Anniversary Address Sep 17, 2018
War has always been a part of human culture, unfortunately. In past centuries it mostly took place locally. But in 1914 a war commenced that had world-wide consequences. A perfect storm of advances in war technologies, in communications and the sheer numbers of humans involved, meant that when it ended, 16 million people had died; 37 million if you count the resulting deaths from disease and starvation. The Great War, as it was called, collapsed the old order. Human beings urgently sought a new political or social order, a new outlook or purpose in life, a new form of religion.
Against this backdrop of social chaos and political upheaval, Rudolf Steiner was working creatively in education, in medicine, agriculture, in special needs. In 1917 Rudolf Steiner had said,
Spiritual science may be taken as a support, as a foundation for the life and exercise of religion in the highest sense, and particularly in relation to the mystery of Christ…. …religion in its living form and practice kindles the spiritual consciousness of the human community.
If this spiritual consciousness is to become a living thing in human beings, we cannot possibly remain at a standstill, settling merely for abstract ideas of God or Christ; we must stand renewed among the religious practices and activities…
Friedrich Rittelmeyer, a prominent Lutheran preacher and writer and student of anthroposophy, had earlier approached Rudolf Steiner for a new form of religion. But it took a younger generation of theology students, among them Emil Bock and Alfred Heidenreich, to take up the impulse of bringing such a new form into existence. With Steiner’s help and encouragement, on Sep 16 and 17 in 1922, woven into the first Acts of Consecration of Man, the ordinations of 45 priests took place, including three women. It was a priesthood that would serve the sacramental mysteries of Christianity. Albert Steffen, poet, playwright, and a friend who accompanied the founding, wrote:
Today, the first Act of Consecration was completed out of the spirit, and at which the Risen Christ was present…I can say that Christ was there, for when the words of bread and wine were spoken, I saw his resurrected light-life body. It is the first time that I have seen the being of Christ. His arms were outstretched and there was a radiance about his head. And I experienced then that he healed and hallowed. He was there, and is there.**
The First World War was called the Great War, the War to End all Wars. But in fact, it was the beginning of what would be more than a century of continuing world conflict and social upheaval. Yet, in the midst of it, there was established a way to connect with the living being of Christ, and to build healthy human communities. Obviously, the need continues.
Most of us born in last century, on our way to incarnation before we were born, encountered the massive number of exiting souls of those who had died during the wars. Those souls transferred to our souls and spirits the strong urge to overcome the waste of war and to build strong and positive human communities. For us, the light of the sacraments was a beacon that helped us find Christ and The Christian Community on earth.
The present moment is the gateway into the future. Our praying together during the sacraments gives Christ an opportunity to work in a particular, healing way on the earth. With Christ’s help, we ourselves are generating the beacon for the present and coming generations. Every time the sacrament is celebrated, a light goes out to nourish the guardian angels of human beings. The greater the number of people praying together, the more exponentially greater the light that is generated.
Even after we die, we can be preparing the future. We can be the souls who tell the incarnating human souls and their angels to look for our Sunday Service for Children. We can tell them to bring their parents. We can tell them to look for the light of those communities built on Christ’s love, his healing, his peace.
*Cosmic and Human Metamorphosis, Feb 20, 1917. Quoted in Pioneers of Religious Renewal, Christian Maclean, p. 114
**Steffen, Wege der Christus-Erfahrung, p. 21. Quoted in Pioneers of Religious Renewal, Christian Maclean, p. 40.
