By Mary Frances McCarthy
Herald Staff Writer
(From the issue of 12/9/04)

How many priests does it take to raise a crucifix? At Blessed Sacrament Church in Alexandria last week, it took three.

Father John Cregan, pastor; Father Joel Jaffe, parochial vicar; and Father Michael Dobbins, parochial vicar at St. Philip Parish in Falls Church; lent their strength and prayers to help raise the new crucifix over the altar.

The three priests assembled a team Thursday morning to carry the cross to the altar and lift it to a vertical position before it was raised to the ceiling. Along with the priests in the team were the artists who created the corpus and cross, Edmund Rabanser and Howard Connelly; Michael Kerrigan from Sacred Spaces who has been assisting the parish through its renovations; and two artists from GoldenRhodes, Charles Rhodes and Kevin Lawler, who happened to be at the church applying gold leaf to the altar.

Students from Blessed Sacrament School sat with the eyes fixed above them. With each click of the hand-winch the crucifix rose a few inches until it stopped about 11 feet above the altar.

The students prayed a decade of the rosary while the cross was being prepared to be raised, and once it began to leave the ground, they sang "Lift High the Cross."

Once the crucifix was in place, Father Cregan led those gathered in prayer, and recited a crucifix prayer composed by Father Matthew Zuberbueler, parochial vicar of the Cathedral of St. Thomas More in Arlington and former parochial vicar at Blessed Sacrament.

The seven-foot tall corpus on the cross, carved out of Italian linden wood, took three and a half months to carve. It was then painted by a separate artist and given a cracked antique finish.

The corpus was carved by Rabanser, the same artist who carved the church’s new tabernacle and Stations of the Cross. By using the same artist, the images of Jesus in the stations and on the crucifix all have the same features. "We only have one Jesus," Father Jaffe said.

Rabanser described the corpus with the Italian word spirante, to breathe. The corpus depicts the last moments, the last breaths of Christ. His eyes and mouth are open, and His chin is up. Rabanser created an incredibly detailed representation, down to individual teeth and a tiny bit of the tongue visible when viewed up close. Around the nails in the hands and feet, stretching of the skin is visible as the weight of Christ’s body pulls at the nails. Even individual veins and bruises have been painted on the body.

When carving, Rabanser used no models, he simply carved from an image he saw in his head.

He has been working as a wood carver "since ever," he said. He estimated "ever" to be about 40 years. Most of the work he has done has been for churches.

Rabanser came to the United States to help install the corpus on the cross, which was constructed by Connelly, an artist from Silver Spring, Md.

The cross is a hollow structure, built around steel beams. It was so skillfully crafted that it is nearly impossible to tell that it is not solid wood.

The cross and the corpus arrived at the church separately, and the cross was stained to complement the corpus. It took one day to stain the cross and attach the corpus, and several hours to prepare the ceiling to hang the crucifix. After waiting for some time on Thursday morning to witness the raising of the crucifix, Father Jaffe was still patient as precautions were taken to ensure the crucifix would be securely hung.

"Precautions are fine with me," he said. "It’s going to be hanging pretty much over our heads."

The crucifix is one of the last projects to be finished before Blessed Sacrament’s renovations will be complete. The last project will be the installation of stained-glass windows in the Blessed Sacrament chapel containing the tabernacle, which will take place within several months.