The Crusades = Jihad? Nice try, but no dice. Maybe you saw or heard about that notorious National Prayer Breakfast speech in which Mr. Obama attempted to equate the Catholic Crusades with violent, murderous Muslim jihad (watch video specifically at 2:00 mark). Well, nothing could be further from the truth. He said, “And lest we …
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“Father forgive them they know not what they do.”
Cords of sorrow draw me.
I am witness to the plight,
Man become beast,
Without wisdom or wit,
Licking his own blood,
Hungry, harrowed,
Stunned in horror.
The knots of revenge entangle,
Cry for evermore blood,
Ever more abasement,
Ever more widows,
Ever more orphans,
Ever more refuse and waste.
A crying child becomes hundreds,
Then thousands,
Then millions,
Left to wander,
Left to dissipate and hate.
Vengeance is sweeter than food,
To one who chooses to live
Without Love,
Without Light,
Without the Holy and the True,
For such is the abode of Sin,
And many the roads
Leading to its gate.
Bestial brutality,
Raging insanity,
Now reigns the malignant.
The disconsolate refuse all solace,
Wounds of the heart,
Wounds of the mind,
Wounds of the body of Man.
Look to the high mountain,
Eyes to the heavens,
Wake the long dead,
Who await the promised Banquet,
Those, who now know,
They are one Family of Man,
Divested of tribal allegiance,
Awaiting the One,
And coming, King.
Offer a sacrifice of prayer.
Pour forth the balm of Gilead.
Speak, in the tongue of angels,
The comfort of peoples,
Hope in the Darkness.
Humanity’s ties are stronger than its sins,
More numerous than the cords
That draw it down in the Dark Night.
For its One God
Is Father Forever.
Consider the multitudes,
Throng upon throng,
Gathered across Europe,
Arm in arm.
Regard the throng,
Witness of flesh,
Standing tall,
Staring down terror and the terrible,
Arm in Arm.
A proclamation for peace,
For life, for freedom,
In the aftermath of death,
To face the future,
Arm in arm.
A call to arms:
Arms to embrace,
Arms to hold dear,
Arms to forge, in heart-felt resolve,
In the furnace of trial, tears and tragedy,
An alliance of hope,
Arm in arm.
Copyright 2015 Joann Nelander
To the Cross we go,
A Nation hanging,
Lifted on the wood,
Drying up, exposed,
Blood drained
In a hemorrhage
Of its young.
Did you watch?
We’re you one
To wring your hands?
Were your hearts wrenched,
Or did you party
With the crowd
As the veil
Of the Temple
Was torn in two?
Suffer the Moment
Hoping with Love,
That the curtain,
Was split
From top to bottom,
That even now,
In the darkest hour
Of choice’s choosing,
When Herod has opened
Yet another womb,
Salvation is found in the Crucifixied.
God will shine through
The gaping Wound in His Side,
As God is want to do.
©2012 Joann Nelander All rights reserved
Large Religious Statues | Homeless Jesus | Sculpture By Timothy P. Schmalz.
Short Biography
For over 20 years, Timothy has been sculpting large scale monuments for the Catholic church. Working in bronze. Timothy is a figurative artist, his pieces are installed worldwide. One of his most famous pieces, entitled “Whatsoever You Do”, sits outside Santo Spririto Ospital, the oldest hospital in Rome, near the Vatican. Timothy describes his sculptures as visual translations of the Gospels. Timothy also creates large public pieces in bronze. Some of these include monuments that honor veterans and Firefighters. Creating epic pieces that connect with viewers through design and details, not only touching the viewer on an emotional level but also allowing them to feel somewhat a ‘part’ of the piece is what Timothy strives to achieve with his sculpture.
Artist Statement
I am devoted to creating artwork that glorifies Christ. The reason for this devotion, apart from my Christian beliefs, is that an artist needs an epic subject to create epic art.
I describe my sculptures as being visual prayers. When I create a three dimensional sculpture in bronze I am quite aware that it will last longer than myself. I realize I am between two things that are much more durable than myself: Christianity and bronze metal. It is between these that I have developed a subtle appreciation for what Saint Francis meant by “instrument”.
It brings me happiness when my sculptures are installed outside; three dimensional bronze works of art are excellent advertisements for any Christian Church. The best compliment these sculptures receive is to amaze and fascinate the most cynical youths of today. If they think that the art is amazing, they will have to think that the message is as well; a ‘cool’ sculpture outside a church may make them think that, likewise, something ‘cool’ is to be found inside the church. My purpose is to give Christianity as much visual dignity as possible. Christian sculptures are like visual sermons twenty-four hours a day.
When visiting the great Cathedrals and museums of Europe, one is given many messages of the Christian faith through the great works of art. However, one message these great masterpieces convey to us in modern times is that the church was all important and glorious….. once, approximately five hundred years ago. Unfortunately, this creates the impression that the themes represented are antiquated and should be viewed in a museum. However, when original artwork is created today and placed in living spaces, the statement expressed is: “the church is all important and glorious….today!”
Saint Gregory the Great wrote that “art is for the illiterate”; the use of images was an extremely effective way to educate the general population. Our contemporary culture is in the same state today, not because of illiteracy, but because people are too busy to read. In this world of fast paced schedules and sound bites, Christian art creates “visual bites” that introduce needed spiritual truths in a universal language.
Christian sculpture acts for many as a gateway into the Gospels and the viewer’s own spirituality. After looking at an interesting piece of art the viewer is curious. “Who is this man on a cross? Why does he suffer?” The more powerful the representation of the art, the more powerful the questions become.
Creating art that has the power to convert. Creating sculpture that deepens our spirituality. Attaining these two goals describes my purpose as an artist.
Patrick Madrid podcast: the Vatican on Christian Persecution in Mideast, What it means to be fully human and Relativism according to Jean Vanier, and Reincarnation – all on this podcast with on the ground input from the Assyrian community.
Has a Christian Holocaust begun? When will West wake up to ISIS threat | Fox News.
The recently displaced archbishop of Mosul, Iraq was speaking with particular candor when I met him last fall in the Middle East.
He said, “People in the West say ‘they don’t know.’ How can you not know? You either support ISIS or you must have turned off all the satellites. I am sorry to say this, but my pain is big.”
Like so many Christians in Iraq and Syria who watched ISIS kidnap their leaders, burn their churches, sell their children, and threaten all others with conversion or beheading; the archbishop wonders how it is that these maniacs so easily took his home city this summer?
The people whose lives have been threatened or destroyed by ISIS just don’t understand how this pre-modern evil could run unchecked.It is a good question.
Mosul is Iraq’s second largest city and was once the home of Iraq’s most vulnerable and persistent Christian community, tracing their lineage nearly to the time of Christ.
Now there are no Christians left.
All of this happened under the watchful eye of West, and while you’d hope that the humanitarian threat alone would have motivated the West to act, you would be certain that Mosul’s strategic importance would do so.
Neither proved true.
Mosul was easily taken by ISIS troops, riding in on their decrepit pick up trucks with guns bolted to them. Her ancient streets have since been turned red with innocent blood, and the city has become a base for a jihad that rages wildly throughout the entire region and boils underground in scores of countries throughout the world.
The archbishop’s perspective represented the sentiment of nearly everyone I have met or have communicated with in the region. The people whose lives have been threatened or destroyed by ISIS just don’t understand how this pre-modern evil could run unchecked.
They wonder how it could be that it took the most powerful nations in the world, using airstrikes, over four months with the help of Kurdish forces to defeat a few hundred jihadists waging war in the town of Kobani, and how it is that ISIS has been able to openly run its “state” from a self-determined capital city called “Raqqa” without the daily threat of hundreds of unrelenting airstrikes. They also wonder how it is that Turkey’s border remains so porous allowing jihadist after jihadist to readily join ISIS.
The examples of Western inaction are unending.
At present, as many as 300 Assyrian Christians remain in captivity having been kidnapped two weeks ago as ISIS assaulted ten Assyrian, Christian villages along the Khabour River in Syria. That assault was conducted by a group of ISIS fighters travelling in a convoy of more than 40 clearly marked ISIS vehicles directly toward these vulnerable, Christian villages.
How is it possible that Western satellites didn’t spot a forty-car ISIS convoy in route to unarmed Christian villages in Syria, and if it was spotted how is that it wasn’t destroyed?
Joann Nelander Studio 