To bend the rod of this, a little, I can say that I'm satisfied enough with my posting to The Order of St Esclarmonde online, this week, to own up to having written it, and to post it, here. Each week we take a look at the Meditation Intent for the Week, as available in the Ecclesia Gnostica Calendar. This week, the intent is 'The Mystery of Christ' with a Collect in commemoration of the Beheading of St John The Baptist, celebrated in the Roman Rite on the 29th August:
I like this blend, of the Mystery of Christ with the beheading of St
John the Baptist, of which Universalis.com gives a poetic account:
'John the Baptist is the only saint in the calendar (apart from St
Joseph) who has two feasts to himself. One, in August, celebrates his
death, and one, in June, celebrates his birth. And this is as it
should be, for as Christ himself said, John was the greatest of the
sons of men.
The greatest, but also the most tragic. A prophet from before his
birth, leaping in the womb to announce the coming of the incarnate
God, his task was to proclaim the fulfilment of all prophecies – and
thus his own obsolescence. And he did it: with unequalled courage he
spread the news that he, the greatest of all men, was the least in the
kingdom of heaven. His disciples, and the devil, would have preferred
him to fight, to build his sect, to defeat this upstart whom he
himself had baptized, to seize his place in history. But he did not –
and so, rightly, he has his place, and he has glory in heaven.'
It's a heck of a lot less clinical than the Mark 6:17 and the Matthew
14:1 versions of the King Herod story (see 'Sources' to read them
online).
Blend this Universalis blurb with the Lesson from the EG Lectionary on
the Mystery of Christ:
'The lesson is taken from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah:
There shall come forth a rod out of Jesse and a branch shall grow out
of his root; and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the
Spirit of Wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and of reverence to the Lord. He shall not
judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing
of his ears; but with righteousness shall he judge the poor and
reprove with equity for the meek of the earth; and righteousness shall
be the girdle of his loins and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth
shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the
sea. '
And so we have John, with an awareness of his built-in obsolescence,
acting in his capacity as the Forerunner, the Prophet of Christ.
Christ with his built-in Logos - his creative voice that is the
rational account of a full knowledge of the earth, as he encounters
it.
I love this blend, because if we take a moment to internalise the
voices of these two biblical characters - if we actually take this
injunction within ourselves and strive into the paradox of being both
Jesus-and-John at once, we come to be living expressions of
generativity.
Generativity is where we take creativity and apply it to our own lived
lives - it gives us the grace to walk a Jesus path, freely choosing
our own expression of our virtues, while realising at the same time
our inner John, our own built-in obsolescence. It asks that we
acknowledge not only that we may be biological parents, but in a way
we are also cultural parents, that what we create and leave behind
will be a scaffolding, in a sense, for the next generation to build
their lives from. It means that we might sacrifice part of our own
consumption of the worlds' resources, for example, for the health and
benefit of our children. It might mean that we raise our voices a
little more loudly for social justice, or volunteer our own resources
to further causes that we know in our hearts, are worthy.
It's probably a fair observation that I'm a little given to
psychologising spirituality, but, taking the interpretation of the
Greek word 'homily' as a conversation, I'm planning on spending a
little meditation time this week encouraging my inner sense of Christ
to have a bit of a gas-bag (that is, talk) with my inner beheaded
John. It's a way to contemplate my own death, which, in comparison to
Tibetan Buddhism, for example, I find there is very little
encouragement within Christianity to do.
Sources:
http://www.universalis.com/20090829/today.htm
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2014:1-12%20;Mark%206:17-29
http://gnosis.org/ecclesia/lect087.htm
John the Baptist, of which Universalis.com gives a poetic account:
'John the Baptist is the only saint in the calendar (apart from St
Joseph) who has two feasts to himself. One, in August, celebrates his
death, and one, in June, celebrates his birth. And this is as it
should be, for as Christ himself said, John was the greatest of the
sons of men.
The greatest, but also the most tragic. A prophet from before his
birth, leaping in the womb to announce the coming of the incarnate
God, his task was to proclaim the fulfilment of all prophecies – and
thus his own obsolescence. And he did it: with unequalled courage he
spread the news that he, the greatest of all men, was the least in the
kingdom of heaven. His disciples, and the devil, would have preferred
him to fight, to build his sect, to defeat this upstart whom he
himself had baptized, to seize his place in history. But he did not –
and so, rightly, he has his place, and he has glory in heaven.'
It's a heck of a lot less clinical than the Mark 6:17 and the Matthew
14:1 versions of the King Herod story (see 'Sources' to read them
online).
Blend this Universalis blurb with the Lesson from the EG Lectionary on
the Mystery of Christ:
'The lesson is taken from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah:
There shall come forth a rod out of Jesse and a branch shall grow out
of his root; and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the
Spirit of Wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and of reverence to the Lord. He shall not
judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing
of his ears; but with righteousness shall he judge the poor and
reprove with equity for the meek of the earth; and righteousness shall
be the girdle of his loins and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth
shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the
sea. '
And so we have John, with an awareness of his built-in obsolescence,
acting in his capacity as the Forerunner, the Prophet of Christ.
Christ with his built-in Logos - his creative voice that is the
rational account of a full knowledge of the earth, as he encounters
it.
I love this blend, because if we take a moment to internalise the
voices of these two biblical characters - if we actually take this
injunction within ourselves and strive into the paradox of being both
Jesus-and-John at once, we come to be living expressions of
generativity.
Generativity is where we take creativity and apply it to our own lived
lives - it gives us the grace to walk a Jesus path, freely choosing
our own expression of our virtues, while realising at the same time
our inner John, our own built-in obsolescence. It asks that we
acknowledge not only that we may be biological parents, but in a way
we are also cultural parents, that what we create and leave behind
will be a scaffolding, in a sense, for the next generation to build
their lives from. It means that we might sacrifice part of our own
consumption of the worlds' resources, for example, for the health and
benefit of our children. It might mean that we raise our voices a
little more loudly for social justice, or volunteer our own resources
to further causes that we know in our hearts, are worthy.
It's probably a fair observation that I'm a little given to
psychologising spirituality, but, taking the interpretation of the
Greek word 'homily' as a conversation, I'm planning on spending a
little meditation time this week encouraging my inner sense of Christ
to have a bit of a gas-bag (that is, talk) with my inner beheaded
John. It's a way to contemplate my own death, which, in comparison to
Tibetan Buddhism, for example, I find there is very little
encouragement within Christianity to do.
Sources:
http://www.universalis.com/
http://www.biblegateway.com/
http://gnosis.org/ecclesia/
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