The Chartres Labyrinth Plaque is a powerful symbolic aid to contemplation throughout your day. At about 2.5 inches in diameter, the Labyrinth Pocket Prayer is lightweight yet still has heft. The labyrinth has been an important contemplative and spiritual tool for humans for millenia. This devotional piece allows you to access the contemplative power of the labyrinth even if you are sitting in a meeting.
The Path of the Labyrinth in Life
The Chartres Labyrinth Plaque makes for a perfect gift for anyone agonizing over a tough decision or entering a phase in life where he or she will have to make many difficult decisions. Using the labyrinth as a devotional and meditation gift, one realizes that the path of life is never as simple as “turn left here and turn right here” but rather is a spiral, a labyrinth, a process of narrowing one’s focus.
“Many times the process of making an important decision doesn’t unfold the way we thought it would. It bears repeating “the process is a spiral rather than a straight line from point A to point B.” — An Ignatian Approach to Decision- Making by Michael Sparough, SJ
The Labyrinth in History
This depiction of the labyrinth from the cathedral of Chartres is perhaps the best-known example of a symbol with a very long history. Already in antiquity there were labyrinths: round, square, octagonal, or oval. Christians often incorporated these forms in their churches and even carved them into church floors. The earliest example from 324 A.D. is to be found in the ancient Roman church of St. Reparata in Algeria. The labyrinth in the cathedral of Chartres is modeled on the geometry of the circle, the symbol of eternity for Christians. The way through the labyrinth, at first opaque and contradictory, courses in its own rhythm and structure through a six-petaled rose (a symbol of perfection), arriving at the center of life, which is, for Christians, encounter with God.
