HISTORY & THE TRADITIONAL PRAYER
Saint Veronica with the Veil, by Mattia Preti
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SCRIPTURE & LECTIO DIVINA
Text and Paraphrasing from:
Reading Scripture as the Word of God by George Martin The Holy Spirit is considered the author of the Word, even conceiving the Word made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. The Spirit moved prophets, judges, teachers, leaders, miracle workers and apostles, and is responsible for inspiring the gathered Biblical text as we know them today. God guided the evolution of the body of Biblical literature that expresses the heritage of His people and His presence in their midst. Apart from this context the writings of the Scripture cannot be understood. The Old Testament is a collection of all the fragmentary ways God spoke to man (Hebrews 1:1) before the coming of Jesus Christ. The voices of the Old Testament sometimes seem to debate with each other. But through the centuries chosen people were gradually able to hear God's voice more and more clearly. |
In the New Testament, Jesus Christ became the fullness of God’s revelation to man. Because of the revelation of God that we have through Jesus Christ we can better understand the Old Testament and its foreshadowing of the Christ's coming. Jesus emphasized that the words he speaks give the listener the life of the Spirit (John 4:10). Through Jesus Christ, the apostles were not only invited to learn truths about God but were invited to personally know God, in all His ways.
The appointment the Church makes with reading the Scriptures is really an appointment to meet God. The Bible is unlike any other book: In it is God the Father revealed to us through the Holy Spirit in the full proclamation of the Son. ICONOGRAPHY & VISIO DIVINA
Script and Paraphrasing from:
Catholicism, The Pivotal Players, Volume 1—Michelangelo by Bishop Robert Barron In the 8th century a controversy broke out between the iconoclasts, the smashers of icons, and the iconophiles, the lover of icons. The iconoclasts argued that the use of icons, to depict sacred things, was contrary to the Old Testament’s warning against making graven images (Isaiah 10:10-11). They claimed that making images of God, the angels and the saints was indeed idolatry. And on the other side of the argument the iconophiles, the lover of icons, argued that God made an icon of Himself in the humanity of Jesus Christ. Saint Paul refers to Christ as “the icon of the invisible God.” (Colossians 1:15) Arguing that, when artists make depictions of Christ and His saints, they are simply prolonging the Incarnation. John of Damascus (676-749 AD), fought for visual art within Catholicism and won the hearts of his contemporaries by vouching that beauty could run toe to toe with truth as a route of access to God and also be a robust means of evangelization. The "balanced" claim for iconography became obvious after great talents such as Michelangelo emerged. Saying that created things can speak of God, yet they’re not God. They are beautiful and they draw us in but they draw us through themselves to a higher more transcendent beauty. The Church agreed that idolatry becomes evident only if a person begins worshiping the image, worshiping the physical depiction rather than the transcendent reality which it signifies. |
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