RELIGION AND ART

1 Samuel 2:1,4-8 © My heart exults in the Lord. I find my strength in my God; My heart exults in the Lord. I find my strength in my God; my mouth laughs at my enemies as I rejoice in your saving help. The bows of the mighty are broken, PRAY HOLY ROSARY but the weak are clothed with strength. Those with plenty must labour for bread, but the hungry need work no more. The childless wife has children now  but the fruitful wife bears no more. It is the Lord who gives life and death, he brings men to the grave and back; it is the Lord who gives poverty and riches. He brings men low and raises them on high. He lifts up the lowly from the dust, from the dung   heap he raises the poor to set him in the company of princes to give him a glorious throne. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, on them he has set the world. My mouth laughs at my enemies as I rejoice in your saving help.................

Am I really alone? This is a question I often ask myself. I prefer my quietness to think about you and meditate on your wonders. I can be in deep thought, while I think it is like conversing with a being. I ask questions in my heart and I get different answers. When I am not too sure of the response,  I keep pondering about different answers and ideas. In the course of this I ask you to direct me. God am I really alone? No for I know that the questions I ask most times, No one can give me the right answer except you. This is when I sit all by myself, with your presence ever near.  I am never alone, No Father, you are ever near to lead, direct, guide and guard me LORD.

1 John 3:11-21 © This is the message as you heard it from the beginning: that we are to love one another; not to be like Cain, who belonged to the Evil One and cut his brother’s throat; cut his brother’s throat simply for this reason, that his own life was evil and his brother lived a good life. You must not be surprised, brothers, when the world hates you; we have passed out of death and into life, and of this we can be sure because we love our brothers. If you refuse to love, you must remain dead; to hate your brother is to be a murderer, and murderers, as you know, do not have eternal life in them. This has taught us love – that he gave up his life for us; and we, too, ought to give up our lives for our brothers.........

1 John 3:7-10 © My children, do not let anyone lead you astray: to live a holy life is to be holy just as he is holy; to lead a sinful life is to belong to the devil, since the devil was a sinner from the beginning. It was to undo all that the devil has done that the Son of God appeared. No one who has been begotten by God sins; because God’s seed remains inside him, he cannot sin when he has been begotten by God. In this way we distinguish the children of God from the children of the devil: anybody not living a holy life and not loving his brother is no child of God’s.

1 John 2:29-3:6 © You know that God is righteous – then you must recognise that everyone whose life is righteous has been begotten by him. Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God’s children; and that is what we are. Because the world refused to acknowledge him, therefore it does not acknowledge us. My dear people, we are already the children of God but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is, that when it is revealed we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is.......

1 John 2:22-28 © The man who denies that Jesus is the Christ – he is the liar, he is Antichrist; and he is denying the Father as well as the Son, because no one who has the Father can deny the Son, and to acknowledge the Son is to have the Father as well. Keep alive in yourselves what you were taught in the beginning: as long as what you were taught in the beginning is alive in you, you will live in the Son and in the Father; and what is promised to you by his own promise is eternal life. This is all that I am writing to you about the people who are trying to lead you astray. But you have not lost the anointing that he gave you, and you do not need anyone to teach you; the anointing he gave teaches you everything; you are anointed with truth, not with a lie, and as it has taught you, so you must stay in him. Live in Christ, then, my children, so that if he appears, we may have full confidence, and not turn from him in shame at his co...

Luke 2:16-21 © The shepherds hurried away to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. When they saw the child they repeated what they had been told about him, and everyone who heard it was astonished at what the shepherds had to say. As for Mary, she treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds went back glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen; it was exactly as they had been told.   When the eighth day came and the child was to be circumcised, they gave him the name Jesus, the name the angel had given him before his conception.