Stanley Warren and the Changi Murals - St Luke

The final mural in the series is of St Luke the Physician.  It was painted at the request of Padre Chambers.  It shows an old St Luke in prison writing his Gospel for future generations of Christians with a boy handing him paper and guarded by a Roman centurion.  The prison walls are broken and the bars bent to show that whilst the physical body may be imprisoned, the spirit never can be.

However Stanley confessed to liking neither the style of the mural, containing too much grey, or the content, which was at odds with the theme of the other four murals in depicting scenes from the life of Christ.  He did bow to Padre Chambers' wish to have a representation of St Luke in the chapel named after him.

Stanley later said of Chambers:

I know at times he was quite heartbroken by the fact that he could do nothing except say a few kind words and give such comfort... [Padres]...were able to maintain a standard...a civilised conduct.  And of course the Padre strove to keep both spiritual and human values.  In this way, of course, the church played an important role in survival and stopping men from becoming totally changed. transformed.  As much as the murals contributed to that, I was glad.

Of his own experience of the painting, he said that during the course of his work he would sometimes rest his head against the wall to converse with God.  He described a feeling of elation when doing so, as if God had replied to his soul. `The strength to work on the murals was of a religious experience, an ecstasy which I had not known before and to that extent never to know again.'