The Empty Tomb

In gratitude to the leading donors of the Chapel of the Beloved Disciple, SLUH commissioned Norwegian calligrapher Helene Jenssen to create an original work of art in devotion to the Beloved Disciple. Spiraling outward from the central image of the empty tomb are these verses from St. John’s Gospel (20:3-8): 

So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed.

This highly stylized script is repeated three times: first in Greek, the original language of the Gospel; second, in Latin, the language of the Roman Catholic Church and an homage to the history of SLUH as a school for Classical study; and finally English, lingua franca for study and evangelization in St. Louis, Missouri in 2024. 

SLUH is honored to express appreciation for donors who made gifts of at least $75,000 by dedicating specific features of the chapel in their honor.