2016 Dane Litchfield 24 by 18 inches. Watercolor and Ink on Watercolor Paper. I made this piece to depict how an encounter with the incarnation (Jesus) radically changes lives. Drawing from my own faith story, I painted a triptych with each panel representing either a phase of my life or an event that radically changed it. Reading it as one would a book, the first panel is dark, downtrodden, and depressed. This was reality for me at one point in life; I felt like I was gazing into the darkness, and it was inescapable. The second panel represents July 20, 2016, from which the piece draws its title. It was on this day that I encountered Christ and realized my call to study theology as a vocation. This moment left me in tears of joy and forgotten pain—of knowing everything was going to be good. This moment spurred about the phase of the third panel, which has been my life since that day, truly an Evangelii Gaudium, joy of the gospel. In the third panel, I am jumping for literal joy, with the colors reflecting the sense of renewed hope and protection that I had found in Christ. The whole piece refers to a sense of “Holy Saturday” because it begins with not knowing what joy was to an encounter with Christ. When you read the piece like a book, the dynamic of the Paschal Mystery is shown, with suffering and death, an encounter with Christ’s saving power, and concluding with the joy of Christian life. The piece shows how I felt from March–July, 2016, knowing something was to happen, but unsure of what it was. The longing my heart and soul endured as I repeated the phrase “The Sun will Rise!”
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