#infant jesus

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Enric Monserday Vidal (Spanish, 1850-1926) Madonna and Child, n.d.

[tomicscomics]

12/30/2022

JESUS TAKES THE WHEEL!!! The finale of my short "Road to Bethlehem" story arc.  The Holy Family has finally escaped the traffic jam.  Now it's smooth sailing for the rest of their lives, right?

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Thanks for following along with this Christmas story arc!  It was a simple one, but sometimes the simpler stories are the simplest!  I realize now that I’ve done some kind of story arc around the Christmas/New Year time for the past three years.  First was the “Flight to Egypt” (remember how I was doing that for, like, half a year?), then came John the Baptist's “Swimming Lessons”, and now we have the “Road to Bethlehem”.  Time sure does fly.  I like story arcs, but I also like making cartoons about readings and saints that are relevant to each week.  Maybe if I can do double the cartoons more often, I can do both!  We’ll have to see what the new year brings!

[artandthebible]

The Holy Family with SS John Elizabeth and the Infant John the Baptist

Artist: Nicolas Poussin

[emvidal]

[christliche-kunstwerke]

Das Jesuskind beim Gebet, ca. 1805 von William Blake (pen and grey ink, watercolour over pencil)

[signum-crucis]

Nativity -- Lorenzo Lotto (1523)

A Child My Choice by St Robert Southwell SJ

Let folly praise that fancy loves, I praise and love that Child Whose heart no thought, whose tongue no word, whose hand no deed defiled.

I praise Him most, I love Him best, all praise and love is His; While Him I love, in Him I live, and cannot live amiss.

Love's sweetest mark, laud's highest theme, man's most desired light, To love Him life, to leave Him death, to live in Him delight.

He mine by gift, I His by debt, thus each to other due; First friend He was, best friend He is, all times will try Him true.

Though young, yet wise; though small, yet strong; though man, yet God He is: As wise, He knows; as strong, He can; as God, He loves to bless.

His knowledge rules, His strength defends, His love doth cherish all; His birth our joy, His life our light, His death our end of thrall.

Alas! He weeps, He sighs, He pants, yet do His angels sing; Out of His tears, His sighs and throbs, doth bud a joyful spring.

Almighty Babe, whose tender arms can force all foes to fly, Correct my faults, protect my life, direct me when I die!

[tonreihe]

[tabernacleheart]

[fordappledthings]

“Rejoice in the Lord always, again, I say, rejoice!” —Philippians 4.4

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Carlo Crivelli (Italian, 1430-1495) Lenti Madonna, ca.1475 The Metropolitan Museum of Art

[artandthebible]

Escape to Egypt

Artist: Josef Bayer  (1805–1831) 

Title: Flight Into Egypt

Genre: Religious Art

Date: 1830

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Collection: Kunsthistorisches Museum

The flight into Egypt is a story recounted in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 2:13–23). Soon after the visit by the Magi, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream telling him to flee to Egypt with Mary and the infant Jesus since King Herod would seek the child to kill him.

[emvidal]

[juniuscallidus]

[ennas-aesthetic]

If we DO ever get a Good Omens season 3 (and fingers crossed we will) then using the Second Coming as the narrative device to facilitate the final culmination of Good Omens' ideology and message is brilliant, actually.

Because the Second Coming IS NOT another Adam situation. And, contrary to the misconceptions I've seen, It IS NOT about Jesus being born again as a baby, etc, etc.

THE SECOND COMING. QUITE LITERALLY refers to THE LAST JUDGMENT.

As in. The SAME Last Judgment Michelangelo painted on the walls of the Sistine Chapel. As in - THE JUDGMENT of the Living and the Dead. THE LAST, FINAL, ETERNAL JUDGMENT.

It's the WHOLE thing Armageddon was leading towards. Book of Revelation speedrun: the world ends, everyone dies, and then they get resurrected again to be judged by JESUS himself. He will flick through the Book of Life (WINK WINK WINK DO YOU SEE HOW LOUDLY I'M WINKING AT YOU???), and if your name is there he will go "oh nice you deserve eternal paradise! :D" and if your name is ERASED from the Book of Life he will go "oh no, sorry, you go to the lake of fire for eternity now D:" (except apparently in Good Omens lore it'd just DOOM YOU TO NON-EXISTENCE FOREVER???)

And if you THINK about it, The Last Judgment is the ultimate manifestation of moral absolutism. No shades of gray, no chances. Just BLACK, and WHITE. Never mind that you're like Wee Morag and Elspeth, who are forced to do "bad" things because of circumstances. It's either you pass Judgment Day, or you burn (or disappear forever.) And the way THINGS are going in the Good Omens universe? I don't think there's ANYONE "good" enough to be "saved." Not Crowley, not Aziraphale. Hell, not even the Archangels themselves.

So it provides a PERFECT opportunity for Aziraphale and Crowley to UPEND that SYSTEM entirely.

I think that's what Crowley and Aziraphale would do in s3: establish a new kind of system in which angels and demons have free will to determine the right (or wrong) choice.

Giving them the APPLE, so to speak.

And then they'll go off to retire in a cottage, together at last.

[tonreihe]

[illustratus]

Rest on the Flight into Egypt by Hermann von Kaulbach