Month: August 2009

Father Tim will be out of town this week, so we will not have the usual Eucharist service at St Uriel’s this Sunday night.

Instead, inspired by the commemoration of the Assumption of Sophia celebrated last week, Trish is proposing to run a discussion group this Sunday, starting at 6pm, to take the time to delve more deeply into the different forms that Sophia’s story takes in the Gnostic texts found at Nag Hammadi.

We’ll start by reading a light chapter by Stephan A. Hoeller, ‘Sophia: Gnostic Archetype of Feminine Wisdom’, and then browse through some passages from the Nag Hammadi library itself, including:

• The Hypostasis of the Archons
• On the Origin of the World
• The Sophia of Jesus Christ
• A Valentinian Exposition

… over tea and snacks.

The celebration of the Assumption of Sophia sees us look in the direction of the eternal light, and to begin to trace an understanding of Sophia’s relationship to it. Come along and help us to figure out how and why the Assumption of Sophia into the heavenly realms might, at exactly the same time, imply an assumption of Sophia’s presence, here amongst us, always with us, yet not always seen.

You are welcome to stay to take part in prayers of the Compline of the Order of St Esclarmonde, at 8pm. The prayers are simple to follow, and are a great way to calm and align the body and mind at the end of the day, including a brief meditation and repetition of some of the oldest prayers extant in our tradition.

We look forward to seeing you there.

We thus call upon the Holy Sophia, the supernal mother of our souls, and celestial bride of our spirits: Daughter of Infinite Light, born of enlightened love; merciful and compassionate, embodiment of perfect wisdom; begotten in Eternity, beyond time and space.

With what words shall we praise Thee, or with what thought comprehend Thy majesty? Utterance must profane Thee; Silence itself can but bear witness to Thee. How shall we extol Thee? In what shall we shadow forth Thy great glory among us?

And our Lady Sophia answers, saying:
Ye shall dance, sing, feast, make music and love, all in my praise. For mine is the ecstasy of the spirit, and mine also joy on earth. Let my worship be in the heart that rejoiceth. wherefore let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you, now and for evermore.

Amen.

Sophia is the Greek word for Wisdom. This feast is to mark the eternal moment in which Wisdom, lost in the world, is redeemed, returned and assumed into the heavenly realm.

If you study the church calendar, you’ll notice that this feast day is followed (on September 8) by The Descent of Sophia – deliberately, I imagine, to make the point that the journey from Descent to Return is long and difficult.

Wisdom is our primordial mother. Ever-present, yet not always seen, she is the compassionate ground of our awareness steady in the face of our constant flickering, flittering dance among many suitors, she waits – the patient bride for the bridegroom.

In stillness, when we take time to rest and to see, she stands forth and is triumphant. Soon the bridegroom comes and she returns to the house of her Father.

Reunited, Wisdom I think becomes our awareness. We see in the dancing and singing of the manifest world the ever-presence of the Great Mother and notice in ourselves and each other the unspotted mirror of Her power and the image of Her goodness.

Our Mother who has always loved and who has never lost faith. Today is the day we weep and sing and dance in gratitude.

Readings for the week

This Sunday is the feast of Transfiguration. It’s an important feast, we’ll celebrate liturgy of the Johannite Gnostic Eucharist. Please come along and stay for a cup of tea afterwards.

There’s a lot I could say about Transfiguration, it’s such an intriguing moment in the Gospels – such an amazing visionary experience… but I’m not going to. Instead I’d like to take a moment to talk about spiritual practice.

Someone asked me last night what role “faith” played in Gnostic spirituality. While we care more about finding gnosis – the deep knowledge of the heart that comes through experience – than blind belief, we still need faith in the sense of belief and patience.

Without faith that it is possible to encounter the Divine directly, why on earth would we embark on the journey? We need to trust the tradition, to believe that the path leads to the experience we crave and to have the patience and perseverance to cross the various barriers put in our way.

If you’ve read a few of these newsletters, you’ll know that I’m a huge fan of the communal practice embodied in the ritual of the Eucharist. This weekly, group, encounter with the Divine Presence is a critical part of my spiritual practice. It has contributed incalculably to my own ability to love and to know. So, I pitch the advantages at any opportunity.

I talk a lot less about private prayer, solitary contemplation and solo practice in general. This is largely because we’ve never had an organised way to foster solitary practice in the parish. I’ve explained it to anyone who wants to know, advocated for it whenever asked and I’m always happy to help people find their own path, but there’s been nothing formal.

I strongly feel that the spiritual journey is best made in both directions, both in community and in solitude. In solitude, we form our ability to bring firm, steady attention to knowing ourselves and witnessing our experience, we ready our hearts to love, we come to know ourselves and through that gate to know the Divine.

We bring the fruits of the private work together in community when we encounter the Divine together, and just as importantly we encounter each other all our strangeness and difference.

Next week, the parish starts meeting regularly to explore contemplative prayer via some tried and true techniques: basic quietness training through the Jesus Prayer, chanting the psalms, Centering Prayer and calm abiding meditation.

We’re using Meetup.com to organise these meetings in the hopes of connecting with some new people, so if you’d like to expand and share your own practice journey with others, register for a free account and let us know you’d like to come along.

We’ve called this new gathering the Wisdom Jesus Meetup. I’d love to see you there and have the opportunity to explore this amazing world of spiritual practice with you.

Readings for the week