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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine visits Pickaway-Ross Career and Technology Center in Chillicothe, Ohio, Sept. 16, 2022. / Credit: Jason H. Salley|Wikimedia|CC BY 3.0 DEED

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 4, 2024 / 17:40 pm (CNA).
Republican lawmakers in Oh… […]

Doylestown, Pa., Aug 14, 2017 / 08:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In an effort to draw the ‘selfie generation’ to Marian spirituality, the Pauline Fathers of Doylestown, Pennsylvania collected photos from dozens of countries around the world for a mosaic of Our Lady of Czestochowa.

“In history of Our Lady of Czestochowa, it was a tradition to offer to her new crowns and dresses, made of precious stones and jewels,” said Father Timothy Tarnacki, the coordinator for the Living Crown of Mary Project.

“But today, the world is changing, and we have to find new ways how to reach people, how they can make their faith and their relationship with Jesus and Mary more personal,” he told CNA.

The project was started almost a year ago and the priests will collect photos until Aug. 20 to build a large mosaic of the Marian image, also known as the Black Madonna. It will be revealed on Sept. 10 in the main church in celebration of the 300 anniversary of Poland’s coronation of Our Lady of Czestochowa.

Along with a photo, the Living Crown of Mary project requires the participant to offer a spiritual gift to Mary, which may be an additional Marian prayer or sacrifice.

Fr. Tarnacki said the project originated from the orders’ members in Poland as means to honor Mary and spread Marian spirituality especially among the youth, but also to offer pilgrims the opportunity to participate in a spiritual offering to Mary.

“They offered to the Blessed Mother their entire life, families, difficult situations, unemployment, illnesses. I remember one couple who offered to Mary their resolution to live in chastity before they get married.”

The priests do not have an exact number of the photos sent so far but Fr. Tarnacki estimates the amount to be around 2,000, ranging from cellphone selfies to old black and white photos. All of the photos will be digitalized then a computer software program will arrange the pictures into the image of Our Lady of Czestochowa.

The Pauline Fathers, or the Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit, are the original protectors of the image of the Black Madonna, first established in Poland in 1382 at the Shrine of Jasna Gora. Having a large portion of the Polish immigrant community dedicated to Czestochowa in the U.S., a copy of Mary’s icon blessed by Pope Saint John XXIII was brought to America in 1951 and a shrine was later established in Doylestown in 1955.

The Marian center is a significant piece of history for the Polish-American community, Fr. Tarnacki said, noting his surprise that a project which started off slowly received a large portion of its participates from countries facing political difficulties.

“We were thinking that our project will only cover USA, but it became an international version of the project from Poland, bringing people from every continent into it from about 60 countries.”

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A detail of Timothy P. Schmalz’s fourth station: Jesus meets his mother. / Courtesy of Timothy P. Schmalz

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 18, 2022 / 04:00 am (CNA).

Catholic artist Timothy P. Schmalz sought to find and bring to life the most important subject matter an artist could ever express.

“I wanted to create a sculpture project that would be the heart of Christianity,” the Canadian sculptor said.

He settled on Christ’s crucifixion and death. 

His new creation, once finished, will be a life-size set of the 14 Stations of the Cross — scenes depicting Christ’s journey from being condemned to death to his burial — placed right next to Disney World. The faithful will be able to encounter the 12-foot tall, 11-feet wide sculptures at the Basilica of Our Lady Queen of the Universe, in Orlando, Florida.

“I hope to rival Universal Studios, Walt Disney, and every other feature in Orlando by creating what has never been done before, and that is one of the biggest, most complex Stations of the Cross,” Schmalz said.

Schmalz is not new to sculpting. The experienced artist’s work can be found worldwide, from St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican to Washington, D.C. He is perhaps best known for his “Homeless Jesus” sculpture and the “Angels Unaware” statue. 

His new Stations of the Cross, he hopes, will serve as a tool for evangelization and conversion for the roughly 50 million people that visit Disney each year. 

“It’s right in the center of a place that desperately needs a spiritual Catholic oasis,” he said, adding that bringing the Stations of the Cross to Orlando is “bringing the Gospels [to] where the people are, in a sense.”

The stations — which combine mural painting and sculpture — will offer visitors “visual doorways into a Catholic-Christian experience,” he said.

So far, he has completed the first four stations: Jesus is condemned to death, Jesus carries his cross, Jesus falls for the first time, and Jesus meets his mother.  

It will take another year, he says, before all 14 are done. On his YouTube channel, Schmalz walks viewers through the process of creating each station, from sketching them on paper to sculpting them in bronze.

Each scene, made of bronze, bursts with symbolism, movement, and emotion. The foreground shows Jesus’ passion. In the background, Schmalz plans to include every single parable found in the New Testament.

“When you see Jesus in the front, you’re going to see … a raw, hardcore scene from the passion,” he said. “But in the distance, you’re going to see the parables that he taught us. So it might be in the distance, you’ll see a camel trying to get through a little hole in the wall or the eye of the needle.”

While he works in his studio located in St. Jacobs, in Ontario, Canada, he listens to an audio recording of the New Testament, he said. 

“Things are pulled out and things describe themselves as I create,” he explained, comparing his role to a “passenger” or “director.”

The stations are getting funded by various donors, he said, as he works on them. As they progress from one to 14, each station will become “more and more intense.”

“The passion now has become my passion,” he said. 

He hopes that viewers will feel like they are a part of the stations.

“We know there’s a lot of kids going to Walt Disney in Orlando every year,” he said, giving one example. “I’m putting a lot of children within them so they can see themselves in the scene.”

The 53-year-old artist also sees himself in them.

“It’s fascinating because you really become a part of the subject matter as you’re working on it,” he said. “It evolves and it grows as you’re working on it, and it’s almost like it tells you what to do in a sense where I don’t necessarily know exactly how the piece will end up.”

He called the project mentally, spiritually, and physically taxing. He might dedicate one entire day to creating a little corner of one of the stations, he said, and another day just focusing on the face of Jesus.

But, he added, the work is worth it. These stations allow him, as an artist, to “get to the absolute essence of Christianity” in the hope that “it will be one of the greatest tools to convert and inspire Christianity.”

“I want [people] to come back from Orlando and, sure, talk about the rides, talk about Mickey Mouse. But I want them to say that the most exciting and most interesting and most moving thing with their vacation was this Stations of the Cross project,” he said. “And if I can do that with this piece of artwork, I have succeeded.”

At a time when many people are attacking Christianity and Christian symbols, Schmalz’s response is to create new, stronger symbols. “Sculptures that are bold, sculptures that celebrate and glorify Christ, but also encourage people to walk through that doorway and see Christ in focus,” he said.

“As they try to make us invisible, we have to sharpen,” he concluded. “And me, as an artist, that is my job, to sharpen our identity with these symbols and art.”

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