ST. PAUL, Minn. (OSV News) ─ In May last year, Sheryl Moran and a friend whose family is from Chicago were at the start of a pilgrimage along Spain's Camino de Santiago when the friend asked Moran if she painted portraits.
Moran initially responded with hesitation, saying that "when God gave me this gift to paint and I felt called to pursue it, I told him that it's all for him, and I'm just going to do sacred art."
"And she said, 'Well, how about the pope?'" Moran said.
Moran, who has made a few exceptions and has painted portraits of her family over the years, considered this. "I said, 'Well, maybe the pope. … He's my Holy Father.'"
This friend, from a "very philanthropic" family, has a brother who is friends with Msgr. Thomas Powers, rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome, Moran explained. Msgr. Powers had hoped this family might support a portrait of Pope Leo XIV, a Chicago native.
Moran said she would pray about it.
So began the first steps on the artistic road that led Moran, 62, a parishioner of Our Lady of Grace in Edina, to complete an oil painting of Pope Leo for the refectory of the Pontifical North American College, the major seminary for American seminarians studying in Rome.
After Moran expressed her willingness to paint the portrait, her friend's family submitted photos of Moran's work to Msgr. Powers for his consideration. He expressed his hope that the portrait could be completed by Thanksgiving -- a date less than six months away.
Moran knew it would be challenging to meet that deadline given her work as a spiritual director and her previously scheduled plans to lead four retreatants in the 30-day Ignatian spiritual exercises at the Mundelein Seminary near Chicago.
Still, she brought to the retreat the supplies she would need to begin early work on the painting ─ paper, charcoal and an artist's board among them.
While at Mundelein, Moran received both affirmation in prayer that she should pursue the project and the formal commission from Msgr. Powers. Using various photos of Pope Leo, Moran began sketching. She placed an order with a framer to make a canvas for her, so it would be ready by the time she returned home.
Moran, who was trained in the classical realism style of painting, spent roughly 100 hours on the portrait ─ an estimate, she said, because "I just get kind of lost in it (the art-making process) and I just do it."
With her charcoal sketches complete, Moran taped them together to create the desired 3-foot by 4-foot size the portrait would ultimately be. Using a piece of acetate, contact paper and a Sharpie, Moran translated the image she had sketched into an outline on her canvas. She placed her charcoal sketch next to her canvas, for comparison, and used a piece of string to measure various dimensions as she elaborated on her canvas outline.
The oil painting took shape as Moran layered the colors of the pope's vestments, including the whites of the zucchetto, papal cassock and surplice; the reds of the mozzetta, the elbow-length cape; and the golds of the pectoral cross. She had been in conversation with Msgr. Powers about the papal vestments ultimately included in the portrait.
"It's so fun, as an artist, because you realize that a millimeter can make a difference," Moran said. For example, changing the creases around the pope's eyes "changes the expression." At the same time, Moran finds places where a simple indication suffices ─ using a dab of paint instead of intricate detail to create a more realistic picture.
"So, you really have to keep going until you get to the point where you capture what you want to capture," she said.
While she was working on the portrait, she said she found herself being "really drawn to Pope Leo."
"I feel like I've got a special connection to him, and I pray for him intentionally every day," she said. "I just feel really grateful to have him for our Holy Father and really wanted to try to capture his personality as best I could."
Moran said she felt confirmation of God's hand in the process, because she completed the portrait by October and it had dried quickly enough for a shipping company to make a crate for the painting for its journey across the Atlantic Ocean. It arrived at the Pontifical North American College and was installed in time for Thanksgiving.
She hopes the portrait will encourage those who see it "to pray for our Holy Father, and to be grateful for him, and to give God glory."
Moran, who didn't seek compensation for the portrait, said she does not sign the front of her finished paintings. Instead, she writes a note on the back to express that God gets the credit for the work.
"It's really been a joy over the years to see that I give God my eyes and my hands and let him create," she said. "I've got this gift that God has given me and I just say, 'Here it is.' But I give God what I have, and I let him run with it, and then it's his choice to anoint it."
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Rebecca Omastiak is the news editor at The Catholic Spirit, newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. This story ran first in The Catholic Spirit and is distributed in partnership with OSV News.
