New Portrait of Edmund Rice

Edmund Rice, Man of Compassion

This portrait of Edmund Rice was done by Towfiq Al Qady. In Iraq during the 1990s Towfiq was an artist, dramatist and poet. His work criticized Sadaam Hassein’s regime and, in fear of his life, Towfiq fled Iraq and came to Australia. Upon arrival in 1999, he was detained and spent nine months in the Curtin Centre in Western Australia. While there, he used his artistic skills to brighten up the stark walls with pictures of flowers. For most refugees held in Curtain, Port Headland, Baxter or Woomera, it was rare to see any flowers, just the harsh colours of sunshine, spinifex and bright red soil. This portrait grew out of a request from me and it involved an on-going dialogue over many meetings.

There are various themes used in the picture: lightness to darkness, suffering to new life, slavery to freedom. All are strongly rooted in the bible’s stories of exile and promised land. The hope that God is with us always is at the core of this promise.

The background depicts a city. It could be Waterford, but it could be any prosperous city or first world society with all its wealth. The right side of the picture is shrouded in darkness and represents the sorrow and suffering that afflicted Edmund after his wife died. As you progress from left to right, the scene becomes progressively brighter, leading to bright sunlight. The suffering imposed on Edmund would lead him through weakness to a great compassion that enabled him to “respond to God appealing to him in the poor.”

In the foreground we see a stone-wall that separates and excludes the poor from the freedoms and opportunities that the city affords. It is no surprise that the powerful are normally the richest in any society. Walls and barriers of all sorts are used constantly to separate the poor from the rich throughout history. Life outside the wall is characterized by hard rock and mud: life is hard and for many, there is oppression, if not of their basic rights, then at least of their dignity. In his suffering, Edmund has stepped beyond the wall and “beyond the pale” to be with the poor, uneducated children of his time. On the ground beside him is the lantern that allows Edmund to seek out and find the poor, once again portrayed in darkness. He meets them and gets down with them in the mud, embraces them and then lifts them out. Compassion restores the dignity and education breaks down the wall of poverty and exclusion and provides the way forward to freedom and new life.

The children portrayed in the picture are from different races and religions, wherever the poor are in our day.  With his left hand, Edmund embraces a boy of dark skin- Black Johnny. Johnny Thomas was an African slave that Edmund had bought from slavery and helped restore his dignity. There is a movement of hands as the children reach up and beseech Edmund. One of the girls reaches up and consoles Edmund in his sorrow. Meanwhile the right hand of Edmund offers hope by pointing away from darkness to light through the hole in the wall. The lantern also provides illumination and a way out of the darkness. Towfiq, through his experience in detention centre, recognized how the hole in the wall represented hope and freedom.

On the other side of the wall we see pastures of green. Green is a significant colour representing the green of Ireland and the green of new life: nature is breaking through the rocks and the concrete of the city. Green is also an important colour for Muslims. We see the grass fields giving way to a forest of trees and to a harbour in the distance. Flowers spill over the hole in the wall and down on to some of the children. Towfiq explains this: “Flowers are used in Iraqi art to signify freedom and the best possible life”. For Christians, we would say “hope” or “fullness of life.”

The city in the background is linked by a bridge. This is a symbol of cross-cultural exchange: crossing over new borders to new experiences and understandings of other cultures, peoples and religions. You will notice the dark green of the city becomes a lighter green. The way forward is not simply a return to the “concrete jungle” of the old city- the past. Awareness of creation is starting to break through our consciousness. The new future will include new wisdom through respecting nature and our planet, as well as listening to Indigenous cultures. A new world is being created beyond the hole in the wall.

The sailing boat in the harbour reminds us of St Brendan and the many missionaries and brothers, in particular, who set sail from Ireland to Oceania, America, India, Africa and beyond. It also represents the disciples pushing out with Jesus “setting out for the deep”: the on-going quest for God calls us on to new ministries, new understandings and new possibilities. The boat has added significance for, like Towfiq, many refugees come as “boat-people” to Australia and other places seeking asylum and freedom. The white dove above the bridge is the Holy Spirit moving over the waters bringing order and new life through chaos and confusion, leading the brothers and ER Network to new horizons. All of us are being called from exile to a new promised land. A new future beckons. Sometimes it will take the poor: the stranger, the widow and the refugee to help us recognize it.

“AL INSAN YIMLIK AL MOANATT, AKHO FEE AL INSANEA” (Arabic meaning literally, “Man of Compassion, Brother to Humanity”)

Bro Jim D’Arcy cfc