Spring 2002 Exhibit

Father Christopher's Crosses



During this (2002) Lenten season, Father W. N. Christopher Davis '48 created a display for the library case of 35 crosses that he had collected over the years of his priesthood. Among them are crosses from the American southwest (where Father had been a parish priest). Those on display include a silver Mexican Baptismal memento cross in a broken line pattern, (one of a number in Father's memento crosses given by the family at their infant's Baptism) and a lovely turquoise and silver cross.

Wood, alabaster, paper, silver, glass, mosaic, cameo and gold crosses are represented. One cross is made of house nails, another of silver tubes, one has a papal portrait and yet another has splinters of wood encased in glass. The artistic forms of the crosses are varied as well, showing a crusaders' cross, Celtic cross, an Armenian procession cross, a Byzantine cross and Trinity cross. For those especially interested in this aspect of cross design variation, a book in the library collection entitled The Cross As Symbol & Ornament by Johannes Troyer (Westminster, 1961) is most enlightening.

The earliest cross in the collection is of special interest to the Abbey community. The Portsmouth Abbey commemorative class cross of 1948 which was commissioned to be sculpted in lieu of a 1948 class ring. It is double sided and depicts symbols and Saints relevant to the school, the raven, St. Benedict and the Blessed Virgin Mary.