Showing posts with label dove. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dove. Show all posts

Sunday, May 20, 2018

Whitsun (Pentecost) 2018, Vessel for Flame

Pentecost
John 14: 23-31

Jesus replied, “He who truly loves me reveals my Spirit, and my Father will love him and we will come to him and prepare with him a dwelling in the everlasting [an eternal dwelling]. He who does not love me cannot reveal my Spirit. And the spirit power of the word that you hear is not from me; it is the speaking of the Father who sent me.

I have said this to you while I am still with you. But he who is called down, the health-bringing Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you everything and will awaken within you all that I have said to you.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. [have no fear.]

You have heard how I said to you, ‘I am going away, and yet I am coming to you’. If you loved me you would rejoice because I am going to the Father[ly Ground of the World], for the Father is mightier than I am.
I have told you now before it happens, so that when it happens you may find trust. I no longer have much to say to you, for soon the prince of this world is coming. Yet over me, he has no power.

But the world shall see in this how I love the Father [Ground of the World] and how I act in accordance with the Father’s purpose, as it was entrusted to me. Arise, let us go on from here. [let us be on our way.]

 “If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”

Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

 “All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

Whitsun I
May 20, 2018
John 14: 23-31

Continuously the sun streams its warmth and light onto the earth. It stimulates and supports the life of the plants. It warms and sustains both our bodies and our souls. For the warmth of the sunlight is the vehicle for the light of God’s life-giving love.

On the first Pentecost, or
St. Albans
Whitsun, the disciples are sitting together, mourning the loss of their Beloved at his Ascension ten days earlier. In his expansion into the earth and air, He was lost to their view. At Pentecost, at first, they experience a movement of air, the sound of a mighty wind. And then a fire, the warmth of the sun, descends and divides itself into single flames. A single flame comes to rest on each one of them. And they are filled with God’s Spirit of understanding and connecting love.

There are times in our lives, too, when we have our Whitsun moments. A flame of warmth descends; we sense it, we open to it—the fire of a creative love. We become vessels for God’s love, His light, His purpose for the earth. For a moment we become shining suns on earth.

There are words to a hymn that express this wish of ours, to be a vessel:

Come Down, O Love Divine
Seek thou this soul of mine
And visit it with thine own ardor glowing
O Comforter draw near
Within my heart appear
And kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.

…For none can guess its grace
Till he becomes the place
Wherein the Holy Spirit makes his dwelling.*

* “Come Down, O Love Divine”, words by Bianco da Siena, translated by R. F. Littledale, set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams.


Sunday, June 4, 2017

Whitsun (Pentecost) 2017,Effective on Earth

Pentecost
Wikimedia
John 14: 23-31

Jesus replied, “He who truly loves me reveals my Spirit, and my Father will love him and we will come to him and prepare with him a dwelling in the everlasting [an eternal dwelling]. He who does not love me cannot reveal my Spirit. And the spirit power of the word that you hear is not from me; it is the speaking of the Father who sent me.

I have said this to you while I am still with you. But he who is called down, the health-bringing Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you everything and will awaken within you all that I have said to you.


Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid [have no fear].

You have heard how I said to you, ‘I am going away, and yet I am coming to you’. If you loved me you would rejoice because I am going to the Father[ly Ground of the World], for the Father is mightier than I am.

I have told you now before it happens, so that when it happens you may find trust. I no longer have much to say to you, for soon the prince of this world is coming. Yet over me, he has no power.

But the world shall see in this how I love the Father [Ground of the World] and how I act in accordance with the Father’s purpose, as it was entrusted to me. Arise, let us go on from here [let us be on our way."]



Pentecost
June 4, 2017
John 14: 23-31

When we look out at the world with our ordinary eyes, we see shapes and colors, things, animals and people. We need other eyes to see what is really there. For behind what our earthly senses can perceive, the atmosphere of the world is filled with a flowing, life-giving love. Our heavenly Father has suffused the universe with His love, and with the highest possible sense of rightness for all.

He has sent us to fields of earth. At the core of each individual soul, He has placed a drop of his divine love. He hopes that we will learn to develop and grow that core of love within us; that we will teach ourselves to choose to love.

Operating out of this core of divine love brings peace into our souls. This love fuels our ability to feel our way into others, to accurately imagine in empathy their situation and inner state. This love allows us to recognize what we can do for them. This is the love that allows peace to spread into the world.


The Father's healing Spirit of love is the measure by which we recognize whether we have lived up to our Father's will. For the Father's will to love is what reigns in the heavens. It is up to us to make it effective on the earth.