Candles converted into image of Jesus
John Eagan was poking around his basement last winter when he came across boxes and boxes of partially melted white candles.
He quickly realized they were not ordinary candles. They had been used during Eucharistic adoration — a daily, public display of Communion — at St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church in Freehold, where his wife Lillian is president of the Rosary Altar Society.
“I was saving them,” Lillian Eagan said. “These candles are special. I didn’t have the heart to throw them out.”
She had something else in mind.
“You’re an artist,” she told John, an experienced painter and sculptor. “You figure out what to do with them.”
He did. Eight months later, a 25-pound, 16-inch wax bust depicting Jesus sits on the Eagans’ kitchen table. It’s a remarkable rendition of Christ during his passion, with the crown of thorns, visible strain in his neck and a tear on his left cheek, just under the eye. “It came out better than I thought it would,” John Eagan said. “Maybe
there’s some divine in- tervention there.”
The tear is the most fascinating part. It appeared by accident, revealed after John and his son removed the support cast and five layers of gel that formed a rubber negative mold.
“The wax had a little anomaly in there, and it came through,” Eagan said.
It took 40 pounds’ worth of the recycled candles to render the life-sized bust. Eagan removed all the wicks before melting the candles and pouring the hot wax into the negative mold, where it congealed over several weeks.
The process was challenging because Eagan had never before worked with wax.
“There was wax everywhere in this kitchen,” he said.
Upon removing the mold, Eagan felt the crown of thorns needed emphasis. So he added a striking array of pointed wax needles.
“There was something missing; I wanted to make it more dramatic,” he said. “I thought that would give you an idea of what he had to feel during his passion.”