4th Johnstide 2022, His Great Heart

Johnstide

Matthew 11:2-15 

Master of Astorga, John in Prison

When John heard in prison about the deeds of
Christ, he sent his disciples to ask him, "Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?" 

Jesus replied, "Go back and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are awakened, and those who have become poor receive the message of salvation. Blessed are those who are not offended by my Being." 

When they had gone, Jesus began to speak about John. "Why did you go out into the desert? Did you want to see a reed swaying in the wind? Or was it something else you wanted to see? Did you want to see a man in splendid garments? Those in splendid garments are in the palaces of kings. Did you go to see a man who is initiated into the mysteries of the Spirit, a prophet? Yes, I say to you—he is more than a prophet. He it is of whom it is written:               

Behold, I will send my angel before your face;

He shall prepare the way of your working in human hearts

So that your Being may be revealed.

 "The truth I say to you: among all who are born of women, not one has risen up who is greater than John the Baptist, and yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist, and even more, now, the kingdom of heaven is advancing and will arise within human beings through the power of the will; those who exert themselves can freely grasp it. The deeds of the prophets and the content of the Law are words of the Spirit that were valid [worked into the future] until the time of John. And if you want to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear." 

4^th Johnstide

June 17, 2022

Matthew 11: 2-15 

This gospel reading teaches us about remembering and forgetting. 

John the Baptist had seen the Spirit of Christ descend like a dove upon Jesus of Nazareth and remain there. He repeatedly witnessed and spoke of the importance of this new divine-human spiritual constellation in Jesus. Yet now in prison, John seems to have forgotten what he knew. Or perhaps it was a question of expectations. 

Marie Lavie, John the Baptist

"Are you the Messiah who is to come, or shall we expect someone else?" he asks.

Meanwhile, Christ has not forgotten who John is. He honors him, his forerunner, his baptizer, and his spiritual brother. Furthermore, he can speak of John's significance, the meaning of John's life and stature, seen both from earthly and heavenly perspectives. 

John, imprisoned both in an outer dungeon and in a failing bodily instrument, approaches his death, his sleep, and his forgetting. Christ embraces and holds John's being in his divine-human consciousness. Christ knows who John truly is, not only in this lifetime but in the previous—"He is Elijah who is to come"*. He knows who John will be in the future. And Christ holds in safekeeping John's true, eternal identity, the identity, which survives forgetting, and death, which moves from life to life. 

Christ is the keeper, the shepherd of our true selves. He carries them in his great heart, holding them in his great all-embracing consciousness. He holds them against the day when in beholding and recognizing him, in experiencing his great I AM, we will also recognize and remember ourselves. 

*Matthew 11:14

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2nd Johnstide 2022, Awaken Gratitude

Johnstide

John 3:22-35 

Johnstide

John 3:22-35

 

After this, Jesus and his disciples came to the land of Judea. There he stayed with them and baptized. John also baptized; he was at Aenon near Salim because there was plenty of water there, and people came to him and were baptized, for John had not yet been imprisoned. 

Ghirlandaio

Then a dispute arose between the disciples of John and the Jews about the path of purification. And they came to John and said to him, "Master, he who came to you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness – here he is, baptizing, and everyone is going to him." 

John answered, "No human being can grasp spiritual power for himself that is not given to him from the higher worlds. You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.' The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less. 

"The one who descends from above, out of the spiritual world, is elevated above all beings of the earth. The one who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from the heavens is elevated above all who have arisen from the earthly. What he has seen and heard in the world of the Spirit, to that he can bear direct witness, but no one accepts his testimony.

"But whoever accepts his testimony sets their seal to this: that God is Truth [or, that there is no higher truth than the reality of God]. For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. 

2^nd St. Johnstide

July 3, 2022

John 3:22-35 

At the peak of its development, the blossom releases its pollen into the air, which rises toward the heights. The sunlight weaves its life into the pollen, which then returns to the world of earth. It joins with other plants to form seeds that carry life into the future. 

Gratitude is the opening of our hearts, the blossoming of our souls. Warmly felt gratitude is an invisible spiritual substance that rises upward toward Christ, the Spirit Sun. His spirit light weaves into this substance and enlivens it. Our gratitude returns to earth, to human hearts, transformed, as His power of light and life and love. His power in human hearts is what gives us a future. 

It is important to note that when pollen grains soar, they do not return to their original flower. The invigorated pollen that enlivens a particular plant has come from somewhere else, possibly far away. 

Anton Mengs

So it is with us; the spiritual substance of our gratitude, devotion, and prayers is transformed by Christ and carried to support new life wherever it is needed. My prayers and gratitude, arising from a warm and open heart, do not simply return to me. It is the prayers of others that enliven me.

Christ, the Spirit Sun, keeps His heart open toward the Father. For Him, the Father is His transforming sunlight. John the Baptist, who announces Christ, is also connected to the Father’s Spirit. He, too, is surrounded by the Father’s love. He is a kind of human/angelic mediator, a messenger sent on ahead to announce Christ’s impending arrival. John would shake us awake. He bids us open our hearts to stream forth gratitude so that Christ may send his enlivening power into all of us so that all may continue to live.  

“The Father holds the Son surrounded in his love and has given everything into his hands.” (John 3:35).

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4th Johnstide 2021, Beautiful Deeds

 Johnstide

Matthew 11:2-15 

When John heard in prison about the deeds of Christ, he sent his disciples to ask him, "Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?" 

Jesus replied, "Go back and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are awakened, and those who have become poor receive the message of salvation. Blessed are those who are not offended by my Being." 

When they had gone, Jesus began to speak about John. "Why did you go out into the desert? Did you want to see a reed swaying in the wind? Or was it something else you wanted to see? Did you want to see a man in splendid garments? Those in splendid garments are in the palaces of kings. Did you go to see a man who is initiated into the mysteries of the Spirit, a prophet? Yes, I say to you—he is more than a prophet. He it is of whom it is written:               

Behold, I will send my angel before your face;

He shall prepare the way of your working in human hearts

So that your Being may be revealed. 

"The truth I say to you: among all who are born of women, not one has risen up who is greater than John the Baptist, and yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist, and even more, now, the kingdom of heaven is advancing and will arise within human beings through the power of the will; those who exert themselves can freely grasp it. The deeds of the prophets and the content of the Law are words of the Spirit that were valid [worked into the future] until the time of John. And if you want to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear."

4^th St. Johnstide

July 18, 2021

Matthew 11:2-15 

Sometimes one hears a parent telling a child not to do something which the parent themself is doing. It is a case of “Do what I say, not what I do.” However, children imitate, and we have to set a good example. We need to model and be the change we wish to see. 

In the reading today, Christ lays emphasis, not on talk, nor on affirmation, but on deeds. John sends to ask if Jesus is the Messiah, the expected new political leader, or great prophet. Christ Jesus does not say, ‘Of course I am’. He does not use self-affirmation or point to great teachings. He points to deeds accomplished on behalf of others. Through Him, human beings are cleansed, strengthened, and elevated. 

Christ further emphasizes that it is our own activity of will that moves humanity forward. Through energetic inner activity, the kingdom of the heavens will arise within human hearts. It is through the kingdom within that we ourselves are healed, strengthened and elevated. It is through the kingdom within that we can strengthen and elevate others.

The Buddha said, 

The perfume of sandalwood,

Stephen B. Whatley

the scent of rosebay and jasmine,

travel only as far as the wind.

 

But the fragrance of goodness

travels with us

through all the worlds.

 

Like garlands woven from a heap of flowers,

fashion your life

as a garland of beautiful deeds.*

 

*From the Dhammapada of the Buddha, translator unknown.

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2nd Johnstide 2021, Heart-Warm Thanks

Johnstide

John 3:22-33
 
After this, Jesus and his disciples came to the land of Judea. There he stayed with them and baptized. John also baptized; he was at Aenon near Salim because there was much water there, and people came to him and were baptized, for John had not yet been imprisoned.
 
Then a dispute arose between the disciples of John and the Jews about the path of purification. And they came to John and said to him, "Master, he who came to you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness – here he is, baptizing, and everyone is going to him."
 
John answered, "No human being can grasp spiritual power for himself that is not given to him from the higher worlds. You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.' He who has the bride, he is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom, who stands by and listens to him, is filled with joy at the bridegroom's voice. This joy of mine is now full. He must increase, but I must decrease.
 
"He who descends from above, out of the

Sombart

spiritual world, is elevated above all beings of the earth. Whoever is only of the earth, whose being arises from the earthly, his word is also earthbound. He who comes from the heavens is elevated above all who have arisen from the earthly. What he has seen and heard in the world of the Spirit, to that he can bear direct witness, but no one accepts his testimony.
 
"But whoever accepts his testimony sets his seal to this: that God is Truth [or, that there is no higher truth than the reality of God]."

2^nd Johnstide
July 4, 2021
John 3:22-33

John the Baptist came with a mission. He was to witness the incarnation of the Light of the World in Jesus at His baptism. He came to prepare souls to also be able to perceive Christ. He inaugurated a rite of purification, a ritual immersion, which allowed individuals to have their own unique spiritual experience. Some saw the quality of their own lives pass before them; others felt the glorious beings of the spiritual world.

Sombart

As we hear in the reading, those following Jesus were also undergoing baptisms. John’s reaction to the ‘threat of competition’ is noteworthy.

John’s very name means ‘God is gracious.’ God graced John with the opportunity to complete what he had come to do. He witnessed; indeed, he helped midwife the incarnation of God’s Light and Love. And John speaks out of the meaning of his own name when he says that spiritual power is given as grace. He recognizes that his own day is beginning to decline while Jesus’s sun is rising. And so John graciously lets go the baton as he passes it on.

God is gracious. He gives us our lives and sends us to fulfill our tasks. And when we have accomplished what we have come to do, when we have borne witness to our times and loved those whom we were sent to love, we send the Father our heart-warm thanks for the opportunity to be on the earth, doing what we do. And so as the poet says:

May the light of your soul bless your work
with love and warmth of heart.
….
May the sacredness of your work bring light and renewal
to those who work with you
….
May it release wellsprings of refreshment,
inspiration and excitement.
…..
May dawn find hope in your heart, ….
May evening find you gracious and fulfilled.*

---

*John O’Donohue, "For Work," in To Bless the Space Between Us, p. 146.

1st Johnstide 2021, Shine in Darkness

1^st Johnstide

Mark 1:1-13

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 the innermost human 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 acknowledgment 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 [or, healing] Spirit."
 

Julia Stankova

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."
  
And suddenly, he felt himself driven by the Spirit into the desert, and he remained in the loneliness of the desert for forty days, tempted by the Adversary. And he was among wild animals, and the angels served him.

Daniel Bonnell

1^st Johnstide
June 27, 2021
Mark 1:1-13
  
At Christmastime, we awakened into mid-winter darkness.
The starlit heavens opened up, and a choir of angels announced the approach of the great Sun-Spirit who was to be born in humankind. Through late winter and spring, we watched as Jesus of Nazareth grew, teaching and healing. He died and overcame death, appearing to his disciples as they learned to know him in a new way. He united heaven and earth in his Ascension. And at Pentecost, he sent his Spirit awareness to keep himself alive in human hearts.
 
Now we stand at another turning point of the year.  It is mid-day [midnight in the Southern Hemisphere] in the earth’s year. And oddly, the gospel readings seem to start over—Jesus is baptized.  It is as if the gospel readings would like us to take a closer look, to focus in on something.  We see the moment in which Jesus, the man, offers himself.  He steps into the streaming, living waters of the Jordan.  The heavens are torn open. The Father's voice resounds, affirming His Son. The Son-God himself, Christ, enters Jesus.  Jesus becomes the Christ-bearer. 
 

Anton Mengs

At this midday in the year, instead of a choir of angels, one lone human voice, John the Baptist, urges us to offer ourselves, as Jesus did, to the intimate working of Christ in us, through us.  Now it is we who are to become Christ-bearers.  Now it is we who are to become true sons and daughters of the Father. 
 
From now on, the outer sunlight will gradually lessen [grow] as the days grow shorter [longer].  But the Christ-Sun wants to rise within us.  He wants to irradiate our being as he once did the man Jesus.  He wants us to see and hear, to change.  Within us, he wants to become the light that always shines in the darkness. 

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3rd Johnstide 2020, Burden of Love

Click here for Audio Version

Johnstide

John 1:19-39

This is the testimony of John when the Jewish leaders sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” Freely and openly, he confessed. He did not deny but confessed, “I am not the Christ [the Anointed].”

Then they asked him, “Who are you then? Are you Elijah?” And he said, “No, I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.”

John the Baptist, Hieronymous Bosch

Then they said, “Who are you? What answer are we to give to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?”

He said in the words of the prophet Isaiah, “I am the voice of one crying in the loneliness: Prepare the way for the Lord [so that the Lord may enter into the inmost soul [self].”

And those who had been sent by the Pharisees asked him, “Why do you baptize if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”

John answered them, “I baptize with water. But someone is standing in your midst whom you do not know, who comes after me although he was before me. I am not worthy even to untie the strap of his sandals.”

This took place in Bethany near the mouth of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

The next day he [John] sees Jesus coming to him and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes upon himself the burden of the sin of the world. He it is of whom I said: ‘After me comes one who was before me, for he is greater than I  [for he is ahead of me].’ [After me comes one who was (generated) before me, for he is the prototype.] Even I did not know him; but for this, I have come, and have baptized with water so that human souls in Israel might become able to experience the revelation of his being.”

And John testified: “I saw how the Spirit descended upon him like a dove from the heavens and remained united with him. I did not know him, but he who sent me

Julia Stankova, Baptism of Christ

to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend so that it remains united with him, he it is who baptizes with the [breath of the] Holy [Healing] Spirit.’ And I saw this, and so I testify that this is God’s Son.”

The next day John was again standing there, and two of his disciples were with him. And as he saw Jesus walking past, he said, “Behold, the [sacrificial] Lamb of God [through whom humanity’s sense of self will be purified.]”

The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” They answered, “Rabbi [Teacher], where are you staying [where do you live] [where do you take refuge]?”

He said, “Come, and you will see!” And they came and saw where he stayed [lived], and remained with him all that day. It was about the tenth hour [four o’clock].

3^rd Johnstide

July 12, 2020

John 1:19-34

Tissot, John the Baptist Preaching

Today’s reading begins with questions about identity. The Hebrew leadership asks John the Baptist who he is. In all humility, he acknowledges that he is not the Messiah, the anointed one of God. They ask him if he is Elijah, who was to precede the coming of the Messiah. And although Christ says later that ‘ he is Elijah who was to come,’* either John no longer remembers his previous existence, or else he is making the claim that he is no longer working in the grandiose style of the great prophetic leader of the Hebrews. Instead, he claims to be a single voice, speaking from a lonely and deserted place, saying: Make preparations.  John is who he is; he voices what needs to be said in the moment. He awakens our sense of personal responsibility.

In fact, John the Baptist epitomizes the state of the modern soul. We are who we are, now. We no longer remember previous lives—we may not even remember our current yesterdays! John in us is the single voice in us, speaking in the now, telling ourselves that we must prepare ourselves so that Christ can enter into us and abide in us.

We need to strengthen and create order in our thoughts, in our feeling life, so that an inner space arises, a space that stretches into a path for the entry of the Lamb of God. Christ came as the Lamb in order to carry the burden of human separation from the divine. This separation from the divine has created our capacity for our sins, our failings, our weaknesses. It creates our errors and our denials of the divine.

Christ, the divine Son, the God, would enter our souls so as to overcome our lonely separateness, and to reunite us with humanity’s Father. We open our souls to him. We strengthen and order our souls’ forces so that our thinking, our feeling, and our willing can become strong, weight-bearing, enduring; so that we, with Christ, can peacefully and lovingly carry the burden of the sin of the world. For as the poet says:

The weight of the world

John the Baptist, Anton Mengs

is love.

Under the burden

of solitude,

under the burden

of dissatisfaction

 

the weight,

the weight we carry

is love.**

 

---

* Matthew 11:14

** “Song”, Allen Ginsberg, in Collected Poems 1947-1980

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1st Johnstide 2020, I am not I

1^st Johnstide

Mark 1:1-13

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 the innermost human 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 acknowledgment 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]

St. Johnstide

June 28, 2020

Mark 1: 1-11

As we grow older, our awareness expands. Imagine going back in time to visit our younger self. Imagine what we would want to say to that younger self out of our years of experience since our youth. Imagine how possibly painful our older self-awareness would be in the face of our former innocent intentions. And imagine how terrified our younger self would be to encounter this someone from the future who is so strangely familiar, who so intimately knows us.

John the Baptist is humankind’s older self. He is the older self who has gone ahead of us. He has something he wants to say to us. He is acutely aware of his own and humankind’s failings. Out of his broader awareness, he encourages us to change our way of thinking, to undergo a change of heart. This is all in preparation for an encounter with Christ Jesus, the innocent younger self of humankind.

John encounters the innocence of Jesus,

and the enormity of the spirit of God that descends upon Jesus like a dove. The result for this older self of John is a deepening of humility. ‘I am not worthy’, he says. I am doing my best to serve what God has as intention for humankind. But HE is the embodiment of the pure and grand intentions of the Godhead. He is the true prototype.  And thus He is even before me. He is my own younger self as God intended me to be.

We can experience painful self-awareness of our shortcomings, our failures to be what both God and we intended to be; and at the same time, this is a deep experience of God’s love for us, His willingness to sacrifice Himself for us, so that we can start over, begin again to be what we, and He intended us to be.

We shy away from such encounters; such painful self-awareness terrifies us; and to be so intimately known can be devastating. But it is a necessary step on the way to experiencing the mildness, the acceptance, the calm radiant forgiveness of the One who is our ideal future self. Such self-awareness is a necessary passage into the forgiveness that allows us to start over, to begin at the beginning again. It is the experience of what the poet Juan Ramon Jimenez speaks of when he says: 

I am not I.

I am this one walking beside me whom I do not see,

Whom at times I manage to visit,

And whom at other times I forget;

The one who remains silent when I talk

The one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,

The one who takes a walk where I am not.

The one who will remain standing when I die.*

 

* “I Am Not I”, by Juan Ramón Jiménez, in Risking Everything, ed. By Roger Housden, p. 19.

3rd St. Johnstide 2019, What You Do

St. Johnstide

Domenico Ghirlandaio

Luke 3: 7-18

John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You are sons of the serpent yet! Who led you to believe that you can avoid the decline of the old ways of the soul? Produce true fruits in keeping with a change of heart and mind. And do not begin excusing yourselves by saying, “We have Abraham as our father.” For I tell you that God can raise up sons for Abraham out of these stones. The ax is already poised at the root of the trees, so every tree that does not produce good fruit is felled and thrown into the fire.”

“What should we do then?” the crowd asked.

John answered, “Let the man with two tunics share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.”

Tax collectors also came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”

“Do not collect any more than you are authorized to do,” he told them.
          
Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”

He replied, “

Tissot

Do not intimidate and do not accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ, the Messiah.

John answered them all, “I wash you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will wash you with the breath of the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, while he burns up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

And with many and various exhortations John preached the good news to the people.

3^rd St. Johnstide
July 14, 2019
Luke 3: 7 -18

Living things change and evolve. If a plant never put out new leaves, never flowered or produced fruit and seeds, we would wonder if it had died. Evolution, change, ultimately manifest

in outwardly visible ‘deeds’.

Joh

Wilhelm Steinhausen

n’s message about a change of heart and mind is an encouragement to us to keep on evolving. When the crowd asks him how to do this, he points to changes in behavior, to deeds done in the outer world. He encourages deeds of sharing, compassion and right relationship to our fellow human beings. He points to deeds motivated by social justice, by a respectful relationship to those who are not only our equals but also toward those over whom we have authority.

Six centuries earlier, Buddha had brought this teaching to humankind in

his eightfold path. John is exhorting us to take up this path again seriously, as a preparation for the One who fulfills all. By making our own inner and outer evolutionary steps, we will ‘make His paths straight’. Through transformative deeds, which demonstrate the transformation of our hearts, the ‘guilt-laden seed of mankind’ will be cleansed and made viable toward the future, and receptive to the Coming One.

For in the words of another ancient wise teacher, Lao Tzu:

            This is the profound, simple truth:
            You are the master of your life and death.
            What you do is what you are.

2nd St. Johnstide 2019, Free

John the Baptist Preaching, Rembrandt

St. Johnstide

John 5: 31-38

If I were only appearing as my own witness, my testimony would be without truth [real power]; but there is another who bears witness to me, and I know that the testimony He gives me is the full truth [possesses full reality].

You sent messengers to John, and he gave valid testimony. But human testimony is not enough for me, for I want you to find salvation [healing] through my word.

He [John] was the burning and bright shining lamp [fire], and you wanted nothing more than to bathe for a while in that light. A weightier testimony is at my disposal than that of John. The deeds which the Father has given me to accomplish, the deeds which I fulfill, they testify for me that the Father has sent me. And so the Father who sent me Himself testifies to me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form; the Word which proceeds from Him does not live in your souls, for you do not open yourselves to him whom He has sent.

4^th St. Johnstide

July 7, 2019

John 5: 31-38

There was a small curly-headed dark-haired child who loved fairytales. She lived in a home where the mirrors were all far above her head. Imagine her astonishment when her parent lifted her up to see her reflection and she discovered that she wasn’t golden-haired like the princesses in the fairytales! She was so disappointed. Did not being golden-haired mean that she wasn’t a princess after all?

Mirrors allow us to see ourselves from the outside. They enable a degree of objectivity. Mirrors can show us truth, at least on one level. Thinking and feeling human souls can also serve as mirrors for the truth.

In today’s Gospel, Christ talks about how spiritual truth operates. He affirms that John the Baptist recognized Him, that John’s testimony about the truth of Christ’s being was valid. But He urges us not to be satisfied merely with accepting John’s eyewitness account. He wants us to take into consideration two other levels of testimony.

One is the testimony that comes from His Father, who shines through the deeds of teaching and healing that Christ does. The other, perhaps more relevant for us, comes from within us, from within our own hearts and souls. Christ wants to be mirrored in us, to see Himself, hear His evolving Word in us. Without opening our souls, opening our thoughts and our feelings to Christ, He cannot find His truth or the truth of the Father in us. If we do not open our souls to Him, He says, we cannot mirror his working.

Catherine of Sienna writes of waiting for her father to return from work one night. She says:

I saw him coming. We ran into each other’s arms

and he lifted me as he so often had—

twirled me through the air,

his hands beneath

my arms.

That is what the truth does:

lifts us and lets us

fly.*

Grace and truth come from Christ, who is Truth.  John 1:17, John 14:6.  When we let ourselves mirror the truth, we are free to align ourselves with what He really is. “You shall know the truth”, He says, “and the truth shall set you free.” John 8:32.

* Catherine of Sienna, “Smells of Good Food”, in Love Poems from God, Daniel Ladinsky, p. 202.

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1st St. Johnstide 2019, Reality

St. Johnstide, 

John 3: 22-33 (adapted from Madsen)

St. John the Baptist Church in Jordan

After this, Jesus and his disciples came to the land of Judea. There he stayed with them and baptized. John also baptized; he was at Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there, and people came to him and were baptized. For John had not yet been imprisoned.

Then a dispute arose between the disciples of John and the Jews about the path of purification. And they came to John and said to him, “Master, he who came to you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness – here he is, baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”

John answered, “No human being can grasp spiritual power for himself that is not given to him from the higher worlds. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’

Carolsfeld

“He who has the bride, he is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom, who stands by and listens to him, he is filled with joy at the bridegroom’s voice. This joy of mine is now full. He must increase, but I must decrease.

He who descends from above, out of the spiritual world, is elevated above all beings of the earth. Whoever is only of the earth, whose being arises from the earthly, his word is also earthbound.

He who comes from the heavens is elevated above all who have arisen from the earthly. What he has seen and heard in the world of the spirit, to that he can bear direct witness, but no one accepts his testimony.

But whoever accepts his testimony, sets his seal to this: that God is Truth[that there is no higher truth than the reality of God]. 

1^st St. Johnstide

June 30, 2019

John 3:22-33

Pollen Cloud

At the peak of its development, the blossom releases its pollen into the air. The pollen rises toward the heights; the sunlight weaves its life into the pollen, which returns to the world of earth. It joins with other plants to form seeds that carry life into the future. It is important to note that when pollen grains soar, they do not return to their original flower. The invigorated pollen that enlivens a particular plant comes from somewhere else, possibly from far away.

Gratitude is the opening of our hearts, the blossoming of our souls. Warmly felt gratitude is an invisible spiritual substance that rises upward toward the Spirit Sun. His spirit light weaves into this substance of gratitude, enlivens and transforms it. Our gratitude returns to earth, transformed, as His power of light and life and love. Like pollen my prayers of gratitude, do not return to me; they enliven others. And it is the prayers of others that enliven me. Christ’s power in human hearts is what gives us all a future.

The Baptism of Christ, from Berry's Book of Hours 

Christ, the Spirit Sun, keeps His heart open toward the Father. For Him, the Father is His transforming sunlight. John, who announces Christ, is also connected to the Father’s Spirit. He too is surrounded by the Father’s love. John is a kind of human/angelic mediator, a messenger sent on ahead to announce Christ’s impending arrival. He would shake us awake. He bids us open our hearts, to stream forth gratitude, so that Christ may send his enlivening power into all of us, so that we may continue to live. 

“The Father holds the Son surrounded in his love and has given everything into his hands. Whoever trusts in the power of the Son within himself, he grows out of the earthly into timeless life.” John 3:35

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7th February Trinity 2019, Sun Within the Sun

February Trinity

(5^th Sunday before Easter)

Matthew 17: 1-13

Transfiguration, Fra Angelico, Wikimedia Commons

After six days, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John the brother of James and led them together up a high mountain apart from the others.

There his appearance was transformed before them. His face shone as bright as the sun, and his garments became white, shining bright as the light. And behold, there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, conversing in the spirit with Jesus.

And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be in this place. If you wish, I will build here three shelters, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them and suddenly they heard a voice from the cloud that said, “This is my son, whom I love. In him, I am revealed. Hear him.”

When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces to the ground in awe and terror.

And Jesus approached them, and touching them said, “Rise, and do not fear.”

And raising their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus.

Baptism, Verrochio, da Vinci

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them: “Tell no one what you have seen until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.”

And the disciples asked him, “What is meant when the scribes say, ‘First Elijah must come again’?” He answered, “Elijah comes indeed, and prepares everything [restores all things]. But I say to you, Elijah has already come, and the people did not recognize him but rather have done to him whatever they pleased. In the same way, the Son of Man will suffer much at their hands.”

Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them about John the Baptist.

 7^th February Trinity

March 17, 2019

Matthew 17: 1-13

The rising and setting of the sun create our sense of time, our day and night, season after season. At its highest, the sun is too bright to look at. Only when it is near the horizon can our eyes bear to look at it directly.

Our lives too have their seasons, their rising and setting. In the midst of our lives, it is often not possible to see what shines within them. But near their setting, it is easier to view.

Jesus bore the Christ-Sun within him. In today’s reading, the sun of Christ’s earthly human life is approaching its setting.

The three disciples with Him are granted a glimpse into the Sun-brightness of

His being. He stands in conversation with Moses, the past giver of the Law, and Elijah, the prophet of the future. Christ stands in the middle between them as the ever-present Now, for he has gathered into himself all of time. His earthly life is setting; and yet the Christ Sun will rise again. He is both Alpha and Omega, beginning and goal.

Our lives in Christ, the Christ-Sun in us, is the eternally present Now. He allows us to see the meaning of our lives in clarity, especially in its setting. Christ in us allows us to hope for another rising when this life reaches its close.

For as Angelus Silesius said, we are to become radiant suns:

My spirit once in God will eternal bliss become

Just as the sun’s own ray is sun within the sun.*

---

*Angelus Silesius, Cherubinic Wanderer

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