In the name of the father, of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.
On waking, Heavenly Father, I sing Your praises and I dare say to You again with confidence the prayer that the divine master taught us. Our Father who are in the depths of the Eons, may Your Holy Logos and Christ be understood and adored in all the Universe; may the Kingdom of Your Holy Spirit come to us, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our spiritual food, the strength and courage to earn the bread for our body. Forgive us our digressions from Your laws, as our Assembly forgives those of repentant sinners. Support us in our weakness so that we are not carried away by our passions and deliver us from the deceptive mirages of the Archon. For we have no other king than Your beloved son Christ our Savior whose is the kingdom, the triumph and the glory for ever and ever. Amen. Lord, oh divine Propator, hear my prayer, listen to my supplications; let me hear the voice of Your mercy form the morning, for it is in Your hands that I place myself. I adore You, I praise You, I give You thanks from the morning. I thank You for having protected me during the night from all the dangers and all the evils which could have harmed me and from which You have covered me with Your protection. During this day, remain my support, my strength, my refuge, my salvation and my consolation. Amen. Oh my Father, I thank You for all the good things that I have received from You so far. It is also by an effect of Your goodness that I see this day; I want to use it to serve You. I devote to You all my thoughts, words, deeds and sorrows. Bless them, oh my God, so that there will be none which are not activated by Your love and which do not tend to glorify You. Amen. In the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit. Amen.
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All-powerful Lord, Our Father;
All-wise Lady, Our Mother; Supernal parents of all that was, and is, and is to come; Sustain us, your children this day. Give us the wisdom to see your path, And the strength to prevail in the darkest hour. We thank you for the joys we have, And for your grace bestowed on us This day and every day. May we thrive and grow in knowledge, wisdom and understanding, now and forevermore. Amen. "Put in me a holy heart, my God:
let an upright Spirit be new within me. The holy heart is Christ; if he rises in us, we also shall rise in him. Christ has risen, the dead shall rise with him. If we believe in him, we shall pass beyond death and come to life. "
The Odes of Solomon are particularly beautiful pieces of Gnostic writing. They're comparable to the Psalms yet also take on a specifically mystical character. I'll be sharing them on the devotional page here and there.
In Christ, Steve "I'm always reluctant to use the word 'God' because everybody seems to carry around his own stagnant images and definitions that totally cloud the ability to step outside a narrow, individual frame of reference. If we have any conception of what God is, certainly it should be changing and expanding as we ourselves grow and change. This is the very nature of our life's movement: to expand, to open up, and blossom... Whatever we care to call the ultimate reality, we cannot define or qualify it because the brain is incapable of processing this kind of data; thus, we must ever look upon words as mere descriptions of a man's experience -- the nature of which we do not really know." -Bernadette Roberts, Roman Catholic Mystic
May God the Father who made us bless us.
May God the Son send his healing among us. May God the Holy Spirit move within us and give us eyes to see with, ears to hear with, and hands that your work might be done. May we walk and preach the word of God to all. May the angel of peace watch over us and lead us at last by God's grace to the Kingdom. Amen Yesterday was September 11th, and the tragic events from so many years ago barely registered for me.
It isn't that I don't recall where I was or what I was doing (curiously, I was in 11th grade, also called being a Junior in the American school system), but that the fact it was the 11th of September at all completely slipped my mind. I suppose after 21 years, life has changed dramatically. An entire generation of children who were born after those events are now adults and young adults. 9/11 definitely sent shockwaves through the USA and the world as well as our collective psyche. It's difficult to explain how the tone in everything shifted, how very different the energy became. The 1990s had a strange promise of hope for us; we were coming upon the year 2000, we were ascending into better technology, science, knowledge- it's like the year 2000 was the crowning achievement of this, like the hope we had was being fulfilled, and then 2001 suddenly undid so much of that energetically. The idea that life would just get better and better seemed to evaporate for many people. The idea that we were unstoppable- gone. Some people just went crazy and embraced ideologies and energy that more or less destroyed them. From one perspective, I have compassion- horrific experiences and intense loss will cause even the strongest people to flounder about, seeking some kind of stability. But from another perspective, I've seen enough people who have in turn caused damage to others and left others still more unstable, like a virus replicating itself. The pandemic has done something similar, though those wounds have yet to truly reveal themselves. I mourn for the children who endured and lost a year or more of their lives and their childhood. I pray to the Christos that we receive the healing from the Holy Spirit and heed the call of the Unknown Father in the depths of our hearts, that we may be the workers to stabilize and restore this world to peace. In Christ, Steve "Carrying out 'Christ in us' is the good work that we should all carry forward, without distinction of race, social class or religion. This is, 'the unity of our soul with God' through Christ as the beating and holy Power of God over all beings. Man cryeth unto God; and God giveth unto man. That is why God decides to become a man in all his dimension and live as such, experiencing both pain and suffering as well as joy and exuberant beauty in so much man made. The transformation of the human being into a child of God involves the communion of our being with the Being of God, in a complete and total form. The Grail is then this very self made human being. The real cup where God infills his holy spirit." --Jean de Lusignan Special thanks to Father Sergio for posting this quote!
After some reflection, I figured out that a superior model of the devotional is not simply my writing an essay a day or posting a prayer but to also pull in posts that the Bishop and other clergy have on social media. Given, this won't be every single post made on social media, but we'll have some of them on here, and that'll give us enough posts and reposts to where I'm not flooding people with 500-word entries on a daily basis.
Many blessings! In Christ, Steve Dan McClellan is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and a Biblical scholar. He's released his new book open-source online. Physical copies can also be purchased from Amazon.com.
Click the link below to access the open-source copy! YHWH's Divine Images: A Cognitive Approach In Christ, Steve "O Great Lord of Love, we accept this Sacrament of mystic Communion as a living symbol of Thy Life in all beings. As we receive this sacred gift, may our souls and bodies be immersed in the conscious awareness of Thy indwelling Presence. May we responsibly awaken to our unfolding life purpose, as we manifest our part in the Great Plan. Amen." (from the Liturgy of the Mass of the Free Church of Antioch) Special thanks to Father Sergio for posting this!
“. . . 'the coming of Christ,' means the presence of CHRISTOS in a regenerated world,
and not at all the actual coming in body of 'Christ' Jesus; this Christ is to be sought neither in the wilderness nor 'in the inner chambers,' nor in the sanctuary of any temple or church built by man; for Christ – the true esoteric SAVIOUR – is no man, but the DIVINE PRINCIPLE in every human being. He who strives to resurrect the Spirit crucified in him by his own terrestrial passions, and buried deep in the 'sepulchre' of his flesh; he who has the strength to roll back the stone of matter from the door of his own inner sanctuary, he has the risen Christ in him.” H.P. Blavatsky "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. " Matthew 6:22 Father Sergio has requested that we post this article, so I'm providing a link for today's entry.
Jesus Christ | Theosophy World In Christ, Steve God of all seasons, we thank you for Autumn.
We thank you for the touch of coolness in the air that gives us a new burst of energy, for the coloring of trees that shows the creativity of the Divine Artist, for the falling leaves that reveal the strength of the branches, for the hues of fields that bring peace to our souls, for the smiles on pumpkins that bring joy to children, for the fall harvest that brings us gratitude for the bounty of our land, for this change of seasons that reveals the circle of life. God of all seasons, as you transform the earth, transform us by your Spirit. Amen — Rev. Doug Leonhardt, S.J. We're preparing to enter autumn (at least in the Northern Hemisphere). While we're not quite there, and certainly from Williamsburg we're experiencing a heat wave rivaling mid-July, we'll be there soon enough. Autumn is a reflective time of the year, I think- many changes happen, most of our major holidays in the USA happen around this time, and the earlier part of the year seems distant by comparison. We can reflect at any time of the year, but autumn's growing mildness and colorful leaves and the abundance of the ever-popular (or unpopular) pumpkin spice tells us things are different. Tomorrow, we'll have an autumn blessing, so look forward to it! In Christ, Steve Admittedly, the hiatus from the devotional section of the site has been too long, so I have good news: we'll be returning with an (almost) daily devotional!
What form our devotional takes, well...we'll see. There's much to learn and much to be explored on here! In Christ, Steve This past week, I endured an illness I thought would be a mild cold. An extremely long week later, I'm still recovering.
We've been posting almost daily for something like six months, and at this point, I think it's safe to say the Daily Devotional is going to have to be called something else. Being sick made me realize it isn't feasible to post every single day. So I'll be mulling over how to make this work in the near future. In Christ, Steve May you have:
A world of wishes at your command. God and his angels close to hand. Friends and family their love impart, And Irish blessings in your heart! I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, Through belief in the Threeness, Through confession of the Oneness of the Creator of creation. I arise today Through the strength of Christ's birth with His baptism, Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial, Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension, Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom. I arise today Through the strength of the love of cherubim, In the obedience of angels, In the service of archangels, In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward, In the prayers of patriarchs, In the predictions of prophets, In the preaching of apostles, In the faith of confessors, In the innocence of holy virgins, In the deeds of righteous men. I arise today, through The strength of heaven, The light of the sun, The radiance of the moon, The splendor of fire, The speed of lightning, The swiftness of wind, The depth of the sea, The stability of the earth, The firmness of rock. I arise today, through God's strength to pilot me, God's might to uphold me, God's wisdom to guide me, God's eye to look before me, God's ear to hear me, God's word to speak for me, God's hand to guard me, God's shield to protect me, God's host to save me From snares of devils, From temptation of vices, From everyone who shall wish me ill, afar and near. I summon today All these powers between me and those evils, Against every cruel and merciless power that may oppose my body and soul, Against incantations of false prophets, Against black laws of pagandom, Against false laws of heretics, Against craft of idolatry, Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards, Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul; Christ to shield me today Against poison, against burning, Against drowning, against wounding, So that there may come to me an abundance of reward. Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me. I arise today Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, Through belief in the Threeness, Through confession of the Oneness of the Creator of creation. May the Strength of God pilot us.
May the Power of God preserve us. May the Wisdom of God instruct us. May the Hand of God protect us. May the Way of God direct us. May the Shield of God defend us. May the Host of God guard us Against the snares of the evil ones, Against temptations of the world. May Christ be with us! May Christ be before us! May Christ be in us, Christ be over all! May Thy Salvation, Lord, Always be ours, This day, O Lord, and evermore. Amen. Holy Trinity,
Almighty Father-Mother God, grant your devoted servants who seek You peace during Lent that we may know that which is deeper and truer than all the appearances of the world In the Name of the Father-Mother and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN How's everyone holding up with their Lenten vows?
What did you give up? What did you take on? Are you able to unite the sacrifice with your pursuit of God? Keep going. You can do it. In Christ, Steve THE GOSPEL
The gospel is taken from the Book of the Pistis Sophia: And Mary, the mother of Jesus according to matter, said: When Thou my Master wert a child, before the Spirit had descended upon Thee, when Thou wert in the vineyard with Joseph, the Spirit came down from the height, and came unto me in the house, like unto Thee, and I knew him not, but thought that he was Thou. And he said unto me, ‘Where is Jesus, my brother, that I may go to meet him?’ And when he had said this unto me I was in doubt, and thought it was a phantom tempting me. I seized him and bound him to the foot of the bed which was in my house, until I had gone to find you in the field-- Thee and Joseph. It came to pass, therefore, when Thou didst hear me saying this thing unto Joseph, that Thou didst understand, and Thou wert joyful and saidest, ‘Where is he, that I may see him? Nay I am expecting him in this place.’ And it came to pass, when Joseph heard Thee say these words, that he was disturbed. We went together, we entered into the house, we found the spirit bound on the bed, and we gazed upon Thee and him, and found that Thou wert like unto him. And he that was bound to the bed was unloosed; he embraced Thee and kissed thee, and Thou didst kiss him; and ye became one and the same being. |