The rest of the cathedral is pretty awful, but the tapestries are simply magnificent.
Posted on 04/18/2012 10:24:57 AM PDT by jettester
LANSDOWNE, Va., April 18, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Jim Liske, CEO of Prison Fellowship Ministries, gave the following update this morning to the staff and supporters of Prison Fellowship, Justice Fellowship, and the Colson Center for Christian Worldview:
“Dear Friends:
It is with a heavy, but hopeful heart that I share with you that it appears our friend, brother, and founder will soon be home with the Lord. Chuck’s condition took a decided turn yesterday, and the doctors advised Patty and the family to gather by his bedside.
(Excerpt) Read more at lifesitenews.com ...
Will pray for him.
Mr. Colson will be in our prayers.
"As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our sins from us."
How terribly sad for his family and friends. I’ll be praying for them. After so many years of faithful service to God and man, may he enjoy his reward eternally.
Praying for Chuck Colson and his family. His books had such an impact on me. God bless him for his faithful witness and the way he lived out his faith.
Thank you Lord for letting us know this man. We join in prayer that his passing from this life to his eternal home is peaceful. Please comfort his family. In Your Name, Amen
Prayers along ... God Bless
Prayers sent.
Prayers up.
“...we should remember the bad along with the good.”
Why?
God doesn’t remember repented sin, washed in the Blood of the Lamb. Why should I?
How many years does a man need to live a transformed life before folks accept he was born again - a new creation?
For my part, I thank God for the example Chuck Colson set.
“Who would dare to accuse us, whom God has chosen? The judge himself has declared us free from sin. Who is in a position to condemn? Only Christ, and Christ died for us, Christ rose for us, Christ reigns in power for us, Christ prays for us!
Can anything separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble, pain or persecution? Can lack of clothes and food, danger to life and limb, the threat of force of arms? Indeed some of us know the truth of the ancient text: ‘For your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter’.
No, in all these things we win an overwhelming victory through him who has proved his love for us.
I have become absolutely convinced that neither death nor life, neither messenger of Heaven nor monarch of earth, neither what happens today nor what may happen tomorrow, neither a power from on high nor a power from below, nor anything else in God’s whole world has any power to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord!” - Romans 8
Prayers up for Chuck and his family.
bump
Prayers for God’s blessings on all.
I look forward to meeting him.
The rest of the cathedral is pretty awful, but the tapestries are simply magnificent.
God Bless brother Chuck!!!
Prayer bump
Thank you.
Hebrews12: 1-2, ‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith...”
Chuck Colson turned his entire life over to Jesus Christ.
I like the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. I know, I have absolutely ghastly taste, but there it is. Fortunately, I’m not on any committees where it matters ;-).
Prayers for the family and for a comfortable passing for Chuck. He is lucky, he will soon be in the arms of the Savior forever free of hurt, pain and disease while we are still stuck here on earth.
Prayers up
Lord Jesus our God,
Be near Thy servant Charles in the hour of his passing, forgive him his sins and grant him everlasting life with Thy saints.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, amen.
O ALMIGHTY God, with whom do live the spirits of just men made perfect, after they are delivered from their earthly prisons; We humbly commend the soul of this thy servant, our dear brother, into thy hands, as into the hands of a faithful Creator, and most merciful Saviour; beseeching thee, that it may be precious in thy sight. Wash it, we pray thee, in the blood of that immaculate Lamb, that was slain to take away the sins of the world; that whatsoever defilements it may have contracted, through the lusts of the flesh or the wiles of Satan, being purged and done away, it may be presented pure and without spot before thee; through the merits of Jesus Christ thine only Son our Lord. Amen.
Prayers!
Amen.
I will miss Chuck Colson. A true Christian soldier.
Sincere condolences to his family.
I join in earnest prayer for Chuck and for his loved ones as they deal with his homegoing.
FRP UP!
I wonder why he is supposedly dying when it sounded like he was doing so well. I pray he lives, to the glory of God, In Jesus Holy Name.
Amen. Prayers up for him and his family.
BTTT
Prayers for a good man.
Prayers sent. Soon may be promoted.
Prayers
Others have commented and said most of what I would have said, but I do think a bit more needs to be said.
The sincerity of repentance is often indicated by whether people remain steadfast in their professed repentance. I have some problems with Colson’s theology but it seems crystal clear, after four decades, that Colson has replaced his “GOP” with “GOD” as the object of his worship.
Based on Colson’s long record of persevering in his profession of faith, I don't see a reason to hold his past against him, but on the other hand, we are not instructed by Scripture to forget the past history of Paul as a persecutor of the church. Paul himself made repeated references to his sinful past; David wrote an entire psalm repenting of his wickedness with Bathsheba.
To acknowledge the repentance of a notorious public sinner — which Colson would surely describe himself as having been — does not mean we ignore his past. On the contrary, let's remember that God can convert even the most awful sinners among us, and let's be grateful to God that he didn't abandon us all to hell, which we would richly deserve due to our own sinful wickedness which, while it may be less public than Colson’s, is just as deserving of God's wrath.
Can you send us a link to the tapestry photos with the names of the saints represented on the tapestries, like the one in this second post? I’m interested.
Prayers for Charles and his family. I too have read many of his books. “Against the Night: Living in the New Dark Ages” is my favorite. In many ways, his life after Watergate reminds me of the Apostle Paul.
The Archdiocese has finally realized what a treasure it has there, and has put up a page on its website and is actually selling copies.
There are links to the "north tapestry gallery" and the "south tapestry gallery" where you can view all the panels.
Most of the "art" in the building is appalling - the usual 'modern', 'meaningful' stuff which means that it's (1) nonrepresentational (which is stupid in the context of religious art) and (2) deliberately ugly, as so much modern art is. So many artists have been trained in this style, and it is very difficult to get them to look at things in any different way. I think the two worst items in the whole place are the Tabernacle (which looks like three lengths of crushed, corroded leftover copper pipe from the salvage yard) and the ugly, androgynous, distorted image of the Blessed Virgin.
Where Nava, the tapestry artist, went right was by using photography as a base. Then at least his saints look like human beings.
I'm a Protestant so obviously I cannot share the full appreciation you will have for the stories behind the martyrs on these tapestries. I noticed, however, that the tapestries include one of the Korean martyrs from the days of intense persecution against Christians, Andrew Kim Taegon. Since these tapestries are from a cathedral in Los Angeles, it certainly makes sense that a Korean martyr would be included on that tapestry.
Andrew Kim Taegon was the first Korean to be ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. He died as a martyr in one of the early persecutions which tried but failed to stamp out the Korean church. The cathedral of the Archbishop of Seoul is today built on the hill where a group of highly educated Christians from the Korean nobility met in secret as a house church, were arrested, and were eventually persecuted and (in most cases) killed for refusal to reject Christ.
You may be interested in this book about the martyrdom of early Korean Christians, who in the earliest days were all Roman Catholics:
http://books.google.com/books?id=QMUCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA34#v=onepage&q&f=false
Korean Christianity today is largely Protestant. That was not the case initially; the first converts learned about Christianity either from the Chinese or the Japanese, and the Korean church was initially led by laymen of noble ancestry with no ordained clergy. When missionaries arrived, they were shocked to find literally thousands of Koreans worshiping as Christians without priests, without sacraments, using lay catechists as leaders, and generally receiving baptism only at the time of death from the hands of laymen since no priests were available.
You'll note in the account of the martyrs of the early Koreans, with very few exceptions their testimonies are generically Christian and not specifically Roman Catholic. They were killed for their allegiance to Christ and not for specific Roman Catholic observances, and as a Protestant, I don't have a problem with respecting their sacrifices and willingness to die rather than renounce Christ.
Interestingly, the author of this book — writing in the mid-1840s during the rise of liberalism — points out that during the days when Europeans were rejecting the church and harassing Roman Catholics in Italy itself, people in far-away lands were suffering martyrdom under tortures quite comparable to those inflicted by the Roman Empire a more than a millennium and a half earlier. It seems pretty clear that things have not improved since the 1840s; Europe is becoming increasingly hostile to the gospel while much of the rest of the world is far more fertile soil for the truth.
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