New Chapel Paintings Inspire Patients

Merci McCoy, above, asked her good friend, Sister Marian Bradley, IWBS to pose for her. Note the one sisters’ profile in the painting above.

Steven Alford for South Texas Catholic
 

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Even though her first paintings were damaged during Hurricane Harvey, Corpus Christi artist Mercedes “Merci” McCoy did not let that stop her from completing a set of new religious imagery for a chapel at CHRISTUS Spohn Dr. Hector P. Garcia Memorial Family Health Center. 

Featuring beautiful depictions of Jesus Christ, Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word of Houston and San Antonio, Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth in Tyler and Dr. Hector P. Garcia, McCoy knew the artwork would give inspiration to many who would reflect upon them. 

CHRISTUS Spohn leaders were honored to host McCoy and her family at the Dr. Hector P. Garcia Memorial Family Health Center during a special blessing ceremony in the clinic chapel. 

“Thank you for all you do to inspire and ignite the faith of so many patients and visitors to this chapel,” said Steve Kazanjian, Vice President of Mission Integration for CHRISTUS Spohn Health System. “We are grateful for your commitment to our mission of extending the healing ministry of Jesus Christ.” 

McCoy said she donated the inspiring paintings to be hung in the clinic’s chapel to share the healing spirit of Jesus with fellow patients and visitors. 

She prepared the works of art through months of research in area museums and churches and included the likeness of Dr. Hector P. Garcia in them as a lasting tribute to his legacy of healing and kindness. 

“I put a lot of prayer into these paintings,” McCoy said, becoming emotional, as the paintings were unveiled for the first time from underneath decorative purple cloths. “Each stroke is a prayer, and there are a lot of brush strokes.” 

What made the experience even more special was the fact that her father, Lloyd L.K. Flores, Sr., mentored her through the process of creating the images. He passed away shortly before they were completed. Still, McCoy said their large family could feel his presence that day as the art was unveiled. 

“The concept for these paintings came from my dad and I’m very grateful that he knew I would be finishing them, and they would one day hang here in the Dr. Hector P. Garcia Memorial Family Health Center to honor the legacy of a great man and a great ministry,” she said. 

Her father was an architect, engineer and an avid artist when he retired. After they commissioned her to do the paintings for the center, she called her father a couple of days before he passed away and as they were brainstorming, the concept came into focus. 

Her father honed it in for her that it should be about the Blessed Sacrament. “His last words he said to me were, ‘don’t forget the Eucharist.’ He said that’s the focus of everything anyway,” McCoy said. “And I didn’t. Now I go to daily Mass to receive the Eucharist.” McCoy is a parishioner of St. Andrew by the Sea but attends daily Mass at Corpus Christi Cathedral.

It took McCoy more than a year to complete both oil paintings, which feature realistic interpretations of the crucifixion, along with imagery of Dr. Hector P. Garcia comforting a child patient, and the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word welcoming the Holy Family into the health center. Her good friend Sister Marian Bradley with the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament posed for her in one of the paintings.

She said she uses scripture as her titles, “so it forces whoever looks at it to look it up in the Bible. The painting of the Holy Family is called ‘Luke 1:38’ – ‘I am the Lord’s servant, may your word to me be fulfilled.’ The middle of the painting are the words, ‘Fiat Voluntas Tua,’ which is Latin for ‘Thy will be done.’ This is the motto of the Sisters of the Holy Family,” she said.

“The painting of the Eucharist with Dr. Hector Garcia in the foreground, helping a child stand up from his wheelchair is entitled, ‘Isiah 53:5,’ which reads, ‘But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, by his wounds we were healed.’ Not only does the painting focus on the Eucharist, but on the healing power of the Eucharist,” she said. 

Every year, since 2016, she has donated a painting, “Mother Teresa Praying Hands, Mother Teresa in prayer. The baby Jesus and Pope Francis. If they commission sacred art, I don’t charge them like I would a client or anyone who wants to have their portrait done because sacred art to me is a gift from God – so I give it back. All I do is ask for donations for my materials and if they want to give me something for my time that’s fine too, but basically, it’s for my canvas, paints and brushes and that’s it. What I usually do when I get the donation is, I turn around and give it to the Church,” she said. “I tithe it.”

The Dr. Hector P. Garcia Memorial Family Health Center opened in January 2017 and is a medical home to thousands of patients in Nueces County, offering a range of primary care specialties, including in-house diagnostics and pharmacy. There is also a Memorial Quick Care clinic located on the grounds that is open to the public. The facilities are located in Corpus Christi at 2606 Hospital Blvd. 

For more information about the Dr. Hector P. Garcia Memorial Family Health Center, please visit www.christushealth.org/spohn/about/our-path-forward/dr-hector-p-garcia-memorial-family-health-center.

(Mary Cottingham contributed to this article.)