Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish 25TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION November 1, 1992 to November 1, 2017 2 Contents Page Message from Bishop Zubik 5 Mother Seton by Janet McKenzie 7 Triptych of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton by Eric Armusik 10 Reliefs: “Widowing…” and “Revelation…” 12 Pietà by Frank DeAndrea 16 Pipe Organ 19 St. Cecilia by Ralph LeCompte 20 St. Maximilian Kolbe & the Holocaust 22 Windows of the Former St. Ignatius Church 23 Former Holy Souls Church 24 Former Immaculate Conception Church 26 Former St. Joseph Church 27 New Statuary & Window Extensions 28 Sanctuary Furnishings of the Former St. Luke Church 31 Other Articles 32 In Memoriam 34 3 4 5 6 MOTHER SETON by Janet McKenzie At left you see the painting Mother Seton, commissioned for St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church. The artist is Janet McKenzie, a native New Yorker now living in Vermont. She studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Art Students League in New York City. She has devoted her life to the imagery of women, and for the past twenty years has attended also to ethnic diversity and children. Janet McKenzie’s painting, “Jesus of the People”, was selected winner of the National Catholic Reporter’s competition for a new image of Jesus at the Millennium by judge, Sister Wendy Beckett, art historian and BBC television host. In the words of Sister Wendy, “This is a haunting image of a peasant Jesus – dark, thick-lipped, looking out on us with ineffable dignity, with sadness but with confidence. Over His white robe He draws the darkness of our lack of love, holding it to Himself, prepared to transform all sorrows if we will let Him.” The painting was first unveiled at Carlow University, in connection with a university project on feminine spirituality. Below is Fr. David Poecking’s statement from the unveiling. Three years ago, I buried a young man, Joseph, only twenty years old. I recall Joseph lying in his casket, especially his facial features—unmistakably Native American, even emphatically so. He looked every inch the Native Peruvian he was, adopted from an orphanage there while still a toddler. We don’t know much about Joseph’s infancy. He may have been well cared-for in his orphanage, but it is easy to speculate otherwise. As Joseph aged, he displayed symptoms of serious mental and emotional illness, not entirely manageable by Joseph or his family or his physicians. Joseph’s struggle with his very hard feelings was never fully successful. His mother Carol says that among other pains, Joseph suffered from an acute self- consciousness about his racial background. Joseph felt his Native American features alienated him from other youth. He most closely identified with African-Americans because of their special experience of the link between race and social condition. Joseph’s struggle was compounded by his perception that other children and youth were happy in a way he couldn’t appreciate. Their smiling faces, the upbeat music in 7 church, the facile promise of fun and friendship—all these things made Joseph feel he didn’t belong. Carol speaks touchingly of one of the last acquaintances in Joseph’s life—an older man named Steve. Steve is an African-American with hard patches in his own life history, and so he’s learned something about grace and godly hope. Steve shared his hard-earned spiritual wisdom with Joseph. Joseph ultimately succumbed to his various illnesses, but before he died Steve helped Joseph experience a hope that transcended his bitter moods—a hope beyond hope, as St. Paul described it. A little more than a year after Joseph’s death, Carol was advising me on artworks for the new St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Carnegie. Janet McKenzie had submitted a proposal for a portrait of Mother Seton. Carol was immediately attracted to McKenzie’s commitment to racial inclusion—important for Joseph’s sake—but the attraction ran deeper than race and skin color. Carol, the mother of an unhappy son, saw the respectful gravity with which McKenzie paints her subjects—without any trace of artificial happiness, but instead with a sincerity and sometimes ambiguity that Joseph might have liked. When McKenzie paints joy into her figures, even her children, it is not a superficial joy ignorant of sorrow, but a mature joy that knows the truth of human suffering. You see the portrait of Mother Seton that Janet McKenzie painted for St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church. The artist deserves all the praise she has received for the warm realism of her figures, for her creative and inviting palette, for her sensitive portrayal of race, and for her insight into femininity; all these virtues are well represented in her painting of Mother Seton. Here the racial diversity is especially important, because Mother Seton is in a certain sense the mother of American educational history. The diversity of McKenzie’s figures boasts education’s real achievements in racial, ethnic, and sexual inclusion, even as it highlights Mother Church’s promise & hope of universal reconciliation. But please notice also the traces of medieval iconography in McKenzie’s painting— Mother Seton’s formal pose and halo, her central position as the vertical axis of the painting, and the supernatural solemnity of the faces—all pointing to a godliness that transcends more superficial fortunes, misfortunes. The cluster of children forms a secondary halo around Mother Seton—a tribute to her triple sanctity as mother of her own children, mother-foundress of the Sisters of Charity, and mother-teacher to the students of her schools. These solemn forms and faces may not be as immediately accessible as a tumble of smiling, playful children. But real children have real pain as well as real joy, just as Mother Seton faced the untimely death of her mother and sister, and the break-up of her step-family, and then in adulthood the untimely death of her husband and 8 two of her daughters, and the scorn of those who resented her newfound Catholic faith. And McKenzie’s painting honors all moods. The viewer can discern joy, but sorrow, fear, curiosity, and caution are equally evident. All these feelings are subsumed under the figures’ solemn holiness. McKenzie reminds us that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not only for those who are happy, secure, and prosperous, but also for the sad, the weak, and those who are filled with longing. McKenzie’s painting extends Mother Seton’s holy embrace to Joseph, Carol, Steve, and all God’s children. From left to right: Fr. Dave Poecking, Janet McKenzie, Steve, Carol, & Pat at the unveiling of Mother Seton at Carlow University, September 17, 2012, for the exhibit, “Holiness and the Feminine Spirit.” 9 ST. ELIZABETH ANN SETON by Eric Armusik A triptych hangs on the northwest wall of the church nave, for which it was commissioned. The center depicts St. Elizabeth Ann Seton iconically as Mother Seton, and is dedicated to the memory of Norine Jolly and William Clancy. On the left, she is shown as a young widow, becoming Roman Catholic and receiving her first Holy Communion. On the right, she is teaching children to receive their first Holy Communion. The right page is meant to embrace the saint’s dual role as the mother of her own children and also the foundress of a religious order dedicated to teaching children—the Sisters of Charity. The artist, Eric Armusik, was born in 1973 and grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania. His first experiences of art were in churches. The traditions and academic realism of Catholic religious paintings and artwork made a permanent impression that continues to influence his work today. Eric holds a B.F.A from Penn State, with a minor in art history focusing on Baroque art. In 2010 he won the Chairman's Award for the Sixth International Art Renewal Center. He has displayed works around the world, including the Holy See in Rome. Eric is married to Gothic novelist Rebekah Armusik, and they have three children. 10 11 THE WIDOWING OF ST. ELIZABETH ANN SETON THE REVELATION OF THE VICTORIOUS CHRIST TO THE HOLY SOULS by Anna Koh-Varilla and Jeffrey Varilla See pages 14-15. Hanging on the apse wall of the church, to the left and right of the sanctuary, are two large reliefs: The left is entitled, “The Widowing of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton,” the right “The Revelation of the Victorious Christ to the Holy Souls in Purgatory.” Chicago artists Ann Koh-Varilla and Jeffrey Varilla sculpted the reliefs. Their best-known work may be Tribute to Freedom, a large outdoor relief gracing the main entrance to Soldier Field, Chicago’s football stadium. Their commission is made possible by a donation from the Italian Sons & Daughters of America, Imperial Lodge #42, now dissolved but of happy memory for patrons of the erstwhile Holy Souls Church. Widowing: To the left of the organ pipes, St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley holds her dying husband, William Seton. When William fell ill in 1803, they emigrated to Italy, where it was believed that the climate would heal him. Italian authorities, however, held both of them in immigrant quarantine—an offshore prison—until William was beyond hope. He died shortly after release into Tuscany. William and Elizabeth were at that time members of the new Episcopal Church in the United States, but William’s Catholic friends Antonio & Amabilia Filicchi cared for them during their suffering. Their support, including their rosary prayers for William, prompted Elizabeth’s interest in the Catholic faith. She entered the full communion of the Catholic Church after returning to the United States.