2nd November Trinity 2007 (2006), Bridge of Love

2^nd 3^rd or 4^th Michaelmas (normally)

Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, 6:10-19

What it comes to in the end is this: grasp the power that streams to you in the experience of Christ in the soul and in the powerful regency of his pure spiritual strength.

Put on the power of God as one puts on full armor, so that you may stand against the well-aimed attacks of the adversary. For our struggle is not to fight against powers of flesh and blood, but against

Blake, Good and Evil Angels

spirit beings mighty in the stream of time,

against spirit beings powerful in the molding of earth substance,

against cosmic powers whose darkness rules the present time,

against spirits who carry evil into the realms of the spiritual world.

Therefore take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand your ground on the day when evil unfolds its greatest strength, and victoriously withstand it.

Stand firm, then, girded with the truth, like a warrior firmly girded. Connect yourself with all in the world as is justified in the spiritual world, and this connection with the spirit will protect you like a strong breastplate.

And may Peace stream through you, down to your feet, so that on your path you spread peace, as the message that comes from the realm of the angels.

In all your deeds have trust in God. This trust will be like a mighty shield; with it you can quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Take into your thinking the certainty of Christ’s healing deed. It will protect your head like a helmet.

And the spirit, which has become living in you, you shall grasp as one grasps a sharp sword. The sword of the spirit is the working of the Word of God.

May this armor clothe you in all your prayers and supplications, so that in the right moment you raise yourself in prayer to the spirit, and at the same time practice wakefulness in inner loyalty.

Feel yourself united in prayer with all other bearers of the spirit—also with me, Paul, so that the power of the word will be given to me when I am to courageously bring the knowledge of that holy mystery which lives in the message of the gospel.

 2^nd November Trinity

November 5, 2006

Ephesians 6: 10-19

Mankind is at war. Paul makes it clear that this war originates in the spiritual world; adversarial spiritual beings are attacking the core of our humanity. Paul makes it clear that for us the battle is one of defense, of resistance, of holding our own ground against those powers who seek to attack and destroy our inner being. It is a battle ultimately for inner peace.

One of the essential pieces of armor in our defense is what Paul calls the helmet of salvation, which is our own inner certainty of Christ’s deed of healing. This certainty we can generate in our thinking.

For Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection have created an indestructible bridge of love between our world of earth and the world of heaven. In the battle, the adversaries cannot take this bridge. We can protect ourselves from thoughts of doom and continue to make a good defense by remembering, by thinking the thought of Christ’s healing deed. Paul so beautifully expresses this idea of the invincible bridge of love in another of his letters. He says:

In all these trials we are triumphant conquerors through him who offers us his love. I know from experience: neither the forces of death, nor the forces of life, neither angels nor Mights, neither things present nor things to come, not the World Powers themselves, neither heights nor depths nor any other thing or being in creation can separate us from the love of God which took on body in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:37-39

We can always generate and hold fast to this thought of the bridge of love. May we constantly put on this helmet of thought, the protection of Jesus Christ’s ongoing healing deed of love.  For “In all these trials we are triumphant conquerors through him who offers us his love.”

www.thechristiancommunity.org

2nd November Trinity 2008, Angel Arrives

2^nd Trinity November

Rev. 3, 1-6, (Sardis) or

Rev. 3, 14-22 (Laodicea)

Escorial Beatus

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 Nov Trinity

November 9, 2008

Revelation 3: 1-6

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 future life. For the letters to the seven congregations are actually addressed to the seven ages of mankind’s development. The letters are an assessment of each age, its strengths and weaknesses. Today’s letter to Sardis, the fifth one , is aimed particularly to 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.

Burne Jones

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 mankind’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. Mankind needs to wake up.

In the fairytale, when the hundred years were over, the prince passed through 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.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] [1] Evagrios of Pontos, “Effusions on Prayer”, in Love’s Immensity; Mystics on the Endless Life, Scott Cairns, p. 55.

2nd November Trinity 2009, Trials to Pearls

2^nd Trinity November

Rev. 3, 1-6, (Sardis) or

Rev. 3, 14-22 (Laodicea)

Rev. 3, 14-22 (Laodicea)

And to the leading angel of the community at Laodicea write: Thus speaks the Amen, he who strengthens all spiritual working with his own being, the witness trusted and true, the ground of all divine creation:

I see through your deeds. You are neither cold nor hot. You should be either cold, or hot. But since you are lukewarm, I am about to spew you out of my mouth.

You say: I am rich, I have my fortune, and I don’t need anything else. But you do not know that you are wretched and pitiable, a beggar blind and naked. I counsel you to acquire from me

gold that is purified in fire, that you may become truly rich;

and garments to clothe yourself, so that the shame which lies in your nakedness may not be revealed;

and a salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.

I AM he who disciplines all whom he loves, calls them to account and refines them through trials of destiny, thus drawing them into the stream of cleansing.

I stand at the door and knock. He Qi

Therefore generate warmth [be eager] [strengthen yourself] and change your heart and mind.

Behold, I stand before the door and knock. If someone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and share the meal with him, and he with me.

He who overcomes, to him I will give the power to sit with me on my throne, just as I have been raised to the throne of my Father through the victory of the spirit. He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the spirit would say to the churches.

2^nd November Trinity

November 8, 2009

Revelation 3: 14-22

 When a grain of sand gets inside an oyster’s shell, it irritates. The oyster responds to the pain by surrounding the sand grain with layer after layer of the smooth, strong substance of its own shell. Through this, its pain becomes transformed into a round, luminous thing of great beauty and value.

The painful episodes in our destinies have at their core a positive intent. They

are God’s way of stimulating us to arouse our creative forces. God says, “I am he who disciplines all whom he loves, who calls them to account, and refines them through trials of destiny.”  Rev. 3:19

Our trials are the sand grains in our lives. At first they are irritating, painful. But gradually our souls go to work. Through reflective thought, through awareness of our own failures in loving, through our will and intention to do better, we surround our pain with soul substance. We create a substance of strength, luster and value—a pearl of the gods.

God gathers up the pearls of our pain. With them he creates a salve with which he anoints our eyes. He says, “I counsel you to acquire from me a salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.” Rev. 3: 18  For the purpose of pain is to create organs of perception, organs of enhanced awareness.

Our pearl-anointed eyes begin to look at the world with a heightened awareness, a broadened awareness. We begin to see—the world, others. The poet says:

        We tended toward the Place but no signs led there.
 

…May the gentle mountains and the bells of the flocks
Remind us of everything we have lost,
For we have seen on our way and fallen in love
With the world that will pass in a twinkling.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] Czeslaw Milosz, “On Pilgrimage”  in New & Collected Poems, translations by Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Hass)

2nd November Trinity 2010, Spiritual Sun Calls

2^nd Trinity November

Rev. 3, 1-6, (Sardis) or

Rev. 3, 14-22 (Laodicea)

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 7, 2010

Revelation 3: 1-6, to Sardis

Sunflowers are so called because they keep moving their faces toward the sun in its course across the sky. They know that their life and strength, their power to live, comes from the sun. Anchored on the earth, it is their ability to orient themselves toward the sun that helps keep them alive.

The creating words and the creative working of the spirit are what keep our spirits, our souls and our bodies alive. The Creating Word is our spiritual sun. Anchored here on the earth, the light of the Word of God keeps us alive.

The reading today reminds us to remember: ‘Remember how you were once receptive for all the workings of the spirit, and for all the words that came from the spirit. Care for them in your soul in inner loyalty. Change your heart and mind.’ Rev 3:3

Our spiritual Sun is calling to us. It is asking us to remember Him, to remember the Logos, the creating Word of God, who took on human form. He is asking us to remember the source from which our lives flow, our spirit-sun, and to turn our faces toward Him.

We know this; it is natural to forget. But it is up to us to remember, to turn our will toward a conscious re-connecting. Only thus can we continue to truly live. Only thus can Christ community grow.

And so, in the words of the poet, we might also hear further words of the spirit-sun speaking to us:

May the light of your soul guide you.

May the light of your soul bless the work

you do with the secret love and warmth of your heart.

….May the sacredness of your work bring healing, light and renewal to those

who work with you and to those who see and receive your work.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] John O’Donohue, “May the light of your soul guide you.”

2nd November Trinity 2011, Be the Sun

2^nd Trinity November

Rev. 3, 1-6, (Sardis) or

Rev. 3, 14-22 (Laodicea)

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.

Escorial Beatus, Seven Churches

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 6, 2011

Rev 3: 1-6

Blake, Angel with One Leg on Land and One on Sea

White is the color of purity, the color of the spirit. In today’s reading we hear that those in white are souls who stand clear shining in truth. And part of the greater truth in which the souls in white stand, is that there is a spiritual world, a spiritual world in which dwell spiritual beings, beings who are not perceived by the senses; beings who only leave their footprints, as it were, in the sensory world.

Those in white have overcome the addiction we human beings have, the craving for sensory proofs. Those in white, aligned with the spirit, have stopped cherishing comfortable untruths, the comfortable illusions, especially the illusion that the material world is all that there is.

Those in white are radiant, like the sun; they shine in a luminous world most of us don’t see. As Angelus Silesius said of that world:

My spirit once in God will eternal bliss become

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

Myself I must be sun, whose rays must paint the sea,

The vast and unhued ocean of all divinity.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] Angelus Silesius, in Cherubinic Wanderer

Picture by William Blake, The angel with one foot on the sea and one on land.

2nd November Trinity 2012, No Body But Yours

2^nd Trinity November

Rev. 3, 1-6, (Sardis) or

Rev. 3, 14-22 (Laodicea)

Rev. 3, 1-6, (Sardis)

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

Escorial Beatus

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

Nov. 4, 2012

Rev 3; 1-6

Once a group of idealistic young people decided to start working on a small biodynamic farm. Their enthusiasm and desire to change the world led them into deep conversations long into the night. Naturally this led them to sleep in late. When a guest pointed out to them that the goats had long been crying out to be milked, they answered that their deeply spiritual conversations were more important.

Much too often, our thoughts and ideals fail to translate themselves into actual effective deeds and habits. We are perhaps under the illusion that thinking good thoughts is sufficient. Perhaps we lack the will to translate them into actions. We fail to bring our habits and actions into congruence with our ideals. And thus we fail to bring our ideals into the earthly.

In today’s letter to the community, the angel brings us the message from Christ: I have not found that your works possess reality…. Care for the workings of the Spirit…. Walk with Me…. Overcome your illusions.

As a community we may ask ourselves: what are the ideals of a Christ community? Do we only think we are such? What does a Christ community do? Perhaps these words from Theresa of Avila give us a hint of an answer:

Christ has no body now but yours

No hands, no feet on earth but yours

Yours are the eyes through which He pours out

compassion on this world

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] Teresa of Avila

2nd November Trinity 2013, Inner Warmth

Rev. 3, 14-22 (Laodicea)

And to the leading angel of the community at Laodicea write: Thus speaks the Amen, he who strengthens all spiritual working with his own being, the witness trusted and true, the ground of all divine creation:

I see through your deeds. You are neither cold nor hot. You should be either cold, or hot. But since you are lukewarm, I am about to spew you out of my mouth.

You say: I am rich, I have my fortune, and I don’t need anything else. But you do not know that you are wretched and pitiable, a beggar blind and naked. I counsel you to acquire from me

gold that is purified in fire, that you may become truly rich;

and garments to clothe yourself, so that the shame which lies in your nakedness may not be revealed;

William Holman Hunt

and a salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.

I AM he who disciplines all whom he loves, calls them to account and refines them through trials of destiny, thus drawing them into the stream of cleansing.

Therefore generate warmth [be eager] [strengthen yourself] and change your heart and mind.

Behold, I stand before the door and knock. If someone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and share the meal with him, and he with me.

He who overcomes, to him I will give the power to sit with me on my throne, just as I have been raised to the throne of my Father through the victory of the spirit. He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the spirit would say to the churches.

2^nd November Trinity

November 3, 2013

Revelation 3: 14 – 22

Here on earth, if one wants to lift up something and have it remain elevated, one has two choices. One can either continue to hold it up with one’s own muscular effort, otherwise it falls; or else one can place it on a stand.

In the world of spirit, however, things are a little different.  In terms of spiritual effort, we do need to exert ourselves. We need to become spiritually ‘muscular’, to whatever extent we can, so that we can raise the content of our souls and spirit, elevate them. Yet there always comes a moment when we must let go, when of necessity we turn again toward the earthly.

We will receive help in holding up our efforts, so that they don’t fall. We do so

Oleg Shuplyak

by addressing Christ, the Amen, the One to whom we appeal at the end of every prayer. He promises to add His strength to our spiritual efforts, helping us to become stronger in our inner work. And when we must let go, we offer our efforts to Him, as a sacrifice on the altar of His being. He will accept them, hold them, transform them for us. He is always waiting at the door between worlds.

What is important to Christ is that we make a strong effort to generate inner warmth. It is this fire of the heart that allows our work and prayer to rise, like the smoke of the incense on the burning coal. And offering our warm efforts to the divine allows for inner transformation. It creates in us a slow and gradual change of heart and mind, held, carried and strengthened by Him whose being is Love.

www.thechristiancommunity.org