Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him. — Matthew 26:14-16
This is the first of an eight part series featuring the "sounds of the passion". They are based on a sermon series that was published by Concordia Publishing House a few years ago. My church will be using this theme for its midweek Lenten services and you can get a sneak peak of the complete series here. These will be released every Friday, leading up to Easter Sunday.
“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. — Joel 2:12,13
The Chi Rho symbol is one of the most ancient of the monograms of our Lord Jesus Christ. It takes the first two letters of the Greek word for Christ (ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ). Books have been written about this one symbol and its use in catacombs, coins, lamps, and pottery that have been discovered by archaeologists. Countless variations of the Chi Rho have been made over the centuries, often combining other names of Christ within the symbol or rearranging the two letters. Here, the upper-right portion of the Chi (Χ) is joined together with the Rho (Ρ).
For the past 5 years, I have helped churches and schools with various projects in the fields of graphic design, music and video. About 3 years ago this has become my full-time job. I am immensely proud of the work I have done for churches and schools, and it has been an honor to work with such great clients.
I'd like to share some of that work with you with my new personal website: ianmwelch.com. I currently have the pleasure of working with a couple churches on new building projects and am excited to see where they will go. Please contact me if you would like some graphic design work done for your church or school.
Besides the typical Sunday services and major festivals that we celebrate every year, there are several minor festivals that occur on specific days of the church year. Once in a while these days fall on a Sunday and some churches choose to observe these festival at that time. My goal since the very beginning was to produce art for all these festivals and therefore, create a numbering scheme that organizes all of the art by the date they occur. I had originally organized them by the Gregorian calendar, but have since realized that indexing the art according to the liturgical calendar is probably better, especially when considering that worship planning is usually done by the liturgical cycle.
As a result, there is a new numbering scheme for the Minor Festivals, along with the addition of a couple festivals that were not in my original index. This effects the art you have purchased since all six of the current sets use the old numbering system. To help you rename these files quickly, I’ve created an Automator workflow for Mac users. Just drag the six folders that contain all the subfolders directly onto this app and all the files will be renamed. The download link is at the bottom of this post. Windows users can download free utilities like Bulk Rename Utility or Advanced Renamer to replace the numbers with the new ones. This will save you lots of time, as you will not have to painstakingly click and rename each file individually.
The following dates are minor festivals that I will be working on over the next year. The festivals in bold are ones that fall on a Sunday, and the ones in italics fall near a Sunday or major festival.
May 31 - The Visitation
June 29 - St. Peter and St. Paul, Apostles
August 24 - St. Bartholomew, Apostle
September 14 - Holy Cross Day
September 21 - St. Matthew, Apostle
October 18 - St. Luke, Evangelist
November 1 - All Saints’ Day
December 21 - St. Thomas, Apostle
December 26 - St. Stephen, Deacon & Martyr
December 27 - St. John, Apostle & Evangelist
December 28 - Holy Innocents, Martyrs
December 31 - New Year’s Eve
January 1 - The Name of Jesus
January 18 - The Confession of St. Peter
January 24 - St. Timothy, Pastor & Confessor
January 25 - The Conversion of St. Paul
April 25 - St. Mark, Evangelist
July 25 - St. James The Elder, Apostle
August 15 - St. Mary, Mother of Our Lord
It's more than likely that I will have completed more than the ones listed here by the end of Year B on the liturgical calendar, but this will hopefully give you some comfort in knowing that art will be done before your church celebrates these festivals. Below is the new index for the minor festivals and a comparison of each festival between the WELS, LCMS, ELCA, and RCC.
