of the harrowing of hell was completely formed between the tenth and eleventh centuries. Though there are many variations of the image, all of them share common features. Traditionally the representation of this event depicts Christ breaking down and standing upon the gates of hell, which is pictured as a fault in the ground or a dark cavernous abyss. Christ is usually enclosed in a glowing oval mandorla shape. The figures before Christ are Adam and Eve, who have been brought by Jesus out of hell to be taken to heaven. In this image by Ukrainian iconographer Kateryna Shadrina, the doors of hell are transformed into a cross. What was an instrument of death now represents Christ’s redeeming sacrifice—not only a victory over sin but a victory over death itself.

About the Artist:
Kateryna Shadrina is one of the new Ukrainian iconographers and she brings a fresh, more abstract treatment to her work. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kyiv, the department of monumental painting, as well as the department of sacred art of the Lviv National Academy of Arts. Her works have been exhibited at international exhibitions in France and Germany. She creates sacred painting, abstraction, and conceptual art.
https://joseartgallery.com/artists/Katerina_Shadrina/
https://iconart-gallery.com/uk/artists/kateryna-shadrina/

About the Music #1:
“But Thou Didst Not Leave His Soul in Hell” from the album The Messiah (Platinum Edition)   

Lyrics #1:
But Thou didst not leave His soul in hell;
Nor didst thou suffer
Thy Holy one to see corruption

About the Music #2: 
“Lift Up Your Heads. Oh Ye Gates” from the album The Messiah (Platinum Edition)   

Lyrics #2:
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; 
and be ye lift up, 
ye everlasting doors; 
and the King of Glory shall come in.

Who is this King of Glory?
The Lord strong and mighty, 
The Lord mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, 
O ye gates; and be ye lift up, 
ye everlasting doors; 
and the King of Glory shall come in.

Who is this King of Glory? 
The Lord of Hosts, 
He is the King of Glory

About the Performers #1 and #2: 
The London Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Choir with John Alldis conducting

The London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) is one of the world's finest symphony orchestras, balancing a long and distinguished history with a reputation as one of the UK's most adventurous and forward-looking orchestras. The orchestra was founded by Sir Thomas Beecham in 1932, and since then has been headed by many of the great names in the conducting world, including Sir Adrian Boult, Bernard Haitink, Sir Georg Solti, Klaus Tennstedt, and Kurt Masur. The orchestra's current principal conductor is Vladimir Jurowski, who was appointed in 2007. The London Philharmonic Orchestra has been performing at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall in London since it opened in 1951. Having long been embraced by the recording, broadcast, and film industries, the London Philharmonic Orchestra broadcasts regularly on TV and radio. They also work with the Hollywood and UK film industries, and have been recording soundtracks for over half a century. 
https://www.lpo.org.uk/

London Philharmonic Choir was founded in 1947 as the chorus for the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Working under conductors such as Boulez, Elder, Gardner, Gatti, Haitink, Jurowski, Masur, Nézet-Séguin, Norrington, Rattle, Solti, Tennsted, and Welser-Möst, the choir has performed regularly with the LPO and other world-class orchestras at major venues and festivals throughout the years. From time to time the choir tours abroad—recently to Budapest, Paris, Lucerne, Rome, Athens, Spain, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Canary Islands, and further afield to Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, and Perth. In January 2004 they were invited to sing in the Vatican’s Papal Concert of Reconciliation. They have also built up an impressive discography throughout their history and continue to participate in recording for CD, radio, and television.
https://lpc.org.uk/about-the-choir/

John Alldis (1929–2010) was an English chorus master and conductor. Alldis was educated at King's College School, Cambridge, and Felsted School in Essex. He returned to King's College, Cambridge, as a choral scholar from 1949 to 1952. After leaving Cambridge University, Alldis quickly became highly regarded as a choral conductor. In 1966, the London Symphony Orchestra engaged him to form and direct its first standing choral group. He switched to the London Philharmonic Choir in 1969, with which he remained until 1982. In 1962, Alldis founded the professional, sixteen-member John Alldis Choir. Contemporary music figured importantly in its repertory, with first performances of works by Malcolm Williamson, Richard Rodney Bennett, and Harrison Birtwistle. In 1970, Alldis directed his choir in the recording and the first performance of Pink Floyd's rock suite Atom Heart Mother. In 1973, he directed the choir in the Westminster Abbey performance of Duke Ellington’s Third Sacred Concert. From 1979 to 1983, he conducted the Groupe Vocal de France, recording music by Francis Poulenc and Gabriel Fauré. From 1966 to 1977, Alldis was also a professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and from 1972 to 1977 he was conductor of the Danish Radio Choir. Alldis won a Grammy Award for his work with Sir Adrian Boult and Sir Georg Solti.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Alldis

About the Composer #1 and #2: 
Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible, and from the Psalms included with the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on April 13, 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later. After an initially modest public reception, the oratorio gained in popularity, eventually becoming one of the best-known and most frequently performed choral works in Western music. Handel's reputation in England, where he had lived since 1712, had been established through his compositions of Italian opera. He turned to English oratorio in the 1730s, in response to changes in public taste. Although its structure resembles that of opera, it is not in dramatic form; there are no impersonations of characters and very little direct speech. Instead, Jennens' text is an extended reflection on Jesus Christ as the Messiah. The text begins in Part I with prophecies by Isaiah and others, and moves to the annunciation to the shepherds, the only scene taken from the Gospels. In Part II, Handel concentrates on the Passion and ends with the "Hallelujah" chorus. In Part III, Jennens covers the resurrection of the dead and Christ's glorification in heaven. Handel wrote Messiah for modest vocal and instrumental forces, with optional settings for many of the individual numbers. In the years after Handel’s death, the work was adapted for performance on a much larger scale, with giant orchestras and choirs. In other efforts to update the oratorio, its orchestration was revised and amplified by (among others) Mozart. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries the trend has been towards performing it with a greater fidelity to Handel's original intentions.

About the Poet: 
Denise Levertov (1923–1997) was educated entirely at home and claimed to have decided to become a writer at the age of five. When she was twelve, she sent some of her poetry to T. S. Eliot, who responded by encouraging her to continue writing. At age seventeen, she had her first poem published in Poetry Quarterly. Her poems of the 1950s won her widespread recognition and her book With Eyes at the Back of Our Heads (1959) established her as one of the great American poets. Levertov went on to publish more than twenty volumes of poetry, and was also the author of four books of prose. Levertov’s conversion to Christianity in 1984 was the impetus for her religious poetry. In 1997, she brought together thirty-eight poems from seven of her earlier volumes in The Stream & the Sapphire, a collection intended, as Levertov explains in the foreword to the collection, to "trace my slow movement from agnosticism to Christian faith, a movement incorporating much doubt and questioning as well as affirmation."
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/denise-levertov
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_Levertov

About the Devotion Author:  
Dr. Octavio Javier Esqueda
Professor of Christian Higher Education 
Director, Ph.D. and Ed.D. Programs in Educational Studies
Talbot School of Theology
Biola University

Octavio Javier Esqueda is a professor of Christian higher education in the doctoral programs at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. He was born and raised in Guadalajara, México, where he graduated with honors with a Licenciatura in Latin American Literature from the University of Guadalajara, as well as two additional degrees, one in religion and society and the other in journalism. He graduated with honors from Dallas Theological Seminary with an M.A. in Christian education and completed his Ph.D. in higher education at the University of North Texas. Before coming to Biola University, he taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He and his wife, Angélica, have two children, Darío and Salma. Dr. Esqueda has several publications on theological education, Christian higher education, and literature. Teaching is his passion and he has had the opportunity to teach in several countries on different academic levels. He is an avid soccer fan.