c. 1998 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ Middle-aged men sit scattered around the bare room on a weekday morning, their heads bowed in sleep on dining tables. One man, lost in his own world, makes periodic animal noises.

Above their heads at the St. Augustine Hunger Center is a painting of Jesus standing in a bread line, clad in old clothing and work shoes and slightly stoop-shouldered _ distinguishable from those around him only by hands clasped in prayer.

It has hung there for 10 years, and over the years several people have told artist Kimberly Brady that they saw themselves in the painting.

“It’s like a part of them, their picture,” Brady says, sitting on a simple wooden pew in St. Augustine Roman Catholic Church, which sponsors the hunger center in its basement. “The way I identify with it is, I just identify with Jesus in being a part of this church and helping other people.”

The lines blur easily between servants and those being served at St. Augustine’s, located in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood.

Brady’s husband works for the church doing odd jobs, and Brady, a 39-year-old mother of four, has frequently shared meals with guests at the hunger center.

They own their own home now, but when they moved here from Pennsylvania 10 years ago, Brady’s family struggled. During the 10 months she devoted to the “Jesus in the Bread Line” painting, they first lived with friends, and later moved in with other people after they could no longer afford to pay rent on an apartment.

While she was painting, Brady, a Catholic, said she could hear God speaking to her.

“He was saying he was going to be with me. He was going to walk with my family through the difficult times,” said Brady, a soft-spoken women dressed comfortably in sneakers and with a cross around her neck.

Over the years, she has become a sort of volunteer staff artist for St. Augustine.

Last year she did 11 banners for the church. Her most recent work, a 9-foot painting of Jesus lifting Adam and Eve up from the gates of death, hangs in the sanctuary.

Among her other recent works is a painting in the hunger center called “The Lord’s Supper.”

In the painting, Jesus is shown from the back, with the focus on the other dinner guests. Around the table are people of different races and cultures, including some homeless people. In the entryway is an American Indian family.

Brady, who said she knew at age 3 that she wanted to be an artist _ but has had no formal training _ found her calling in religious art.

“I feel God has called me to do this, and it’s the highest form of art,” Brady said. “I feel really blessed to be doing it.”

Her inspiration comes from various sources. Sometimes it is an icon. Sometimes, it is the paintings or woodcuts of other liturgical artists. In other works, such as a picture of Jesus holding a host representing the bread of life over the shadow of a cross, she relies entirely on her imagination.

One theme that runs throughout her work is a sense of solidarity with people who are often on the margins of society.

“I also like to give a sense of victory, of rising above those everyday problems,” she said.

While Christianity is filled with art of Jesus on the cross, her banner for the Easter Holy Week focused on the risen Christ lifting people up from death.

And the Adam and Eve that Jesus lifts up are not the naked young man and woman with perfect bodies often depicted in popular culture. This Adam is an older man with a beard; Eve is a middle-aged to older woman with the struggles of a difficult life etched on her face.

“I was trying to give people hope,” Brady said. “(Jesus) was victorious over death and I think a lot of people need hope in their lives. And this is my form of ministry to other people.”

IR END BRIGGS