View allAll Photos Tagged Repentance
New King James Version (NKJV)
And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Romans 8:28
New King James Version (NKJV)
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
Benin. West Africa.
Ouidah
The Slave Route
A monument called Zomachi, which symbolizes repentance and reconciliation, is especially poignant. There, every January, descendants of both slaves and slave merchants request forgiveness for those who perpetrated the injustices.
BREAKING: New Book on #AnnCoulter – Joker: Ann Coulter Unplugged – at bit.ly/2TttHtF.
Joker: Ann Coulter Unplugged is the definitive (holistic) exposé of polemicist and Alt-Right icon Ann Coulter.
Joker: Ann Coulter Unplugged is available at www.coulterwatch.com/joker.pdf.
Joker examines her words, actions, and worldview with startling observations and shattering conclusions. Joker explores her personal and professional agenda and the motivating factors which animate them. Joker reveals how Coulter came to become the person that people either love or hate and it reveals her impact in America and in the world.
From where do the contradictions and conundrums in Coulter’s life, work, and worldview arise? What are her (and their) emotional, psychological, and spiritual roots and what are the resulting political, cultural, and spiritual ramifications for America and the world?
Joker answers these questions and so much more.
Fourteen Good years(14)[1996-2010]. Saint Djapi never had neither a house nor "A BED". Spontaneously, had ever been such "HOSPITAL BEDS", on which from one place to other, Djapi would have for "PERMANENT SHORT PERIODS", from the two years Destiny Journey Road, and even at "SPIRITUAL DESTINY (Austria). On Such a Bed, Djapi would be Received in the Asylum Camp, on such a Bed, Saint Djapi, even though "HOLY/SAINT", will continuously received in Diakonie. The worse in Diakonie was that, the Muslim brother having been into the room for over two years, Entirely-Completely-Totally Ignored the Presence of Saint Djapi, whom they were to share the room together.The Muslim brother had gathered together all these Electronics- Cupboard-Sofas- Refrigerators-one chair-one small Table, all these things in a 16-20 meters square room, there were no place again to any new one coming into the room.Brother Muslim had ever fought to live allone in the room, and even though, Saint Djapi was Muslim; Causes-Motives-Reasons of Saint Djapi to be sent into the room, after the Diakonie Chef Lady Barbara and the Social Workers assistances. Saint Djapi, having no other alternative nor choice came into the room. Six good months throughout, Saint Djapi had no more than the "SURFACE OF Saint Djapi's BED, UNDER WHICH Saint Djapi's [FOOD (VEGETABLE STORED)]", and over the cupboards, Saint Djapi's Luggages. Out of this Difficult Living conditions, Saint Djapi complained to theDiakonie Manager, Lady Barbara who knew Defintively what Saint djapi went through and Promised Saint Djapi a new room with someone. Very important in Diakonie of Saint Djapi is to be "COMPREHENDED and UNDERSTOOD as DIVINIE GUIDANCE and LEADING {(Q:1:18/19),(Q:10:9)}, IN WHICH Saint Djapi WAS SPIRITUALLY TESTED [SPIRITUAL GROWTH], OUT OF WHICH, Saint Djapi HAD APPLIED FOR Austrian HUMANITARIAN VISA/VISUM IN THE Austrian INTEGRATION, WHICH REQUIERED FROM Saint Djapi, SUCH A ART-KIND-SORT OF (Austrians FRIENDSHIP) LETTER WHEREIN Saint Djapi's CONDUCT-BEHAVIOUR-HABITS-CHARACTER DESCRIBED BY THE Austrian Friends OF Saint Djapi. Saint Djapi then went to the Diakonie chef on same day Friday with Saint Djapi's Request of Such Letter. Diakonie Manager, Lady Barbara Schmallegger, under whom Saint Djapi had SUCCESSFULLY ACHIVED THE [SPIRITUAL TEST=SIX MONTHS GOODNESS-KINDNESS,...], THEN WROTE A 'WONDERFUL FRIENDSHIP/FRIENDSHOOD TO Saint Djapi, WITH WHICH Saint Djapi WILL BE GRANTED THE HUMANITARIAN VISA/VISIUM INTO Saint Djapi's [DESTINED and PREDESTINED PROVIDED Contry/Land Austria=Saint Djapi's Austrian FULL RIGHTS=Saint Djapi's Austrian SPIRITUAL NATIVITY=Saint Djapi's Austrian NATIONALITY".
Behold! Saint Djapi's "SPIRITUAL REBIRTH INTO Austrian PRISON, FOLLOWED BY Saint Djapi's SPIRITUAL GROWTH INTO A NEW COMMUNITY-SOCIETY [Muslims], ENABLED Saint Djapi TO RECEIVED THE LIKE LETTER FROM THE SULTAN AHMET MOSQUE as well as FROM THE NEW Muslim [Manuel Metzl (Muslim Name Ahmet) +Sultan Ahmet Mosque Manager Hakan Toy]. Moreover, must Saint Djapi find someone having a COMPANY or BUSINESS READY TO EMPLOY Saint Djapi, IN CASE Saint Djapi IS GRANTED THE Austrian HUMANITARIAN VISA/VISUM: FOR THIS, Saint Djapi's NEW LIFE +ENVIRONMENT PROVIDED Him MANY Muslims Brothers READY TO FULFILL THIS DIVINE MISSION. THEREFORE, Brother Muslim GÜL Montagebau (Veronikagasse 6/2-1170) UNDERTOOK THE RESPONSIBILITY and ISSUED TO Saint Djapi THE CORRESPONDING LETTER.
Behold! Muslim Brother GÜL Hussein is he that previously Paid Saint Djapi's Electricity Bills ($800) in the Name and Sake of ALLAH/GOD.
Behold! Saint Djapi began the Austrian Humanitary Visa/Visu PROCCESSES BY "WRITING A LETTER TO THE Austrian PRESIDENT: His EXCELLENCE Sir FISHER HEINZ, Whose PRESIDENCE COUNCELLOR ROOM REPLIED Saint Djapi's LETTER TO THE Austrian PRESIDENT BY AN @Mail, WHICH Saint Djapi PRINT OUT, and BROUGHT TO THE Austrian INTEGRATION CENTER [Magistrat 35-Dresdner Straße 93 Wien:
Behold! Saint Djapi Prayed to ALLAH/GOD, Asking and Seeking Blessings for the Goods and Forgiveness for the Bads (Those who knew not how Possible will Saint Djapi come to Austrian Visa/Visum. Hence Saint Djapi has been in Austrian Prison, and moreover haven't married none along twelve(12) years into the Land. But Saint Djapi knew that ALLAH/GOD is [HE] IN CONTROL OF EVERYTHING CONCERNING Saint Djapi'S "ENIGMATICAL and METAPHYSICAL ISSUES].
Saint Djapi then Prayed to ALLAH/GOD to HEP Saint Djapi MAKING GOOD and POSTIVE USES OF THE (TRUSTS) OF THOSE WHO (TRUSTED) Saint Djapi IN and WITH THEIR (TRUSTS).
MAY ALLAH/GOD BLESS THEM!
MAY ALLAH/GOD BLESS Austria
MAY ALLAH/GOD BLESS THE WORLDS!
Part of my collection of Jesus signs at www.flickr.com/photos/55314293@N00/sets/72157594174358567/
Hayesville, NC
Once there were no associations as Amnesty International, and still no one intervened to defend those who fell into the "hand of justice". It was assigned to be the executioner to select the type of torture in order to admit the offender. It was therefore often used the gridiron, on which the victim was tied and then begin to "cook" him, in order to obtain sincere repentance and confession that led to discovering other culprits. And life goes on.....
The Most Rev. Joseph R. Cistone, Bishop of Saginaw, celebrated Ash Wednesday Mass at the Cathedral of Mary of the Assumption in Saginaw on Feb. 18. To mark the beginning of the penitential season of Lent, Catholics receive ashes on their foreheads as a sign of repentance and mortality. The ashes come from blessed palms that were distributed last year on Palm Sunday and later burned.
The Church emphasizes the penitential nature of Lent and Catholics who are between the ages of 18 and 59 are called to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, meaning they should eat only one full meal and two smaller meals without eating between meals. Also, all who are 14 and older are called to abstain from eating beef, pork, poultry and food made from animal fat on those days and all Fridays during Lent.
The cornerstone laid on November 4, 1886 evolved into this magnificent Chateauesque structure. Cleveland architect Levi T. Scofield designed the Ohio State Reformatory using a combination of three architectural styles; Victorian Gothic, Richardsonian Romanesque and Queen Anne. This was done to encourage inmates back to a "rebirth" of their spiritual lives. The architecture itself inspired them to turn away from their sinful lifestyle, and toward repentance
The Reformatory doors were opened to its first 150 young offenders in September 1896. After housing over 155,000 men in its lifetime, the doors to the prison closed December 31, 1990.
Today the Ohio State Reformatory Historic Site receives visitors from all over the world. Every year tourists, movie buffs, thrill seekers and paranormal investigators walk through the halls of this majestic structure.
"Fear can hold you prisoner.
Hope can set you free."
- Shawshank Redemption
Columba lived to be seventy-five years old. It is thought that "he made three hundred copies of the New Testament in his own hand." He fell asleep in the Lord on June 9th, 597. "When he died, he was doing what he liked best. He had his parchments, his pens, and his inks before him. He died in the middle of copying a sentence."
Scanned illustration (by Trina Schart Hyman - one of my all time favorite illustrators) from a 1981 book by Jean Fritz.
Troparion - Tone 5
By your God-inspired life
You embodied both the mission and the dispersion of the Church,
Most glorious Father Columba.
Using your repentance and voluntary exile,
Christ our God raised you up as a beacon of the True Faith,
An apostle to the heathen and an indicator of the Way of salvation.
Wherefore O holy one, cease not to intercede for us
That our souls may be saved.
Benin. West Africa.
Ouidah
The Slave Route
A monument called Zomachi, which symbolizes repentance and reconciliation, is especially poignant. There, every January, descendants of both slaves and slave merchants request forgiveness for those who perpetrated the injustices.
Repentance is a change of thought and action to correct a wrong and gain forgiveness from the one wronged. who? GOD!
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Ephesians 5:8-10
Standing on Trailtrow Hill, Repentance Tower formed part of a chain of defense posts which warned against English raiding parties who crossed the border.
This three-storey tower house was founded by Sir John Maxwell of Terregles in the mid 16th century.
In 1548 an English force challenged the Douglases at Durisdeer, who were under the charge of Sir John. The night before the battle, he had been bribed to change sides in exchange for the hand of Agnes Herries and the title Lord Herries. His treachery, however, cost the lives of 12 of his kinsmen, who had been held at Carlisle Castle as hostages, one of which was his 12-year-old nephew. Maxwell was said to have built the tower as a sign of his remorse.
Another version of the tale has it that Repentance Tower was so-called because Lord Herries built Hoddom Castle out of stones from Trailtrow Chapel.
Installed in the 1920s after a major renovation, the St. John the Baptist and Jesus window was created by Melbourne stained glass manufacturer Brooks, Robinson and Company Glass Merchants, who dominated the market in stained glass in Melbourne during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. The baptism of Jesus by his cousin John the Baptist is frequently placed in the baptistery, although it is not the case with St. Mark the Evangelist. The baptism of Jesus by John comes from the Book of Luke: "it came to pass that Jesus also being baptized and praying the heavens opened." The window depicts John baptizing Jesus in the River Jordan whilst the heavens open above them. The Holy Spirit flies at the top of the lancet window. The window signals the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, as related in the New Testament. John preached repentance and reinvigoration of religious practice, but did so from outside the heirachy of the Jewish religion, following the tradition of the Old Testament prophets. He is described as the one coming before jesus to announce his coming and reawakens people to their faith in God. His radical asceticism was a protest against the religious complacency commonplace in his lifetime. He used the act of baptism of his followers in the River Jordan as a central sacrament, whereby a follower's zeal for faithful worship in God was renewed.
Beneath the main depiction of Jesus' baptism by John, a smaller vignette of Jesus with the children appears. Jesus with the children comes from the Book of Matthew, where Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these." The window depicts Jesus with a young child sitting upon his knee, whilst three other small children gather at Jesus' feet.
Built amid workers' cottages and terrace houses of shopkeepers, St. Mark the Evangelist Church of England sits atop an undulating rise in the inner Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy. Nestled behind a thick bank of agapanthus beyond its original cast-iron palisade fence, it would not look out of place in an English country village with its neat buttresses, bluestone masonry and simple, unadorned belfry.
St. Mark the Evangelist was the first church to be built outside of the original Melbourne grid as Fitzroy developed into the city's first suburb. A working-class suburb, the majority of its residents were Church of England and from 1849 a Mission Church and school served as a centre for religious, educational and recreational facilities. The school was one of a number of denominational schools established by the Church of England and was partly funded by the Denominational School Board.
St. Mark the Evangelist Church of England was designed by architect James Blackburn and built in Early English Gothic style. Richard Grice, Victorian pastoralist and philanthropist, generously contributed almost all the cost of its construction. Work commenced in 1853 to accommodate the growing Church of England congregation of Fitzroy. On July 1st, 1853, the first stone of St. Mark the Evangelist was laid by the first Bishop of Melbourne, The Right Rev. Charles Perry.
Unfortunately, Blackburn did not live to see its completion, dying the following year in 1854 of typhoid. This left St. Mark the Evangelist without an architect to oversee the project, and a series of other notable Melbourne architects helped finish the church including Lloyd Tayler, Leonard Terry and Charles Webb. Even then when St. Mark the Evangelist opened its doors on Sunday, January 21st, 1855, the church was never fully completed with an east tower and spire never realised. The exterior of the church is very plain, constructed of largely unadorned bluestone, with simple buttresses marking structural bays and tall lancet windows. The church's belfry is similarly unadorned, yet features beautiful masonry work. It has a square tower and broach spire.
Inside St. Mark the Evangelist Church of England it is peaceful and serves as a quiet sanctuary from the noisy world outside. I visited it on a hot day, and its enveloping coolness was a welcome relief. Walking across the old, highly polished hardwood floors you cannot help but note the gentle scent of the incense used during mass. The church has an ornately carved timber Gothic narthex screen which you walk through to enter the nave. Once there you can see the unusual two storey arcaded gallery designed by Leonard Terry that runs the entire length of the east side of building. Often spoken of as “The Architect’s Folly” Terry's gallery was a divisive point in the Fritzroy congregation. Some thought it added much beauty to the interior with its massive square pillars and seven arches supporting the principals of the roof. Yet it was generally agreed that the gallery was of little effective use, and came with a costly price tag of £3,000.00! To this day, it has never been fully utlised by the church. St. Mark the Evangelist has been fortunate to have a series of organs installed over its history; in 1854 a modest organ of unknown origin: in 1855 an 1853 Foster and Andrews, Hull, organ which was taken from the Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne's Collins Street: in 1877 an organ built by Melbourne organ maker William Anderson: and finally in 1999 as part of major renovation works a 1938 Harrison and Harrison, Durham, organ taken from St. Luke's Church of England in Cowley, Oxfordshire. The church has gone through many renovations over the ensuing years, yet the original marble font and pews have survived these changes and remain in situ to this day. Blackwood reredos in the chancel, dating from 1939, feature a mosaic of the last supper by stained glass and church outfitters Brooks, Robinson and Company. A similar one can be found at St. Matthew's Church of England in High Street in Prahran. The fine lancet stained glass windows on the west side of St. Mark the Evangelist feature the work of the stained glass firms Brooks, Robinson and Company. and William Montgomery. Many of the windows were installed in the late Nineteenth Century.
The St. Mark the Evangelist Parish Hall and verger's cottage were added in 1889 to designs by architects Hyndman and Bates. The hall is arranged as a nave with clerestorey windows and side aisles with buttresses. In 1891 the same architects designed the Choir Vestry and Infants Sunday School on Hodgson Street, to replace the earlier school of 1849 which had been located in the forecourt of the church.
The present St. Mark the Evangelist's vicarage, a two-storey brick structure with cast-iron lacework verandahs, was erected in 1910.
I am very grateful to the staff of Anglicare who run the busy adjoining St. Mark's Community Centre for allowing me to have free range of the inside of St. Mark the Evangelist for a few hours to photograph it so extensively.
James Blackburn (1803 - 1854) was an English civil engineer, surveyor and architect. Born in Upton, West Ham, Essex, James was the third of four sons and one daughter born to his parents. His father was a scalemaker, a trade all his brothers took. At the age of 23, James was employed by the Commissioners of Sewers for Holborn and Finsbury and later became an inspector of sewers. However, his life took a dramatic turn in 1833, when suffering economic hardship, he forged a cheque. He was caught and his penalty was transportation to Van Diemen’s Land (modern day Tasmania). As a convicted prisoner, yet also listed as a civil engineer, James was assigned to the Roads Department under the management of Roderic O’Connor, a wealthy Irishman who was the Inspector of Roads and Bridges at the time. On 3 May 1841 James was pardoned, whereupon he entered private practice with James Thomson, another a former convict. In April 1849, James sailed from Tasmania aboard the "Shamrock" with his wife and ten children to start a new life in Melbourne. Once there he formed a company to sell filtered and purified water to the public, and carried out some minor architectural commissions including St. Mark the Evangelist in Fitzroy. On 24 October he was appointed city surveyor, and between 1850 and 1851 he produced his greatest non-architectural work, the basic design and fundamental conception of the Melbourne water supply from the Yan Yean reservoir via the Plenty River. He was injured in a fall from a horse in January 1852 and died on 3 March 1854 at Brunswick Street, Collingwood, of typhoid. He was buried as a member of St. Mark The Evangelist Church of England. James is best known in Tasmania for his ecclesiastical architectural work including; St Mark's Church of England, Pontville, Tasmania (1839-1841), Holy Trinity Church, Hobart, Tasmania (1841-1848): St. George's Church of England, Battery Point, Tasmania, (1841-1847).
Leonard Terry (1825 - 1884) was an architect born at Scarborough, Yorkshire, England. Son of Leonard Terry, a timber merchant, and his wife Margaret, he arrived in Melbourne in 1853 and after six months was employed by architect C. Laing. By the end of 1856 he had his own practice in Collins Street West (Terry and Oakden). After Mr. Laing's death next year Leonard succeeded him as the principal designer of banks in Victoria and of buildings for the Anglican Church, of which he was appointed diocesan architect in 1860. In addition to the many banks and churches that he designed, Leonard is also known for his design of The Melbourne Club on Collins Street (1858 - 1859) "Braemar" in East Melbourne (1865), "Greenwich House" Toorak (1869) and the Campbell residence on the corner of Collins and Spring Streets (1877). Leonard was first married, at 30, on 26 June 1855 to Theodosia Mary Welch (d.1861), by whom he had six children including Marmaduke, who trained as a surveyor and entered his father's firm in 1880. Terry's second marriage, at 41, on 29 December 1866 was to Esther Hardwick Aspinall, who bore him three children and survived him when on 23 June 1884, at the age of 59, he died of a thoracic tumor in his last home, Campbellfield Lodge, Alexandra Parade, in Collingwood.
Lloyd Tayler (1830 - 1900) was an architect born on 26 October 1830 in London, youngest son of tailor William Tayler, and his wife Priscilla. Educated at Mill Hill Grammar School, Hendon, and King's College, London, he is said to have been a student at the Sorbonne. In June 1851 he left England to join his brother on the land near Albury, New South Wales. He ended up on the Mount Alexander goldfields before setting up an architectural practice with Lewis Vieusseux, a civil engineer in 1854. By 1856 he had his own architectural practice where he designed premises for the Colonial Bank of Australasia. In the 1860s and 1870s he was lauded for his designs for the National Bank of Australasia, including those in the Melbourne suburbs of Richmond and North Fitzroy, and further afield in country Victoria at Warrnambool and Coleraine. His major design for the bank was the Melbourne head office in 1867. With Edmund Wright in 1874 William won the competition for the design of the South Australian Houses of Parliament, which began construction in 1881. The pair also designed the Bank of Australia in Adelaide in 1875. He also designed the Australian Club in Melbourne's William Street and the Melbourne Exchange in Collins Street in 1878. Lloyd's examples of domestic architecture include the mansion "Kamesburgh", Brighton, commissioned by W. K. Thomson in 1872. Other houses include: "Thyra", Brighton (1883): "Leighswood", Toorak, for C. E. Bright: "Roxcraddock", Caulfield: "Cherry Chase", Brighton: and "Blair Athol", Brighton. In addition to his work on St. Mark the Evangelist in Fitzroy, Lloyd also designed St. Mary's Church of England, Hotham (1860); St Philip's, Collingwood, and the Presbyterian Church, Punt Road, South Yarra (1865); and Trinity Church, Bacchus Marsh (1869). The high point of Lloyd's career was the design for the Melbourne head office of the Commercial Bank of Australia. His last important design was the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Headquarters Station, Eastern Hill in 1892. Lloyd was also a judge in 1900 of the competition plans for the new Flinders Street railway station. Lloyd was married to Sarah Toller, daughter of a Congregational minister. They established a comfortable residence, Pen-y-Bryn, in Brighton, and it was from here that he died of cancer of the liver on the 17th of August 1900 survived by his wife, four daughters and a son.
Charles Webb (1821 - 1898) was an architect. Born on 26 November 1821 at Sudbury, Suffolk, England, he was the youngest of nine children of builder William Webb and his wife Elizabeth. He attended Sudbury Academy and was later apprenticed to a London architect. His brother James had migrated to Van Diemen's Land in 1830, married in 1833, gone to Melbourne in 1839 where he set up as a builder in and in 1848 he bought Brighton Park, Brighton. Charles decided to join James and lived with James at Brighton. They went into partnership as architects and surveyors. The commission that established them was in 1850 for St Paul's Church, Swanston Street. It was here that Charles married Emma Bridges, daughter of the chief cashier at the Bank of England. Charles and James built many warehouses, shops and private homes and even a synagogue in the city. After his borther's return to England, Charles designed St. Andrew's Church, Brighton, and receiving an important commission for Melbourne Church of England Grammar School in 1855. In 1857 he added a tower and a slender spire to Scots Church, which James had built in 1841. He designed Wesley College in 1864, the Alfred Hospital and the Royal Arcade in 1869, the South Melbourne Town Hall and the Melbourne Orphan Asylum in 1878 and the Grand Hotel (now the Windsor) in 1884. In 1865 he had designed his own home, "Farleigh", in Park Street, Brighton, where he died on 23 January 1898 of heat exhaustion. Predeceased by Emma in 1893 and survived by five sons and three daughters, he was buried in Brighton cemetery.
Brooks, Robinson and Company first opened their doors on Elizabeth Street in Melbourne in 1854 as importers of window and table glass and also specialised in interior decorating supplies. Once established the company moved into glazing and were commonly contracted to do shopfronts around inner Melbourne. In the 1880s they commenced producing stained glass on a small scale. Their first big opportunity occurred in the 1890s when they were engaged to install Melbourne's St Paul's Cathedral's stained-glass windows. Their notoriety grew and as a result their stained glass studio flourished, particularly after the closure of their main competitor, Ferguson and Urie. They dominated the stained glass market in Melbourne in the early 20th Century, and many Australian glass artists of worked in their studio. Their work may be found in the Princess Theatre on Melbourne's Spring Street, in St John's Church in Toorak, and throughout churches in Melbourne. Brooks, Robinson and Company was taken over by Email Pty Ltd in 1963, and as a result they closed their stained glass studio.
New King James Version (NKJV)
Does the eagle mount up at your command, And make its nest on high? On the rock it dwells and resides, On the crag of the rock and the stronghold. From there it spies out the prey; Its eyes observe from afar.
Romans 8:28
New King James Version (NKJV)
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
0️⃣0️⃣5️⃣2️⃣3️⃣5️⃣ It was narrated from Abu Hurairah that the Prophet (ﷺ) said:
“If you were to commit sin until your sins reach the heaven, then you were to repent, your repentance would be accepted.”
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، عَنِ النَّبِيِّ ـ صلى الله عليه وسلم ـ قَالَ : " لَوْ أَخْطَأْتُمْ حَتَّى تَبْلُغَ خَطَايَاكُمُ السَّمَاءَ ثُمَّ تُبْتُمْ لَتَابَ عَلَيْكُمْ " .
شرح_الحديث :💧:
اللهُ سُبحانَه هو التَّوَّابُ الرَّحيمُ والغَفورُ الكَريمُ، وقد فتَح بابَ رَحمتِه لعِبادِه العاصين مَهما بلَغَتْ ذُنوبُهم.
وفي هذا الحديثِ يُخبِرُ أبو هريرةَ رَضي اللهُ عنه: أنَّ النَّبيَّ صلَّى اللهُ علَيه وسلَّم، قال: "لو أخطَأتُم حتَّى تَبلُغَ خطاياكم السَّماءَ"، أي: في كَثْرتِها وعِظَمِها، "ثمَّ تُبتُم"، أي: تاب أصحابُ تلك الخَطايا، "لتاب اللهُ علَيكم"، أي: قَبِلَ اللهُ عزَّ وجلَّ تلك التَّوبةَ وغفَرَ لأصحابِها، وهذا مِن رحمةِ اللهِ عزَّ وجلَّ بعِبادِه أنَّه فتَح لهم طريقًا للعَودةِ إلى طَريقِ الفلاحِ وترْكِ طريقِ الفَسادِ، ولقَبولِ التَّوبةِ شروطٌ عُرِفتْ مِن استِقْراءِ نُصوصِ كِتابِ اللهِ تعالى وسُنَّةِ رسولِه صلَّى اللهُ علَيه وسلَّم.
ومِن تِلك الشُّروطِ: أنْ تكونَ التَّوبةُ خالِصةً لوجهِ اللهِ تعالى، فلا يُرادَ بها الدُّنيا أو مَدْحُ النَّاسِ وثناؤُهم، ثمَّ الإقلاعُ عن المعصيةِ، ثمَّ النَّدمُ على فِعلِها، مع العزْمِ على عدَمِ العودةِ إليها، ثمَّ إرجاعُ الحقوقِ إلى أصحابِها إنْ كانتِ المعصيةُ حُقوقًا للآخَرين، وأنْ تكونَ التَّوبةُ قبلَ طُلوعِ الشَّمسِ مِن مغرِبِها، وقبلَ حضورِ الموتِ.
ومِن علاماتِ صحَّةِ التَّوبةِ: أنْ يكونَ العبدُ بعدَ التَّوبةِ خيرًا منه قبلَها؛ فيُكثِرَ مِن عمَلِ الصَّالحاتِ، ومُصاحَبةِ أهلِ الصَّلاحِ، ويَحرِصَ على تَرْكِ المعاصي والسَّيِّئاتِ، والابتعادِ عن أهلِ الزَّيغِ والانحِرافِ، وأنْ يكونَ الخَوفُ مُصاحِبًا له فلا يأمَنَ مِن مَكْرِ اللهِ.
-•✵ من دل على خير
فله مثل أجر فاعله ✵•- youtu.be/cz4hijoZGDw
حَدَّثَنَا يَعْقُوبُ بْنُ حُمَيْدِ بْنِ كَاسِبٍ الْمَدَنِيُّ، حَدَّثَنَا أَبُو مُعَاوِيَةَ، حَدَّثَنَا جَعْفَرُ بْنُ بُرْقَانَ، عَنْ يَزِيدَ بْنِ الأَصَمِّ، عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، عَنِ النَّبِيِّ ـ صلى الله عليه وسلم ـ قَالَ : " لَوْ أَخْطَأْتُمْ حَتَّى تَبْلُغَ خَطَايَاكُمُ السَّمَاءَ ثُمَّ تُبْتُمْ لَتَابَ عَلَيْكُمْ " .
الراوي: أبو هريرة المحدث: الألباني - المصدر: صحيح الجامع - الصفحة أو الرقم: 5235 خلاصة حكم المحدث: حسن
New King James Version (NKJV)
“Is not God in the height of heaven?
And see the highest stars, how lofty they are!
Romans 8:28
New King James Version (NKJV)
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
New King James Version (NKJV)
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
Romans 8:28
New King James Version (NKJV)
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
Benin. West Africa.
Ouidah
The Slave Route
A monument called Zomachi, which symbolizes repentance and reconciliation, is especially poignant. There, every January, descendants of both slaves and slave merchants request forgiveness for those who perpetrated the injustices.
Standing on Trailtrow Hill, Repentance Tower formed part of a chain of defense posts which warned against English raiding parties who crossed the border.
This three-storey tower house was founded by Sir John Maxwell of Terregles in the mid 16th century.
In 1548 an English force challenged the Douglases at Durisdeer, who were under the charge of Sir John. The night before the battle, he had been bribed to change sides in exchange for the hand of Agnes Herries and the title Lord Herries. His treachery, however, cost the lives of 12 of his kinsmen, who had been held at Carlisle Castle as hostages, one of which was his 12-year-old nephew. Maxwell was said to have built the tower as a sign of his remorse.
Another version of the tale has it that Repentance Tower was so-called because Lord Herries built Hoddom Castle out of stones from Trailtrow Chapel.
7/30/11 cblog INNOCENT BLOOD CRIES OUT FOR JUSTICE; st jbap 8a asian m: "herod was afraid of john ...john became more intimidating after he was killed..brings to mind my vietnam..people would say an innocent gal died an unjust death ..people afraid mor so after the death ..look deeper..a sense of justice..innocent blood cries out for justice..when innocent people die unjustly, need for justice to be addressed..god puts this sense of justice in us..innate ...and who will render justice to all..he will render justice to st. Jbap & all ..that is displayed in 1st reading when all property returned to orig owner..jubilee...our god is a god of justice..for evildoers..but if repent, the justice of god is forgiveness
& reconc...if we have done wrong knowingly or otherwise, we come to god w repentance..forgiv & reconc..how beautiful to know god, to b w him..he will render justice"
Lv 25:1, 8-17 The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai,“Seven weeks of years shall you count–seven times seven years– so that the seven cycles amount to forty-nine years Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, let the trumpet resound; on this, the Day of Atonement, the trumpet blast shall re-echo throughout your land. This fiftieth year you shall make sacred by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when every one of you shall return to his own property, every one to his own family estate In this fiftieth year, your year of jubilee, you shall not sow, nor shall you reap the aftergrowth or pick the grapes from the untrimmed vines. Since this is the jubilee, which shall be sacred for you, you may not eat of its produce, except as taken directly from the field“In this year of jubilee, then every one of you shall return to his own property. Therefore, when you sell any land to your neighbor or buy any from him, do not deal unfairly. On the basis of the number of years since the last jubilee shall you purchase the land from your n
ed vines. Since this is the jubilee, which shall be sacred for you, you may not eat of its produce, except as taken directly from the field“In this year of jubilee, then every one of you shall return to his own property. Therefore, when you sell any land to your neighbor or buy any from him, do not deal unfairly. On the basis of the number of years since the last jubilee shall you purchase the land from your
neighbor; and so also, on the basis of the number of years for crops, shall he sell it to you. When the years are many, the price shall be so much the more; when the years are few, the price shall be so much the less For it is really the number of crops that he sells you. Do not deal unfairly, then; but stand in fear of your God. I, the LORD, am your God.” R. (4) O God, let all the nations praise you! May God have pity on us and bless us; may he let his face shine upon us. So may your way be known upon earth;
ed us. May God bless us, and may all the ends of the earth fear him R. O God, let all the nations praise you!
"Herod the tetrarch heard of the reputation of Jesus and said to his servants, “This man is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why mighty powers are at work in him.” Now Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, for John had said to him,“It is not lawful for you to have her.” Although he wanted to kill him, he feared the people, for they regarded him as a prophet. But at a birthday celebration for Herod the daughter of Herodias performed a dance before the guests and delighted Herod so much that he swore to give her whatever she might ask for. Prompted by her mother, she said“Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.” The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and the guests who were present, he ordered that it be given, and he had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who took it to her mother. His disciples came and to
away the corpse and buried him; and they went and told Jesus"
وَاللَّهُ يُرِيدُ أَن يَتُوبَ عَلَيْكُمْ ⭐ Allah wants to accept your repentance
ا🔸🔹🔸
لن تجد ألطف بك من الله!
يتودد إليك بقبول توبتك ليلم شعث قلبك بالقرب منه،➿💦➿
مع غناه عنك وحاجتك إليه،
اللهم تب علينا واغفرلنا وارحمنا 🙏〰️🙏
ا🔸🔹🔸
#تأملات_قرآنيه Quranic_Meditations#
Benin. West Africa.
Ouidah
The Slave Route
A monument called Zomachi, which symbolizes repentance and reconciliation, is especially poignant. There, every January, descendants of both slaves and slave merchants request forgiveness for those who perpetrated the injustices.
Benin. West Africa.
Ouidah
The Slave Route
A monument called Zomachi, which symbolizes repentance and reconciliation, is especially poignant. There, every January, descendants of both slaves and slave merchants request forgiveness for those who perpetrated the injustices.
Nurnberg, 1454. Wood engraving of Hans Leonard Schaufelen, a pupil of Albrecht Durer. P. 193 in: JANSSEN, Han (1985). De geschiedenis van de speelkaart. Elmar, Rijswijk. ISBN 90-6120-467-4
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Saint John of Capistrano (Italian: San Giovanni da Capestrano, Hungarian: Kapisztrán János, Polish: Jan Kapistran, Serbian: Јован Капистран, Jovan Kapistran) (24 June 1386 – 23 October 1456) was a Franciscan friar and Catholic priest from the Italian town of Capestrano, Abruzzo. Famous as a preacher, theologian, and inquisitor, he earned himself the nickname 'the Soldier Saint' when in 1456 at age 70 he led a crusade against the invading Ottoman Empire at the siege of Belgrade with the Hungarian military commander John Hunyadi.
Elevated to sainthood, he is the patron saint of Hungary, jurists and military chaplains, as well as the namesake of the Franciscan missions San Juan Capistrano in Southern California and San Juan Capistrano in San Antonio, Texas.
As was the custom of this time, John is denoted by the village of Capestrano, in the Diocese of Sulmona, in the Abruzzi region, Kingdom of Naples. His father had come to Italy with the Angevin court of Louis I of Anjou, titular King of Naples. He studied law at the University of Perugia.
In 1412, King Ladislaus of Naples appointed him Governor of Perugia, a tumultuous and resentful papal fief held by Ladislas as the pope's champion, in order to effectively establish public order. When war broke out between Perugia and the Malatestas in 1416, John was sent as ambassador to broker a peace, but Malatesta threw him in prison. During the captivity, in despair he put aside his new young wife, never having consummated the marriage, and started studying theology with Bernardino of Siena.
Together with James of the Marches, John entered the Order of Friars Minor at Perugia on 4 October 1416. At once he gave himself up to the most rigorous asceticism, violently defending the ideal of strict observance and orthodoxy, following the example set by Bernardine. From 1420 onwards, he preached with great effect in numerous cities and eventually became well known.
Unlike most Italian preachers of repentance in the 15th century, John was effective in northern and central Europe - in German states of Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia, Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Kingdom of Poland. The largest churches could not hold the crowds, so he preached in the public squares—at Brescia in Italy, he preached to a crowd of 126,000.
John was known as the "Scourge of the Jews" for his inciting of antisemitic violence. Like some other Franciscans, he ranged over a broad area on both sides of the Alps, and John's preaching to mass open-air congregations often led to pogroms. In 1450 the Franciscan "Jew-baiter" arranged a forced disputation at Rome with a certain Gamaliel called "Synagogæ Romanæ magister". Between 1451 and 1453, his fiery sermons against Jews persuaded many southern German regions to expel their entire Jewish population, and in Silesia, then Kingdom of Bohemia, at Breslau some were burned at the stake.
When he was not preaching, John was writing tracts against heresy of every kind. This facet of his life is covered in great detail by his early biographers, Nicholas of Fara, Christopher of Varese and Girlamo of Udine. While he was thus evangelizing, he was actively engaged in assisting Bernardine of Siena in the reform of the Franciscan Order, largely in the interests of a more rigorous discipline in the Franciscan communities. Like Bernardine, he strongly emphasized devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus, and, together with that saint, was accused of heresy on this account. In 1429, these Observant friars were called to Rome to answer charges of heresy, and John was chosen by his companions to speak for them. They were both acquitted by the Commission of Cardinals appointed to judge the accusations.
He was frequently deployed to embassies by Popes Eugene IV and Nicholas V: in 1439, he was sent as legate to Milan and Burgundy, to oppose the claims of the Antipope Felix V; in 1446, he was on a mission to the King of France; in 1451 he went at the request of the emperor as Apostolic Nuncio to Austria. During the period of his nunciature, John visited all parts of the Empire, preaching and combating the heresy of the Hussites; he also visited Poland at the request of Casimir IV Jagiellon. As legate, or inquisitor, he prosecuted the last Fraticelli of Ferrara, the Jesuati of Venice, the Crypto-Jews of Sicily, Moldavia and Poland, and, above all, the Hussites of Germany, Hungary and Bohemia; his aim in the last case was to make talks impossible between the representatives of Rome and the Bohemians, for every attempt at conciliation seemed to him to be conniving at heresy.
John, in spite of this restless life, found time to work—both during the lifetime of his mentor, Bernardine, and afterwards—on the reform of the Order of Friars Minor. He also upheld, in his writings, speeches and sermons, theories of papal supremacy rather than the theological wranglings of councils (see Conciliar Movement). John, together with his teacher, Bernardine, his colleague, James of the Marche, and Albert Berdini of Sarteano, are considered the four great pillars of the Observant reform among the Friars Minor.
After the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Empire, under Sultan Mehmed II, threatened Christian Europe. That following year Pope Callixtus III sent John, who was already aged seventy, to preach a Crusade against the invading Turks at the Imperial Diet of Frankfurt. Gaining little response in Bavaria and Austria, he decided to concentrate his efforts in Hungary. John succeeded in gathering together enough troops to march onto Belgrade, which at that time was under siege by Turkish forces. In the summer of 1456, these troops, together with John Hunyadi, managed to raise the siege of Belgrade; the old and frail friar actually led his own contingent into battle. This feat earned him the moniker of 'the Soldier Priest'.
Although he survived the battle, John fell victim to the bubonic plague, which flourished in the unsanitary conditions prevailing among armies of the day. He died on 23 October 1456 at the nearby town of Ilok, Kingdom of Croatia in personal union with Hungary (now a Croatian border town on the Danube).
The year of John of Capistrano's canonization is variously given as 1690,[ by Pope Alexander VIII or 1724 by Pope Benedict XIII. In 1890, his feast day was included for the first time in the General Roman Calendar and assigned to 28 March. In 1969, Pope Paul VI moved his feast day to 23 October, the day of his death. Some Traditionalist Catholics observe calendar of the 1890 to 1969 period.
As a Franciscan reformer preaching simplicity, John became the eponym of two Spanish missions founded by the Franciscan friars in the north of the then-Spanish Americas: Mission San Juan Capistrano in today's Southern California and Mission San Juan Capistrano just outside the city center of today's San Antonio in Texas (Wikipedia).
Feasts, Foreshadow of the Prophetic and here Yom Kippur represents the forgiveness we receive through Yeshua.
Yom Kippur Fall Feast on the WIBR/WARN Sites
Kippur Fall Feast on Warn-Radio
Kippur Fall Feast on WingsWatchman
Kippur Fall Feast on D Day For America
Elana Rozenman, Sheikh Ghassan Manasra, Ibtisam Mahamid.
The Abrahamic Reunion hosted Israelis and Palestinians from Jerusalem and the Galilee on a journey to Faradis, Zichron Yaakov and Haifa, on Sept. 14, 2014. The trip included a Jewish-Muslim text study of sources on 'repentance' at the Tent of Sarah and Hagar, shared lunch and peace concert in Zichron Yaakov, walk in the Bahai gardens and healing prayers in Elijah's Cave- in Haifa, and unity gathering on the beach of Jizr il-Zarka at sunset.
There is a division
grace, which comes from repentance, grasps the soul to God, whose light attracts it. At first it is not so obvious, but its warmth, which is love, begins to soften the heart. Strangely, therefore, there is a division in man. On the one hand he is overcome by fear, rather by horror, feeling his tremendous guilt and on the other he is overwhelmed by the hitherto unknown grace of the presence of God. The division of fear is over, because with the presence of grace the eyes of the mind they open and notice its finesse.
Elder Joseph Vatopedin
Standing on Trailtrow Hill, Repentance Tower formed part of a chain of defense posts which warned against English raiding parties who crossed the border.
This three-storey tower house was founded by Sir John Maxwell of Terregles in the mid 16th century.
In 1548 an English force challenged the Douglases at Durisdeer, who were under the charge of Sir John. The night before the battle, he had been bribed to change sides in exchange for the hand of Agnes Herries and the title Lord Herries. His treachery, however, cost the lives of 12 of his kinsmen, who had been held at Carlisle Castle as hostages, one of which was his 12-year-old nephew. Maxwell was said to have built the tower as a sign of his remorse.
Another version of the tale has it that Repentance Tower was so-called because Lord Herries built Hoddom Castle out of stones from Trailtrow Chapel.
The participants are often in a trance and are pierced with needles on several parts of their bodies in sign of repentance while they carry flower decorated arches on their bare shoulders
New King James Version (NKJV)
The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, They have done abominable works, There is none who does good.
Romans 8:28
New King James Version (NKJV)
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
Standing on Trailtrow Hill, Repentance Tower formed part of a chain of defense posts which warned against English raiding parties who crossed the border.
This three-storey tower house was founded by Sir John Maxwell of Terregles in the mid 16th century.
In 1548 an English force challenged the Douglases at Durisdeer, who were under the charge of Sir John. The night before the battle, he had been bribed to change sides in exchange for the hand of Agnes Herries and the title Lord Herries. His treachery, however, cost the lives of 12 of his kinsmen, who had been held at Carlisle Castle as hostages, one of which was his 12-year-old nephew. Maxwell was said to have built the tower as a sign of his remorse.
Another version of the tale has it that Repentance Tower was so-called because Lord Herries built Hoddom Castle out of stones from Trailtrow Chapel.
New King James Version (NKJV)
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:
“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:28
New King James Version (NKJV)
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
Artwork by Robert T Barrett:
(Christ the Creator)
The reason the photo has that name is 1) Greg walked to Mtskheta couples weeks before we walked together and went to Svetickhoveli, via this road 2) Monanieba (Repentance) has a part where an older women asks if the road she is on leads to a church. After hearing that it does not, she says: "what is the point of a road, if it does not take you to a church"...
The Most Rev. Joseph R. Cistone, Bishop of Saginaw, celebrated Ash Wednesday Mass at the Cathedral of Mary of the Assumption in Saginaw on Feb. 18. To mark the beginning of the penitential season of Lent, Catholics receive ashes on their foreheads as a sign of repentance and mortality. The ashes come from blessed palms that were distributed last year on Palm Sunday and later burned.
The Church emphasizes the penitential nature of Lent and Catholics who are between the ages of 18 and 59 are called to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, meaning they should eat only one full meal and two smaller meals without eating between meals. Also, all who are 14 and older are called to abstain from eating beef, pork, poultry and food made from animal fat on those days and all Fridays during Lent.
I think in Simon's list of 50 best Suffolk churches, Woolpit comes in at number 31. It is now that I remember that I cannot remember why I should go to Woolpit on what would be the last of the EA church visits this year, as Mum was home and in the care of the district nurse, and there was nothing else we could do, not in actions, money or time given. She really has to stand on her own two feet now.
Anyway; Woolpit.
I decided to go, and after looking on the map I saw that with some create route planning, I could go down the 143, then double back and join the A14 eastwards before turning south down our old friend, the A12.
On the way I did also visit Stowlangtoft, which was a wonderful church, a church filled with wonderful things that seemed to hang together as a whole. Woolpit would have to be something special to trup St George.
And it nearly did. Nearly. Woolpit is a picture perfect village, all timber framed buildings, narrow lanes and impossible to park in. I drove through it finding a kind of space just past the church. I could see from the tower and building it was a church on which the Victorians had been very busy.
Most glorious is Mary's roof; double hammerbeam adorned with 208 angels one of the wardens told me. It had been counted several times during a dull sermon. Or two.
The wardens were building the crib for Christmas, so were using a pallet as a base, or something like that. I didn't see it finished, but Ken Bruce was booming out from a radio, preaching the Gospel According to Popmaster to all who would listen.
The angels in the roof and on the walls of the church are indeed impressive, as is the rood screen, but not sure if they are original. There are carved pew ends aplenty, but to my eye, not as well carved or as old as at Stowlangtoft. I could be wrong. But I snap a few anyway.
But I received a warm welcome here, and it is a fantastic church for me.
-----------------------------------------
2008: Woolpit is a village which I often visit, and it is always a pleasure to go into the church. But the entry for St Mary was one of the last on the original Suffolk Churches site, making its appearance in late 2001. In fact, I think it was the last of the old-style entries. I was getting a bit wordy by then.
Woolpit was one of the longest entries, and this wasn't just because there is so much to see. I went off at a great tangent about the meaning of medieval iconography, and how it survived the Reformation. It certainly got some thoughts clear in my own head, even if it confused other people. I actually wrote the entry in the back of an old exercise book sitting outside a café on the Cote d'Azur in southern France. Reading that back, it seems a little pretentious, but I really was there. Here in Ipswich on a frosty February evening, I can't help remembering the heat as I scrawled in the pad.
I've left the original entry almost entirely as it was, apart from the removal of one absolute howler, which I won't mention. I am not sure if Woolpit still has a Sunday market, and I am sure that someone will tell me if it has not. Paul Hocking is no longer Rector of Woolpit, but to my eyes the church continues to go from strength to strength, feeling at once busy and at the heart of its community, the still centre of a busy village. I like it very much.
2001: The clear blue waters of the Mediterranean swirl around my legs, then past me, buffeting the rocks along the silver beach. Millions of tiny flecks of mica swarm through the current, washed out of the hills of Southern Provence. They shine for a fraction of a second with all the light the high summer sun can give, a universe caught in a moment; then turn, disappearing, making of the water a shimmering skein, an ancient memory.
The sea is at the start of all European civilisation. Here, history wells about me. I think of Europe, and the fragmentation of nations. I think of the Balkans, and the Reformation, and the same water surrounding, tending, isolating. I think of time passing.
A week before, I'd been standing in the cool nave of the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, Woolpit - or at least, that is what it probably was once, back then. Today, it is dedicated simply as 'St Mary', in common with the majority of Suffolk's medieval churches, among which it is one of the finest, some say. This is mostly by virtue of its beautiful porch, and extraordinary angel roof.
But is that true? For there are those who love this church that, perhaps, never look up at the porch or roof. Is it the plethora of 15th century bench ends that captures the imagination? Or could it be Richard Phipson's outrageous 1850s tower and lacy spire, straight out of the Nene Valley, its evangelistic slogans around the side in a Victorian equivalent of Piccadilly Circus neon? It ought not to work, and yet it does. Or is it that supremely articulate view to the east, perfect of proportion despite the stripping away of its medieval liturgical apparatus? Above all else, and above most others, this is a church with presence.
It was the bench ends that I was thinking of as I immersed myself out of the intensity of the Provencal sun. A number of questions occured to me, as they have done on other occasions, in other churches. Who made them? What did they mean by them? And how did they survive the iconoclasms of the Protestant Reformation? Here in Southern Europe, I thought I might have found some answers.
Woolpit, then. It is perhaps the most perfect of all Suffolk villages. Not sleepy, and chocolate boxy, but to actually live in. Its shops and pubs are arranged around the pleasant village square, and Phipson's crazy spire towers above them. Woolpit still has its school, and you wouldn't need to get in the car every time you needed a loaf of bread, as you'd have to do in some of Suffolk's more famously picturesque villages, like Kersey and Tuddenham. And Woolpit has its Sunday market, beloved of hundreds of non-sabbatarian junk-hunters each week.
Further, Woolpit has its mythology; the two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once lived in the pits here...
So, it is a well-known village. It is because of this as much as anything about St Mary itself that makes this church so well-known to people who haven't heard of the even more interesting and beautiful church of St Ethelbert, Hessett, barely three miles away.
Your first sight of St Mary will be Phipson's crazy spire, visible from miles away, and quite unlike anything else in East Anglia. Suffolk is a county where spires are rare enough, anyway. From the far side of the Gipping valley you can see this one and two others, piercing the soft harvest mist in autumn. They are Phipson's equally absurd Great Finborough, and the 1990s blade of St Peter and St Mary, Stowmarket. There are only about a dozen more in the whole of the county. The excuse for this one was that the tower was struck by lightning in 1852, bringing down the previous lead and timber affair (presumably like the one at Hadleigh). The font is contemporary with the tower, suggesting that the old one was destroyed by the fall.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the artist John Piper produced a series of screen prints of aspects of Suffolk churches; for most, he used the fine perpendicular tower, ramifying it in bold Festival of Britain primary colours. But for Woolpit, he chose the porch, because it is Suffolk's finest. Cautley thought it the best in all England. It is two-storey, 15th century, contemporary with the nave. Mortlock tells us that they were both built by wealthy Bury Abbey, who owned the living here. As at Beccles, it rises way above the south aisle, tower-like in itself.
A rood group of niches surmounts the shields of East Anglia above the door. More flank them. Mortlock says that the work began in the early 1430s, and the niches were filled by a bequest of 1473, suggesting that the porch was forty years in the making. The south aisle and chancel are slightly earlier, the north aisle slightly later, so it is the nave that promises us great things, and doesn't disappoint.
You step into cool darkness, and look up. It is breathtaking. This is Suffolk's most perfectly restored angel hammerbeam roof. It may not have the drama of Mildenhall, the exquisiteness of Blythburgh, the sheer mathematics of Needham Market, but it shows us in detail more than any other what the medieval imagination was aiming at. From the still, small silence of the church floor below, you look up into a great shout of praise. Here are hundreds of figures, both angelic and human. The profusion is ordered, as if some mighty hymn were in progress.
Paul Hocking thinks that it is a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus: We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord... To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth... The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee, the noble army of Martyrs praise thee...
I know this, because he told me so. I was busy photographing bench ends when this very enthusiastic American bounced in with another visitor, and gave him a whistlestop tour of the church, describing the details with great knowledge and understanding. Solicitously, he talked to me afterwards about what I was doing, and asked me if I'd met the Rector of Woolpit yet. I said that I went out of my way to avoid Rectors wherever possible. He laughed, and replied that, on this occasion, I'd failed, because he was, in fact, the Rector.
After I'd coughed miserably, and he'd laughed again, we had a long chat, uncovering a few mutual aquaintances. He described the roof, which he has obviously spent a lot of time exploring. He pointed out the way the wall posts contained Saints, some with apostolic symbols, some with books, and some with martyr's palms. There are angels on the hammerbeams above, and bearing symbols below. John Blatchly counted 128 angels alone. Some of the shields have letters on them. Are they an acrostic, as on the east chancel wall at Blythburgh? Do they indicate individual Saints? The great Henry Ringham completely restored this roof in 1862, but Mortlock thinks that one of the angels is not his, and I agree - you'll find it in the south west corner. Paul Hocking argues that the restoration was nowhere near as complete as has been made out, and that many features are original.
Henry Ringham also restored the range of bench ends, by duplicating some of the medieval ones, as he did at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. All are rendered with his customary skill. If Ringham did restore this roof, then the imagery must have been destroyed at some point. One instinctively thinks of William Dowsing, the Puritan inspector of the churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, who progressed across the counties during the course of 1644. His delight in the destruction of angel roofs was matched only by that at the destruction of stained glass.
And Dowsing did visit this church. He arrived here in the afternoon of February 29th 1644. It was a Thursday, and he had come here across country from Helmingham, where he had found much to do. He also planned to visit Beyton that day, but in the end stayed overnight at the Bull hotel, and inspected All Saints there in the morning. He then rested for the weekend - the following week, he had a busy tour of southern Cambridgeshire ahead of him.
Dowsing records in great detail what he found to do at each church. In the case of Woolpit, the angel roof is the Dog That Didn't Bark: My Deputy. 80 superstitious pictures; some he brake down, and the rest he gave order to take down; and three crosses to be taken down in 20 days. 8s 6d. There are only two possible reasons why Dowsing doesn't mention the roof. Either he didn't notice it (extremely unlikely) or it had already been destroyed. This second option seems certain; mid-Suffolk was a strongly protestant area, and nearby Rougham, which clearly had a similar roof, was not visited by Dowsing, but was vandalised even more comprehensively than Woolpit. Most likely, the destruction at both churches dated from a hundred years earlier, although it is possible that the Rougham and Woolpit congregations had been puritan enough in the 1630s to do it to their own churches themselves.
Beneath the roof, the church is broad, its two aisles giving room for the panoply of medieval liturgical processions. At the east end of the south aisle was once the shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit, a site of medieval pilgrimage in connection with a nearby holy well. Apart from the front rows, many of the benches appear to be in their original positions. Some of the bench ends are 15th century, others are Ringham's 19th century copies. I wandered around the medieval bench ends, running my hands over them, crouching down and engaging them, face to face. For anyone educated in a Marxist or Weberian historical tradition, as most of my generation were, interpreting the less-obviously liturgical or theological features of a medieval church is fraught with difficulties. One possibility is to do a Cautley, and try not to interpret them at all. But it is more fun to try to do so, don't you think?
The bench ends of Woolpit are remarkable for their abundance. They are not representations of sacraments, virtues and vices as at Tannington and elsewhere, or Saints as at Ufford and Athelington. They are almost all non-allegorical animals, although not the art objects we find at Stowlangtoft, or the mysterious beasts of Lakenheath. Perhaps a good comparison is the similar body of work at nearby Combs. Indeed, although they do not appear to be from the same workshop, it is likely that their creators knew of each others' work. There are dogs, with geese hanging from their mouths, and another which may be a cat with a rat or lizard. There are lions and bears, and a chained monkey, and birds in profusion. So who did them, and why are they here?
There is one school of thought that says that they are simply there to beautify the church, and that they were made by local craftsmen doing what they were best at. If they could do lions, they did lions. If they could render a decent rabbit, then that is what they did. And so on.
But I think that there is rather more to it than that. On my journey down through France, I had spent an afternoon in one of my favourite towns, Autun, in Burgundy. One of the reasons I like Autun is its 11th century Cathedral of St-Lazaire; this is Lazurus, raised by Christ from the dead, and until the 18th century his relics were venerated at a shrine here. St-Lazaire is most famous for its great tympanum above the west door, generally recognised as one of the greatest Romanesque art treasures in the world, and with International Heritage status. It was created during the middle years of the 12th century, and shows the Last Judgement. To emphasise Christ's majesty over all the world, it features all manner of beasts, domestic, wild and mythical.
Throughout the Cathedral, animals infest the famous capitals, which tell the Gospel story. Abbe Denis Grivot, in his Un Bestiaire de la Cathedrale D'Autun (Lyon, 1973) argues that the 12th century creators of all this filled it with animals to echo the final verse of the 150th Psalm, the crowning point of that great sequence of hymns of praise: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!
Standing in the nave at Autun, I instantly recalled Paul Hocking's words about the roof at Woolpit, when he said he thought it was a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus. The Te Deum is one of the canticles; another is the Benedicite, traditionally sung through Lent: Oh all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever... O ye whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the Lord... O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord... O all ye beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever!
Could it be that the bench ends at Woolpit, and elsewhere in Suffolk, were intended to reflect and represent the praise defined in the canticles and psalms? Both would have been central to the liturgy of the medieval Catholic church. Perhaps the bench ends of Woolpit are liturgical and theological after all.
How would a carpenter, or group of carpenters, go about creating a set of benches like the ones at Woolpit? Who were they? Almost certainly, they were locals. They might have been itinerant jobbing carpenters, but I don't think so. The bench ends at adjacent Tostock are clearly by the same hand. But those at nearby Stowlangtoft and Norton are not, and a third hand seems to be responsible for those at Combs, as I previously mentioned. I do not think that the mutilated ones at Rougham and Elmswell are either; they were probably from the same workshop as each other.
So, we have a conscious attempt by skilled members of a community to create a hymn of praise in carved oak, by representing as many beasts as they felt capable of making. Where did they get their ideas from? They would have had no problems with oxen, cocks, conies - these were all around them, in their daily lives. The person who carved the hunting dog here was very familiar with it. Perhaps it was his own. What about monkeys and lions? These are more problematic. In medieval bestiaries, exotic creatures had fabulous legends attached to them, which gave them a theological symbolism.
But this symbolism doesn't usually seem intended when we see them on bench ends. Sometimes they are rendered accurately, but more often wild animals are fairly imaginary; I think particularly of Barningham's camel, and Hadleigh's wolf. It isn't enough to say that the carvers could have seen pictures of exotic beasts. This is fairly unlikely. Probably, the ordinary people of Woolpit never saw a book other than the missals, lectionaries and hagiographies used in church.
They might have seen pictures of lions and monkeys in wall paintings, either in other churches or here at Woolpit. They might have seen them carved in bench ends, for the same reason. In fact, the representation of wild animals varies so much as to suggest that this is not the case - compare, for example, the lions of Combs with those of Stowlangtoft. Probably, they were created in the imagination from descriptions and attributes in stories. But I think that there is a strong possibility that the woodcarvers of Woolpit did see lions and monkeys in real life.
Here in Catholic Southern Europe, there are many remote small towns which, by virtue of being so very far from each other, take on a rich and complex life of their own. Even small villages have their shops, their craftsmen, their tradespeople; they replicate a situation that existed in Suffolk until well into the 19th century, and in some cases beyond, before the great industrialisation and easy transport swept it away. Further, there are traditions here still that we have lost. Whenever I come here, I am fascinated by the itinerant entertainers, who move from village to village, giving a single performance befre moving on. This must also once have been true of England. The thing that fascinates me most is the multitude of small family circuses.
Many of them seem to be of Italian or Romany origin; all family members have multiple roles, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child, selling tickets, doing acrobatics, being the straight men to the clown (who is typically Grandpa). They all put up the tent before the performance, and take it down afterwards. They move on, through the remote hills of Provence and the Languedoc, performing on village greens, wastegrounds, the corners of fields, even traffic islands.
As I say, I am fascinated, and can rarely resist them, even though I am shocked, even appalled, by the easy cruelty to animals. Performing animals are still often chosen for their curiosity value, if you can call running around in a circle to the crack of a whip 'performing', poor things.
The choices are strange indeed; camels and zebras often feature; I have seen an old bear on a chain, and at one circus in remote Languedoc a hippopotamus of all things - it caught bread thrown by the crowd. There was no safety fence between the seats and the ring, no Health and Safety Executive to penetrate these lost valleys. I do not know if such circuses existed in medieval Suffolk. But I think that they probably did. Suffolk is a maritime county, and exotic animals were widely known and exhibited in medieval Europe. Before the Protestant Reformation cut us of from the mainland, clerics and merchants thought of themselves as European, and travelled widely - English sovereignty was a hazy concept at best, and 'Britishness' was still centuries away from being formulated as an idea. People owed allegiance to their village, their parish, and their lord, not to the Crown and Parliament in London.
Were the woodcarvers of Woolpit and Tostock remembering this? A circus visit, perhaps back in their childhood? Exotic animals rendered inaccurately, to be sure, but with an enthusiastic nostalgia for that exciting moment in their lives? Was there a lion? A monkey, or a bear? How much more powerful if they also knew the fabulous legends about the beasts - and had seen them in real life!
Some of the carvings at Woolpit are allegorical. One shows a monkey dressed in monk's robes. This, I think, is a joke at the expense of the itinerant friars who went from parish to parish, preaching repentance in the streets. They were sanctioned by the Pope, but were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Bishop. They didn't always go down well with the local Priest and congregation, who considered the Friars nosey and hypocritical. A monkey is often a symbol of foolish vanity - hence, a Friar thinking he was better than anyone else. What better way to make the point than to slip him in as one of the creatures praising the Lord?
How did they survive? But why should they have been destroyed? We make the mistake of thinking of the Puritans as vandals. But the more you read about William Dowsing, the more he emerges as being a principled, conservative kind of chap, despite his clearly flawed and fundamentalist theological opinions. He had no reason to destroy animal bench ends. They weren't superstitious - even Dowsing didn't think Catholics worshipped animals. If he didn't think they were meant to represent the canticles, he wouldn't even have considered them religious. Amen to that.
So much for the 17th century. What about the 19th? St Mary is one of the most enthusiastically restored of Suffolk's churches, despite its survivng medieval detail. But it was done well. Mortlock thought that the 19th century pulpit was the work of Ringham - but the brass lectern is pre-Reformation, a fine example. The rood screen dado panels have sentimental 19th century Saints on them, that may or may not duplicate what was there before. They are actually very good, particularly the gorgeous Mary of Magdala. They have their names painted on the cross beams for the less hagiologically articulate Victorians - from left to right across the aisle they are Saints Barbara, Felix, Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul, Mary, Edmund and Etheldreda. It is unlikely that Saint Felix would have been on a medieval roodscreen, and Mary almost certainly wasn't - it would have relegated her to a position of no more importance than the others. If it reflects anything of what was there before, it was probably St Anne with the infant Virgin.
The top part of the screen was renewed in 1750, and dated so. The gates are probably a Laudian imposition of 120 years earlier, as at Kedington. This may suggest that, by the time of Dowsing's visit, the chancel was being used for some other practical purpose. Above, high above, set in the east nave wall over the chancel arch, is one of the wierdest objects I've seen in a medieval church. It was installed in the 1870s, and is clearly meant to echo the coving of a rood loft. Goodness knows what it actually is, but it is painted in garish colours, and inscribed with texts. In one of those moments where Cautley and credibility part company, he describes anyone who doesn't think it is a genuine medieval canopy of honour as 'stupid'. I suppose that it has a certain curiosity value.
The three-light window above it would have given light to the rood. The east window contains one of Suffolk's best modern Madonna and child images which was made by the artist Ian Keen for the King workshop in the early 1960s. Ian Keen was also responsible for the beautiful St Margaret in St Margaret's church in Norwich, and for the memorable window of St Francis with a labrador at Somerleyton near Lowestoft.
I turned back westwards, past a superb medieval bench end of the three Marys. This is a delight, and you'd travel to London to see it if it was in the V&A. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James and Mary of Magdala huddle together, perhaps on the morning of the Resurrection. One of them has a lily of the Annunciation. One head is destroyed - but was it vandalised? Or is it the result of carelessness, the wear and tear of the centuries? Would 17th century puritans have destroyed it if they'd seen it?
Dowsing rarely mentions bench ends, so perhaps few were left by then anyway. So how could it possibly have survived the violent zeal of the 16th century Protestants, battering the Church of England into existence with their axes, pikes and bonfires? How, even after the 1540 edict of Edward VI which ordered the destruction of all statues and images of Saints, especially those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is it still there at all?
Still more questions than answers, I suppose. I dived beneath the water, and there was beneath me a restless current, shifting and reshifting the silver sand into unique patterns, the work of millennia, still changing, never the same.
- le Rayol Canadel, Cote d'Azur, August 2001.
BREAKING: New Book on #AnnCoulter – Joker: Ann Coulter Unplugged – at bit.ly/2TttHtF.
Joker: Ann Coulter Unplugged is the definitive (holistic) exposé of polemicist and Alt-Right icon Ann Coulter.
Joker: Ann Coulter Unplugged is available at www.coulterwatch.com/joker.pdf.
Joker examines her words, actions, and worldview with startling observations and shattering conclusions. Joker explores her personal and professional agenda and the motivating factors which animate them. Joker reveals how Coulter came to become the person that people either love or hate and it reveals her impact in America and in the world.
From where do the contradictions and conundrums in Coulter’s life, work, and worldview arise? What are her (and their) emotional, psychological, and spiritual roots and what are the resulting political, cultural, and spiritual ramifications for America and the world?
Joker answers these questions and so much more.
A Pastoral Letter on the Iraq War From the Collegium of Officers of the United Church of Christ
Category: Religion and Philosophy
..>
..> Written by Collegium of Officers
June 22, 2007
Call for an End to the Bloodshed: Sign the Petition to End the Iraq War
"God expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry."
(Isaiah 5.7)
The war in Iraq is now in its fifth year. Justified as a means to end oppression, this war has imposed the new oppression of terror on the people of Iraq. Justified as the only way to protect the world from weapons of mass destruction, this war has led to the massive destruction of communal life in Iraq. Justified as a means to end the rule of terror, this war has bred more terror. Every day we look for justice, but all we see is bloodshed. Every day we yearn for righteousness, but all we hear is a cry.
Thousands of precious American lives have been lost; thousands more have been altered forever by profound injuries. We grieve each loss and embrace bereaved families with our prayers and compassion. Tens of thousands more innocent Iraqi lives are daily being offered on the altar of preemptive war and sectarian violence. They, too, are precious, and we weep for them. In our name human rights have been violated, abuse and torture sanctioned, civil liberties dismantled, Iraqi infrastructure and lives destroyed.. Billions of dollars have been diverted from education, health care, and the needs of the poor in this land and around the world. Efforts to restrain the real sources of global terrorism have been ignored or subverted. Trust and respect for the United States throughout the world has been traded for self-serving political gain. Every day we look for justice, but all we see is bloodshed. Every day we yearn for righteousness, but all we hear is a cry.
We confess that too often the church has been little more than a silent witness to evil deeds. We have prayed without protest. We have recoiled from the horror this war has unleashed without resisting the arrogance and folly at its heart. We have been more afraid of conflict in our churches than outraged over the deceptions that have killed thousands. We have confused patriotism with self-interest. As citizens of this land we have been made complicit in the bloodshed and the cries. Lord, have mercy upon us.
In the midst of our lament we give thanks - for pastors and laity who have raised courageous voices against the violence and the deceit, for military personnel who have served with honor and integrity, for chaplains who have cared for soldiers and their families with compassion and courage, for veterans whose experience has led them to say, "no more," for humanitarian groups, including the Middle East Council of Churches, who have cared for the victims of violence and the growing tide of refugees, for the fragile Christian community in Iraq that continues to bear witness to the Gospel under intense pressure and fear, for public officials who have challenged this war risking reputation and career. The Gospel witness has not been completely silenced, and for this we are grateful.
Today we call for an end to this war, an end to our reliance on violence as the first, rather than the last resort, an end to the arrogant unilateralism of preemptive war. Today we call for the humility and courage to acknowledge failure and error, to accept the futility of our current path, and we cry out for the creativity to seek new paths of peacemaking in the Middle East, through regional engagement and true multinational policing. Today we call for acknowledgement of our responsibility for the destruction caused by sanctions and war, thereby, we pray, beginning to rebuild trust in the Middle East and around the world. Today we call for repentance in our nation and for the recognition in our churches that security is found in submitting to Christ, not by dominating others.
To this end may we join protest to prayer, support ministries of compassion for victims here and in the Middle East, cast off the fear that has made us accept the way of violence and return again to the way of Jesus. Thus may bloodshed end and cries be transformed to the harmonies of justice and the melodies of peace. For this we yearn, for this we pray, and toward this end we rededicate ourselves as children of a loving God who gives "light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."
..> John H. Thomas Linda Jaramillo Edith A. Guffey José A. Malayang Cally Rogers-Witte
..>
Endorsed By:
..> Douglas E. Anders
South Central Conference
Jim Antal
Massachusetts Conference
Charles P. Barnes
Rhode Island Conference
Geoffrey A. Black
New York Conference
Charles Buck
Hawaii Conference
Char Burch
Missouri Mid-South Conference
Stephen C. Camp
Southern Conference
Nick Carter
Andover Newton Theological School
Marja Coons-Torn
Penn Central Conference
Davida Crabtree
Connecticut Conference
John R. Deckenback
Central Atlantic Conference
Timothy C. Downs
Southeast Conference
Roddy Dunkerson
Nebraska Conference
David R. Gaewski
Maine Conference
John M. Gantt
Central Pacific Conference
Mary Susan Gast
California, Nevada Northern Conference
Stephen C. Gray
Indiana-Kentucky Conference
David M. Greenhaw
Eden Theological Seminary
David Hansen
Kansas-Oklahoma Conference
Lark J. Hapke
Southwest Conference
Don Hart
United Church Foundation
Phil Hart
Ohio Conference
Jane Heckles
California, Nevada Southern Conference
Susan Henderson
Vermont Conference
Jane Fisler Hoffman
Illinois Conference
Randy Hyvonen
Montana-Northern Wyoming Conference
Jim Langdoc
Illinois South Conference
Koloman Karl Ludwig
Calvin Synod Conference
Alan N. McLarty
Penn West conference
William McKinney
Pacific School of Religion
Kita McVay
United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities
Alan C. Miller
Penn Northeast Conference
Gene E. Miller
South Dakota Conference
Mark Henry Miller
Pacific Northwest Conference
F. Russell Mitman
Pennsylvania Southeast Conference
David S. Moyer
Wisconsin Conference
Rich Pleva
Iowa Conference
Riess W. Potterveld
Lancaster Theological Seminary
Tom Rehling
Rocky Mountain Conference
C. Jack Richards
Florida Conference
Dan Romero
California, Nevada Southern Conference
Gary M. Schulte
New Hampshire Conference
Karen Smith Sellers
Minnesota Conference
Wade Schemmel
Northern Plains Conference
Susan Thistlethwaite
Chicago Theological Seminary
Kent J. Ulery
Michigan Conference
“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.- John the baptist when speaking of Jesus Christ, Matthew 3:11
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BREAKING: New Book on #AnnCoulter – Joker: Ann Coulter Unplugged – at bit.ly/2TttHtF.
Joker: Ann Coulter Unplugged is the definitive (holistic) exposé of polemicist and Alt-Right icon Ann Coulter.
Joker: Ann Coulter Unplugged is available at www.coulterwatch.com/joker.pdf.
Joker examines her words, actions, and worldview with startling observations and shattering conclusions. Joker explores her personal and professional agenda and the motivating factors which animate them. Joker reveals how Coulter came to become the person that people either love or hate and it reveals her impact in America and in the world.
From where do the contradictions and conundrums in Coulter’s life, work, and worldview arise? What are her (and their) emotional, psychological, and spiritual roots and what are the resulting political, cultural, and spiritual ramifications for America and the world?
Joker answers these questions and so much more.
During the afternoon and evening two young Nagekeo women prepare food on the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia. Ratna Sari Devi, 20, in black, and Fajriah Lastriany, 18, in blue, are Muslim. On Flores, with its Spanish and Roman Catholic history, Muslims are in the minority along with evangelical Christians.
Traditional residents of Flores, an island in eastern Indonesia with a Spanish colonial history, the Nagekeo people number more than 100,000 people. Most describe themselves as Roman Catholic, but less than two-hundred fifty people are known to be evangelical Christian. Even with a heritage of faith in one called Jesus Christ, most rely on the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist for salvation rather than a simple faith and repentance.
Photo © 2011 IMB / Kelvin Joseph