August Tea with the Deacon

Feeding of the Five Thousand, Oil on Canvas,
Ambrosius Francken the Elder, Getty

While Ben and I were in Amsterdam, I made a pilgrimage to the Rijksmuseum of Fine Art to take in some of the masterworks by Rembrandt. 

While there, I stumbled across a host of drawings by Ambrosius Francken I (the Elder).   His painting, Feeding of the 5000, is featured with this article. 

Francken is part of a generational family of artists.  People of the Flemish art world and society in the 16th and 17th century were well versed with his religious art of the day.  That is not what interests me the most about him. 

Francken struggled with the gospels and his faith during some upsetting times of the Reformation.  Seeking to affirm his faith and art of the movement, history records that he converted to Calvinism.  After the fall of Antwerp, where he lived at the time, the city became Catholic again.  Ambrosius then made it known that he was Catholic.  Whatever the case of his true faith journey, I find it intriguing how he might have lived as a gifted artist with such discernment in faith and religion during a turbulent time of the Reformation. 

In this season after Pentecost, we have been spending some time on Zoom exploring the Gospel of Matthew, as it falls along our Lectionary.  So far, we have shared our personal journeys with the parables Jesus put before his disciples and the crowds. 

As we continue our teatime into August, we will have an opportunity to share our own journey with faith and religion as the gospel readings move from parables to Jesus’ interactive discourse with his disciples and followers.  Again, I invite you to join us in this journey with a cup of tea or coffee for ‘Tea with the Deacon’ on Sundays at 1 pm throughout the month of August via Zoom.  I hope to see you starting with Sunday, August 2nd.  The Zoom invitation link is below.

Grace and Peace
Rev. Arthur W. Villarreal
Deacon

Arthur Villarreal is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Tea with the Deacon
Time: Aug 2, 2020 01:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Every week on Sun, until Aug 30, 2020, 5 occurrence(s)

Aug 2, 2020 01:00 PM

Aug 9, 2020 01:00 PM

Aug 16, 2020 01:00 PM

Aug 23, 2020 01:00 PM

Aug 30, 2020 01:00 PM
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Meeting ID: 885 8826 1385

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