Reflection on Pentecost

The Feast of Pentecost which happened yesterday, marks the end of the Paschal cycle and the half of the liturgical calendar dedicated to the Christ and the beginning of the year of the Church in Western Church calendar. Amongst some contemporary Gnostics, however, Pentecost also marks the beginning of the half of the year dedicated to the Sophia – Holy Wisdom. In archetypal language, one could view the two halves of the year as being indicative of the masculine and feminine or supernal and immanent aspects of Godhead.

In classical Gnosticism, the Sophia was held to be the syzygy of Jesus Christ (i.e. the Bride of Christ), and Holy Spirit of the Trinity and in the Nag Hammadi texts she is considered to be lowest Aeon, or anthropic expression of the emanation of the light of God. Following the Feast of the Ascension, that takes place roughly a week prior to Pentecost commemorating the Light of the Christ being withdrawn back up into the Pleroma (Fullness), it at Pentecost that we are reminded of God’s continuing eminence in the world through the activity of the Holy Spirit as promised by Jesus before his ascension:

“Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto the Father.And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.If ye shall ask anything in my name, that will I do. If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth: whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him: ye know him; for he abideth with you, and shall be in you.” (John 14:11-17)

After the ascension and at Pentecost, as promised, the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles in a magnificent display:

 “And when the day of Pentecost was now come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them tongues parting asunder, like as of fire; and it sat upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” (Acts 2:1-4)

In the Greek text, the name used to indicate the Holy Spirit is Paraclete, literally “advocate” as one would have during a legal trial, hardly a comforting image as one would imagine and definitely a presage of things to come in the early centuries of the Christian movement. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descends blazing fire and inspiring (inspiriting?!) the apostles to continue the works which Christ had commanded as part of the Great Commission.

How this relates to the Sophia is that we are assured through attention to Holy Wisdom we are able to overcome the difficulties of our transitory life and can be rest assured that God continually abides in us as we continue to follow the precepts not only given by Christ through scripture, but through continual abiding in the presence of the Holy Spirit. Far from being a onetime affair limited to an historical point in time, Pentecost is a continual event marking the continuity of Gods covenant with all humanity and us with one another so long as we remember that most holy commandment: “love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” (John 13:14).

A Calm Abiding Meditation

Paul writes concerning deliverance and our salvation, “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4), for this reason we must place our thoughts, words and deeds constantly on the rising of the manifested Word within our hearts which is that selfsame “secret room” wherein Christ admonishes us to go and pray that we may know Him.

As you turn your consciousness inward, see Christ in his radiant glory standing at the door as he did upon Pentecost to the apostles. His body is of a luminescent light and bears the markings of his sufferings. He speaks to you, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

Standing before the Lord you may respond, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed” (Matthew 8:8) and confess your sins and troubles. As you confess to him your trials and troubles, see them enter into the wound on his side where they take up residence in His most Sacred Heart. Know that He is the Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who has mercy upon all who sincerely call upon His Name.

Every confession you make to Him fills His Heart where it is transformed into limitless compassion for you. You may tremble and quake, but he encourages you, “Be not afraid, for with thee I am, Look not around, for I am thy God” (Isaiah 41:10). As he speaks, rays of light stream from His Heart into your heart, filling you with a great comfort and peace. His eyes gaze softly upon you, and He places His hands upon your shoulder and kisses your cheek, and says, “”Listen to me, whom I have called: I am he; I am the first and I am the last. (Isaiah 48:12) If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love” (John 15:10).

He releases you from his embrace and you feel restored, refreshed and fulfilled. The Risen Lord departs through the door of your Secret Room and you abide in his radiant light.

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Good in Silence, from the writings of Mani

“It is good for us to be silent; let us not think in our heart that our God is forgetful of us, for before us all hardships will disappear like gloomy shadows before the glorious Sun. Our Father’s Covenant, the profit and the loss, is shared among us, we are true sons, the heirs of their fathers! There is nothing at all that is free from suffering that will rest in the end; even the very seed that is sown finds no way to live unless it dies, but through its death it lives and gives life also. Let us too strengthen ourselves, my brothers, for see, the Rest has come to us that we may receive the blessing of all these things we have spoken of, and dwell together in the glorious Land of the Light!”

For many people, especially in our particular culture, being religious is associated with outward displays of one’s particular belief. From wearing crucifixes, to turbans, to mantillas or even performing and publicizing our acts of charity on social media; those of us who belong to one or many of the religious ideologies of our time are quick to talk about our experiences, perhaps even at the cost of interrupting otherwise non-religious or non-spiritual discussions. “It is good for us to be silent”, however, in order that we are able to listen and receive the subtle messages that God provides us in our daily lives, frequently far removed from the synagogue, mosque or church.

There are many instances in which God speaks to us in silence, or silence preceding an epiphany of God’s designs for us. In the Book of Job this is illustrated frequently in the moments as Job reflects and dialogues during his plight: “There was silence, then I heard a voice: ‘Can mankind be just before God?

Can a man be pure before his Maker?” (Job 4:16-17); or when others rebuke Job during his sorrow, “Shall your boasts silence men? And shall you scoff and none rebuke? “For you have said, ‘My teaching is pure,
and I am innocent in your eyes.’ “But would that God might speak, and open His lips against you, and show you the secrets of wisdom!” (Job 11: 3-6).

The Covenant of God is a dynamic relationship and, as with many of our earthly experience, silence is sometimes the only appropriate way we can convey or impart our love for one another. Funerals are frequently an unnecessarily sober affair that during which we exchange many silent affirmations toward the family and friends of the deceased to convey our love or support for them in spite of “celebrating” their lives. There is an appropriateness to this silence however – it empowers us to transcend words and in a period of emotional darkness convey a pure love for our brothers and sisters and keeping alive, in a way, the light of the Sacred Flame that the life of those who had passed on may have imparted to us in their own journey.

Joy and Sorrow, from the Gospel According to John

“And Jesus said: You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. A little while, and you shall not see me; and again a little while, and you will see me. Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no man will take your joy away from you. Up until now, you have you asked nothing in my name; ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you. Nobody has a greater love than this that a one lay down their life for their friends. You are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I do not call you servants, for the servant knows not what the lord does; but I have called you my friends, for all things that I have heard of my father I have made known unto you. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.”

One of the primary detractions leveled against the writings of the Gnostic mothers and fathers is almost invariably that those who follow the Inner Church are almost invariably pessimistic of the world and Creation in comparison to the supposedly life-affirming teachings conveyed by the Apostolic Fathers such as the hope for salvation from a god who has cursed creation with an indelible mark for disobeying a rule made that he knew would be broken in the first place.

In this light, it seems safe to say that the early Gnostic writers were much more realistic in simply stating that the world as we know it is far from ideal. This is not to say that Creation itself is flawed or somehow deficient; how could the same Creator of the entirety of the Universe have the audacity to say, “It is good” following each of the six days accounted for in the Creation myth? Instead, the Gnostic mothers and fathers are pointing to the reality that no matter how hard we try, until we are able to fully view things as Christ himself views things, unpleasant cognitions such as sorrow are things with which we will have to cope.

Sorrow is as an unpleasant experience for anyone who has ever experienced pain, suffering, or loss; but it is sometimes when faced with these kinds of unpleasantness a certain epiphany occurs where we are able to step outside our usual solipsistic world-view and break out of suffering and look objectively at the conditions which led to this state. In the spiritual life of some mystics, the Dark Night of the Soul is an extremely sorrowful and confusing state where the mystic suddenly feels she or he has lost their connection with God as they know Him and, through often dogged determinism, are able to realize that the only separation they experienced was brought on by their own perceptual difficulties in connecting with the source of Creation.

From this perspective, sorrow comes about as a natural fear of being separated from that which we love. When Jesus speaks in the above gospel, “Nobody has a greater love than this that a one lay down their life for their friends.” He is foreshadowing the extreme sorrow and suffering he is willing to go through in order to demonstrate God’s continual, loving, covenant with Creation and encourages us to go to similar lengths for one another as co-participants in Creation. If we are truly loving of one another, we will experience sorrow for ourselves and others – this is the root of where we are able to learn compassion, literally “to suffer with” our brothers and sisters and share with their joys as well as sufferings in a covenant of God’s love.

Jesus Praying in Gethsemane

Third Sunday after Epiphany

The Kingdom of Light from the Book of Sophia

“Preach to the whole world: fight yourselves and receive the mysteries of the Light in this afflicted time, and go into the kingdom of the Light. Do not add day to day or cycle to cycle, hoping to come to receive the mysteries when we come to the world in another cycle. Now such people do not know when the number of the Perfect Souls will be complete, and I shall shut the Gates of Light, and from that time no one shall go in, because the mystery of the first mystery has been accomplished, for whose sake the universe has come into being.”

Following the resurrection, Christ gave the following admonition to his followers: “[Go] and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” This admonition, known by many as the Great Commission, is one of the primary tenants of Christianity. Among those of us in the spiritual Church, there is some hesitancy to follow this teaching having possibly experienced for ourselves the efforts of those in the external Church to make us conform to the limitations of a literalist interpretation of scripture and has made proselytization is something of a dirty word in our communities – for good reason.

As spiritual Christians, or Gnostics, we are encouraged equally to abide by the teachings of the Jesus as well as the higher laws of the living words of the Christ within. It is our duty to embody the Word of God and to go forth into the world to share with others the good news of the immanence of the Kingdom of God which is here and now, within and without. For us to follow the Great Commission, we are enjoined to be examples of the Sacred Flame and to encourage others in their knowledge of God, by whatever way they know Him.

We are not to presuppose that by our knowledge we are somehow superior to others or that by virtue of our knowledge we are guaranteed a place in Heaven – that knowledge is known only to God alone. Our commission is to do God’s work for God’s sake, not for ours; exemplifying the same humility that Jesus exhibited when incarnate in the world. We will fail and fall along the way, that is understood, but the importance is to continue on as Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 9:23 to, “do all this for the sake of the gospel, that [we] may share in its blessings.”

Parable of the Pearl in the Mud from the Gospel of Philip

“If a pearl is cast down into the mud it loses no value, if it is rubbed with balsam oil, it gains no value. It always is precious in its owner’s eyes. Wherever they are, the children of god are precious in the eyes of the father.”

The parable of the Pearl in the Mud follows a common theme in the various narratives Jesus shared with his disciples. In the outer Church, the most famous of these is in Matthew 7:6, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before the swine, lest haply they trample them under their feet, and turn and rend you”; from which we get the well-worn admonition to not cast pearls before swine. Yet, in this parable we are informed that even if thrown in the mud the pearl does not lose its value any more so than it would if it were to be anointed with precious oils.

In the Gospels the Pearl most commonly represents the teachings of Scripture as in Matthew or in the Gospel of Thomas: “Don’t give what is holy to dogs, for they might throw them upon the manure pile. Don’t throw pearls [to] pigs…”; yet in this case the Pearl is the embodied message of the seeker of gnosis which, being internalized, does not lose nor gain any value since it is itself priceless, as affirmed in the narrative in Matthew 13:45-46 and contains within itself the very essence of Kingdom of Heaven.

This parable also fits in nicely with the lesson taken from the Book of the Sophia, who herself descended into the lowest emanations and remained unchanged in essence. Those who have obtained the wisdom of God are simultaneously the bearers of a great and vast store of treasure as well as embodiments of that treasure itself by virtue of their ability to disperse that wisdom. Being undefiled by the knowledge (gnosis) of God, the sharing of wisdom is no longer something about which we need to remain cautious but, instead, it is incumbent upon us to share in our own individual ways that others may likewise be saved.