love's body - melbourne catholic · faith’s power, ancient and evergreen, and experienced a...

Love's BodyEucharist in Our Lives A Photographic Exhibition

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First and foremost thank you to all the contributors to the exhibition. Their generosity has sustained the enterprise from the beginning.

So too has the guidance, professionalism and unfailing sense that it was worth doing of the NewNorth Gallery, in particular Michael Silver and Susanne Silver.

Ramesh Weereratne’s creative involvement in, and enthusiasm for, the production of the booklet gave a real lift to the project.

Br Mark O’Connor FMS, the Director of the Archbishop’s Office for Evangelisation, said yes to the undertaking and then backed it.

And Fr Greg Boyle SJ, the Founder and Executive Director of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles agreed to open the exhibition and also contributed a photograph. His readiness to be part of it, from afar, was always encouraging.

Acknowledgements

For more informationContact the Exhibition Curator Damian [email protected]

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This is a slightly unusual exhibition. Unusual because it’s not often you have a photographic exhibition focusing on the mystery of the Christian life. Then there’s the matter that although some of the contributors to the exhibition are photographers, most are not. A variety of people from the US, UK, Italy, Mexico and Australia were invited to contribute a photo which was to be an image of Eucharist in their lives … an image of Love’s Body. As it said in the invitation, ‘is there an image that speaks to you of this transformation; let alone the experience of this body?’

They were invited to email me either one of their own photos, or a photo they admired which wouldn’t involve huge copyright problems. In the invitation there was a suggestion that perhaps it might not be too literal, but more metaphoric, or symbolic, with the rider that there was no need to be prescriptive about this. When the first one arrived, from Timothy Radcliffe, I was delighted by the unexpectedness of it – a photo of the Holy Island, Lindisfarne, off the north east coast of England. And so it continued, day after day, unexpected and various, revealing the intimate ways in which Eucharist touched upon images of the contributors’ lives. As well, each contributor was asked for a few words about why they had chosen this image. I find the words they sent really moving. From Tony Kelly’s three lines to the longer paragraphs of Judith Dupré and Mary O’Shannassy they wonderfully complement the photos. They’re not the last word about them – they can’t be – but they do reveal something of the imaginative power of Eucharist in all our lives. Others will look at these images and see new things in them. This is how we respond to the ongoing challenge of re-imagining the Eucharist, of discovering anew Love’s Body.

So, these are generative images. One of the intentions of the exhibition is to ask the question of the viewer that was asked of the contributors: what image might you come up with? The photos in this transformative exhibition will help us imagine other possibilities.

Damian ColeridgeExhibition Curator

Love's Body – Eucharist in Our Lives


Gregory Boyle

Homeboy Industries Juan is a whole lot more than the tattoos on his face, his criminal record and the worst thing he’s ever done. He’s a workin’ man. He has a reason to get up in the morning and reason not to ‘gang bang’ the night before. With the buoyancy of hope, Juan works through the night to bake bread. And so he inhabits the truth of who he is: exactly what God had in mind when God made him. Through the dignity of work , he becomes this ‘truth’ more and more.

Eucharist. Bread Broken. Thanksgiving.

Homeboy Bakery stands with the poor and the voiceless and the powerless. It stands with those whose dignity has been denied. It stands with those whose burdens are more than they can bear. Fortunate indeed, to stand with the easily despised and the readily left out. With the demonized so that the demonizing will stop. And with the disposable – so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away.

Eucharist. Bread broken. Thanksgiving.

Gregory Boyle is a Jesuit priest and the founder and executive director of Homeboy Industries whose mission is ‘jobs not jails.’ For more than 25 years he has lived among young men and women involved in the gang culture of Los Angeles. Their lives are at the centre of his recent book Tattoos on the Heart – the Power of Boundless Compassion.

Photographer: Ernest Wright

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Tony Callinan

Tony Callinan is a priest of the Archdiocese of Melbourne, ordained in 1973. He has served as an assistant priest in the parishes of Braybrook and Ascot Vale and chaplain to RMIT University. He has also served as a parish priest in Lima (Peru) and Epping.

After the Bushfires Sometime after the Black Saturday bushfires I was taking a photo of the tabernacle in the temporary church at Kinglake, not realising that the burnt out forest around the church was being reflected in the church window. Thus the photo turned out as it did. A few things strike me about the photo. Firstly, that it was an absolute fluke; and secondly, in some way it can be seen as symbolic of the Church’s yearning to immerse itself in situations of tragedy and suffering and respond with the compassion of Jesus.


Iconic Moment This image was taken during the Mark Passion performance at Trades Hall in 2003. A very literal interpretation of Eucharist, the light and the expressions on their faces is a beautiful recreation of an iconic moment.

Peter Casamento

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Peter Casamento inherited his father John's passion for photography. He is a well known photographer with a sharp eye for detail and aesthetic beauty. He enjoys creating memorable images with care and good humour.


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Andrew Chapman

City CycleMany say New York is the city to see. Vibrant, ever-changing, energy rich and a Mecca for talent, it is a magnet for tourists, business and the arts. A visit to New York City can leave you exhausted, but energised, the hustle and bustle of human endeavour testing all the senses.

Yet, within the noise, the swirls of colour and the smells of a big metropolis, there is time and there are places for couples to share intimacy, privacy and joy.

Andrew Chapman has been a major contributor to the Australian publishing industry over the past thirty years. He has exhibited widely in Australia, in France and the USA. Over the past six years he has published The Shearers, Campaign, and Woolsheds (due October 2011) and been a contributor to numerous other books. Andrew was the founder and inaugural president of MAP Group, a collective of documentary photographers.


Ezekiel’s Measure (detail)

The title of the image is Ezekiel’s measure … And the accompanying text is from The Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:14-15) ‘You are the world’s light; it is impossible to hide a town built on top of a hill. Men do not light a lamp and put it under a bucket. They put it on a lampstand, and it gives light for everybody in the house.’

‘….the photograph becomes like a prism which transforms the light which passes through it – a language of symbols carved in light. Each of our lives is unique. My wish is to capture the imperfection and strangeness of the life I have been given, and yes, its beauty and sadness too.’

Judith Crispin

Judith Crispin is a composer, poet and photographer. She holds several international prizes for music, and has exhibited photographs in Germany, Australia and France. Her publications include poetry as well as a number of musicological books and articles.

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Tomb of Christ, Jerusalem (detail)

The Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre is a massive, meandering church built over the place where both archaeologists and theologians believe Christ was crucified and buried. Its spiritual heart is Christ’s tomb, which is housed inside an ornate marble structure called the Edicule. This woman, anonymously sheathed in a white headscarf, did not enter the tomb, but humbly remained outside, embracing the Edicule and praying unceasingly. She seemed to be holding the body of Christ himself, grieving his death, but clinging just as fiercely to the promise of resurrection. I watched her from a distance, mesmerized, as her faith melted my disbelief. Through the grace of a stranger, I became present to faith’s power, ancient and evergreen, and experienced a metanoia, a transformative change of heart.

Judith Dupré

Judith Dupré is the author of several bestselling books including Churches, Monuments and Full of Grace: Encountering Mary in Faith, Art and Life. The curator of numerous art exhibitions, she also develops educational programs that utilize the arts. She holds degrees from Brown University and a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School. She lives with her family outside New York City.


Christmas LunchThe Christmas lunch with the poor is a tradition of the Community of Sant'Egidio. It began in 1982, when a small group of poor people was welcomed at the banquet table in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere. There were about 20 people invited: some elderly people of the neighbourhood who were friends of ours and who would have otherwise stayed home on the day, and some homeless people we had got to know in the streets of Rome. From that moment on, the banquet table has grown larger, year after year, and from Trastevere it has reached into many parts of the world, wherever the Community is present.

Community of Sant’Egidio

The Community of Sant'Egidio began in Rome in 1968, in the period following the Second Vatican Council, as a movement of lay people. Today it has more than 60,000 lay members dedicated to evangelisation and charity, in Rome, throughout Italy, and more than 70 countries round the world.

Photo courtesy of the Community of Sant’Egidio


The Body of Christ 1 (Seeds)Most of our food starts as seeds. Little nothings full of amazing potential. Religious writers have been fascinated by seeds for a long, long time. Jesus used seed imagery in many of his parables. The Kingdom of God is a mustard seed, a farmer sows seeds on the ground, etc . The mystical thing about seeds is in their potential. Seeds are not valued, or important, for what they are. Their value is in what they may become when they die. The image is dark and uses strong contrast to explore the relationship between life and death in the things from which we take our sustenance.

Bryn Harding

Bryn Harding is a husband, friend, substitute teacher and artist living with his wife Aubrey in an Anabaptist intentional community called Missio Dei, in South Minneapolis, in Minnesota, USA.

Photographer: Bryn Harding


The Body of Christ 8 (making bread)There is something very beautiful about preparing food for someone else. In making and serving food to people we are entering into the creative act of giving life that the land and the Creator are doing constantly. When we break bread together we are told to do so in remembrance of Christ, the giver of all life. I believe deeply and firmly that Christ is present to us whenever we make food and serve, or are served by another. And especially when we share a meal with those like Him, the poor and the outcast.

Bryn Harding

Bryn Harding is a husband, friend, substitute teacher and artist living with his wife Aubrey in an Anabaptist intentional community called Missio Dei, in South Minneapolis, in Minnesota, USA.

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Cathy Jenkins

Cathy Jenkins works as a Deputy Principal at Genazzano FCJ College and is involved in her local parish community of St Anthony’s, Alphington.

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Holy GroundThe God of the impossible creates a transformative presence in a baby. This tiny, helpless being becomes for Christians the essence of what it means to be a sacred presence in the world. For me, this image is a reminder of the essence of love’s body – the sacred presence that binds a community of believers and propels them to work for the good of the world. This photo was taken one Christmas morning at my parish church and in thinking about Eucharist in our lives I was struck by the human-ness this love inspires in all of us. When we join with Jesus in the Eucharist I am reminded of the hope that he brings to our humanity – because of Jesus we can always walk on Holy Ground.


TreviThe Eucharist is the basic substance and deepest rhythm of life at its fullest. It is a communion of persons, not an anonymous immersion: it expresses each self in Christ, each having a part in this sacrament of mutual support.

Tony Kelly

Tony Kelly CSsR is a member of the Redemptorist Congregation and a theologian, teacher and author. He is a member of the International Theological Commission and Professor of Theology at the Australian Catholic University. His many books include The Bread of God: Nurturing a Eucharistic Imagination and The Resurrection Effect.

Photographer: John Kane


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Gazing in WonderThis photograph is of an artwork by Antony Gormley – a collection of 100 sculptures installed along a 30 mile long beach near Liverpool. The whole experience moved me, as the very life-like beings were all looking out to sea – as if searching for meaning and connection with a higher being, individually, but also together as a collective, much like communion.

Miriam McWilliam

Miriam McWilliam is a freelance graphic designer who has worked with a variety of agencies in the UK and Melbourne. Sculpture and photography are two of her abiding interests and she has exhibited in both Melbourne and the US. She recently contributed to a book entitled The Cliff and the Sea a collection of visual and written contributions loosely based on the theme of Melbourne and spirituality.


The Food PantryThe Food Pantry at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco is set up like a free farmer's market, right around the altar in the sanctuary. The pantry is open to everyone, without conditions, and gives away literally tons of groceries and fresh produce to over 500 hungry families a week. The pantry is not a social service program, but a living community, run by people who came to get food and stayed to serve others.

Sara Miles is the founder and director of the Food Pantry and serves as Director of Ministry at St Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco. She has helped in setting up many food pantries in the US. She is the author of two books Take This Bread: a Radical Conversion and Jesus Freak: Feeding, Healing, Raising the Dead.

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In Chiapas, MexicoI took this photo in a rural town in Chiapas, Mexico, where I went as part of the missions we run with indigenous people. Before the people come to eat together they place the food on the table. This photo shows plates with beans and tortillas. It has been edited by a friend of mine in order to emphasize these elements.

Angel F. Méndez Montoya OP is a member of the Southern Dominican Province in the USA. Born in Mexico he first worked as a dancer. He currently teaches theology and philosophy at Universidad IberoAmericana in Mexico City where he is also the co-ordinator of the Faith and Culture Program. He is the author of The Theology of Food: Eating and the Eucharist.

Angel Méndez Montoya

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Angel F. Méndez Montoya OP is a member of the Southern Dominican Province in the USA. Born in Mexico he first worked as a dancer. He currently teaches theology and philosophy at Universidad IberoAmericana in Mexico City where he is also the co-ordinator of the Faith and Culture Program. He is the author of The Theology of Food: Eating and the Eucharist.

Angel Méndez Montoya

Paper DreamsThis photo was taken by a professional photographer in the US, whose name is Paul Mahder. I am the model. I like it a lot because it is very oneiric, very dreamlike, which is alluded to in its title Paper Dreams. At the same time it is a metaphor of the fusion of the body and nature, the material and the spiritual.


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Kelly Ng

Requiem Mass for Van Nguyen Van Nguyen was executed on 2 December 2005, in Singapore, at the age of 25. He had been arrested three years earlier for carrying drugs whilst in transit at Singapore airport. During his time on death row, Van learnt to live only for others and reached out to all those around him, sharing with them the unconditional love he had discovered and received from God. Van continued to share that love, even after he died.

For his funeral on 7 December 2005, at St Patrick’s Cathedral Melbourne, Van had asked that each person hug the person next to them during the sign of peace and introduce themselves so that ‘they shall no longer be strangers’. Although we had all gathered to mourn his death that day, we were fed and nourished by the love that was shared.

Kelly Ng was a close school friend of Van Nguyen’s who visited him regularly whilst he was on death row in Singapore. Together with Bronwyn Lew, another close friend of Van Nguyen’s, she campaigned publicly to save his life, amongst other things launching the ‘Reach Out Campaign’ hand tracing petition.


Church in Remand (detail)

At the Metropolitan Remand Centre which houses 630 male prisoners, we gather for Eucharist as a worshipping community – celebrant, Catholic chaplains, the men who are there awaiting court appearances and members of a small, regular support group of people from suburban parishes. Together we form a core faith community. Our Eucharist is the Paschal Mystery lived out in the lives of these men.

For Eucharist, they come apart to what is like an oasis of peace, a sanctuary, within a potentially violent and destructive environment, to be with God and one another in prayer. Here the hopes, dreams, fears, pain, guilt and sinfulness are brought to be offered and transformed. ‘Bless and approve our offering…make it acceptable to you…This is my Body broken…This is my Blood … shed for you … that sins may be forgiven…..Though we are sinners, do not consider what we truly deserve, but grant us your forgiveness.’ (Eucharistic Prayer 1.) In community, with prayer and song, glory and praise is given to God by the broken Body of Christ, as Church in Remand.

Mary O’Shannassy SGS is a Sister of the Good Samaritan who is the Director of Catholic Prison Ministry Victoria. She has been ‘doing time’ for 17 years. She has long had a passion for justice which has sustained her in assisting people to know something of their own goodness, and the unconditional love of the God who says ‘Come to me’ and ‘Come as you are’.

Mary O’Shannassy

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Someone to Call On (detail)

Vicki Clark, steeped in her Mutthi Mutthi Lake Mungo cultural heritage and in her sense of Eucharist, brings to the table many initiatives in rainbow and covenant colours. Deeply embodied in ‘God’s Love,’ through her own deep Aboriginal Spiritual Persona, this enables her to do so much for the community of the ‘Body of Christ’ within the Aboriginal Catholic Ministry.

The Aboriginal Crosses are significant works of art she has created. And it is her call to care for and love the sick and elderly and the families she visits and instructs for Baptism. Then there is the constant call to officiate at Aboriginal funerals, and the tremendous effort she puts into visiting the families, preparing them for these occasions. As well, there are the community Sunday Masses she initiates at the Aboriginal Catholic Ministry, the new Rosary exhibition featuring the Mysteries of Light, the Opening the Doors Foundation which provides assistance for Aboriginal children in non-government schools and the Fire Carriers in secondary schools, which provide youth with an opportunity to bring together their faith and Indigenous culture.

Elizabeth (Betty) Pike

Elizabeth 'Betty' Pike is writer-in-residence in Victoria for the Aboriginal Catholic Ministry. She is a Nyoongah woman whose ancestors are the Aboriginal people of south-west Australia and an Irish convict. Betty Pike has written A River Dreaming – her story – as well as numerous articles with an Aboriginal focus for journals and magazines, including Madonna, Outlook, Summit, Nelen Yubu, Kairos Catholic Journal and EarthSong.


The Holy Island, LindisfarneThis is a photo of the Holy Island, Lindisfarne, off the north east coast of England. A monastery was founded there by St Aidan in 635AD, and it became the centre of the mission for the reconversion of northern England. When I was a student chaplain, we began a pilgrimage called Northern Cross. We walked from the west to the east coasts of Britain, arriving at the Holy Island on Good Friday. The Eucharist, which we celebrated every day, was our nourishment as we climbed over the central hills of England. It is also the food of our pilgrimage to the Kingdom. At the end of every Eucharist we are sent (the word ‘Mass’ means ‘sent’) out into the world. This photo, with its wide open sky and distant view, evokes the vast open world in which we are sent by the Risen Lord. Finally, the Eucharist is our sharing in the community of the saints, such as Sts Aidan and Cuthbert who lived in the Holy Island all those centuries ago.

Timothy Radcliffe OP is a former master of the Dominican Order who lives in Oxford. He has an international reputation as a speaker and author. His most recent books are What is the Point of Being a Christian? and Why Go to Church? The Drama of the Eucharist.

Timothy Radcliffe

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Bread of LifeKOTO (Know One Teach One) is a hospitality training school in Hanoi, Vietnam, teaching work skills to local street kids – and transforming their lives. The training enables them to find stable jobs and build their future. It was founded by an Australian, Jimmy Pham, who was moved to do something to help the young people he saw on the streets in Hanoi. From a small sandwich shop in 1996 KOTO has grown into a fully-fledged training school also teaching English and life skills in a supportive family environment. Fifty young people now graduate each year and are greatly in demand by the hotels servicing the burgeoning tourism industry in Vietnam. Australian chefs are sharing their knowledge with KOTO students in this photograph. "The greatest accomplishment for the person who has helped you, is to see you stand on your own two feet and then in turn help someone else that reminds you of yourself, because if you Know One, then you should Teach One." Jimmy Pham – KOTO Founder

Michael Silver is the Director of NewNorth Gallery, Fairfield, a dedicated photography gallery. He took a series of photographs at KOTO, for their use, while in Hanoi in 2010.

Michael Silver

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Michael Silver is the Director of NewNorth Gallery, Fairfield, a dedicated photography gallery. He is a photographer of great experience who began working in newspapers, but now often works for NGOs and Charities while maintaining a diverse photographic practice.

Michael Silver

Photographer: Michael Silver

A Corporal Work of Mercy A moment of prayer together as a pastoral carer spends time with a traumatised patient in the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

‘Then the King will say to those on the right, “Come you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”’ (Matthew 25:34-36,40)


Bible Dancing by Queenie McKenzie The art of this West Australian woman reflects both her close links to her tribal lands and her attachment to the Catholic faith that she and her mother embraced after seeing the care of a relative by nuns at the Derby leprosarium. She links the traditions of Aboriginal painting and affinity to country with the Bible stories she came to hear and the Christian traditions of worship. Her lusty hymn-singing became well-known in her local community!

Christians are directed to ‘go out and teach all nations’. It hasn't always been a happy event for many around the world, but Queenie's ability to absorb a new faith and incorporate it into her traditions reflects what Jesus told his followers quite unambiguously: in our Father's house there are many mansions, and room for all.

Susanne Silver

Susanne Silver has worked in publishing, newspapers and photography both in England and in Australia. Since 1979 she has collaborated with her husband Michael Silver in photography businesses, and since 2007 in running NewNorth Editions, comprising NewNorth Gallery, dedicated to photography, and fine art large-format photographic printing.

Photo courtesy of Susanne Silver


Easter Vigil‘The Eucharist makes the church visible. The church is not, for that period, a vague idea. By becoming a particular gathering in a particular location the church locates itself in space, and is made visible. It becomes incarnate, a body gathered to receive the Body.’

Samuel Wells

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Samuel Wells is Dean of Duke University Chapel, USA. He is an Anglican priest and moral theologian with extensive pastoral experience. His published works include God’s Companions: Reimagining Christian Ethics, Speaking the Truth: Preaching in a Pluralistic Culture and Christian Ethics: An Introductory Reader.


The PromiseThe golden thread in the Bible is the Great Promise, ‘I am with you!’ The words of the Psalmist say it in another way: ‘You stretch out your hand and your right hand delivers me’ (Psalm 138:7). The love of husband and wife embodied in their child say it yet again. The Eucharist draws us ever deeper into the Promise. This is irresistible!

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Michael Whelan SM is a Marist father ordained in 1972. In the 1990s he helped to set up Catalyst for Renewal and was a co-founder of Spirituality in the Pub. He has published three books in the area of spirituality. He is currently Principal of the Aquinas Academy Adult Education Centre in Sydney where he also lectures in spirituality.

Michael Whelan

Sunday 26 June – Saturday 16 July 2011

NewNorth Gallery, 15a Railway Place, Fairfield VIC 3078 Phone 03 9018 3081 [email protected]

www.newnorth.com.au

love's body - melbourne catholic · faith’s power, ancient and evergreen, and experienced a...

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