Conference on Faith and Beauty, October 2-3, Portland, Maine

Featuring Catholic artists, Dony McManus, Henry Wingate, and David Clayton

I am delighted to be speaking in Portland, Maine, this coming fall with my friends and Catholic artists, Henry and Dony, at a conference organized by the Diocese of Portland.

To find out more and register to attend, follow this link: https://portlandcatholic.org/beauty

You can see Henry’s work at henrywingate.com, and Dony’s at donymacmanus.com.

A New Commission by Artist Henry Wingate: Our Lady of La Vang for Holy Rosary Church, Houston

I was delighted to hear from an old friend, Henry Wingate, who wanted to tell me about his latest project, a painting of Our Lady of La Vang, commissioned by Holy Rosary Church, in Houston, Texas.

I will admit that I didn’t know anything about this apparition and what follows comes from the Wikipedia entry, which I am trusting is accurate.

“Our Lady of La Vang is a Marian apparition associated with the Vietnamese Catholics. The event is traditionally dated to 1798, during a period of severe persecution under the Nguyen Dynasty, when a group of Catholic faithful had fled into the jungle of La Vang in Quảng Trị Province in central Vietnam.

Suffering from illness and living in constant fear of discovery, they gathered to pray the rosary together. According to the account handed down, a woman appeared to them, dressed in the traditional Vietnamese áo dài and holding the Child Jesus, accompanied by angels. She consoled the refugees, instructed them to gather and boil the leaves of local plants as a remedy for their illnesses, and promised that prayers offered there would be answered. 

The apparition has not received formal Vatican approval, and it remains a pious tradition rather than a defined private revelation. Nonetheless, the site became a place of pilgrimage, and a church was eventually built there, destroyed during the Vietnam War, and later rebuilt. Our Lady of La Vang was declared patroness of Vietnam by the Vietnamese bishops, and the feast is kept on 15 August. For Vietnamese Catholics, both in Vietnam and in diaspora communities around the world, the apparition carries particular weight as a sign of consolation given during persecution - a pattern familiar from other Marian appearances in the tradition.”

See more of Henry’s work at henrywingate.com.

A New Painting of the Nativity by Henry Wingate for Oakcrest School in Virginia

Here is a recently completed painting of the Nativity that now hangs in Oakcrest School in school in Virginia. It is painted by Henry Wingate who is also based in Virginia. It is quite large, over 9 feet long and nearly 8 feet wide. Henry told me, “Those who commissioned the painting wanted it to be seen as Oakcrest’s Nativity, in that it would have signature aspects to it, such as the school uniform plaid that the girls wear. This I put in a not too obvious spot, in a basket behind the donkey. Two other signature pieces are a cardinal and the flowers of a Dogwood tree. These are both Virginia state items, the state bird and the state flower. I especially wanted to show the tender and close relationship between mother and child and also with St. Joseph. I used an actual cave near my studio as the background.”