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In recent years, Halloween has simply become...more.
While the yearly encroaching of Christmas happens, I'm glad to see Halloween has fully taken over October. But could there be an archetypal reason for this? Is there some deep need for us to connect with the Dead, the Ancestors, the Past, the Shadow side? Indeed, I think there is, and I think Halloween's greatness and festivity is the very reason we do these things. I even recently, for the first time, envisioned the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Autumn Queen and as the Halloween Queen- a surprising but inspiring image, no doubt, and I'm sure I'm not the first to see her as such. So here's to the Halloween energy, to the Halloween Queen, and much love to you all! In Christ, Steve
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"O glorious prince of the heavenly army,
Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in the eternal combat, which we sustain against the powers of darkness, malice and ignorance, which afflict us on this aeonial battlefield of our earthly life! Come, invincible leader of the host of heaven, guardian of the paradise of the world and wielder of the double-edged, flaming sword! Aid and sustain us in our defense against the adversary; and come to lead us finally into the presence of the Most High, into the abode of the blissful. Enlighten and purify us, O Thou great and mighty Archangel Michael, grant us to abandon the works of darkness and to love the Gnosis of the Light; so that whilst all things of this world pass away we may ever hold fast those things which abide for evermore."
We continue with Ode 3 as there is no extant copy of Ode 2 available.
As we move into a new season and through another equinox, I wanted to wish everyone the brightest blessings of autumnal energy!
May peace and love and joy be yours this fall! In Christ, Steve “O God, You who abide in the great eternal realms, hear my voice, have compassion on me, and save me from all evil. Look down upon me and hear me while I am in this desolate place. Now let Your ineffable Light shine upon me" Amen Another Gnostic prayer from the Second Book of Allogenes. I omitted the last line as it's a fragment that only reads, "...your light..."
“O Lord God,
You who are above all the great eternal realms, You who have neither beginning nor end, Bestow upon us a spirit of knowledge For the revelation of your mysteries, To come to a knowledge of ourselves: Where we have come from, Where we are going, And what we should do in order to live.” Amen 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. 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 |
