2nd Trinity November
Rev. 3, 1-6, (Sardis)
And to the angel who penetrates the congregation of Sardis write:
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| Angels of Seven Churches, Tiffany |
Thus speaks he who has power over the seven creating spirits of God and over the seven stars: I know the consequences of your deeds, for one says of you that you live, and yet are dead. Awaken and strengthen what remains in you, that is otherwise about to die, for I have not found that your works possess reality before my God.
Remember how you were once receptive for all the workings of the spirit, and for all words which came from the spirit. Care for them in your soul in inner loyalty. Change your heart and mind.
If however, you do not awaken, I will come over you suddenly like a thief, and you will not know at which hour I will come over you.
But you have some names in Sardis whose souls have not been darkened by illusion and addiction to the senses. They will walk with me in white garments, for they are worthy of them.
He who overcomes, he shall be clothed with white garments, and I will not wipe out his name from the Book of Life. I will speak out his name and acknowledge him before my Father and his Angels. He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches.
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| Angel of Sardis, Tiffany |
2nd November Trinity
Nov 6, 2016
Rev. 3, 1-6, (Sardis)
Whenever a group of people come together regularly and voluntarily, there is an angel who takes an interest in their working. What the members of the group do together enables the angel connected with them to work in a wakeful, creative and inspiring way.
The strong words of the Son of Man in this reading are directed at the angel of the congregation. He says that the angel is about to die, that is, to fall unconscious. The angel's works do not possess full spiritual reality.
This causes us to ask how the creative power of the angel and the members of the congregation work together. For in their essence, they are bound together.
Individual in the congregation, the names of souls, are themselves to be conscious, awake and receptive to the creative workings of the spiritual world and the promptings of their angel. They are to remember and remain loyal to the inspirations they have received in the past. They are not to allow their relation to the sense world to darken their perceptions of the spirit.
It is then that the individuals who join in congregation can nourish and refresh the community's angel. We might hear the angel's voice in a poem by Rolf Jacobsen
I am one you have loved long ago.
I walk alongside you by day and look intently at you
and put my mouth on your heart
but you don’t know it.
I am your third arm and your second
shadow, the white one,
whom you don’t have the heart for
and who cannot ever forget you.*
*Rolf Jacobsen, "Guardian Angel" transl. by Roger Greenwald http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/390357.html
