1st After Easter, Vast Unfolding Design

 1^st Sunday after Easter

John 20:19-29 

On the evening of the first day after

Coptic

the Sabbath, the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the authorities. Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you!”And while he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

Full of joy, the disciples recognized the Lord. And again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” And when he said this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit through which the world will receive healing. From now on, you shall work in human destinies with spiritual power so that they shall have the strength to wrest themselves free from the load of sin, and at the same time to bear the consequences of their offenses.”

Morgan Psalter

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not there with them when Jesus came. Later the disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he replied, “If I do not see in his hand the marks of the nails, and do not put my finger in the place where the nails were, and place my hand in his side, I cannot believe it.” 

Eight days later, the disciples were again gathered in the inner room, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Stretch out your finger and see my hands, and stretch out your hand and put it into my side. Be not rigid in your heart, but rather feel and trust in my power in your heart.” 

Then Thomas said to him, “You are the Lord of my soul; you are the God whom I serve.” And Jesus said to him, “Have you found my power in yourself because you have seen me? Blessed are those who find my power in their hearts, even when their eye does not yet see me.” 

1^st After Easter

April 24, 2022

John 20:19-29 

A child of two or three is absorbed with learning about the sense world, exploring and naming things. But around four, there comes a moment when the child will close its eyes and say, ‘I can see pictures’. An inner eye opens, and the faculty of picture-making, of imagination, day-dreaming, and ultimately of memory is born. Some children can then also image real beings that cannot be seen with outer eyes. 

Tissot

The disciples of Christ spent three years with Him, getting to know him in the sense world. They learned to name Him. After the great panorama of His tragic death, He was lost to their ordinary sight. But their love for Him had readied them to see Him with the imaging faculty of their hearts. He comes to them, and they see Him with the eye of the heart. 

In His coming, He gives them a task: He breathes into them holy, healing Spirit, in order that they may work in a strengthening, healing way in the destinies of those whom they meet. Their hearts are to be open, filled with trust in His power, so that they may also see Him at work in the lives of others. They begin to trust in His power working in their hearts, in others, as a new capacity of seeing. 

Poet Denise Levertov describes this moment of awakening in her poem about St. Thomas, who says: 

But when my hand

Led by His hand’s firm clasp

Entered the unhealed wound,

Wayne Forte

My fingers encountering

Rib-bone and pulsing heat,

What I felt was…

…light, light streaming

Into me, over me, filling the room…

I witnessed

all things quicken to color, to form,

My question

Not answered, but given

Its part

In a vast unfolding design lit

By a risen sun.* 

The Act of Consecration of Man is also a picture of Christ’s working. Gathered in prayer, we receive Him in the inner room of our heart. Our hearts see Him offering thanks to His Father. We see Him uniting His soul with bread, with water and wine. We feel His touch. He breathes His peace into us so that we too can work in a healing way in the lives of others, ‘in a vast unfolding design, lit by a risen sun.’

 

* Denise Levertov, “St. Thomas Didymus”, in The Stream and the Sapphire, p. 81

 www.thechristiancommunity.org

 

Easter Sunday 2022, I Am Not I

 Easter Sunday

Mark 16:1-18 

And when the Sabbath was over,

Julia Stankova

Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go and anoint Him. And very early on the first day of the week, they went to the tomb just as the sun was rising. And they said to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?" 

And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back—and it was very large. And they went into the tomb. There they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clad in a white robe, and they were beside themselves with amazement. And he said to them, "Do not be startled; you seek Jesus of Nazareth the Crucified One. He is risen; He is not here; see, there is the place where they laid Him. But go and say to his disciples and Peter, 'He will lead you to Galilee. There you will see Him as He promised you.'" 

And they went out and fled from the tomb in great haste, for trembling and astonishment had come upon them, and being awestruck, they were unable to say anything to anyone about what they had experienced. 

When He had risen early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene from whom He had driven out seven demons. And she went and told those who had walked with Him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, their hearts could not grasp it. 

Julia Stankova

After this, He appeared in another form to two of them on the way as they were walking over the fields. And they went back and told the rest, but they could not open their hearts to their words either. Afterward, He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were celebrating the meal. He reproached them for their lack of openness and their hardness of heart because they had not wanted to believe those who had seen Him, the Risen One. 

And He said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the new message from the realm of the angels to the whole of creation. Whoever unites their heart with it and is immersed in me will attain salvation. But whoever closes themselves against it [or, does not let the power of selflessness into his heart, or, does not let the power of My Self into his heart] will meet their downfall. And spiritual powers will stand by those who unite themselves with it and will attend their path: Through the power of my being they will drive out demons; they will speak a new language; serpents they will make upright, and poisons they drink will not harm them. They will lay their hands on the sick and give healing forces to them."*

Easter Sunday

April 17, 2022

Mark 16:1-18 

Sombart

Christ Jesus was entombed in a cave with
a large stone rolled over the entrance. When He rose, His rising was accompanied by an earthquake. The foundations of the world were shaken by this mighty event, for Death itself had been infused with a new form of Life. An angel rolls back the stone, revealing the place where the transformation of the world had taken place. The earth shone with a new light. 

The cave is also a picture of the human heart. Each year Christ dies into us, is buried in each and every one of us. And every year at Easter, He rises in and through us. 

Who rolls away for us the stone from the tomb of the heart, the stone of hardness of heart, the stone of not wanting to believe and trust that He lives? 

He who was entombed is now alive, in us, and everywhere. He lives in the very light that shines, in the very air we breathe. He walks in the spirit before us. We seek to find Him, for He is the very meaning and essence of our true being. We know that without Him, we are not complete. We know, in the words of the poet: 

Corrine Vonaesch

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.* 

The One who walks beside me, before me—He whom I do not see—because of Him, I know that the grave is empty. Because of Him, the heart is full. In Him, I too will rise, through Him, into new life.

 https://www.thechristiancommunity.org/christian-festivals/

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*Traditional translation: "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name, they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands, and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people and they will get well."

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

Good Friday 2022, The Godhead Is My Sap

Holy Week, Good Friday

John 19:1-15 

Tissot

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him scourged.
The soldiers braided a crown of thorns, put it on his head, threw a purple cloak around him, walked up to him, and said, "Hail, King of the Jews!" and struck him in the face. 

And again, Pilate went out to them and said, "Behold. Thus I bring him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in him." And Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple cloak. And Pilate said to them, "Behold, the man!" [or, Behold, this is Man!] 

When the chief priests and the Temple attendants saw him, they shouted, "Crucify him, crucify him!" Then Pilate said, "Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him." 

Then the Jewish leaders replied, "We have a law, and according to that law, he must die because he has made himself a Son of God." 

When Pilate heard these words, he was even more alarmed, and again he went into the courthouse and said to Jesus,

Tissot

"From where have you received your mission?" But Jesus gave him no answer. Then Pilate said to him, "You will not speak with me? Do you not know that I have the power to release you and also to crucify you?" 

Jesus answered, "You would not have power over me unless it had been given to you on high. Therefore, the greater burden of destiny falls upon him who handed me over to you." 

From then on, Pilate tried to set him free. But the people shouted, "If you release him, you are no longer a friend of Caesar, for everyone who makes himself a king is against Caesar." 

When he heard these words, Pilate led Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat in the place called the Pavement, in Hebrew Gabbatha. It was the day of the preparation of the Passover Festival, about midday. And he said to the people, "Behold, this is your King." But they shouted, "Away with him, away with him, crucify him!" 

Pilate asked them, "Shall I crucify your King?" 

And the chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar!"

Good Friday

April 15, 2022

John 19:1-15 

At the end of a plant's life, it forms the
seed. This seed may be hardly distinguishable from a speck of dirt or a stone. Yet, when it is buried in the earth, it reveals its inherent life. The seed swells and breaks apart. Its husk falls away, and from the heart of the seed, one shoot dives downward, rooting itself in the earth. A second sprout shoots upward toward light and air and warmth. In doing so, the form of the seed is transformed. The fact that it is alive makes it take on a different form. 

The body of Christ Jesus was like a seed in its husk. It was lowered into the earth. The husk of its material covering fell away like ash. The true underlying body of the human form, imbued with superabundant vitality, swelled like a seed. Partly anchored in the earth, partly rising heavenward, the life in Him became a new kind of life, an undying human life. 

He became at once the Old and the New: He restored the old original blueprint of the human being as an image and likeness of the Creator – for all humankind had been corrupted by Adam and Eve's succumbing to Lucifer's temptation, and we all subsequently fell into a bodily form which is imbued with matter, subject to death. This corrupted and corruptible body has been passed down to all of us through the generations. 

During Holy Week, before His death, Christ Jesus tried to explain what He was about to do. After he had raised Lazarus from the dead, some Greeks came and asked to see Him. In their spring rites, they would bury an effigy of their god, Adonis, a god of life, death, and rebirth. They would celebrate his rebirth as spring's new vegetative growth. 

And Jesus told them [the Greeks]: The hour has come for the Son of Man to be revealed in His spirit form. Yes, I tell you: Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth, it remains as it is. But if it dies, it bears much fruit (John 12:23-24, Madsen rendering). 

In restoring the original blueprint in God's
image and likeness, Christ also became our new ancestor. For, like the single wheat seed that swells and grows and ultimately forms multiple seeds for a new life, so too is Christ's immortal human form, a body not weighed down by material substance, capable of producing multiple copies. For each of us, there is a copy of His immortal human form that He is waiting to give us. To the extent that we join ourselves to Him, choose to take Him in, join our lives to His Life, we will ultimately receive a non-material bodily form which is a living copy of His immortal form, suffused with the timeless life of Him who carries and orders the life of the world.    

 The path of Christ is the path of descent, of grounding and rooting in the earth, and at the same time an ascending one, of rising and growing toward the light and warmth of the Father. It is a path through death into the realm behind it, into the realm of abundant and overflowing Life. It is a realm where God's original command, "Be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 9:7), is given a new meaning. For it is through His dying that He, and we, attain Life. And that life multiplies itself as ongoing life for the earth, and as immortal life for human beings. We pray that His body, and His enlivening blood be for us the abundant overflowing life that strengthens the forces that form us.

Boos-Hamburger

An immortal spirit body is the gift that He, in His love for us, is literally dying to give us. 

In the words of Angelus Silesius: 

The Godhead is my sap; what in me greens and flowers

It is His healing Spirit who all the growth empowers.*

 

 See locations 

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* Angelus Silesius, The Cherubinic Wanderer, p. 43

4th Passiontide 2022, Build the Body

  

4^th Passiontide (Palm Sunday)

Matthew 21:1-11 

Hippolyte Flandrin

And they approached Jerusalem and
came to  Bethphage by the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus sent two disciples ahead and said to them, "Go to the village which you see before you and at once you will find a donkey tied there and her foal with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will let you take them right away." 

This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: 

'Say to the daughter of Zion,

Behold, your king comes to you in majesty.

Gentle is He, and He rides on a donkey and a foal of the beast of burden.' 

The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the foal, placed their garments on them, and Jesus sat on them.        

Many from the large crowd spread their clothes on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of them and followed Him shouted: 

Hosanna to the Son of David!

Blessed is he who comes in the Name and Power of the Lord!

Hosanna in the highest! [or, Sing to Him in the highest heights!] 

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, "Who is he?" The crowds answered, "This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee."

4^th Passiontide Sunday

Palm Sunday

April 10, 2020

Matthew 21:1-11  

This mysterious picture – Christ Jesus asks for a donkey and its foal to be brought to Him. Upon them, He will ride into Jerusalem, the city of peace. Why donkeys? Why two? 

Francis of Assisi famously called his body Brother Donkey. The donkeys of our bodies are the earthly means of conveyance for our souls and spirits. Our donkey is strong, stubborn, and willful. For most of us, if the body decides to go somewhere, say, into illness, it is about all we can do to hang on for the ride. 

Christ chooses donkeys as His means of conveyance as a living symbol of the final phase of His earthly life. He is choosing the human body as His final battleground. His triumphal entry into Jerusalem foretells the fully accomplished entry of His spirit into the body of Jesus. Today He rides the donkey of the physical nature, both the old body and the new immortal one he will inhabit at His resurrection. 

The people sense this, but their jubilation is premature. These two ‘donkeys’ are carrying Him where He wants to go – deeper into the body, into suffering, even into the death that the body offers. Rejoicing will be more appropriate days later when the body has been transformed at the Last Supper into the new form of bread and wine; when His suffering has borne fruit; when death has been overthrown because He has wrested the human spirit from the death of matter.

 At the Last Supper and its iterations, He wields the power to make bread and wine into His immortal body and blood so that He can feed us His own immortality. With His help, we, too, can make our sufferings fruitful. Through our connection with Him, we can, bit by bit, build the new body that is not subject to death, the Christ-body that comes to life in us, through us, in our offering. 

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3rd Passiontide 2022, In Death Life Begins

 3^rd Passiontide

John 8:1-12 

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but as soon as day dawned, he was already in the Temple court, where the people flocked to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees led in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand in the middle and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now, what do you say?" They said this only as a trap, in order finally to have a reason for accusing him. 

Ninetta Sombart

But Jesus bent down and started to write
something into the earth with his finger. When they kept on pressing him with questions, he stood up and said to them, "Whoever among you is without sin, let him cast the first stone at her." And again, he bent down and wrote into the earth. 

When they heard this, their conscience began to stir within them, and they went out, one after the other, starting with the eldest. And only Jesus was left and the woman who stood in the middle. Jesus stood up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one passed judgment on you?" 

"No one, sir," she said. 

Then Jesus declared, "Neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin." 

And Jesus began to speak to them again: "I am the light of the world; whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but have the light in which there is life."

 3^rd Passiontide Sunday

April 3, 2022

John 8:1-12 

The light and warmth of the sun can be absorbed or reflected. A dark object absorbs the warmth. A light, polished surface stays cooler because it mirrors light back. 

Our minds and hearts can also absorb or reflect. We can listen, absorb, take in. When what we take in enters not just our minds but our hearts, they can become warm. In so doing, we ourselves are likely to be transformed. The genius of the language says that our hearts melt. 

And we can also listen and reflect back. Usually, we reflect back our own soul's reaction. We reflect our ego's rush to judgment. An immediate judgment may be a kind of self-protection coming from the soul's defensive armoring. Being too quick to deflect with our thinking, we bypass absorbing into our heart what is said and possibly being transformed. 

Deborah Harris

In this gospel reading, Christ shows Himself to be someone whose heart and mind work together in a healing way. He does not reflexively reject the woman because she broke the law. He takes her into His great heart, the warmth of His broad understanding of the ways of human behavior, of social interaction, of karma. He then reflects back to her not judgment but rather gives her the strength of His warm understanding and His encouragement to do better. He absorbs her life into His. He carries her in the light of His life. 

The poet Nelly Sachs wrote, 

How long have we forgotten to listen!

He planted us once to listen

Like lyme grass by the eternal sea ....

Although we have business

that leads us far

From his light….

We must not sell our ears….

Press, oh press in the day of destruction

The listening ear to the earth,

And you will hear, through your sleep,

You will hear,

How in death

Life begins.* 

The deeds of each one of us are written into the earth. But the earth has become Christ's body. He absorbs all of our deeds. He carries us in His great heart. He gives us the encouragement and the strength to do better so that we can walk in the light of His life. 

 www.thechristiancommunity.org

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*Nelly Sachs (1891-1970), “How Long Have We Forgotten to Listen!” in Women in Praise of the Sacred, Jane Hirschfield. 

2nd Passiontide 2022, Skill They Can Learn

 2^nd Passiontide

John 6:1-15 

After this, Jesus crossed to the far shore

Woloschina

of the Sea of Galilee near Tiberius, and a great crowd of people followed him because they had seen the signs of the Spirit he had performed on those who were ill. 

Then Jesus went up on the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Feast was near.

When Jesus raised his eyes to the world of the Spirit and beheld how crowds of people were coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread that all these people may eat?" He asked this to test his understanding and presence of mind, for he himself knew what he was going to do. 

Philip answered him, "200 denarii [or, seven months wages] would not buy enough bread for them each to have only a little." 

Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, "A boy is here with five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are these among so many?" 

Jesus said, "Let the people sit down in groups." There was plenty of green grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and gave to those seated, likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted. 

Now when they were satisfied, he said to his disciples, "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost." So, they gathered them, and they filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. 

Seeing the sign that he had done, the people said, "Truly, this is the prophet who is to come into the world." When Jesus became aware that they intended to come and make him king by force, he withdrew again to the mountain alone by himself.

2^nd Passiontide

March 27, 2022

John 6:26-35 

There are different kinds of thorns. One kind is a permanent woody part of the plant itself, such as the spurs on a citrus tree or hawthorne. Another is a removable part of the plant's skin—such as the prickle on a rose. It does not belong to the plant's deepest layers. Nevertheless, these prickles, like the stinger of a bee, can embed themselves and infect. 

In the Passiontide prayers from the altar, we ask God not to focus on 'the sting of evil' in our hearts. The deepest core of our hearts, made by God, is good. But our hearts have been stung by the thorn of the adversary and are infected with evil. We are acutely aware of our common illness, which inflames us and causes us to wound others. At times, we may feel our inner selves to be lying on the ground, sick unto death. Our hearts need to be healed of their infections. The goodness of our core needs to be strengthened and nourished. 

Christ, the divine Physician, came to nourish and strengthen our heart's core. He gives us the twelvefold bread from the stars, from his Father in the heavens, to nourish, strengthen and heal us. 

We stand in awe before the gift He offers us, the bread of Himself. We may be inclined to rush in, almost greedy for healing. We may want the whole loaf. But He says in the words of Rumi: 

Nibble at me.

Don't gulp me down.

How often is it you have a guest in your house

who can fix everything?*

 

To us, Catherine of Sienna adds:

A thorn has entered your foot. That is why you

weep at times at

night. 

There are some in this world

who can pull it

out. 

The skill that takes they have

learned from

Him. ** 

We take in the bread and wine to become strong, to be healed, so that the good in the depths of our hearts may endure. At the same time, we take it in not only for ourselves. We take it in so that we, in turn, can help in the healing of others.

 

 www.thechristiancommunity.org

* Rumi, "Nibble at Me," in Love Poems from God, Daniel Ladinsky, p.64

** Catherine of Sienna, "That Skill," in Love Poems from God, Daniel Ladinsky, p. 190.

1st Passiontide 2022, Go There Now

First Passiontide

Luke 11:14-36 

Ravenna

Jesus was driving out a demon from a man who was mute.
And it came to pass that as the demon left, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowd was amazed. However, some of them said, "He drives out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons." Others sought to test him by asking for a sign from heaven as proof of his spiritual power. 

Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, "Any kingdom divided against itself will be desolated, and house will fall against house. And you claim that I drive out demons by Beelzebub? Now, if Satan divides [were to divide] his powers within himself, how will [would] his kingdom be able to stand? You have not considered this when you claim that I drive out demons with the power of Beelzebub. If I drive out demons with the power of Beelzebub, with what power do your sons do it? Your sons will be your judges. But since, in fact, I encounter the demons with the authority of God's hand, it follows from this that the Kingdom of God has already come to you.               

"When a strong man in full armor guards his palace, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, the victor takes away the armor in which the man had trusted and divides it up as spoils. 

"Whoever does not unite with my being is against me, and whoever does not gather in inner composure with me [or, work for inner composure with me] scatters. 

"When an unclean spirit comes out of a person, it wanders through waterless places seeking a place to rest; and if it cannot find it, it says, 'I will return to the dwelling out of which I have come.' When it returns to this dwelling, it finds it cleaned and adorned. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more wicked than itself and enters and dwells in that person. And their final state is worse than the first." 

1^st Passiontide

March 20, 2022

Luke 11:14-35  

We all have a home, a space we live in. We may share it with others.
We may also invite guests for a visit. But it would be a strange situation if, at the end of the visit, the guest announced that they were planning to take up permanent residence and refused to leave. For we know that it should be our own choice whom we live with. 

Our body is also a kind of home, the home for our spirit. The deaf-mute’s spirit evidently suffered from one of those permanent guests who had decided to make his body its dwelling place. It had even succeeded in binding and gagging him. The Gospel identifies this “guest” as a demon. And Christ describes the nature of such beings: they need a human body in which to dwell; they are able to gain entrance if someone is not strong enough to protect themselves. And even if they succeed in ejecting the demon, it won’t give up; it will return— with reinforcements if necessary. 

For demons feed off of what the human being has inside—the precious light of human thoughts, the warmth of human feeling, their strength of will. Christ goes on to proclaim what it is that protects us from being invaded: the wisdom that acknowledges the existence of the Son of Man and the willingness to do the work necessary to invite Him in as a guest, to furnish Him a dwelling place in our inmost heart. 

The poet Tom Barrett says: 

Pause with us here a while.

Put your ear to the wall of your heart.

Listen for the whisper of knowing there.

Love will touch you if you are very still. …

 

If you had a temple in the secret spaces of your heart,

What would you worship there?

What would you bring to sacrifice?

What would be behind the curtain in the holy of holies?

 

Go there now.*

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* Tom Barrett, “What’s in the Temple?” in Keeping in Touch

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