2nd Trinity IV, Aerial Bridge

 Rev. 3:1-6, (Sardis)

Sardis, Tiffany

"And to the angel who penetrates the congregation of Sardis write: Thus speaks
he who has power over the seven creating spirits of God and 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 words and workings of 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. 

"Whoever overcomes, they shall be clothed with white garments, and I will not wipe out their name from the Book of Life. I will speak out their name and acknowledge them before my Father and his Angels. Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

2^nd November Trinity

November 7, 2021

Revelation 3: 1-6

This letter is from the Son of Man. It is written to the angel of the community of Sardis. It can be heard as a letter to an entire community, ‘a community whose members feel the Christ within themselves’.

It is natural that a community tends to drift away from its original receptive gesture of soul. After all, things change. Habits form. And over time, a community’s relationship to the spirit may become dull. It needs renewal. This letter stresses being open to the words and workings of the spirit. Christ encourages us to revive our original prayerful openness, in loyal dedication to Him.

Such openness helps us to overcome illusion through the Truth of Christ’s Being. It helps us overcome our need to see, hear, touch a physical, material God. The poet Czeslaw Milosz was asked about praying to a God one could not perceive:

Glass Sky Walk, Grand Canyon

You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.

All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge

And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,

Above landscapes the color of ripe gold

Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.

That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal

Where everything is just the opposite and the word 'is'

Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.

Notice: I say we; there, every one, separately,

Feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh

And knows that if there is no other shore

We will walk that aerial bridge all the same.*

 

---

* Czeslaw Milosz, “On Prayer” in New and Collected Poems, 1931-2001, trans. Robert Hass

 

 

 

3rd November Trinity 2019, Clarion Call

Trinity November

Rev. 3, 1-6, (Sardis) 

Angel of Sardis, Tiffany

And to the angel who penetrates the congregation of Sardis write: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.

3rd Nov Trinity

November 10, 2019

Revelation 3: 1-6

William Morris

In the fairytale of Sleeping Beauty, the twelve good fairies bestow their gifts on the child at her christening. Before the twelfth fairy can offer hers, a thirteenth, angry at not having been invited, storms in and predicts the child’s death at fifteen. The last twelfth fairy cannot undo the curse but can soften it. She changes the death sentence into a sleep of a hundred years.

The writer of the Revelation also demonstrates this activity of past predictions reaching into a future life. For the letters to the seven congregations are actually addressed to the seven ages of humankind’s development. The letters are an assessment of each age, their strengths, and their weaknesses. Today’s letter to Sardis, the fifth one, is aimed particularly at our present age. The warnings are a matter of life and death. “One says of you that you live, and yet you are dead.” Rev 3:1  For we human beings have indeed been asleep for a long time, unaware of those spiritual beings that constantly surround us as we sleepwalk through our lives. If we continue in what John calls our illusion and addiction to what the senses convey of the material world, then our own souls and spirits will indeed die.

The cure for this sleep, this sickness unto death, is to wake up. For our souls and spirits live and are fed through wakeful consciousness; their very nature consists of conscious awareness.  In humankind’s childhood, we received the gifts and blessings of the divine world, because we were open and receptive. But then we fell into a long sleep, in which we no longer received the gifts, no longer even remembered the givers. The time of sleep and forgetfulness is over. Humanity needs to wake up.

In the fairytale, when the hundred years were over, the prince passed through

Giambatista Basile

the thorny hedge that protected the sleeping kingdom and awakened the princess with a kiss. In our time, the Prince of our soul is kneeling beside our sleeping spirits, waiting for us to wake up out of our own freedom and initiative. If we refuse, the awakening will come but will appear as doom, fearful, and frightening.

John’s letter to the fifth age is a clarion call. Wake up and live! Wake up and converse with your Prince! Live in loyalty to the Spirit who loves you.

This conversing with the spirit of love we call prayer. An early mystic wrote:

The Holy Spirit has compassion on our weaknesses,

and though we remain impure, He often comes to visit us.

When He finds our spirit praying to Him in love,

He immediately dispels the marauding horde of thoughts

that keep it hobbled. And then he bids it forward

to the delicious works of spiritual prayer.

When the angel of the Lord arrives,

he scatters by his word alone

every force that acts against us,

and brings to our spirits that light

that shines without deception.*

*Evagrios of Pontos, “Effusions on Prayer,” in Love’s Immensity; Mystics on the Endless Life, Scott Cairns, p. 55.

2nd November Trinity 2014, Sky Bridge

2nd Trinity November

Tiffany Stained Glass,
Angel of Sardis

Rev. 3, 1-6, (Sardis)

And to the angel who penetrates the congregation of Sardis write:

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.

2^nd November Trinity

November 9, 2014

Revelations 3: 1 – 6

This letter is from the Son of Man. It is written to the angel of the community of Sardis. It can be heard as a letter to an entire community, ‘a community whose members feel the Christ within themselves’.

It is natural that a community tends to drift away from its original receptive gesture of soul. After all, things change. Habits form. And over time, a community’s relationship to the spirit may become dull. This letter stresses being open to the words and workings of the spirit. Christ encourages us to revive our original prayerful openness, in loyal dedication to Him.

Sky Walk, Grand Canyon

Such openness helps us to overcome illusion through the Truth of Christ’s Being. It helps us overcome our need to see, hear, touch a physical God. The poet Czeslaw Milosz was asked about praying to a God one could not perceive:

You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.

All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge

And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,

Above landscapes the color of ripe gold

Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.

That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal

Where everything is just the opposite and the word 'is'

Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.

Notice: I say we; there, every one, separately,

Feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh

And knows that if there is no other shore

We will walk that aerial bridge all the same.[1]

Visit our Website 

---

[1]  Czeslaw Milosz, “On Prayer” in New and Collected Poems, 1931-2001, trans. Robert Hass