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Hawaiians hope to give pope painting of Damien by paralyzed artist
06-10-2009
HONOLULU (CNS) -- A large and colorful painting, made by a paralyzed artist working with Catholic school students and depicting Blessed Damien de Veuster, is headed to Rome where students and teachers hope to present it to the pope at his Oct. 14 general audience.
On Oct. 11 Pope Benedict XVI is canonizing the Belgian-born missionary priest along with four others. The 8-foot-by-4-foot "Father Damien of Molokai" was one of the final artistic efforts of Hawaiian painter Peggy Chun, who died last November of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
Chun had wanted to do a large painting of Blessed Damien since 2002. But when ALS slowly paralyzed her body, it didn't seem possible.
To see her vision realized, Chun got the help of students at Holy Trinity School in Kuliouou in 2007.
"They just got it," said Kimi Chun, Chun's daughter-in-law, of the students.
"You could tell this project helped them feel so connected to her."
After her total paralysis, Peggy Chun could only move her eyes and used them to point at different letters and numbers on a "spell board" to form words and sentences.
In that way she dictated color formulas to the Holy Trinity youngsters who painted 50,000 half-inch paper squares, mosaic pieces for the portrait.
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20091005.htm
