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'jesus In Jeans' Sculpture Unveiled


cappie

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Father David Buckley unveiled the £35,000 seven-foot high bronze statue at the Our Lady Immaculate and St Philip Neri Catholic church in Uckfield.

Cornish's sculpture was funded by money left by Winifred Gregory, 87, a member of the congregation who passed away last year.

Christ is wearing jeans and a shirt billowing in the wind while his hair and beard are neatly and fashionably trimmed.

Father Buckley said: "You are always looking for new ways to enrich people in the experience of Christianity and it is good people can be open-minded to appreciate it.

"On the continent you often encounter modern representations of Jesus but it is not so common over here. We wanted a figure of Christ not in suffering but dynamic and welcoming.

"We felt this design summed up the spirit and activity of Christ perfectly and I think it speaks for itself.

Members of a congregation committee opened a competition last year to find a winning statue to mark the church's 50-year anniversary.

Mr Cornish's design was the overwhelming favourite with more than 200 voting in favour last May and only 14 parishioners against.

The statue will be hoisted 100-feet in the air later this week to sit at the top of the church's bell tower after a gold leaf halo has been added to the head.

Mr Cornish, who is based in nearby Lewes and whose work has been bought by The Prince of Wales in the past, said: "The sculpture is simple and direct and I hope it sums up the feeling that Christ is always with us and that we are not to be afraid.

"His clothing is being blown vigorously to add the sense of him being alive and his strength in defying earthly cares.

"The clothing is loosely contemporary in order to connect Christ to his people now as much as to his past.

"I hope this sculpture will inspire and communicate in very human terms, reaching out and being relevant to both the congregation and local community."

[url="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5318718/Jesus-in-jeans-sculpture-unveiled.html"]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics...e-unveiled.html[/url]

[url="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/8050547.stm"]VIDEO[/url]

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That is pretty sweet, although if I didn't know it was Jesus I would have assumed it was one of the saints.

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Brother Vinny

[quote name='MissyP89' post='1869658' date='May 17 2009, 07:28 PM']That is pretty sweet, although if I didn't know it was Jesus I would have assumed it was one of the saints.[/quote]

The cross in the nimbus surrounding His head is kind of a giveaway, isn't it?

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fides' Jack

[quote name='dominicansoul' post='1869695' date='May 17 2009, 07:03 PM']i don't like it, and i wouldn't venerate it....[/quote]


I have to agree. This is just disrespectful and sacrilegious. I don't like people blurring the truth to try to make it more accessible to those they don't think can handle it.

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Brother Vinny

[quote name='cappie' post='1869651' date='May 17 2009, 07:21 PM']"We wanted a figure of Christ not in suffering. . .."[/quote]

Does this sound warning bells for anyone but me?

I'm reminded of Fulton Sheen's [i]Life of Christ[/i] (which I promise myself I'm going to finish), where towards the beginning how those on one side of the political divide during the Cold War wanted a cross-less Christ, while those on the other wanted a Christ-less cross. While the latter tends to lead to misplaced faith and hollow sacrifice (in Sheen's example, in and to the Communist State in the then-extant U.S.S.R.), the former leads to a Christ who ". . .is weak, effeminate, with no authority to drive buyers and sellers out of temples, and never speaks of self-discipline, restraint and mortification." Some of us in the West still seem to want this former.

I'm also reminded of St. Paul's words, "For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified."

Maybe I'm overreacting, though. It is a good thing to be reminded that Christ can and does identify with us, and it isn't as though this is the first time Christ's image has been rendered in terms more identifiable with its intended audience. Christ's suffering shouldn't be avoided, though: it is in our suffering when we most need reminded most that He's able to identify with us.

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the statue is absurd.

We are talking about the King and Lord of Heaven and of the entire Universe. There are dimensions of Christ where he is friendly and intimate with his fellow man and his friends, yet not in the absurd way depicted in that statue.

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