Sacred and Religious Art Still Matter: Painting Healing and Hope
- Guest Contributor
- 1 hour ago
- 5 min read
In this third installment of our series, Casey Batt reflects on her journey, through job loss, prayer and parish life, to painting God's healing grace at All Souls Parish in Englewood.
By Matt Walker
After 18 years, Casey Batt lost her job when her company laid off thousands of employees at once.
“I was a business strategy consultant, trying to find a new path in life. As an almost 50-year-old, starting over career-wise was not easy,” she recalled.
What the All Souls parishioner and mother of two didn’t know at the time was that the closed door was about to be followed by God opening a window. Or to be more precise, re-opening it.
Batt has been painting as long as she can remember, eventually focusing on large canvases and murals. She considered a career as an artist, but opted for what seemed the more viable path in business. Painting always remained as a side business, though, and individuals continued to hire her for portraits and other commissions.
“My style is expressive realism,” Batt explained. ”I care about a realistic quality, but I really want people to feel the movement and the life.”
In the months after she lost her job, Batt began to lean more into painting. Meanwhile, construction on a major renovation of the church at All Souls Parish in Englewood was about to start. Father Rick Nakvasil, the parish’s pastor, already knew Batt as one of the parish cantors. Her husband is also a teacher at the parish school, but Father Rick was about to learn about Casey, The Painter.
“When I saw a portrait Casey donated to the school gala, I said, ‘She’s good!’” he recalled enthusiastically.
At the time, despite the nearing construction, a new devotional side chapel dedicated to healing for families and marriages was only a room on the blueprints. Seeing Batt’s powerful and resonant style, Father Nakvasil realized that she could help him turn the room into an appropriate and sacred space. Batt painted an example of what she might do for the parish building committee and was hired to join the project.
But the job was a tall order in more ways than one.
“I have an art studio in the backyard, but it is not big enough, so we converted the main floor of our house for this project,” she explained.
Father Nakvasil presented Batt with three challenging biblical stories to feature on the chapel walls: Tobit, Jesus and the woman at the well and the Wedding at Cana. Each portrays God’s grace poured out to heal wounds from a family or marriage. He also asked her to avoid showing what other artists have already covered whenever possible, drawing visitors more deeply into the intimate moments they would not have seen before.
“Father Rick said, ‘Review these and take them to prayer.’ He said, ‘I want to do Tobit,’ but he didn't say what about Tobit,” she continued. “Usually, with commissions, it's a family portrait or whatever that they want for their home, but there isn't the same level of meaning that I need to set forth. So this was definitely different.”
A Desparate Prayer
Batt went after the most challenging subject first. In the Old Testament, Tobit is a faithful Jewish father who loses his sight, resulting in poverty and profound despair. He begs for an end to his life, but God heals Tobit and his family. The story is also the only time in the Bible that the Archangel Raphael appears.
“Tobit’s prayer for death was really impactful to me when I was reading it. That's when God hears him and sends down Raphael. To me, that's where the miracle begins, not when the fish guts get put in the eyes,” she said with a laugh, referencing the often-portrayed and strange scriptural scene when Tobit is healed near the story’s end (see Tobit 11).
She also painted Raphael in the shadows of the dark room, unseen by Tobit.
“What I liked was that even though I really see Raphael as one of the protagonists, it's not blatantly obvious [in the painting]. He has a big part, but in a hidden way,” Father Nakvasil explained.
Healing at Midday
Batt next turned her attention to Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, who had come at midday hoping to avoid the judgment of others in the nearby town.
“I wanted it really desolate, very dry,” Batt explained. “Hot and hazy, like a mirage.”
To depict the healing offered by Jesus, Batt added a plant noted frequently in the Bible.
“It was the coolest thing, what she did with hyssop, because hyssop itself is medicinal. You see it at the Passover [to apply blood to lintel posts], and you see it on the Cross [to deliver Jesus his final drink],” Fr. Rick explained.
“On the side where Jesus is, we have hyssop growing. My husband came into the room and said, ‘I think you need to have a little hyssop near her, as a hint of her salvation,’” Batt recalled, recognizing the humor of her husband offering an unsolicited opinion for a painting about marital healing. “So I was like, ‘Okay, I'll give her the hint of salvation!’, and I added a bit of hyssop on [her] side.”
The First Miracle
After weeks of work, Batt moved on to the last, but also biggest, painting: the Wedding at Cana.
“This is the marriage that is for all marriages, and for all of us with the Lord,” Father Nakvasil explained.
The painting features three groups, each framed by a series of arches, starting with the couple, the parents and their guests, who are all unaware that the wine was running out. In the center, Mary makes her request to Jesus to solve the shortage, and then the servants fill jars with water that Jesus will soon turn into wine.
“I have a luxury because it's a long wall, where in a lot of the traditional Renaissance paintings, they have everybody and everything happening in one place,” she said. “You've got this moment between Jesus and his mom. Even amongst the party, they have this moment together that changes the course of everything — the first miracle. There's also an homage to the Renaissance, where they always had the three archways, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So, of course, Jesus is the Son. He's in the middle.”
Hope in Healing
The three pieces took over 400 hours to paint, excluding preliminary sketches, overall planning, and other preparatory work. The murals were installed and the renovated church rededicated in December. And Batt has hope that this new path will lead to more church commissions in addition to steady work for individuals and even interior designers.
“Let's see if I can make being an artist a real thing and not just something that I do as a hobby on the side,” she said.
Father Nakasil is doing what he can to make that dream come true.
“I want the diocese and the world to see what this woman can do,” he concluded.
