Sunday 25 January 2015

Agony in the Garden


As a follow-up to last week's post Inside St Peter's, here is a close-up of the reredos.

The focal point of the church is the High Altar, with the reredos painting of the Agony in the Garden and was given in memory of John Mottershead. It was commissioned to replace the original Victorian picture of the same subject by J. H. E. Partington which had been overpainted. It portrays our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of his betrayal.
"And He knelt down and prayed saying, Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but Thine be done. And there appeared an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony he prayed the more earnestly." Luke 22 vv41-44.
The artist, J. Martin Pitts, describes the scene as
one in which Heaven and Earth overlap. Contained within the ordinary is the extra-ordinary. Awareness and knowledge of this are the essence of religious experience, and we believe we are never closer to this than when we share together in the Holy Communion.
A contribution to Inspired Sundays.

5 comments:

  1. Very lovely Gerald. Tom The Backroads Traveller

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mr. Pitts did beautiful work with this!

    ReplyDelete
  3. what a gorgeous piece. a lovely find. thank you kindly for sharing. ( :

    ReplyDelete
  4. wonderfull foto shot,and church
    greeting from Belgium

    ReplyDelete
  5. Beautiful painting!
    One would hope future generations would not paint over a work of art.

    ReplyDelete