Wednesday, March 21, 2007
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Face of Mother
contemplation
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contemplation
OUR FATHER PRAYER
contemplation
I CANNOT SAY IF...
I cannot say "OUR"
if I have no room in my life for others and their needs.
I cannot say"FATHER"
if I do not demonstrate this relationship in my daily living.
I cannot say"WHO ART IN HEAVEN"
if all my interests and pursuits are in earthly things.
I cannot say"HALLOWED BE THY NAME"
if I, who am called to bear His name, am not holy.
I cannot say"THY KINGDOM COME"
if I am unwilling to give up my own sovereignty and
accept the righteous reign of God.
I cannot say"THY WILL BE DONE"
if I am unwilling or resentful of having God's will in my life.
I cannot say
"ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN"
unless I am truly ready to give myself
to His service here and now.
I cannot say
"GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD"
without expending honest effort for it,
or by ignoring the genuine needs of others.
I cannot say "FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES
AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US"
if I continue to harbor a grudge against anyone.
I cannot say"LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION"
if I deliberately choose to remain in a situation
where I am likely to be tempted.
I cannot say"DELIVER US FROM EVIL"
if I am not prepared to fight in the spiritual realm
with the ultimate weapon of prayer.
I cannot say"THINE IS THE KINGDOM"
if I do not give the kind of disciplined
obedience of a loyal subject.
I cannot say"THINE IS THE POWER"
if I fear what my neighbours may say or do.
I cannot say"FOREVER"
if I am too anxious about each day's events.
I cannot say"AMEN"
unless I can honestly say, "cost what it may,
this is my prayer." []
Blog Archive
SOME MOST FAVORITE SCRIPTURE QUOTES
A Verse from Proverbs, exhorting people to "trust in the Lord" rather than in their own understanding, has been voted the favourite Biblical quote in a survey.The poll by Wycliffe UK, a charity that translates Bibles, found that although the "Good Book" may be less well read today, thousands still draw inspiration from its pages. It also found that the most popular verses tend to be those that offer Christians reassurance that they can overcome life's vicissitudes with faith.Top of the list was: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will direct your paths."In second place, from Jeremiah, is: "For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."The Archbishop of Canterbury said his favourite was from 2 Corinthians 3:18."All of us have had that veil removed so that we can be mirrors that brightly reflect the glory of the Lord."And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him and reflect his glory even more."The verse "tells us that what God reveals in Jesus is nothing less than his full, true nature, and that we, if we let his Spirit work in us, come to reflect that. It is the most daring promise in the Bible."Another chose Philippians 4:13: "I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength". Another favourite was from Isaiah 49: 15,16: "Can a mother forget her nursing child? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you! See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands."Because we found the verse most comforting because it showed that God knew us warts and all."It's great to see that so many people still find the Bible relevant to their day to day lives and gain encouragement, assurance, hope, comfort and wisdom from what it contains."[]
from the Satsangh of FrTR's disciples: Practice of the Presence of God
Prayer Fashions Man....ergo oro…. “I am: therefore I pray”, is deliberately used as a corrective to the famous expression of René Descartes: cogito ergo sum, “I think: therefore I am”.
to a more lucid discernment of the presence of God in our lives. Having created us with the gift of speech, God speaks to us, and He expects us to respond, externalizing our thoughts and feelings and maintaining a continual conversation with Him . Man’s distinctive gift is speech, but its essential value lies not in the discursive meaning of what is said—not in the propositional significance of the formulations as such—but in the fact that the words enshrine a revealed Name of God, the Name in turn serving as a vehicle or embodiment of the Divinity. Even as the bread and wine of the Eucharist are the “Real Presence” of Christ, so also is the Name of God
understood to be God Himself. The Hindu saint SriRamakrishna says, “God and His Name are identical”.
Meditation isn't just reading and reciting prayerful formulae, we must think and meditate on these words, even if that means we stop for a while before continuing. The process of painting and viewing, says Fr Thamburaj, prepares the way so that God's action may develop in us a faculty for the supernatural, a capacity for inner illumination by faith and by the light of wisdom, in the loving contemplation of God. Painting satisfies the need of something to anchor our attention and our words, to help us to pray more meaningfully, to concentrate on listening to God more than on our own laboured verbalizing. I can easily be distracted by many things. Prayerpainting is a way of keeping myself in the presence of God. We distinguish contemplative prayer from liturgical and corporate prayer. The latter fully engages the mind and emotions as you decide what you want to communicate to God, then express these thoughts and feelings. Contemplative prayer differs in that you attempt to devoid yourself of all your own thoughts and feelings so that God can come directly to you--increasing your faith and understanding of the prayer He Himself has taught you. Collectively Fr Thamburaj’s praypaintings seek to produce in us an “Awakening in God”.
One of the most common reactions to abstract art is along the lines of ‘‘Even I could have done that!” or "a child could've done that". And the usual response by the artists is to say the child lacks the mental ability to appreciate abstract art. Also:
"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up….. It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child. Anyway, why do you try to understand art? Do you try to understand the song of a bird?" asks Pablo Picasso.
The goal of abstract art is to communicate the intangible, that which eludes the photograph and normal seeing. Childlikeness: it is essential to retain alongside metaphysical science a childlike faith, not to be exclusively “adult”, and to cultivate a childlike heart capable of delighting in pictures. Mary shows us how to "become like little children" in the one who is the only Son of the Father. She is the Father's perfect daughter: docile, humble, faithful, obedient to his will, on fire with love even as far as the cross. In desiring to fulfill the Father's will we say fiat to the Father's most holy will: "Yes, Lord, here I am, come to do your will."
Mary, although at the Annunciation she didn't understand it all, "How can this be...?", rendered the obedience of faith: "Be it done unto me according to your word...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." We, like Mary, are called to give the assent of faith: to believe in God; to believe all that God has said and revealed to us, and to believe all that holy church proposes for our belief because He is truth itself . In accepting the revelation of God as interpreted authentically and authoritatively by the church's magisterium we bring forth Christ in the world. In her childlike simplicity and humility Mary becomes perfectly open to the action of the Holy Spirit--the "Lord and the giver of life" as the Nicene Creed calls him. He overshadows her and she becomes his spouse, conceiving the One who is Life itself. Hence, Mary, perfectly obedient to the Father's will, and perfectly receptive to the action of the Holy Spirit, conceives and brings forth the One who is "Way, Truth, and Life" in a world that had lost its way, "exchanged the truth of God for a lie," and rejected life in favor of sin which leads to death ("the wages of sin is death" -Rom. 6:23).
The main prayers of the "Our Father" and "Hail Mary" are gospel prayers. We begin to interiorize the Gospel as we view the paintings, which means we begin to interiorize Jesus Christ, who is the "Good News" of the Gospel. We thus begin to become who we are. In becoming the living presence of Jesus, "the Light of the world," we also become light for a world sinking into darkness under the weight of its own iniquity. Like St. Paul, we can cry out with joy: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me!" (Cf. Gal. 2:20).
"Control thy soul, restrain thy breathing, distinguish the transitory from the true, repeat the holy Name of God, and thus calm the agitated mind. To this universal rule apply thyself with all thy heart and all thy soul", says Shri Shankaracharya. We try to do so while praying the Our Father over Fr Thamburaj’s paintings.[]
Contemplation of Blessed Virgin Mother's Face
Thomas Merton said, "It is faith and not imagination that gives us supernatural life, faith that justifies us, faith that leads to contemplation . . . If you need to use your imagination to remind yourself of the Christ in Whom you believe, go ahead and use it [-which is strongly recommended in Ignatian Exercises!-]. But if you can exercise your faith in Him without the bother of always conjuring up some picture of Him, so much the better; your faith will be simpler and purer." But among all the pictures I have seen of Mother's Face and Jesus, the ones that have fixed themselves firmly in my heart is from Mel Gibson’s film: “The Passion of the Christ”.I conjure them up in my contemplation. i used to search among famous paintings, without full satisfaction. For example, we have Rubens scene of crucifixion, of which critics said that it might have been a greater painting if Mary's face in it had shown something more than helpless pathos.....Gibson's picture is absolutely convincing. So too, Face of Jesus.