Author: pilgrim

Music Monday: Stay here with me

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I can’t believe that in all the time I’ve been doing Music Mondays, I haven’t shared a single Taizé chant. In case you haven’t heard of Taizé before, it is an ecumenical monastery in central France founded by the now deceased Brother Roger. A style of chant grew up around Taizé which has now been adopted throughout the world.

In the video below you will see some of the stained glass from the monastery’s main building, the Church of Reconciliation. The audio comes from the chant, “Stay with me”, a meditation on the Garden of Gethsemane.

What’s the earliest depiction of the crucifixion?

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The earliest depiction of Jesus’ crucifixion doesn’t, in fact, come from a Christian source. It is known as Alexamenos Graffito and, as the name suggests, it’s a piece of graffiti. It was found near Rome’s Palatine Hill and is dated sometime between 1st and 3rd Century:

AlexGraffito

The text underneath the picture says in Greek “Alexamenos worships [his] God”. The picture itself shows Jesus on a cross with a donkey’s head, with another person on the left (presumably “Alexamenos”) raising his hand in worship. It’s clear that this was written by someone who knew Alexamenos and wanted to mock him and his Christian faith.

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Wise Words on Wednesday: Restless Hunger

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God Heart

[It’s a]…sense of a strange restlessness or a fierce curiosity. It’s probably best described as the mental, spiritual and emotional equivalent of being physically hungry, that strange but intense hunger when you don’t quite know what it is that you want to eat.

CS Lewis famously described a ‘God-shaped hole’ in each of us, which would remain empty until we knew God  

– Divine Embrace

Quick Apology: You can’t pray to dead people

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Continuing in my series of brief apologetic responses, today I would like to look at the subject of Saintly intercession. As I mentioned last time, these will not be thorough, nuanced rebuttals, but simply how I typically would reply when I only have a brief window of opportunity to respond to objections to my Faith.

Objection

I often see on internet forums the following common objection to Saintly intercession:

“You can’t pray to dead people”

Response

In response to this objection I point out that the Saints are not dead:

“…have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” – Matthew 22:32

If Jesus says that the Saints (“Abraham…Isaac….Jacob”) are alive and well, then I think it’s pretty safe to assume that they are indeed alive. Last week we had the Feast of the Transfiguration when Jesus speaks with Moses…a “dead” man (Matthew 17:1-4). Therefore, it is incorrect to call those Christians who have passed away “dead”. They are more alive in God than they have ever been!

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