Home at Last Art Print
Hahlbohm, Danny
16 in. x 20 in.
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Framed Mounted
Showing posts with label Jesus Christ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jesus Christ. Show all posts
Le Saint-Esprit Jesus Christ Light Art print
Le Saint-Esprit Art Print
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the fourteen stations of the Catholic Church
These are generally called "Stations of the Cross," and the whole series is known as the via Calvaria or via Crucis. Each station represents, by fresco, picture, or otherwise, some incident in the passage of Christ from the judgment hall to Calvary, and at each prayers are offered up in memory of the event represented. They are as follows:
1. The condemnation to death.
2. Christ is made to bear His cross.
3. This first fall under the cross.
4. The meeting with the Virgin.
5. Simon the Cyrenean helps to carry the cross.
6. Veronica wipes the sacred face.
7. The second fall.
8. Christ speaks to the daughters of Jerusalem.
9. The third fall.
10. Christ is stripped of His garments.
11. The nailing to the cross.
12. The giving up of the Spirit.
13. Christ is taken down from the cross.
14. The deposition the sepulcher.
Using the Bible - Words to Live By: Love Art Print
Words to Live By: Love Art Print
DeWitt, Debbie
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How can I use the Bible so that it will speak to me in this way? Let us look at some of the ways in which Christians have tried to answer this question.
1. One method which people have used since very early times, particularly with difficult passages, has been to interpret the Bible allegorically. An allegory is a story that has hidden meanings which do not appear on the surface. If I write, for example, "The raccoon had a splinter in its paw until it got to the riverbank," this may be my allegorical way of saying that the Christian (raccoon) is involved in sin (splinter) until he has been baptized (riverbank), and I may be seriously trying to write about Christian faith in the form of an allegory about animals.
Many of the Early Church Fathers interpreted portions of the Bible in this fashion. Take Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan, a story illustrating what it means to be a good neighbor (look it up in Luke 10: 25-37 if you've forgotten how it goes). Augustine made an allegory out of the story, giving every detail a hidden significance. "A certain man" was Adam. Jerusalem was the heavenly city. The robbers were the devil and his angels. The Samaritan was Jesus himself. The inn was the Church. The innkeeper was the apostle Paul. And so on. The story of the Good Samaritan was transformed from a tale about true neighborliness into an allegory of the whole Christian drama of salvation.
Since religious language must always make use of imagery, the method of allegorical interpretation can sometimes serve a useful function. The danger is that one who is not a scholar and expert can "twist" a story to mean whatever he wants it to mean, and not only may the real point of the story be lost, but utterly false meanings may be "read in."
2. In sharp contrast to the allegorical method is the view that the Bible is to be interpreted literally, often with the further claim that since every word is directly inspired, all parts are therefore of equal profit and value. This is a much newer way of interpreting the Bible than the allegorical way. Luther, for example, the first Protestant Reformer, made sharp distinctions between various parts of the Bible, calling James an "epistle of straw," and stating that he saw little religious value in the book of Revelation. Whether his judgments were correct is not so important, for the moment, as the fact that he felt free to make them. But later Reformers, having continued with Luther to repudiate the absolute authority of the pope, turned more and more to a belief in the absolute authority of the Scriptures, interpreted in such a way that to be a Christian meant believing the words of the Bible, the statements contained within the covers of the book, as literally true in all particulars. In what way did this raise a problem?
For one thing, it is true that religious language must resort to symbolism, imagery, and poetic description on certain occasions, and such use of language loses its religious significance if taken literally. When Jesus told us to be as little children, for example, he didn't mean that we were supposed to wear diapers.
What the Bible tells us - Greatest Virtue is Love Art Print
The Greatest Virtue is Love Art Print
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The Bible not only tells how God sought his people in the past; it is also a means by which he seeks us out today. It is not just part of the dead past: it is also part of the living present. We cannot read it without a sense of being involved. For the experiences of the Biblical characters are basically our experiences. They ask questions:
If a man die, shall he live again? (Job 14: 14)
What do you think of the Christ? (Matt. 22: 42)
Who are you, Lord? (Acts 9: 5)
What shall I do, Lord? (Acts 22: 10)
Why does the way of the wicked prosper? (Jer. 12: 1)
Why are you cast down, O my soul? (Ps. 42: 5)
And we ask the same questions, even though we use different
words:
What happens to me when I die?
Is this Jesus really more than a great man?
Who is God?
What difference does believing in God make?
What's the point of "being good"?
Why does life sometimes seem so horribly futile?
To the extent that we really ask such questions (and it takes courage to ask them honestly) we find ourselves involved in the asking and answering which goes on in the Bible. To be sure, we shall not find answers given on a silver platter, but answers were not given to the Biblical characters on a silver platter either. The answers they got had to be hammered home to them in the "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" of a tragic history. They were not spun out in a philosopher's study, or even in a Sunday school classroom. They emerged from the rough and tumble of life, and it is in the rough and tumble of life that we discover how right the Bible's answers are.
But it is not only in questions and answers that we find God seeking us in the Bible. Not only are God's demands and promises brought home to us, but God himself "comes alive," and speaks to us, as we take the Bible seriously. It is for this reason that Christians speak of the Bible as "the Word of God." This does not mean that God's "words" are recorded in the Bible as though someone had had a celestial tape recorder and then transcribed the message on paper. For, as we shall see, God "speaks" to people, not so much through statements as through his creative activity right where people are. The supreme revelation of his "Word," his creative power, is the "event" of Jesus Christ, in his life, death, and resurrection-the "Word made flesh," as the Fourth Gospel says.
The Bible, then, tells us of these times when God has acted upon the lives of men, and as we read it, the possibility is opened up that God can speak through those acts and events directly to us. "The Bible is a special delivery letter with your name and address on it," is one way of putting it. So it is more than a record; it is a call, an invitation, an urgent message to us.
Sacred Heart of Jesus Art Print
Sacred Heart of Jesus Art Print
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Candlemas Day
February 2nd, the feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, when Christ was presented by her in the Temple; one of the quarter days in Scotland. In Roman Catholic churches all the candles which will be needed in the church during the year are consecrated on this day; they symbolize Jesus Christ, called "the light of the world," and "a light to lighten the Gentiles." The Romans had a custom of burning candles to scare away evil spirits. There is also a weather-legend associated with Candlemas Day.
If Candlemas Day be dry and tair,
The half o' winter's come and mair;
If Candlemas Day be wet and foul,
The half o' winter was gane at Youl.
Scotch Proverb.
The badger peeps out of his hole on Candlemas Day, and, if he finds snow, walks abroad; but if he sees the sun-shining he draws back into his hole.
German Proverb.
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