RELIGION AND ART

FRIDAY WEEK FIVE OF EASTER: THE HOLY SPIRIT OUR ADVOCATE First Reading Acts 15:22-31 It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by us not to burden you beyond these essentials The apostles and elders decided to choose delegates to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; the whole church concurred with this. They chose Judas known as Barsabbas and Silas, both leading men in the brotherhood, and gave them this letter to take with them: Lectures   Readings ‘The apostles and elders, your brothers, send greetings to the brothers of pagan birth in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia. We hear that some of our members have disturbed you with their demands and have unsettled your minds. They acted without any authority from us; and so we have decided unanimously to elect delegates and to send them to you with Barnabas and Paul, men we highly respect who have dedicated their lives to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Reflections Accordingly we are sending you Judas and Silas, who will confirm by word of

SATURDAY FORTH WEEK OF EASTER:   REMAIN IN MY LOVE First Reading   Acts 1:15-17,20-26   'Let someone else take his office'   One day Peter stood up to speak to the brothers – there were about a hundred and twenty persons in the congregation: ‘Brothers, the passage of scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit, speaking through David, foretells the fate of Judas, who offered himself as a guide to the men who arrested Jesus  after having been one of our number and actually sharing this ministry of ours. Now in the Book of Psalms it says: Readings Lectures   Let his camp be reduced to ruin, Let there be no one to live in it. And again: Let someone else take his office.   ‘We must therefore choose someone who has been with us the whole time that the Lord Jesus was travelling round with us, someone who was with us right from the time when John was baptising until the day when he was taken up from us, and he can act with us as a witness to his resurrect