Have Faith and Be Ready

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old-- and Sarah herself was barren-- because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, "as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore."

All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Allegory of the Faith

VERMEER, Johannes

1670

Metropolitan Museum of Art

New York, NY

United States

http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/diglib-fulldisplay.pl?SID=20160806938903808&code=act&RC=54937&Row=35

In this atypical painting the artist employed a more abstractive style to suit the intellectual subject. The emotive figure of Faith with "the world at her feet" (according to Ripa’s compendium of allegories) casts her eyes to Heaven, symbolized by a glass sphere. On the floor, the apple of Original Sin sits near a serpent, representing Satan, who is crushed by Christ, the "cornerstone" of the church. The room, revealed behind a Flemish tapestry, looks like a chapel set up in a private house. Vermeer, who converted to Catholicism in order to marry, probably refers to the “ idden churches" where Catholics worshiped in the officially Protestant Dutch Republic.

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437877

Critical Assessment of the painting:

http://www.essentialvermeer.com/cat_about/faith.html#.V6Y2hRRNH0c