A “COMING SOON!” announcement often precedes future events in entertainment and sports, or the launch of the latest technology. The goal is to create anticipation and excitement for what is going to happen, even though it may be months away.
While reading the book of Revelation, I was impressed with the “coming soon” sense of immediacy permeating the entire book. Rather than saying, “Someday, in the far distant future, Jesus Christ is going to return to earth,” the text is filled with phrases like “things which must shortly take place” (1:1) and “the time is near” (v.3). Three times in the final chapter, the Lord says, “I am coming quickly” (Rev. 22:7,12,20). Other versions translate this phrase as, “I’m coming soon,” “I’m coming speedily,” and “I’m on My way!”
How can this be—since 2,000 years have elapsed since these words were written? “Quickly” doesn’t seem appropriate for our experience of time.
Rather than focusing on a date for His return, the Lord is urging us to set our hearts on His promise that will be fulfilled. We are called to live for Him in this present age “looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). —David McCasland
Huh. Today I learned Saint Bridget of Sweden claimed that Jesus Himself told her that Herod the Great, Pontius Pilate, and Judas Iscariot were damned (Prophecies and Revelations1.25)
Kind of a bunch of wonky stuff in her writings that make me hesitant to rely on her alone though
Huh. That makes me sad especially with Pontius Pilate. The Orthodox revere him and his wife as saints afaik (and I love the way they’re portrayed in The Passion but that’s not an authoritative source).
But isn’t it official Church doctrine that no one can be definitely said to be in hell? Obviously with the rigorous canonization process we can say who is in heaven, but for everyone who is not canonized, we don’t know and have no way of telling.
And saints can be wrong, but it is weird to hear this in the context of private revelations as opposed to something like St. Thomas Aquinas being wrong about the Immaculate Conception.
I know for a fact that Saint Procula is considered a saint by the Orthodox Church, but I think Pontius Pilate is only considered a saint in the Oriental Orthodox Church - I don’t know what that means for Ethiopian Catholics.
The official Church teaching is that no one can be said to be canonicallyin hell; that there is no person that the Catholic Church mandates us to believe is definitely in hell. But individuals have been placed in hell in the writings or visions of particular people. I’ve seen claims that one saint and a blessed claimed that Martin Luther is in hell, for example, but I haven’t seen primary sources for that. But yeah, as it stands, we are free to pray for any individual in the hopes that they are not in hell - the only group of people we are not allowed to pray for are “the damned” as a class, because their judgment has already been wrought.
And the Church doesn’t believe that private revelations are something Catholics are required to believe, and She acknowledges that private revelations are not protected by infallibility the way that the deposit of faith is; that mystics can misinterpret what they saw, for example, or not accurately describe what they experienced. That’s why doctrine is really only supposed to be shaped by what is in the Bible.
I was, I am, I am to come I was, I am, I am to come I was, I am [etc]
The words are the inversion of “who is, and who was, and who is to come” of the Revelation, attributed to God. Here, the Beast 666, turns this phrase into Ego, and tries to be born again, or to give birth to another Ego, or to “make love” to is own self and so on. Vicious circle. The percussion is by Vangelis, improvising together with Irene. In fact she started reccording “a capella” and Vangelis took some metal things and a shirt, and went in the studio. The whole recording (before cutting) of "infinite", was 39 minutes!
Do we testify to the Truth? Are we living in a way that says “Surely he is coming soon.” Are we confident to cry “Amen, so be it?” Are we ready to proclaim “Come Lord Jesus?”
The description of the New Jerusalem, the bride of Christ, [is] highly symbolic. The twelve gates (drawn from Ezekiel’s prophecy) face the four quarters of the compass, to show that it embraces the whole universe and is four-square solid. They symbolise the twelve tribes of Israel and so also the twelve apostles. The richness and contentment [thereof] is hinted by the sparkle of precious stones, not only diamonds but many others too. The dimensions of the city are vast: a cube of 1,500 miles in each direction. [For scale, that measures approximately from present-day Jerusalem to Afghanistan and Ethiopia! Yet even across all this space, there is] no need for the light and warmth of the sun, for the Lord God and the Lamb provide a single source of its nourishment and illumination. [And there is] no need for a sacred area, for the presence of the Lord God and the Lamb make the whole city a sacred area.This [description, as a whole,] is the ultimate goal of Creation, when all is absorbed into God, the ultimate fulfilment of ‘Thy Kingdom come’. The Letter to the Ephesians expresses it as the whole universe ‘headed up’ into Christ– [restoring His rightful position of universal authority as a head to the body, or a groom to a bride– and thus] making sense of Creation and bringing Creation to its completion.
This painting is based on a work by Titian-Diana and Actaeon. The man is taken directly from his painting and the woman is from a work by Corot. As I painted the dog I thought about Keith Haring’s dog. Indirectly this work is influenced by Van Gogh, the quattrocento, and Picasso to name a few.——— The Encounter 2018 oil on canvas 80cm x 60cm.——- #oilpainting #oiloncanvas #painting #painter #pittura #dipinto #contemporarypainting #contemporaryart #modernart #artecontemporaneo #artecontemporanea #arteitaliana #arte #artcontemporain #kunst #canadianart #torontoart #hamont #arthistory #landscape #mythology #actaeon #encounter #revelation #portrait #nude #titian #corot
Death and War - two Horsemen of the Apocalypse in stained-glass designed by Pascal Blanchard and made by Jac Galland, at Saint-Jean de Montmartre in Paris.
![ボクたちはみんな大人になれなかった [We Couldn’t Become Adults] (Yoshihiro Mori, 2021)](https://64.media.tumblr.com/08eff1bddc33717179eca1ebabcdf248/3be009ed383451a6-cf/s1280x1920/ee8de321581e09496e7fff39e8737f6efa252fc7.jpg "ボクたちはみんな大人になれなかった [We Couldn’t Become Adults] (Yoshihiro Mori, 2021)")
![ボクたちはみんな大人になれなかった [We Couldn’t Become Adults] (Yoshihiro Mori, 2021)](https://64.media.tumblr.com/30412277fe5dfa7f370d9992f833e3b2/3be009ed383451a6-ad/s1280x1920/43d3177889b784560429bb2d9e97423ab7c4746f.jpg "ボクたちはみんな大人になれなかった [We Couldn’t Become Adults] (Yoshihiro Mori, 2021)")
![ボクたちはみんな大人になれなかった [We Couldn’t Become Adults] (Yoshihiro Mori, 2021)](https://64.media.tumblr.com/29fb9bcc0cd65eb142d5e05c0b32d8d2/3be009ed383451a6-6a/s1280x1920/aa1a4c006100df11be5fc849e142b1c2a0b91958.jpg "ボクたちはみんな大人になれなかった [We Couldn’t Become Adults] (Yoshihiro Mori, 2021)")
![ボクたちはみんな大人になれなかった [We Couldn’t Become Adults] (Yoshihiro Mori, 2021)](https://64.media.tumblr.com/029db581f31150a2dd9bdcd7fbe15757/3be009ed383451a6-b6/s1280x1920/e54db86e9c0c64fd909e4473eda589b9107355ac.jpg "ボクたちはみんな大人になれなかった [We Couldn’t Become Adults] (Yoshihiro Mori, 2021)")
