‘Bringing a saint to life’
‘Bringing a saint to life’CHARLOTTE — Chas Fagan, renowned American artist and parishioner of St. Peter’s Church, is the artist behind the image of the Church’s newest saint, Teresa of Calcutta, also known to the world as Mother Teresa. The Knights of Columbus commissioned Fagan to create the official portrait for her canonization Mass Sept. 4 at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
Fagan never met Mother Teresa, but in his research spoke with people who knew her over the years and worked closely with her to get a sense of her personality.
Pictured: Missionaries of Charity join artist Chas Fagan and Saint John Paul II National Shrine Executive Director Patrick Kelly for the unveiling of the portrait Sept. 1. (Photo couresy of the Knights of Columbus)
“They spoke of her joy and her radiating smile,” he said. “I researched images online and found a candid photo of her with St. John Paul II where she is looking up at him with a warm smile. That’s the inspiration I was going for, a warm, joyous expression.”
Fagan also credits celebrity portrait photographer Michael Collopy, who documented Mother Teresa’s work in Calcutta.
“He called me out of the blue,” Fagan recalled. “He knew Mother Teresa well and had done a book about her. He offered his entire archive of photographs to go through for inspiration for me to go through to pick and choose.
“I chose a couple photos I liked for the face and for the hands and I created a pose to make it work. Without his tremendous photographs it would not have happened.”
So how does he capture the essence of a world-renowned person such as Mother Teresa?
“What I like to do with any portrait is to bring that person to life in front of me. As the painting goes along you are gradually doing that and you feel it more and more as you do. That was definitely the case with her,” he said.
The portrait is entitled, “St. Teresa of Calcutta: The Carrier of God’s Love.”
Fagan explained how the image got its name. “I cannot take any credit for that,” he said. “It is my understanding that (Missionaries of Charity) Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, the postulator for her cause for sainthood who was the selector of that title.”
At the official unveiling of the portrait at the St. John Paul II National Shrine on Sept. 1, Fagan was humbled by the positive reactions of the dozens of Missionaries of Charity sisters at seeing the image for the first time.
“The sisters’ reaction to the painting throughout my entire journey with the painting has been the highlight. It’s like a highlight at every moment,” he said. “So at the unveiling a lot of them were there. The immediate smiling reaction was more than I had ever hoped for.”
As Divine Providence would have it, there was a second unveiling that day shortly after the first.
“I got to experience it all over again,” he said. “With the second group I got to stand next to them, kind of in profile, and watch their reaction to the painting. It was like having a front row seat for an artist. It was really very flattering and wonderful.”
He recalled that at the initial unveiling he was asked what he felt about it the whole experience.
“The hard part was actually the absence of the portrait in my studio because she had been there for awhile. She had been part of the family. The absence hit me more than anything else,” he explained.
Fagan was privileged to fly to Rome for the festivities and the canonization Mass Sept. 4.
“I had never been to Rome before. It was incredible. From the vigil, to the canonization, to the feast day…it was just incredible!” he said.
During the canonization Mass he was seated to the right of the altar, close to the basilica, where he was looking right up at the portrait of St. Teresa of Calcutta he created.
“That’s what I was doing, looking up. I was sitting right up against the façade, looking straight up at it the whole time.”
He is humbled by such a warm response to his latest work, and expressed incredulity at the Holy Father’s Tweet of the image on social media.
“It was otherworldly to see it happen like that. What made me happy is his reference to her smile. In the end the composition that shows her with a smiling expression was the right thing to do, so that made me very happy.”
Other reactions have been pouring in since the canonization Mass.
“My email is full and my answering machine was loaded when I got back. One that sticks out in my mind was an older lady who left a message. She had no idea she was going to leave a message but found the number and called. It was the cutest thing ever.”
Although Fagan did not have a particular devotion to the saint prior to creating her portrait, he admired her greatly.
“I count myself among half the world who admired her altruism and her boundless energy. She was an example to everyone and to me.”
—SueAnn Howell, senior reporter
Read more about Chas Fagan's work at St. Peter Church in Charlotte: https://issuu.com/catholicnewsherald/docs/2015cnh5-22/7
Official portrait of Blessed Teresa of Kolkata unveiled in Washington
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On the eve of her canonization as a saint, Blessed Teresa of Kolkata, who famously disliked being photographed, was immortalized with the unveiling of a dramatic portrait at the St. John Paul II National Shrine.
Artist Chas Fagan, assisted by two members of Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity congregation, unveiled his oil painting, "St. Teresa of Calcutta: Carrier of God's Love," Sept. 1.
The painting was chosen as the official canonization portrait. It was commissioned by the Knights of Columbus.
A reproduction of the portrait was unfurled earlier the same day as a large tapestry on the facade of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. It was to serve as a backdrop for Pope Francis' Sept. 4 canonization Mass for Mother Teresa.
In Washington the sight of the portrait drew excited gasps and lingering smiles from the 17 members of the Missionaries of Charity attending the ceremony.
"She's our mother. Now she's the mother of the whole world. She's a saint for the church. She's not just our own. We've given her to the world," said Sister Tanya, superior of the Gift of Peace home in Washington, where the Missionaries of Charity serve elderly, poor, sick and homeless people.
The Knights of Columbus printed more than 1 million prayer cards with the official portrait. They will be distributed at the canonization Mass and given to Missionaries of Charity and the people they serve around the world.
Fagan smiled and said artists dream of seeing a positive reaction to their work like the sisters offered, but that he thought "the credit lies more with the subject than the painting."
The artist said that he, like millions of people around the world, admired Mother Teresa for her loving service of the poor and her humility. Fagan, who has painted and sculpted portraits of U.S. presidents, said capturing the essence of the nun known around the world was a daunting task.
He explained that he found his "hook" with a simple quote of the saint-to-be that someone shared: "Joy is strength." He said the phrase helped him feel like he knew Mother Teresa and guided the composition and the expression that he painted on her face.
"Every time I lifted up the brush, that quote was going through my head. Mother Teresa lived that. She was a diminutive, yet earthshaking figure," the artist said.
Fagan said he spent about a month on preparatory sketches before beginning the portrait, which took about six weeks to complete. "Mother Teresa brought joy to my studio, to my home. Now I will miss her company," he said.
The painting shows Mother Teresa smiling warmly and looking to the side, with a subtle halo over her head. She is wearing her community's trademark white sari-styled habit with blue trim. A member of the Missionaries of Charity serving in Charlotte, North Carolina, posed for the artist so he could capture the folds of their distinctive habit accurately.
The painting was to be displayed at the Knights of Columbus Museum in New Haven, Connecticut, for several weeks except for events in New York Sept. 8-9, and a Sept. 10 Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Patrick's Cathedral celebrating the canonization. It eventually will be given to the Missionaries of Charity.
A second painting depicting Mother Teresa and St. John Paul II also was unveiled at the shrine Sept. 1.
The painting by Russian-born artist Igor Babailov, depicts St. John Paul II and Mother Teresa standing together in front of 22 young children of different races and cultural backgrounds. The girls are wearing white first Communion dresses and the boys also are in white. A toddler is similarly attired.
The pope offers a blessing and Mother Teresa's hands are folded in prayer. The painting, donated to the shrine by the artist, is called "Credo," the Latin word meaning to believe and follow.
The unveiling followed a Mass of thanksgiving for the canonization of Mother Teresa celebrated by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, at the shrine's Redemptor Hominis Church.
— Mark Zimmermann, Catholic News Service
CHARLOTTE — God’s “amazing grace” was the theme of a “Silent No More” anti-abortion campaign outside one of Charlotte’s three abortion facilities July 30.
In the shadow of Family Reproductive Health on East Hebron Street, where approximately 2,000 babies are aborted each year, about a dozen pro-life activists gathered to tell their stories of past involvement in abortion, and how they found healing and forgiveness from God and their families.
The national Silent No More campaign aims to reach out to those hurting from abortion, help them seek healing, and to educate others that abortion is harmful – physically, emotionally and spiritually. Speakers praised God for His mercy and the peace they have found through healing and forgiveness.
“The prayers and cries of so many people trying to reach out to help, the intercession for these people in this place, day after day and year after year, has been a testament to the love of Jesus Christ, to many that have come here, to many that have driven by this area. Yet (abortion) continues,” said Katherine Hearn, one of the event organizers and Silent No More campaign activists. “Today we have decided to bring our voices and testimonies to the battlefront.”
Hearn said she had an abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic in 1976. “I went alone because I was so embarrassed and ashamed. It was a day that changed everything in my life.”
“I put my abortion in the closet and I closed and locked those doors,” she said. “Yet God never left me, even when I left Him.”
Calllie Jett testified that she nearly had an abortion at 16. Pro-life literature and sidewalk counselors outside the Planned Parenthood clinic where she was waiting for her abortion are what saved her.
Jett said she had thought abortion would be an “easy way out,” but sitting in the lobby of the abortion clinic, she recalled, “After an emotional battle, I found the strength to walk out of that abortion clinic that day.”
Instead, Jett turned to the sidewalk counselors, who helped her get medical care, a home and a job, and an adoption plan that she was confortable with. She praised pro-lifers for their public witness, and she encouraged abortion-minded women to pursue adoption instead.
“No person grows up to expect to choose abortion,” she noted. “Whatever situartion you may be in, give yourself and your baby choices. There are people outside the abortion center who truly want to help you.”
Robert, who didn’t give his last name, talked for the first time about his participation in an abortion. At 19, he learned that his girlfriend was pregnant. When his girlfriend told him she wanted an abortion, he recalled, “I gave it 30 seconds of thought and just said, ‘OK.’ It was that easy. How sad it that?”
Now married 25 years with a family of his own, he has turned his pain and regret into activism for the pro-life cause. But the self-examination and healing continues, he said, even after receiving the sacrament of reconciliation and sharing his past with his wife.
“Jesus paid the debt that I owe. I love Jesus for that,” he said, adding tearfully, “I regret the abortion of my child, whose soul awaits me in heaven and wants me to know that I am forgiven. I pray God may bless you and continue to reveal His love and fill you with His amazing grace.”
Paul Deer noted that it can be frustrating for pro-life witnesses to continually come out to abortion mills, seeing the parade of women and men going inside to kill their children. Too many people either don’t want to know the truth or they defend “this abomination,” he said.
But, Deer emphasized, “We are not called to win this battle, but to fight it. The battle has already been won. It’s been won on the cross.”
More than 40 years after the legalization of abortion, Hearn concluded, “the silence is deafening.”
People must continue to offer their testimony of the pain that abortion causes, she insisted, to help others who are still wounded. And they must continue to give thanks to God for His “amazing grace.”
“It must begin here,” she said. “We must never leave this place until this place of death is one day a haven of life.”
— Patricia L. Guilfoyle, Editor‘I’m sorry’ anti-abortion campaign launches
Charlotte pro-life activists have started a web-based public awareness campaign for those who regret their past involvement in abortion. The “I’m sorry for my involvement in abortion” campaign aims to give voice to the many people who feel sorrow for their participation in abortion and enable them to seek healing, especially during the Church’s Jubilee Year of Mercy.
More information is at www.imsorrycampaign.org. For inquiries, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
