When you enter the chapel at Kapaun Mt. Carmel Catholic High School in Wichita, Kansas, you can’t help but pause in awe at the gorgeous original oil paintings adorning its walls.
The images are lifelike and beautiful, but what really strikes the attention is the unusual groupings of saints depicted, gathered together like friends. The panels emphasize young saints, as they decorate a high school.
The saints are a mix of old and new — holy figures from modern times and the distant past, and from all over the world. Ignatius of Loyola sits before St. Jose Sanchez del Rio, a boy martyr of Mexico's Cristero War, with St. Thérèse and Michael the Archangel in the back
St. Carlo Acutis sits beside St. Josephine Bakhita, with Sts. Francis of Assisi and Dymphna around them.
St. Pier Giorgio Frassati leans above St. John Paul II and St. Joan of Arc, with St. Maria Goretti sitting beside them.
It’s a beautiful witness to the universality of the Church and how the Holy Spirit is working in our world, as new saints are being made every day. The gathering of saints from all times and places gives a glimpse into what Heaven itself will be like.
But even more incredible than the luminous paintings is the story behind them.
The persistent pull of grace
The artist, Ernest Vincent Wood III, has a rare gift for making sacred art — but he stumbled into this field almost by accident. And his work in sacred art led to his astonishing conversion, bringing him home to the Catholic faith.
Wood grew up in the Baptist faith, and even worked in Baptist ministry for a time. But he always felt a different call, as he told Aleteia:
When I look back on those years, I didn’t really have much of a plan and didn’t know how it was going to go, but a number of things fell into place that slowly led me, not only to the Catholic Church, but also to painting more and more sacred art.
Wood earned his BFA from Wichita State University in 2006, then traveled to Italy to continue his artistic studies.
Studying art in Italy was life-changing, as he encountered for the first time the lavish artistic heritage of the Catholic Church in Europe.
He also began to learn the stories behind the artwork he saw, and began to feel a special connection to certain Catholic saints, especially St. John Paul II and St. Francis of Assisi.
“There were all these little moments of invitation and grace,” he recalled.
But when he moved back to the U.S., he felt so called to ministry in the Baptist faith that he almost gave up painting completely. Fortunately, trusted friends urged him not to abandon the artistic gift God gave him, but to use it for God’s glory.
Wood took that to heart and began to work full-time as an artist, traveling around the U.S. to art fairs to sell his work.
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Something very interesting began to happen at these shows. Some of his artwork depicted religious scenes, like from the life of Jesus. People were drawn to these images and Wood began to see how art could spread the Gospel. He said:
I had so many conversations with folks about these sacred art pieces. And I realized that I was able to take this artwork into a place where those who may never step foot inside of a church will see something that’s not only beautiful, but also is itself a message.
Surprising invitations
His reputation as a sacred artist grew, and he began to get commissions he didn’t expect — from Catholics.
First a church. Then a family who wanted the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary depicted in their home.
Somehow, he kept finding himself making Catholic sacred art.
“There have been all these moments throughout my life that I have had almost no say in, but people stepped in and invited me into something greater,” he said.
On one memorable occasion, he overheard someone comment on his work, “Can you believe the artist is not Catholic?” A friend responded with uncanny foresight, “Not Catholic … yet!”
All of these projects brought him to look at his art in a new way:
This incredible calling, this idea of vocation, suddenly started to really hit me hard. And I was thinking about all of the little threads of ministry throughout my life, my love for classical sacred paintings, and all these invitations along the way. It was becoming increasingly hard to ignore.
Around this time, he began painting the saint panels for the chapel at Kapaun Mt. Carmel. The saints featured were chosen in a collaborative process, with students at the school voting on which saints to include and sharing why these saints inspired them.
Wood wasn’t familiar with many of the saints and their stories. But as he heard from the students, the saints’ stories powerfully affected him.
“The more that I studied the lives of the saints, the more all these things really began to press in,” he said.
He began attending OCIA in 2023, at first just to “see what happens.” But little by little, he became convinced that what he was learning was the truth, and he was received into the Catholic Church.
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Today, Wood has finished three of the six panels in the chapel. He’s not yet at liberty to share the saints who will be featured in them — an eagerly awaited surprise.
But just as painting them led Wood into full communion with the Catholic Church, these paintings hopefully will inspire living faith in countless other souls.
