Because of the Covid-19 pandemic situation currently, movement is restricted. For many months now, I had to attend online masses on the internet. There were a few local Catholic churches that broadcast online masses on the internet. However, sometimes there were hiccups, and some video streaming transmissions or sound were not smooth. So I had to find out where else I could attend an online mass at a suitable time.
That’s when I found the broadcast by the Divine Mercy Church in Penang. I found streaming of the video very smooth and the graphics very easy to follow. I liked it. But what I specifically liked was the singing of the Divine Mercy Chaplet before the mass.
I had been praying the rosary all this while. I was not aware that the Divine Mercy Chaplet could be sung! With my curiosity aroused, I searched the internet for more information. Then I noticed that all the images of the Divine Mercy were either in the form of flat paintings, flat stained glass or in the form of sculptures.
But the 2 rays found in all the sculptures were solid structures. It was as if some solid triangular large and heavy objects were hung from the chest of Jesus Christ. I found that very odd. They did not look like rays at all!
Since I was experimenting with CNC cutting of 2.5D images, and edge lit acrylic lamps, I thought I could design something better. I could let the rays be really lighted. I could also illuminate the image of Jesus Christ so that it would looked like an apparition, because according to my research on the internet, Saint Faustina Kowalska reported a number of apparitions during religious ecstasy which she wrote in her 1934-1938 diary and that according to her diary, she cried upon seeing that the finished picture by the original artist on canvas was not as beautiful as the vision she had received, but Jesus comforted her saying, “Not in the beauty of the color, nor of the brush is the greatness of this image, but in My grace”.
Does it become more beautiful by 2.5D engraving and lighting it on acrylic? You be the judge.