THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH...OUR OWN!
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And the
Word was made flesh”...our own. Human flesh gave form to God with feet and heart beat
and the “adorable” beauty of a face...And there was a time, a definite time in human
history, when God stepped into the relay of life and received a face to smile upon the
world. A birth, a date of birth, a place for the very first intake of air upon this
earth. Bethlehem, near the ancient city of Jerusalem, with lines of latitude and longitude
upon the planet. Its weather. The sun with its daily singular influence on land and water,
on goat and sheep and human face. It browned the face of shepherd folk and fisher folk and
farmers in the field. And babies in the region would all emerge from their sunless wombs
with little faces brown as berries in the Fall. Further south, the sun would darken brown
to black. Further north where the rays were weaker, faces would be white and pale. When Paul
and Peter brought the Good News across the Mediterranean to Rome, the people heard the news
that God has taken on a face, a human form, a face like their own. It was preached with the
images of the spoken word, the chanted word, the written word, the artist with the paint and
brush and sharpened chisel. In other ways, Francis of Assisi at Christmas would later gather
animals and people into barns to show them that God came to their world, the simple smelly
world that they knew. The great artists of Europe created pictures of Jesus that were lifted
from the only world that they knew.
When Father Leonard
Carrieri created the face of Mary in Camden, he said “I found her face in
the faces of the women of Camden.” Now he has created the face of Jesus who
is the essence of love, who is all heart, the image of the Sacred Heart, to
stand on Ferry Avenue by Sacred Heart Church, where black people walk, where
black children come to school, or ride by on their bicycles. It is the face
of Jesus coming up out of Africa. Tender black features that declare what
the world needs to know: “God is Love.” The word is made flesh - black and
beautiful and dwells among us!
UPON THIS ROCK
The big stone upon which the statue of the Sacred Heart stands is Trenton Brown Stone,
the same as the church stone. It was found by Michael Doyle and Don Harle in a weedy lot
off Federal Street near the bridge over the Cooper River. It was hauled out of there by a
front-end loader by Joe Balzano, Frank Balzano, and the late Ed Montgomery and placed on
its foundation built by Don Harle and Dan Winter. It is a great rock!
GOING MY WAY
The image of the
Sacred Heart that Father Carrieri has created is Jesus in stride...walking
the earth to save us. On “A Prayer Walk” as Rev. John O. Parker of Antioch
Baptist Church would say, to save the world. Inspiring us to walk and pray
for the salvation of Camden.
DEDICATION OF SACRED HEART STATUE
The dedication was on Saturday, September 24th at 9:30 AM. Father Carrieri (he’s 91),
Monsignor Bob McDermott, Vicar General of the Diocese of Camden, Rev. John O. Parker,
Barbara Dever, the Food Sharing women were all there.
