Women's conference preparation
Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published September 22, 2006
Dearborn Some people pray with beads.
Some with books.
Others with music and candlelight.
Divine Child parishioner Kathy Crombie prays with a paint brush.
And through her prayer, she hopes, women from across the Archdiocese of Detroit will be able to stand at the foot of the cross and see, personally and intimately, the love of the Lord who died for their sins.
Since the archdiocese's annual men's conference in March, Crombie a self-described contemporary basket artist has been writing a near-life-sized icon of the crucified Christ for display at the archdiocese women's conference, which this year will be Oct. 21.
"The scale of it is important," says Crombie, a volunteer helping organize the liturgy of the women's conference this year. "It's one thing to see Christ on the cross. We see Christ on the cross all the time it's another thing when we raise it. We get a sense of Mary and the woman and St. John standing there. It's something real, and it can be very meditative if someone spent time there."
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Photo by Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic
Kathy Crombie, a parishioner at Divine Child Parish inDearborn, displays her icon of Christ crucified. She works on the icon while it is nailed to a wall in her house. | Crombie's contribution to the women's conference is one inspired effort among many by the conference's organizers and volunteers to connect women with the Creator. For the women's conference, bringing people into the presence of Christ is what it's all about. Women require real, personal contact with Him that's why "Journey to the Heart of Christ" is the theme of the fourth annual conference.
"Christ on the cross, His heart was pierced," Crombie says. "We as women, we come closer to the heart of Christ. We go through our own journeys and sometimes our hearts are pierced, too, in different ways."
The conference, which organizers predict this year will draw 2,000-plus women to Macomb County Community College's Sports and Expo Center in Warren, offers an array of speakers to help bring Christ's truths, inspiration and presence to those in attendance. The speakers include Alice Von Hildebrand, a doctor of philosophy who will address the "supernatural strength" which lies in femininity; Janet Smith, PhD, speaking on Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humane Vitae; and health education expert Coleen Kelly Mast, who will speak about sexual morality.
Public speaker and stay-at-home mother of four Ellen Salter also will give a touching personal account of her family's surrender to God during an undiagnosed illness that has her 3-year-old daughter on life support.
And the bedrock of the conference is prayer, with a service to start the morning; numerous priests available to hear confession throughout the day; and the conference's culmination in a Eucharistic procession, the chaplet of divine mercy, and Mass celebrated by Cardinal Adam Maida.
Each element of the event, says Mary DelPup, director of the office for evangelization, which organizes the conference, is meant to bring women closer to the image in which the Lord made them.
"We're going back to recapture women's dignity," says DelPup. "Women need to recover and reclaim who God has made them to be."
For that, organizers say, they look to the examples of Our Blessed Mother and her Divine Son.
That's where Crombie's icon comes into play.
"Each year we have an issue with the fact that we want a crucifix on the stage for the women's conference," says Maureen Karby, event coordinator of the women's conference. "It's very, very difficult to get one that's large enough, as we grow now, perhaps, upwards of 2,300 or 2,400 women."
It so happened that Crombie had long had a vision in her mind. She saw Christ on a cross, and knew it was inside of her, artistically. She even talked it over with Fr. John Riccardo, the pastor of St. Anastasia Parish in Troy who helped found the women's conference when he served at St. John Center for Youth and Family in Plymouth.
Eventually, Crombie who left her career as a professional artist seven years ago to take a position at Right to Life of Michigan found herself on a retreat at St. Michael Institute of Sacred Art Institute in Connecticut. It so happened that the only time she could visit the institute was during a session featuring iconography.
Iconography involves the painting and interpreting of traditional images of Christ, angels and saints. Icons are rich in symbolism and are considered prayers which is why, even though it involves painting, an icon is said to be "written," not "painted." They're common especially in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
With professional training under renown iconographer Peter Pearson, Crombie, who already was on the committee for the women's conference, thought her own vision of Christ might fill the need the conference had for a crucifix though she wasn't sure.
"I said to the committee, 'I don't know if I'm supposed to do this. I don't know if you want this. I need you to pray with me about this,'" Crombie said.
After much prayer from the tightly-knit committee, and some inspiration from witnessing the Archdiocese of Detroit's annual men's conference, Crombie set to work.
In fact, it was on the day of the men's conference, also the feast of the Annunciation, that Crombie went home and started tracing an Italo-Byzantine corpus of Christ.
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What: Gathering for worship, talks and strengthening relationships with Christ.
When: 7:30 a.m.-2:45 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21.
Where: Macomb County Community College Expo Center, 14500 E. Twelve Mile Road, Warren.
Cost: $45 for adults; $35 for students; no charge for vowed women religious.
Registration deadline: Oct. 7 (No registrations accepted after deadline).
To register: Call (734) 459-9558 or e-mail dignityofwoman@aol.com. | One of the many men that is helping out with the women's conference, former automotive model maker Mich Gauvin, agreed to help with the project by building a cross, which can be broken down and fit into a minivan.
The project started with a blessing of Crombie's and Gauvin's hands, and the wood, by associate pastor Fr. Stephen Burr at Divine Child Parish.
"One thing led to another and it was concept turned into reality and we raised the cross last weekend," said Crombie, who is putting the finishing coats including Christ's wounds and blood onto the icon in the few weeks left leading up to the conference. "It was exciting to see it for real."
When raised, the icon on the cross is 14-feet tall, and those standing under it need to look up into the eyes of the Lord.
While the women's conference committee is seeking for a place to keep the icon displayed year-round, members are hopeful that by bringing women to the foot of the cross at the conference physically, they can help pave the way for those women to approach the Lord in a spiritual sense, as well.
"This year, the theme is 'A Woman's Journey to the Heart of Christ,'" says Karby.
"That's exactly where this project has been going, and is going. This, I hope, will be a crucifix for the women's conference for years to come a signature piece."
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