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Discovering the place of the Future Human Being through the angels of the Kabbalah Tree of Life4/7/2024 Discovering the place of the Future Human Being through the angels of the Kabbalah Tree of Life, a morning workshop on Saturday 8 June 2024 with Rev. Michaël MerleReported by John-Peter Gernaat This workshop was planned for the ten days between Ascension and Whitsun when it would have been possible to engage in a discussion on each day around a particular sefirot of the Tree of Life and its angel. In this morning workshop it was the essence of the information that was shared.
This subject was an opportunity to look at the angelic world and certain of the angels as well as to consider a picture of the relationship between the heavens and the earth. We approached this picture at hand of the Kabbalah Tree of Life. The Kabbalah Tree of Life is brought to us from an esoteric Jewish tradition. This tradition began in the fourteenth century and flourished in the fifteenth century but has its roots in a much older Jewish esoteric tradition that has no written records. The Tree of Life has ten sefirots which are emanations of the divine. These emanations are a quality of the divine that appears but has not yet manifested. There is an order of the sefirots from sefirot 1 at the top to sefirot 10 at the bottom. The Gospel reading that accompanied this time (John 3: 1-12) informs us that nothing ascends to the heavens that has not first descended to the earth. The idea of an ascension to the heavens is a theme that arises when we consider the angels of the sefirots. In the Kabbalistic tradition each angel is associated with an angel who cares for the emanation of that sefirot. This angel is responsible for ensuring that the emanation can manifest in time, one can say. Firstly, we considered the emanations, then the angels associated with the emanations and finally what we could learn once we knew more about these angels. The angels are named in the Kabbalistic tradition. We discovered them also at hand of what some have come to be called in the Christian tradition. (The full article will appear here later in July.) Learning to Love – an exploration of the conversation with Christ in Sacramental Consultation3/7/2024 Resurrection: Learning to Love – an exploration of the conversation with Christ in Sacramental Consultation by Rev. Michaël MerleReport by John-Peter Gernaat The word used in German for Sacramental Consultation gives us the word that in other contexts is ‘confession’. The difficulty with this word in English is that it is intimately tied to the idea of admitting guilt.
The word ‘confession’ appears in the Act of Consecration of the Human Being. We hear about ‘confession’ and about ‘faith’ in the Transubstantiation. We hear“… to those who confess him”, addressing Christ. Later we hear that the Body of Christ will bear the “new confession” on the cross. We hear that living in us is the “new confession” and the “new faith”. Confession is about the ability to make a true declaration; to be able to say what one knows to be true. We heard proclaimed in the Gospel on 9 June 2024 that our relationship to the Father is now in the power of the Spirit and in awareness of the Truth. If one is aware of the truth, one can confess it. Thus, a confession can be entirely positive. When we confess something, we are confessing to the truth on two levels. Firstly, on the level that we face, as we understand it; and, secondly, on a higher reality, where there is a true picture, even when it has not yet been fully realised. We see the situation as it is and as it should be. This insight was brought to us in the Gospel Reading where Jesus speaks with Nicodemus. Jesus says: “Unless you are born again from the heights, you cannot see the Kingdom of God”. If one is born only in the material experience of life one will see the situation only such as it is. One will not realise the potential of being able to lift the reality into a comprehensive, fuller picture of reality. What we see manifesting is always a less than perfect picture of what could be. The potential to transform it is the reason for a sacrament. In the space of a sacrament the reality, such as it is, can be transformed into the reality, such as it should be; as it actually truly is, although it has not yet been realised as such yet. We could therefore call our Sacramental Consultation the Sacrament of Confession. In the Catholic Church this sacrament has other names as well, of which one is the Act of Reconciliation. One wishes to reconcile something in one’s own life. It could be a reconciliation to the Divine, another person or oneself. It is not so important if one has missed the mark (and so not shared in the reward), what is important is to recognise the situation in the context of one’s whole life and to recognise that one is taking steps. It is important to recognise that one is not static. We know that life is about falling short and missing the mark. This is not the core of what one is confessing. It we think that one sacrament will put everything right again or that we need to cleanse ourselves of “all that is wrong with me”, we have missed the point. Thus, we opted in the translation from German to English to use the world ‘Consultation’ and not ‘Confession’. The sacrament is a consultation with oneself, with the priest there as a witness. The priest is the server of the sacrament. The person stands facing the altar. It is a sacrament of consultation with yourself and with the Divine growing in you. The priest stands as witness. The priest speaks the words. There are seven phrases in this sacrament. This means that the sacrament has something to do with a span of time and with a rhythm. In this presentation Michaël considered the most basic rhythm which is the rhythm of a week. He considered each of the sentences in relation to the quality of the days of the week: the quality of Moon and Mars and Mercury and Jupiter and Venus and Saturn and Sun. This is a rhythm and a connection that humanity has carried for centuries. Our measurement of time has remained unchanged since the earliest civilisations and has not been changed by the metric system, because it is fundamental to our experience. This in important in this context because the Sacrament of Consultation has something to do with time. It is a moment of reflection in the timespan of a life. In this reflection one can sense where things have been, where they are and where they are going. In the sacrament there is a different experience of time. In a sacrament one is in the moment of time and not in the passing of time. It is Kairos and not Chonos. This sacrament is possible after Confirmation and we can connect with it before the Act of Consecration of Man. Before Confirmation the child hears the very essence of the Sacrament of Consultation in the Sunday Service. The Sunday Service begins by placing where the child is in context and begins with ‘we’: “We now lift up …” This establishes the community in which child is and their relationship to the Spirit. They are told that they experience the Spirit in life and in work. Thereafter they are told of the Christ and the relationship to the Being of the Christ. Then, the priest addresses the children and tells them something to which the response from the children is to pray. Everything in this is in the Sacrament of Confession. “We learn that we may understand the world, we learn so that we may work in the world. The love of human beings, one to another, enlivens all the work of the human being. Without love human life becomes desolate and empty.” We learn from the Book of Daniel that if one desecrates the heart of the temple the experience is desolation and emptiness. The temple is the self. We desecrate the heart of the temple when we fail to love. “Christ is the teacher of the love of the human being.” All of this is in the Sacramental Consultation. The two outstanding words are ‘learn’ and ‘love’. This is the focus of this sacrament. It is not a focus on what has been, but on what can become. The words of the Sacrament of Consultation cannot be repeated here. Monday is the day of the Moon, and a quality of the Moon is to reflect the light of the Sun. In reflecting we can learn something and we can learn to offer something. We can learn to be like the Moon and reflect something of who we are to the Divine. Tuesday is the day of Mars. The quality is the power of discovering our own will, which like all soul capacities is a gift of God. Wednesday is the day of Mercury. Mercury has a quality of movement which can bring about healing. The flow of movement heals. Through the first three days and statements we establish where we are and through the next four days and statements, we establish the future. In each of the next four sentences the word ‘love’ appears. Thursday is the day of Jupiter which has the quality of making something completely apparent. Friday is the day of Venus, and the greatest quality of Venus is to express love. “No greater love has a human being than to give their live in service to other human beings.” This implies working at it every day. Saturday is the day of Saturn, and we are reminded that we are beings connected to this creative concept that is human, whether in a current incarnation or currently excarnated. We are one community of beings becoming human. We understand that love connects us all. Sunday is the day of the Sun, to resurrection and to culmination. In the sermon, Michaël brought the idea that we each understand, that we are a king; we connect with our own ‘I’-forces. What is important is that we realise that this is the reality for every other human being. We are each king over ourseslves, and only over ourselves. We share the kingly throne and become co-workers, equal to each other, on the throne of the earthly kingdom. We share this throne with everyone else simultaneously. We come to a sense of ourselves at hand of a sense of the other. Without a sense of the other we cannot gain a full sense of ourselves. It is in a sense of being connected to others that we gain a connection to ourselves. This is at the heart of the Sacrament of Consultation, that we connect to ourselves and also connect to others. No one experiences life without it being in connection with other people. There is great power in using the Sacrament of Consultation and using it regularly; hearing the words of the sacrament as one faces the altar, and faces oneself, and faces God. by John-Peter Gernaat The Gospel Study Group completed the chapter-by-chapter study of the Gospel of John in May. In June we considered a few of the main themes of this gospel and why this gospel made it into the canon of scripture.
What is one of the first things one may notice about John’s Gospel from a Christian theological perspective? John does not speak about the breaking of bread and the sharing of wine at the last Supper. In this Gospel Jesus does not say “Take this bread in remembrance of me for it is my body”, “Take this wine for it is my blood”. Instead, John presents a very long discourse that Jesus has with the disciples. Matthew would have been present at this meal and so would Mary, the Mother. Matthew writes a Gospel and Luke writes his Gospel after many discussions with Mary. Mark is a nephew of Simon Peter and wrote his Gospel based on his time spent with his uncle. None of the other Gospel writers includes anything of this long discourse. John does. For John the institution of the Eucharist is carried in the thoughts and revelations of this discourse. John is the only disciple to be present with Jesus in the house of the High Priest and at the foot of the cross. Only in John’s Gospel do we read about the questioning of Simon of John (Simon Peter). John was a witness to events and writes down what he has witnessed. John presents seven signs of Christ and seven “I am” statements of Christ. The events he includes in his Gospel provide a structure for these signs and statements. They are not a chronology of historical or biographical events. These signs and statements were considered in detail during the previous months of this study. John does not present the outer events as they occurred, rather he presents an inner relationship to the outer events. John is the disciple whom Jesus loved. This love that Jesus had was in relationship to the initiation of John. John the Baptist was sent by the Father God as an angel/messenger and was in himself an initiated human being. When he was beheaded, his soul became a guarding to the circle of the disciples. After Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha, was called forth from the tomb by Jesus after four days (one day beyond the period of the ancient temple sleep) the soul of John the Baptist united with Lazarus who had become John as a result of the initiation of death and rebirth. The name John takes on a meaning; it is no longer a name but rather a title of one who is an initiate. The young John who was a disciple of Jesus disappears from the Gospels and it may be assumed that he died. His earthly soul experience is also poured into the disciple whom Jesus loved in a further event of initiation and Lazarus becomes the ‘John’ in the circle of the disciples. The multiple initiations undergone by John provide him with a unique perspective on the events leading up to the crucifixion. He is able to comprehend the meaning of the discourse of Jesus at the Last Supper. John is further initiated on the Island of Patmos when he is taken into the spiritual world. During this spiritual experience he received further initiation as will be discovered when we study the Book of Revelation. After writing the Book of Revelation, John writes his Gospel. This Gospel is therefore the Gospel that holds the deepest mysteries of Christ’s mission on earth and of his preparation of humankind to become the Future Human Being. The Zodiac has long been perceived by human beings as representing aspects of the Divine. Two points in the Zodiac have long been connected with powerful Divine aspects: Leo with the feminine aspect and Taurus with the masculine aspect. At ninety degrees to these is Aquarius the Mighty Lord in whom the Waters of Life flow. These signs were, from the earliest Christian times, connected with the Gospel writers. Leo with Mark; Taurus with Luke, Aquarius with Matthew. Completing the heavenly cross in the Zodiac is Scorpio which was originally experienced as an Eagle before changing to the Scorpion. John is connected with the Eagle. He has a vision for the whole picture in every event. John speaks about the Father, the Son and the Spirit more than any of the other Gospels. We come to understand that Christianity is a religion of life through which there is a future. Christianity presents us the picture that we become co-creators with the Divine in this life. It is not a religion of the human being, being rescued by the Divine or of placating the Divine. It is a religion of responsibility through the Divine seed in us that leads us to creating our future with the Divine. Seeing ourselves in the context of the whole world situation we can consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have the possibility of understanding what is actually manifesting itself in terms of its spiritual background. We are also extremely fortunate to be gifted with the possibility to participate in the renewed sacraments as the battle between light and dark forces intensifies around the world.
The immense depth and inexhaustible fullness of the Act of Consecration of Man and the epistles throughout the year are a continuous source of strength, orientation and sustenance for our thinking souls. We need to continuously strive to deepen our experience and understanding of this gift. It is to this end that the introduction to each Sunday service is held. For this possibility we are greatly indebted to Rudolf Steiner and the whole body of his spiritual scientific work. We are through these gifts able to know what we as individuals can do to have a positive influence on the outcomes of world events. The very existence of the human being as created in the image and likeness of God and as a microcosm of the whole macrocosm continues to not only be challenged and ridiculed, but also threatened. The rapid development and deployment of Artificial Intelligence and the intention to forcefully introduce this into the human constitution has a lot to do with the acceleration of this threat. It has become the task and responsibility of every individual to sustain and deepen their own sense of humanity in its true spiritual context. What is becoming ever more evident is that this sense of our humanity can only be sustained through a living relationship to the spiritual world (and more particularly to the Christ) and through our interest in and relationship with each other. We have a responsibility to bring about meeting hubs and gathering opportunities in which real human interaction and conversation can be nurtured. Only so can we build the social cohesion that we all need and yearn for. Perhaps it is exactly the increasing sense of separation that will make us bring “free communities” into existence – one of our primary tasks. We are in a critical period of history in another sense in that we have celebrated the centenary of many spiritual initiatives which were brought into existence with the help of Rudolf Steiner. As he pointed out at the time the initial impulses would be carried by their founding spiritual beings for 3 times 33⅓ years and thereafter would only continue to grow and flourish if they were taken up by individual human souls who made the impulses their own. We are at that point now and so we each have a responsibility to maintain and nurture what we have been given so that it does not become diluted and lost. This second century of the existence of The Christian Community is a time for re-inventing ourselves individually and collectively. I think that we need to tell a new hopeful and intention-filled story about ourselves which leads us into the kind of future that we wish for ourselves and for the world. The stories we tell about our future and our essence as a community will become our reality in time. We need to never lose sight of the fact that the main impulse of our time is the re-appearance of Christ in the etheric – in the sphere of life – and what we are experiencing globally is the backlash of the dark forces against this great cosmic occurrence and what it means for human souls. To sink into fear is to succumb to the opposition against Christ. The opposite is asked of us – that we consciously align ourselves with Christ forces daily and thereby allow Him to balance the opposing forces against each other in all of us. We are not here to create a bubble of splendid isolation from the reality of what is happening in the world but to “unite with the world’s evolving” – which means to engage with the darkness in the world but in so doing to find Christ within this darkness. To look for and invite the light into the darkness. This is the nature of resurrection forces – they work where death forces manifest. Two aspects of doing this are to accept all of our destiny situations with complete equanimity and to regularly find moments of inner quiet and peace in our day in which we connect with the spiritual world. To whatever extent we manage this we become a place of healing in the world. With this inner equanimity we can face the world with a healing intention. There is still long way to go in building the carrying capacity of our communities. In regard to the growth of the respective community everyone in the community is called upon to play their part in being ‘brand ambassadors’ for what we bring to the world. This is a community matter and not restricted to the priests or those who hold the affairs of the community in trust alone. |
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