Diocesan News
Christ’s passion reflected in Holy Week paintings by teenage Omagh parishioner
The inscription on the architect Sir Christopher Wren’s grave in St Paul’s Cathedral, bears the Latin inscription: ‘Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice’ – ‘Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you’.
Thankfully, parishioners in Drumragh with Mountfield, in Omagh, can survey the work of one of their own – teenager Emma – while she still enjoys good health and is in the full flush of youth.
The 14–year–old Drumragh parishioner has two 100×70cm canvases on display in St Columba’s Church, in the centre of Omagh. Emma painted ‘Nails from the Cross’ and ‘Crown of Thorns’ specially for Holy Week.
Emma had already completed artistic reflections on the eight Beatitudes – paintings accompanied by verse – which can also be viewed in church and were shared online as a Lenten outreach initiative by St Columba’s for those in the parish who were unable to come to church.
“For these two big paintings I wanted to reflect Christ’s suffering on the cross for all of us. It took me about a week and a half to complete them,” Emma says. “I was working on them basically every day. For ‘the Beatitudes’, I tried to do one a week, maybe two.
Emma, a student at Omagh Academy, says her unusual Easter project has won the backing of friends and classmates. “A lot were surprised I decided to do something so big at this age, but they’ve been really supportive and they really like it.”
The curate in Drumragh with Mountfield, the Rev Sean Hanily, says the church was keen to focus on Christ’s suffering during Holy Week. “Although we look forward to the message of hope of Easter Day, we must also be mindful of the suffering that led to that,” he says. ”Emma’s paintings help us to do that in a very meaningful way.”
Mr Hanily says Emma’s paintings will be displayed at the sides of the large eight–foot cross near the front of St Columba’s Church throughout the Easter period. Parishioners will be invited to leave a small stone at the foot of the cross, during a special service on Good Friday evening, to symbolise leaving their own burdens and suffering at the cross.
For further information please contact:
Mr Paul McFadden
Diocesan Communications Officer, Derry & Raphoe
028 7126 2440
07525 826290
press@derryandraphoe.org