Friday, July 4, 2014

1st St. Johnstide 2008, Honey Flowing

St. John’s 
Mark 1, 1-11

Sombart
This is the beginning of the new word from the realm of the angels, sounding forth through Jesus Christ. Fulfilled is the word of the prophet Isaiah:

Behold, I send my angel before your face.
He is to prepare your way.
Hear the voice of one calling in the loneliness of the human soul
Prepare the way for the Lord within the soul,
Make his paths straight, so that he may find entrance into Man’s innermost being!

Thus did John the Baptist appear in the loneliness of the desert. He proclaimed Baptism, the way of a change of heart and mind, for the acknowledgement of sin. And they went out to him from all of Judea and Jerusalem and received baptism from him in the river Jordan and recognized and confessed their failings.

John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist. Fruits and wild honey were his food. And he proclaimed:
           
‘After me comes one who is mightier than I. I am not even worthy to bend down before Him and to undo the straps of His sandals. I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the fire of the Holy [healing] Spirit.’

In those days it happened: Jesus of Nazareth came to Galilee, and was baptized in the Jordan by John.

And at the same time as he rose up again out of the water, he beheld how the spheres of the heavens were torn open, and the spirit of God descended upon him like a dove.

And a voice sounded from the world of the spirit:

‘You are my son, the beloved —in you is my revelation.’ [‘Today I have conceived (begotten) you.’ Luke 3:22]

1st St. Johnstide
June 24, 29, 2008
Mark 1:1-11
Habegger

The zenith of the sun year has passed. It may seem as though all we have to look forward to are gradually shorter days and increasing darkness. But that would only happen if we were mere creatures of nature. As human beings it is our truly human spiritual task to interiorize the Sun.

Featured in this gospel reading are two human beings, John the Baptist and his cousin Jesus of Nazareth. John, the stern father figure, is the last of the old prophets. He recognizes that human beings stand at a threshold of something totally new; and that they need to prepare for it by doing some inner housekeeping, by straightening up inwardly and creating an open space.

And next to him is Jesus of Nazareth. While respectful of the old forms, He is ready to take the next step forward for humanity. John’s baptism of immersion breaks open the seal of Jesus’ human nature and allows Christ, the inhabitant of the sun sphere, to enter into Him. Jesus is the receptive one into whom the spirit dove descends, as it did with Mary at the annunciation. To her the angel announced, “You will conceive and bear a son.” At the Baptism the Father Spirit Himself announces to the one whom Mary conceived and who now receives the Christ. He hears “You are my beloved Son, in you is my revelation. Today I have conceived you.” Mark 1:11, Luke 3:22

John and Jesus, two human beings helping each other to advance humanity through their heart’s choice – preparing, opening, receiving.

A 14th century English mystic wrote:

Sear my inmost being

with your fire and my heart
will burn on Your altar forever.
Come, I beg you,
O sweet and true glory!…
Come, my Beloved,…
to my soul
and slip into it with most
sweetly flowing love. Set ablaze
with Your heat every penetrable
place of my heart and, by filling
its inmost places with your light,
feed the whole with the honey-flowing
joy of Your love….[1]

During this second, descending half of the year, we are to practice what John and Jesus have modeled for us: preparing, opening, receiving the light and the love of the Christ-Sun.  In doing this we are working toward the day when we too have taken the light and love of the Sun into our hearts; when we, too, will hear, “You are my beloved son, my daughter. (With)in you is my revelation,” the light and the warmth and the love, the One who has come to us from the heart of the sun.


www.thechristiancommunity.org

[1] Richard Rolle of Hampole (1300 – 1349), “Invitation to the God”, in Love’s Immensity, by Scott Cairns, p. 106.